BEYOND JEOPARDY! Bright future for TV's favorite supercomputer
Time warps
Invisibility o Cosmic travel
STRANGE SCIENCE OF EVERYDAY LIFE Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary
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CO NTENTS
Volume 209 No 2BOO This issue online www.newscientist.com/issue/2BOO
News
6
4
UPFRONT
Obama bids to protect US science. Non alcoholic wine shows up in alcohol test
Is Watson better than human?
6
THISWEEK
Flies sniff out quantum vibrations. Andean settlers' cancer-fighting secret. Global early warning system for floods. Why some women get monthly mood swings. First genetic explanation for bird migration. Periodic table of shapes. Mice cured of Down's-like learning problems
A bright future awaits the supercomputer after its quiz show turn
17 IN BRIEF
Star-less planet could harbour life. "Invisible" spiders cure phobia. Snails can sleep. Phone numbers with text appeal. Bees' buzz bugged
Technology
COVER STORY
34 Strange science of everyday life Another day filled with time warps, invisibility and cosmic travel
23
Smartphone app improves music at festivals. Augmented reality helps police track suspects. Wiii4G network kill GPS?
3
EDITORIAL
Opinion Cover image Lorenzo Petrantonl
28 29 30 32
46
Debut of IBM's Watson marks a turning point for artificial intelligence Real life on Mars We're looking in all the wrong places, says Alfonso F. Davila One minute with... Lily Cole How the campaigning model helps India's elephants LETTERS Trials on trial. Robot autonomy Spotting psychopaths Probing the US's most dangerous prisoners tells Kent Kiehl what makes a broken brain
Features 34 Strange science of daily life
(see above left) Revamping crop plants' outdated photosynthetic machinery is just what we need to boost yields 46 Virtual virtue (see left) 42 An upgrade for plants
Virtual virtue How to look your best in cyberspace
Culturelab 50 World Wide Mind makes a compelling
case for a future in which we feel other people's emotions via brain link-ups 51 Analogue art Media pioneer Nam june Paik's major retrospective show. Plus: Crossing the medical rubicon, and comic-book genomics
(l.. IReed Business nformation
Coming next week
...
Quantum loopholes Close them and we'll understand reality
Regulars 30 ENIGMA 56 FEEDBACK
Radon health claims Clear way thro ugh cloud
57 THE LASTWORD 52 JOBS & CAREERS
Give peace a chance Noise, begone!
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19 February ZOlll NewScientist 11
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Search from hundreds of the most amazing, mind blowing and coolest videos. Take your seat and prepare to be amazed! So what are you waiting for? Watch exclusive videos today.
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Rise of machine thinking Watson's debut marks a turning point for artificial intelligence
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"I PROPOSE to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'." With that evocative opening line, the British mathematician Alan Turing raised the prospect of machine intelligence 6o-odd years ago. Turing suggested that we could consider a machine to think like us if its responses were indistinguishable from a human's. Before long, the media was fantasising about robot cleaners and computers that could fly planes. Today, since humans still scrub floors and land jets, there is a perception that artificial intelligence has failed to deliver. That feeling is not justified. It is true that the task of building a thinking machine proved harder than the field's pioneers anticipated. Yet AI methods developed over the last 6o years
have changed our lives, from improving our search engines to creating automatic translation systems, to give just two examples. The long-promised robot cleaners have even appeared on the market. After this week, however, the image of AI will change. A computer called Watson, the
"We are much closer to finding out if machines can think than many people realise" work of IBM, is taking on two previous human winners of the US quiz show Jeopardy! (see page 6). Questions are packed with clever turns of phrase and subtle references, and cover a vast range of topics. Many AI researchers thought that achines were not ready to take on such a
Food revolution FOR a reminder that the world is in the grip of a food crisis, look no further than this year's uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Both were triggered in part by soaring prices, which are at an all-time high after extreme weather- especially last year's heatwave in Russia- took its toll on agriculture. Now the wheat crop in China,
the world's biggest producer, is threatened by drought. If the crop fails, prices will rise further as China imports wheat to make up the shortfall. More plentiful harvests elsewhere might lead to lower prices later in the year, but any such respite will only be temporary as the weather becomes more unpredictable. As the saying goes: "Climate trains the boxer
but weather throws the punches." There are some simple measures, not least tackling the shocking levels of waste, that will make more food available in the short term. But that boxer is going to punch ever harder as the planet warms. That makes it essential to get started on ambitious technological fixes, such as upgrading the photosynthetic machinery in plants (see page 42). Otherwise our food supply will struggle to get off the ropes. •
This way for a polished persona
reputation and gain control over their virtual personas, as we report on page 46. At the moment, this is a relatively discreet activity, but it's not much of a stretch to imagine that individuals could become as preoccupied with persona management as companies are with using search engine
optimisation to boost the ranking ofwebsites. And today's simple strategies - such as pollinating links to an approved CV - are bound to become more complex. Search engines will then have to figure out how to distinguish "white hat" (ethical) from the "black hat" (unethical) efforts to burnish online personas. •
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challenge. They were wrong. Although Watson's appearance on Jeopardy! marks another step towards creating machines that think like we do, there is still some way to go. Answering questions is one thing, engaging in conversation is quite another. To pass the Turing test, Watson would have to chat to people and convince them it was human. Despite IBM's hard work and ingenuity, Watson would fail because, as its makers admit, it makes silly mistakes and is not yet capable of open-ended dialogue. Nonetheless, Watson's game show performance will convince many that we are much closer to answering Turing's question than they had realised. After all, if subtle wordplay can be mastered by machines, then what other human behaviours might now be within their grasp? •
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EVER tried googling your name and been shocked by the results? You are not alone - in fact, an entire industry has sprung up whose sole purpose is to help people manage their online
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 3
UPFRONT For richer or poorer IF IT were up to the White House, 2012
that the remainder of the budget for
would be a bumper year for some
2011 be subjected to the biggest
areas of government-funded science
round of spending cuts in US history.
in the US. The reality may well be rather
Environmental Protection Agency
House of Representatives gets its way.
would have its budget slashed by 29 per cent relative to 2010. The
On Monday, President Barack Obama presented his2012 budget
Prevention would suffer a 22 per
funding to a number of science
cent cut. and the Department of
agencies above 2010 levels, including
Energy's Office of Science would
a 13 per cent increase for the National
face an 18 per cent cut.
and a 10.7 per cent increase for the
NEW ZEALAND has a novel solution for dealing with a crap situation: import dung beetles. The country has approved the release of 11 Australian species to manage its massive heap of livestock dung. Adult dung beetles lay their eggs in manure, which the brood feed on after hatching and break down into sawdust. An inhabited mound of dung can disappear in 48 hours, compared to a month for one that is left out in a field. That may seem unimportant, but for a nation with a large cattle population, it's not. As the mounds rot, they release greenhouse gases and their nutrients and bacteria leach into waterways. Manure accounts
Such cuts "would cripple our ability to advance education and research
Department of Energy's Office of
that most people agree are essential
Science, to $5.4 billion.
investments in our future", says john
The request now goes for approval
Neither Australia nor New Zealand have native beetles that can handle livestock dung pats. But in the late 1960s, Australia introduced some from Europe and Africa. "They've been hugely successful," says Shaun Forgie of Landcare Research in Auckland, New Zealand. And it's not just the environment that can benefit. Forgie points out that removing the pats should also get rid of flies and parasitic worms that breed in dung: in Hawaii, they cut pest flies breeding in dung by 9 5 per cent.
Centers for Disease Control and
request to Congress. It would boost
Science Foundation, to $7.8 billion,
Cow dung away
Under these proposals, the
different, if the Republican-controlled
Holdren, director of the White House
or amendment to Congress, where it faces stiff opposition. On 11 February,
Office of Science and Technology
the House of Representatives
discussed in the House this week, so
Appropriations Committee proposed
stay tuned.
Tainted genomes
because there are stringent protocols in place for handling infectious diseases (PLoS One, DOl: 10.1371/journal. pone.oo16410 ) O'Neill did not look at the human genome, but she says it may also have been contaminated with DNA from lab workers. She thinks lab practices will have to become tighter, particularly for projects designed to scan people's genomes for sequences that affect disease. "You wouldn't want to be told that you had a sequence that gives a high risk of cancer when in fact you didn't," O'Neill says.
TIME to run a tighter ship? Up to 18 per cent of the genomes sequenced so far seem to be contaminated with human DNA, likely because oflax lab practices. Rachel O'Neill and colleagues at the University of Connecticut in Storrs went through 2749 genomes, including bacteria, viruses, plants and animals. They found that 492 were similar in one respect: they contained a snippet of human DNA called AluY. Only the influenza genomes were completely clean, probably
Policy. The funding proposal is being
.
Buffalo to be culled THE slaughter of hundreds of buffalo straying from Yellowstone National Park has been given the legal green light in Montana. The wild buffalo, which are classed as "near-threatened", can wander beyond park boundaries during the winter in search of food. Ranchers worry that they will pass the disease brucellosis to cattle in Montana, which is currently designated "brucellosis-free". The infection does not usually cause
"Within 48 hours, beetles can break down a patch of cow dung into sawdust that fertilises the soil" for around 14 per cent of New Zealand's emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. Beetles can make short work of these problems. 4 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
60SECONDS
symptoms in buffalo, but can trigger abortions in cows. Over the past few weeks, around 525 straying buffalo have been corralled along the park's borders. Almost half have tested positive for brucellosis and are the first up for slaughter. The Buffalo Field Campaign maintains that the risk of disease transmission is low. The group says "relatively few" susceptible cows graze in the spillover area outside the park. The campaigners were overruled on Monday, when US district judge Charles C. Lovell gave the slaughter the go-ahead. They will be launching an appeal.
Return of the king
Canada and the US, which devastated their numbers. "These figures are encouraging, because they show a trend toward recovery after a record low," says Omar Vidal, director ofWWF Mexico. Vidal says that the illegal logging
FIRST the good news: North America's monarch butterfly (Dana us plexippus) has bounced back after its worst year ever. Now the bad: it is still the fourth worst year since records began in 1993. WWF Mexico's latest survey of "Monarch butterfly the butterfly's Mexican heartland numbers were devastated shows that the insects wintering by storms during their there since November colonised migration i n 2009" 4 hectares of forest, over double the area occupied last year. The which threatened the monarch's area occupied is used as an indirect habitat is now under control, but measure ofbutterfly numbers. climate change and farming in In 2009, the butterflies faced the US could deplete the food the storms as they migrated from butterflies rely on en route.
Fake Mars shi p lands MarsSOO has landed. On 14 February, three crew members from the simulated mission to Mars stepped out ofthe windowless mock spaceship where they have spent the past eight months, and into a small room with a sandy floor and twinkling lights. After two more "Mars walks", they will be reunited with the other three crew members and start the eight-month "journey" back to Earth.
Portraits of a comet Early on 15 February, NASA's Stardust spacecraft flew past comet Tempell, taking 72 pictures of the potato-shaped object. When New
Drunk on nothing
Van Gogh's darkening yellows
THE US government's health department has a drink problem. The blood and urine tests used to identify drinkers can falsely finger teetotallers too. Typically the body destroys alcohol within hours, so the tests pick up substances that are formed in the process. But recent research shows that non-alcoholic wine or even bananas can push concentrations of the substances to levels associated with drinking. The health department's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is aware of the problem and since 2006 has declared as "scientifically unsupportable" any legal or disciplinary action based solely on the test. But lawyers are now asking the agency to go further. "Can SAMHSA set a cut-off level which will reliably exclude accidental exposure [to alcohol] ?" asks William Meyer of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. Greg Skipper of the Alabama Physician Health Program thinks not. But he says that new research suggests a different breakdown product called phosphatidyl ethanol can more reliably distinguish accidental exposure from deliberate drinking.
IT'S enough to drive an Impressionist
Paint from one tube turned brown,
Scientist went to press, the close
ups had not been released. NASA hopes to compare them with snaps
mad. A yellow pigment developed in
and in this sample the chromium in
taken by the Deep Impact mission
the 19th century was a gift to Vincent
the lead chromate at the surface had
to Tempell in 2005.
van Gogh: it helped him create his
been reduced from a VI oxidation
vibrant sunflower paintings. But
state to the darker Ill state.
since then some chrome yellow paint
Paint flecks from two restored van
Co l d c u re To banish an impending cold, take a
has darkened considerably - and no
Gogh paintings - Banks of the Seine
zinc supplement at the first sniffle.
one knew why.
and View of Aries with Irises- had
A review of 15 trials showed zinc
A team led by Koen Janssens at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, used
barium sulphate in the darkened
administered in syrup, lozenges or tablets within 24 hours of symptoms
a powerful X-ray beam generator at
areas. This white substance, which was used to make expensive paint go
the European Synchrotron Radiation
further or make the yellow paler, may
severity and length of illness, possibly
Facility in Grenoble, France, to
have helped reduce the chromium
through zinc's antiviral properties
analyse samples of the key pigment
and caused the darkening under light.
in chrome yellow - lead chromate from three 100-year-old tubes of
'The mixture of sulphate and
appearing significantly reduced the
(The Cochrane Library, DOl: 10.1002/
14651858.CD001364.pub3).
chromate is very sensitive to
the paint (Analytical Chemistry, DOl:
darkening under UV light. Galleries
10.1021/ac102424h). They then
should keep paintings containing
artificially aged it using UV light to
chrome yellow out of any strong light
simulate exposure to daylight.
or UV light" says Janssens.
Sto l en DNA Around 1 in 10 gonorrhoea bacteria include a small chunk of human DNA in their genetic make-up - the first time DNA has been found to have jumped from a mammalian genome to a bacterial one. What role, if any, the human DNA performs in the bacterium remains a mystery (mBio, DOl: 10.1128/mbio.OOOOS-11).
The power of one brain In 2007, all the general computers in the world could together perform 6.4 x 1018 instructions per second. That roughly equals the number of nerve impulses produced by one human brain each second (Science, DOl: 10.1126/science.1200970).
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist IS
THIS WEEK
What's next for Watson? A bright future awaits IBM's supercomputer after taking on humans in the TV quiz show jeopardy! jim Giles
involve puns and clues-within clues, and cover a vast range of topics, from science to pop culture. The show demands an encyclopedic knowledge, and Watson is up against the two most successful players ever to appear on Jeopardy!.
A MEDICAL robot; a Google-killer; a financial adviser; a tool for trawling legal documents; an aide for the intelligence services. These are just some of the careers that could be in store for Watson, a supercomputer created by IBM which this week "Watson has a huge challenged human knowledge and memory, loaded with intelligence in a three-part special 200 million pages of text from encyclopaedias" edition of the US quiz Jeopardy!. As New Scientist went to press, Instead of creating new the outcome of the pre-recorded final was still a carefully guarded algorithms to allow Watson to secret. But however it performs, understand/eopardyl's complex the fact that a machine is able questions, IBM's team threw to compete on Jeopardy! "is a everything they already had at the problem. The result is a system remarkable achievement", says Boris Katz, an artificial intelligence that runs all the best existing researcher at the Massachusetts algorithms for understanding Institute of Technology. and answering questions. Led by David Ferrucci, the When IBM first suggested a Jeopardy! machine four years team also gave their machine ago, many AI researchers were a huge memory, which they doubtful the company would loaded with 200 million pages of text from encyclopedias and succeed. Computers are great at newspapers, alongside custom following clearly defined rules, made databases of facts. but Jeopardy! questions can
To answerJeopardy!'s questions, Watson first guesses the subject. It knows, for example, that the word "this" often precedes the subject. So if a question begins "This 19th-century novelist. ..", Watson primes itself to search for authors.
Once it has worked out what it is looking for, Watson searches its databases for the answer. Its processor array is 2000 times more powerful than a desktop computer, allowing it to find thousands of possible answers in less than 3 seconds.
S ilicon su periority There is a long history of human-versus-machine match-ups and the results make for depressing reading if you are human.lt started in the 18th century, when a chess-playing robot toured Europe, beating many in its path.lt turned out to be a hoax: the "robot" was operated by a concealed human. The reprieve was short-lived, however
1979 BKG9.8 World backgammon champion Luigi Villa suffers a humiliating 7-1 defeat at the hands of BKG 9.8
1994 CHINOOK 1986 MAVEN MAVEN beats top Scrabble players. Its creator, Brian Sheppard, improves the software, and by 2002 it can think many moves ahead, something human players find difficult
Chinook wins world checkers (draughts) championship. Thirteen years later, its creators say they have simulated every realistic game of checkers and developed a system that means Chinook can never lose a match
6 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
1997 DEEP BLUE World chess champion Garry Kasparov loses to IBM's Deep Blue. Computers are now considered superior to even the strongest human chess players
In this section
• Andean settlers' cancer-fighting secret, page 9 • Periodic table of shapes, page 12 • Augmented reality helps police track suspects, page 26
To work out which ofthese is the correct answer, Watson uses 100 different tests to rate its confidence in each answer. Some tests check for wordplay. Faced with a question about an "arresting landscape painter", for example, Watson looks up
2008 POLARIS
Polaris narrowly defeats a line-up of big-name poker players in a series of one-on-one games in Las Vegas. For now, however, humans still have the upper hand: Polaris struggles in games that involve multiple players
meanings of " arresting" and checks for any connection with the names of landscape painters. Linked answers - in this case, "Constable" - get a higher confidence score. Watson settles on the highest-rated answer and tries to buzz in. None of the tests represents a breakthrough in language processing, but by combining them all Watson has leapt ahead of rival question-and answer systems. Watson is not designed just to play game shows, however. It could help with any task that involves quickly processing information in a large number of text documents. Take the medical profession. Although IBM won't reveal details of its plans to commercialise Watson's software, it has said that it is working with researchers
at Columbia University in New could "learn" by searching for new York on a medical application. documents to add to its database, If Watson's memory were filled and so would automatically with databases of medical update its search results as new literature, and combined with facts emerge. Prem Natarajan voice-recognition technology, it of Raytheon BBN Technologies could listen in on patient-doctor in Boston, one of the companies conversations, then search its involved in the DARPA project, databases and suggest possible compares this application diagnoses, each with its own to an oracle. confidence level. "Such systems could augment "Even Watson can make healthcare," says Amar Das of silly mistakes. We're not done yet. We've not even Stanford University in California, scratched the surface" who is helping a team at the nearby PARC research labs develop an AI system able to The Watson team have also answer doctors' questions about spoken to lawyers about a possible HIV treatments. These systems use for the machine. Lawyers have "great potential", he says, often have to sift through but medical language could pose mountains of documents when problems. Doctors in different preparing a case- something fields can use the same term to Watson could make easier. It mean slightly different things, could even improve the service for example. Watson would of staff at banks or insurance have to be trained to put terms companies, by helping them track in context and extract the down the answer to a question correct meaning. more rapidly. Intelligence services might also Thankfully, perhaps, Watson have a use for Watson. Members isn't infallible : it can find simple of the IBM team are part of a questions baffling. This is in part machine-reading research because the software relies programme funded by the US heavily on finding text that looks Defense Advanced Research like the right answer to a question. Projects Agency (DARPA), based As a result, it misses out on in Arlington, Virginia. information that is deemed by DARPA is interested in humans to be too obvious to write machine reading in part because down. Not only that, but Watson intelligence analysts are faced sometimes thinks that fictional characters are real, says Gondek: with far more reports than they can synthesise, says Eric Nyberg, it once named the first woman in of Carnegie Mellon University in space as "Wonder Woman". Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who is To get a grip on such common working with the Watson team. sense issues, Watson will need Instead of having to study every to improve its understanding of report, analysts could use Watson the questions it is asked, rather to extract information on, say, than just searching for answers how individuals discussed in the that look plausible - a much documents are linked. bigger challenge. Watson's potential also extends "Watson is an awesome to everyday tasks. It is not currently machine," says Katz. "But connected to the internet, but if it sometimes it makes amazingly were, it could improve its search silly mistakes. That should tell results. "Watson could replace researchers that we're not done. Google for some kinds of We've not even scratched searches," says Nyberg. the surface." • See how Watson fared in the Like a human brain, a Watson final at our technology blog search engine would continually add to its knowledge. The software newscientist.com/onepercent 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 7
THIS WEEK
Fly sniffs chemical's quantum vibrations can dictate its odour, and came up with an explanation of how this might work. His idea was that electrons might only be able to pass across a receptor if it was bound to a molecule that vibrated at the right frequency. Ordinarily, the energy needed for the electron to make this journey would be too great, but the right vibrational energy could prompt a quantum effect in which the electron "tunnels" through this energy barrier, and this would then be detected and registered as a particular smell. Ifthis is correct, animals should
Rachel Courtland
HOW does a nose generate the signals that the brain registers as smell? The conventional theory says it's down to the different shapes of smelly molecules. But fruit flies have now distinguished between two molecules with identical shapes, providing the first experimental evidence to support a controversial theory that the sense of smell can operate by detecting molecular vibrations. The noses of mammals and the antennae of flies are lined with different folded proteins that form pocket-shaped "receptors': It has been generally assumed "At the outset, I never that a smell arises when an odour thought it could work. During the experiment, molecule slides into a receptor we convinced ourselves" like a key in a lock, altering the receptor's shape and triggering a cascade of chemical events that be able to distinguish between eventually reach the brain. But molecules ofthe same shape but this "shape" theory has limitations. with bonds that vibrate at different For one, it can't easily explain why frequencies. That is the case for different molecules can have very chemicals in which atoms of deuterium - a hydrogen isotope similar smells. In 1996, biophysicist Luca whose nucleus contains a neutron Turin, now at the Massachusetts as well as the normal proton Institute ofTechnology, proposed replace ordinary hydrogen atoms. a solution. He revived a theory The extra neutrons don't change that the way a molecule vibrates the molecule's shape, but they
Same shape, different smell The fragrant acetophenone molecule fits into a particular protein receptor like a key in a lock. Replacing the hydrogen atoms with deuterium atoms alters the rate at which the molecule vibrates. This may change the energy needed for an electron to tunnel across the receptor, altering its response and hence the perceived smell
HYDROGEN 1 proton/1 electron
.---·····
( •
\! \..... /
DEUTERIUM 1 proton/1 electron/1 neutron
�-----.\
1.... ..) -
double the mass of the hydrogen atoms and so alter the frequencies at which the molecule vibrates. Past tests on humans failed to turn up strong evidence that people can distinguish normal odour molecules from their "deuterated" counterparts. But now Turin has teamed up with Efthimios Skoulakis ofthe Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center in Vari, Greece, to test the idea on fruit flies, which can easily be trained to recognise different odours. Their team initially placed fruit flies in a simple maze that let them choose between two arms, one containing a fragrant chemical such as acetophenone, a common perfume ingredient, the other containing a deuterated version. If the flies were sensing odours using shape alone, they should not be able to tell the difference between the two. In fact, the researchers found that flies preferred ordinary acetophenone. They also showed a preference for ordinary versions of octanol and benzaldehyde over deuterated versions. The team also found they could use mild electric shocks to either reinforce or reverse this general preference for non-deuterated molecules (Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences, DOl: 10.1073/pnas.1012293108). This suggests the flies may be able to sense the vibrations characteristic of the bonds linking deuterium to carbon atoms. "At the outset, I thought this could never work," Skoulakis says. "During the course of the experiment we convinced ourselves." Turin sees the results as a "vindication" of his theory, at least in flies. "My theory was described as impossible physically, implausible biologically, not supported by evidence," he says. "This is a clear indication that some component of fruit fly olfaction is sensing vibrations." The experiment "really supports this idea that fruit flies have the ability to be quantum
8 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
detectors", says Gregg Roman of the University of Houston in Texas, who has just started studying isotope detection in fruit flies. How large a role molecular vibration sensing plays is unclear. Leslie Vosshall of Rockefeller University in New York City agrees that the experiment suggests fruit flies can distinguish between isotopes, but says the assumption that this is due to vibrations is an "over-interpretation". Turin's original tunnelling idea was based on a type of odour receptor in humans that fruit flies don't appear to have. "The logic of
For daily news stories. visit www.NewScientist.com/news
Little people hold a big cancer-fighting secret A HORMONE that gives a small
relatives, suggesting that individuals
population in the Ecuadorian Andes
with the condition rapidly dispose of
their short stature may reveal secrets
damaged cells before they are able
of thwarting cancer and diabetes.
to turn cancerous. Those with Laron
jaime Guevara-Aguirre at the
syndrome also had much lower levels
Institute of Endocrinology. Metabolism
of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF·1).
and Reproduction in Quito, Ecuador,
another hormone linked with the
and Valter Longo at the University
development of cancer. "They had the
of Southern California in Los Angeles
lowest values of IGF·1 ever recorded,"
studied a group of 99 people in the
says Guevara-Aguirre (Science
region for 22 years. These people all
Translational Medicine, DOl: 10.1126/
have a dimi nutive stature because
scitranslmed.3001845).
they have La ron syndrome - an
Studies in animals and centenarian
inability to make functional copies of
humans have shown that impaired
the human growth hormone receptor.
function of IGF·1 increases longevity.
Remarkably. none of the individuals developed diabetes, and
Although this wasn't seen in those with Laron syndrome, Guevara-Aguirre
only one developed cancer (which
is conducting further studies to see if
was cured). By comparison, among
there is in fact an effect. Most of the
1600 relatives without the condition
deaths among the sample population
5 per cent developed diabetes and
were from accidents, convulsive
17 per cent developed cancer,
disorders or abuse of alcohol, so he
suggesting that blocking the effects of the hormone might somehow protect against these diseases. The researchers found that levels of insulin in people with La ron
"Remarkably, none of the individuals developed diabetes, and only one developed cancer"
syndrome were just one-quarter of normal, primarily because their cells
is checking whether they might
were ultra-sensitive to it. so less was needed. This tallies with their lack
have lived longer without these
of diabetes. Remarkably. they all
The team says the protective
remained diabetes-free even though
effects against cancer and diabetes
most of them were obese. normally
match those found in mice unable to
a prelude to adult-onset diabetes. To better understand the anti·
vibrations. He suggests that using the fly to test the vibration theory escapes me," Vosshall says. giving mild shocks to humans, Turin and Skoulakis are planning which wasn't done in the previous experiment, may encourage their genetic studies that might help pinpoint the amino acids on brains to pick up on differences. receptors that play a key role in Experiments are planned in isotope detection. This could help another type of mammal. Several piece together a specific tunnelling years ago john Sagebiel ofthe mechanism for the flies' receptors. University of Nevada, and Mary Could humans differentiate Cablk of the Desert Research between isotopes? In 2004, Institute, both in Reno, found that Vosshall and her Rockefeller their pet dog, an Australian shepherd, seemed to be able to colleague Andreas Keller found that people could not distinguish tell apart ordinary acetophenone and a deuterated version. They are between acetophenone and its now applying for funding to see deuterated cousin. But Skoulakis says flies might be more sensitive if these informal results hold up to the effects of quantum in other dogs. •
other causes of premature death.
make the growth hormone receptor. "The convergence of data obtained in
cancer phenomenon, the researchers
the mice and humans is striking," says
exposed normal human breast cells
Andrzej Bartke at Southern Illinois
to extracts of blood serum from
University in Springfield.
people with Laron syndrome or their
The results may support the case
syndrome-free relatives. Compared
for trials of Somavert as a treatment
with breast cells exposed to blood serum from relatives, those doused
for cancer and diabetes. The drug was developed to block the growth
in serum from individuals with Laron
hormone receptor and it has been
syndrome had 30 per cent higher
used since 2003 to treat people with
levels of enzymes that are protective
acromegaly, who make too much
against cell damage, and much lower
growth hormone. But john Kopchick
levels of activity in genes known
at Ohio University in Athens, who
to promote tumour growth. Additionally, when these
developed the drug, warns against blocking the growth hormone in
"protected" cells were deliberately
healthy people because of possible
damaged with hydrogen peroxide
side effects . including cardiovascular
they died much faster than the
problems, low energy levels and
cells doused with blood serum from
weight gain. Andy Coghlan • 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 9
THIS WEEK
Eye in the sky could watch out for floods Wendy Zukerman
SEVERE floods have hit Sri Lanka, Brazil, the Philippines and Australia since the turn of the year, while Pakistan is still feeling the effects of floods there last year. As La Nina settles in for the decade, such floods could strike all too frequently. An early warning system using satellites could help by making flood forecasting easier and more accurate. What's more, the seeds of a global monitoring system are already in place. The network of water gauges used to monitor rainfall and water height at the moment have drawbacks, says Jeff Walker at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. "Gauges get washed away during flooding," he says. Worse, ground-based gauges can get mired in politics. Floodwaters do not respect international borders and if political tensions are running high, countries upstream of a flood may not pass on vital information to their neighbours downstream.
Shape-changing brain cells to blame for PMS
The answer could be satellites, which are already monitoring rainfall. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission is a joint venture between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It provides data for a real time river forecasting model,
"late luteal" phase of their cycle and progesterone levels are high. To investigate potential
running in Bangladesh since 2006 (International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, DOl: 10.1016/j. jag.2010.11.003). In 2013, NASA plans to replace the TRMM with the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission. Satellites can also monitor soil moisture, predicting when and where rain is likely to fall and when flooding is probable. Wetter soil releases more water through evaporation, which then turns into rain. But if soil is fully
However, in the late luteal phase
saturated, it absorbs no more water and a flood can develop. The ASCAT sensor on-board the European Space Agency (ESA) MetOp satellite system, launched in 2006, measures microwave radiation reflected back by the soil- the wetter the soil the more microwaves are absorbed. Last year, Wolfgang Wagner of the Vienna University ofTechnology, Austria, combined traditional forecast models with ASCAT data to improve run-off predictions in the floodplains ofltaly (Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, DOl: 10.5194/hess-14-1881-2010). The trouble is that MetOp operates on so-called C band microwaves, which have difficulty penetrating dense vegetation. In 2009, ESA launched the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellite, which operates in the L band. This can see through vegetation more easily - although it detects radiation in 40-kilometre patches; too coarse for detailed flood forecasting. In future, a global monitoring system would include information from satellites and sensors on the ground. Xiwu Zhan at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is working on one such system but it might not be in place for at least a decade. •
emotion and behaviour. Changes to
women with PMDD had heightened
the receptors make them less
activity in their cerebellum. The
receptive to a chemical called GABA.
mechanisms behind PMDD, Andrea
larger the spike in activity, the worse
Rapkin at the University of California,
the symptoms. Women without
GABA is the brain's main inhibitory molecule. One of its functions is to
Los Angeles, used positron emission
PMDD had no such spike, even though
limit brain activity associated with
"ARE your GABA receptors playing
tomography to scan the brains of 12
their progesterone levels were also
stress and anxiety.
up?" It seems that these brain cells
women with PMDD and 12 without
high (Biological Psychiatry, DOl:
are to blame for premenstrual
the condition, at various times
10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.09.029).
syndrome (PMS) - the mood swings
throughout their menstrual cycle.
some women experience before their period starts. Many women feel a little irritable around this time, but up to B per cent have extreme symptoms, including
Before each scan, the women rated
Animal studies have shown that
Rapkin suggests that in PMDD, progesterone alters the shape of GABA receptors in the cerebellum,
progesterone can change the
making it harderfor GABA to bind to
the severity of any symptoms they
shape of receptors present in the
them and damp down anxiety.
might have. Blood samples were also
cerebellum, which forms connections
taken to test their hormone levels. Fluctuating hormones were not to
with brain areas responsible for
anxiety and fatigue. Symptoms of
blame: all the women experienced
so-called premenstrual dysphoric
similar jumps in progesterone levels
disorder (PMDD) begin around a week
throughout their cycle, irrespective
beforehand when women are in the
of whether they had PMDD or not.
"Women with PMS may have GABA receptors that are particularly sensitive to progesterone"
10 I NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
Lorraine Dennerstein at the University of Melbourne, Australia, suspects women with premenstrual syndromes have GABA receptors that are particularly sensitive to progesterone, and so change shape easily. Wendy Zukerman •
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THIS WEEK
Periodic table for rippling shapes jacobAron
Unique flow pattern? It's an atom
dimensions, and then to group the shapes in each list according to their properties, much as conventional atoms are grouped in the periodic table of elements. Key to creating the program was string theory, according to which the universe has 10 dimensions - the familiar three of space and one oftime, plus another six that are hidden. The hidden dimensions may be tightly curled up in a flowing shape called the Calabi-Yau manifold. And string theorists had already devised methods for turning some flowing, higher dimensional shapes into differential equations, which allow a shape's properties to be explored. Coates's software uses the same mathematics to turn any smooth shape into differential equations. It then examines the shape's flow, looking for the unique patterns that signify an atom. There are hundreds of millions of potential
THIS rippling structure may look like a piece of origami or an intricate scarf, but it's actually geometry's answer to the atom because it can't be broken down into smaller components. Inspired by string theory, there is a way to classify these atoms by their properties- and hunt down their higher dimensional cousins. "We're trying to build a periodic table of shapes," says Tom Coates, a mathematician at Imperial College London. The shapes he is referring to aren't just any old triangles or squares, but smooth ones that don't have edges, more like spheres. These can be written as differential equations, allowing them to be described in terms of their "flow", says Coates. If a shape has a unique flow pattern that meets certain requirements then it is an atom. But if a shape's flow contains a number of these "Understanding higher unique patterns, it is a molecule and can be broken down further. dimensional shapes is very useful for motion planning We have known for some time that such shapes can be broken in robots" down in this way. In the 1930s, Gino Fano discovered nine two shapes to sort through, but Coates dimensional atomic shapes, while expects a few thousand atoms. The work could lead to insights research in the 1980s revealed 102 in string theory, or help robots shapes in three dimensions. But these discoveries came in the to make smoother motions. form of lists, not organised The path of an arm that moves groups, and never progressed to forward or backward in three higher dimensions. dimensions, or rotates along three Now Coates and his colleagues different axes, can be represented as a higher dimensional shape. have built a computer program that can identify atoms in four "Understanding higher and five dimensions as well as in dimensional shapes is very useful three, and provide new insights for motion planning," says Coates. David Berman, a string theorist into the properties of these atoms, at Queen Mary, University of such as the number of holes in each shape, or the extent to which London, reckons the work could also provide insights into they twist around themselves. He now plans to use this to superconductivity, which is already generate lists of shapes in higher studied using string theory. •
12 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
THIS WEEK
Urge to migrate found in bird genes Janelle Weaver
WE MIGHT know why birds fly south for the winter, but how they achieve the feat is another question - one which we are now beginning to answer. Each year some so billion birds take to the skies to migrate, an often gruelling pilgrimage associated with changes in diet, physiology and behaviour. To hunt for a genetic basis for those changes, Jakob Mueller at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, and his colleagues went bird-catching. They trapped birds from 14 populations of the
European blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla, pictured), a warbler that spends summer in northern Europe but winters in warmer southern Europe or northern Africa. The birds are typically active only during the day, but they are prepared to fly at night during their migration. The team recorded and quantified the captive birds' night-time restlessness- a proxy for migratory behaviour in the wild - and took blood samples to look for genetic signatures that could account forvariations in nocturnal activity. They focused on four genes linked to daily rhythms, changes
in which might encourage the birds to migrate at night. Nocturnal restlessness was found to be linked to the geneADCYAP1. The longer the form of the gene, or allele, the more restless the blackcap. The gene may do more than simply encourage night-time
fidgeting: it encodes a protein called PACAP, which plays a major role in melatonin secretion, energy metabolism and feeding. These functions are crucial for preparing birds for long flights. "This is the first step to bringing research on avian migration down to the molecular level," says Mueller (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOl: 10.10g8/rspb.2010.2567). "It's a landmark paper," says john Wingfield at the University of California, Davis. "What remains to be done is to actually silence that gene and see if it affects migratory behaviour." David Winkler at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, says that the study is the "tip of the iceberg" in understanding the genetic basis for migration. "This is a very important step in a process that's probably going to take decades to really understand," he says. •
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For daily news stories. visit www.NewScientist.com/news
Dose of glial proteins cures Down's mice
picture}. The mice then had to find a submerged platform in a water maze using visual cues. Down's mice usually take twice as long to find the platform as healthy mice. However, after four days of oral treatment with
LEARNING and memory problems
NAP and SAL. the Down's mice
have been reversed in mice with a
learned to navigate the maze just as
syndrome that mimics Down's.
easily as normal mice.
Catherine Spong and colleagues at
NAP and SAL are fragments
the National Institutes of Health in
of proteins normally produced by
Bethesda, Maryland, found they
glial cells - brain cells that provide
could prevent developmental
nourishment to neurons. We know
problems in mice engineered to have
that glial cells malfunction in people
Down's syndrome by injecting their
with Down's. Mice treated with the
mothers with two proteins, called
proteins had markers of healthy glial
NAP and SAL, while they were still in
function that were missing in the
the womb. This treatment would
untreated Down's mice.
to be involved in "long-term
LTP (Obstetrics & Gynecology, DOl:
potentiation" (LTP} - a type of brain
10.1097/AOG.Ob013e3182051ca5}.
investigated whether the treatment
activity key to memory formation.
Craig Heller, co-director of Stanford
caused changes in chemicals known
People and mice with Down's have
University's Down Syndrome Research
Spong's team engineered mice to have an extra chromosome 16, which
decreased levels of many chemicals
Center in California, says this study
involved in this process. However.
makes one thing clear: "Learning
causes similar problems to those
treated mice appeared to have
disabilities and mental retardations
increased levels of a receptor called NR28 that is responsible for initiating
that were considered permanent are
carry many risks for humans. so the team wondered whether the proteins might also help adult mice.
In a second experiment. the team
"Learning disabilities and mental retardations caused by an extra chromosome 21 in that were thought to be humans, the trigger for Down's (see permanent can be treated"
treatable." Aria Pearson •
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NewScientist
IN BRIEF
Small cut, big problem
Do snails dream of slime covered sheep?
their shells when prodded in the head with a metal rod, they are probably sleeping - which is exactly what they found. This is the first evidence of sleep in gastropods,
A MINOR cut may be all that is needed to rouse dormant cancer cells into forming a tumour. To investigate how cancerous genetic mutations become tumours, Sunny Wong at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues engineered mice to express a human cancer gene in hair follicle stem cells. They then sliced the skin on some of the mice, while leaving the others unharmed. Only the wounded mice developed tumours, which were clustered around their injury (Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences, DOl: 10.1073/ pnas.1013098108). When skin is cut, hair-follicle stem cells migrate to the injury. Wong says precancerous cells can lie dormant in the body until a trigger such as radiation pushes them into forming a tumour: "In this case, wounding got cancerous cells out of their resting phase."
says Stephenson Uournal of Experimental Biology, DOl: IT'S not just humans that benefit from the occasional
10.1242/jeb.050591). Surprisingly, unlike most animals, snails do not sleep
power nap. Snails do too. Richard Stephenson and Vern Lewis of the University
at a regular time each day. "Their sleeping behaviour is
of Toronto in Canada noticed that great pond snails
organised over two to three days;· Stephenson says. He
(Lymnaea stagnalis) in tanks in their lab spent 10 per cent
thinks the snails haven't evolved tight control of their
of the time in a "quiescent" state: they would attach
sleep patterns because they need so little.
themselves to a solid surface and sit still with their muscles relaxed and their tentacles partially withdrawn. An animal that is sleeping rather than resting should
Euan Brown of the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Naples, Italy, says the evidence for a sleep-like state is "very convincing". Animals sleep more if they regularly
be less responsive to stimulation. So the pair reasoned
need to store new memories - not such an issue for the
that if the quiescent snails only sluggishly withdrew into
snail's plant-eating lifestyle, Brown says.
Why some numbers have a nice ring OVER 4 billion text messages are sent each day in the US alone. Could all this thumb gymnastics be subtly changing the way we feel about numbers? Sascha Topolinski at the University ofWi.irzburg, Germany, found that 27 study participants rated seemingly random numbers such as 373863 and 7245346 as equally pleasant. But when a further 38 participants were asked
to dial the numbers on a cellphone before rating them, they significantly preferred 373863 - equivalent to using the predictive text function to type "friend" in German - to 7245346 German text for "slime". Topolinski also found that companies are more liked if their phone number spells out a company-related word, like "corpse" for a mortician
(Psychological Science, DOl: 10.1177/0956797610397668). Many companies already choose phone numbers precisely because they spell out a company related word, but Topolinski says the number-word association occurs subconsciously, offering companies an opportunity for less explicit manipulation. For instance, a betting company might choose a number that spells out the word "successful" rather than the company name.
Bee sensor picks up wanderlust vibes TIME for a new hive? The accelerometers that detect motion in smartphones have been turned into listening devices for predicting when a queen honeybee will desert her old hive. Martin Bencsik's team at Nottingham Trent University, UK, embedded accelerometers into the back wall of two hives to detect the motion caused by the buzzing insects. Over five months, their computer learned the language of the buzzing hives, he says. About 10 days before swarming, the bees produce a distinct vibration that could alert beekeepers to prepare for the event, when they might otherwise lose many bees (Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, DO!: 10.1016/j.compag.2011.01.004). 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 17
IN BRIEF
Hate spiders? Try the linvisiblel cure IF YOU break out in a cold sweat at the thought of eight hairy legs, "invisible" images could help. joel Weinberger at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, found that exposing people to subliminal spider images helped them to overcome their fear. The usual treatment for phobias is maximum exposure to what you fear. To make things easier, Weinberger's team asked 23 volunteers who were afraid of spiders to stare at an "x" on a screen as 20 images of spiders or
For new stories every day, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
Black holes put light in a spin LIGHT curls up into corkscrew patterns when it passes near black holes, offering a powerful new way to probe the distorted space around them. In an ordinary light beam observed far from its source, successive peaks of light waves form essentially flat wave fronts. Not so for light with so-called orbital angular momentum, which has long been produced in the lab. Its peaks spiral around to form a corkscrew pattern. According to general relativity, spinning black holes drag the
fabric of the surrounding space around with them. Fabrizio Tamburini of the University of Padua in Italy, and colleagues, calculated how light rays emitted by matter spiralling into a black hole are distorted by this effect, called frame dragging. They calculated that it transforms ordinary light into the corkscrew type that possesses orbital angular momentum (Nature Physics, DOI: 10.1038/nphys1907). In future, telescopes could be equipped with detectors to measure this light, says Martin
Bojowald of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Physicists have measured frame dragging around black holes before by observing the rotation of discs of matter around them. But hydrodynamical processes also affect this rotation, making twisted light a more precise way to test relativity's predictions about frame dragging, says Bojowald. Such light could also be used to measure a black hole's spin more accurately than inferring it from the behaviour of a surrounding disc, he adds.
outdoor scenes flashed onto the screen. The images appeared too briefly to be perceived. Following treatment, volunteers shown spider images were able to
Star-less planets may be habitable
lift the lid off of a spider tank, while those who saw landscapes could only touch the tank (Consciousness ond Cognition, DOl: 10.1016/j.
concog.2011.01.003). The team suggest that repeated exposure to frightening stimuli without conscious perception creates non-threatening associations with spiders that override ingrained fear responses within the amygdala, a brain area involved in emotional memory. "It is impressive that such an effect can occur rapidly without the participants' awareness:· says David Rakison at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
LIQUID water may survive on free-floating planets that have no star to warm them. If they also support life, they could act as stepping stones to spread life around the galaxy. Gravitational tussles with other planets or passing stars can eject planets from their solar systems. But even in the cold of space, these wayward worlds could stay warm, thanks to the decay of radioactive elements in their rocky cores. Dorian Abbot and Eric Switzer ofthe University of Chicago calculate that rocky planets with a similar mass to Earth could remain warm enough to keep water liquid under thick, insulating ice sheets for over a billion years. A planet with the same fraction of water as Earth could keep a subsurface ocean liquid if it was 3.5 times Earth's mass. But a planet with 10 times Earth's water concentration could do this if it weighed just one-third as much as Earth, they say (arxiv.org/abs/1102.1108). "It's a really interesting idea," says Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "But we would have to land on [a planet] and burrow down to see if life is possible."
Blocked hole lets more light through A TINY hole at the end of an optical
in Okazaki, japan, have found another
fibre lets more light through when
way to pull photons through tiny
it is covered. The startling discovery
holes. They shone light down an
could lead to light-based components
optical fibre that tapered to a hole
for ultrafast optical computers.
too small for the lightto squeeze
Conventional optics forbids light
through. But eclipsing the hole with
from passing through holes much
a gold disc caused light to stream
smaller than its wavelength. But
through the hole and around the
plasmons - clouds of oscillating
disc (Nano Letters, DOl: 10.1021/
electrons found on the surface of
nl103408h).
metals - can help light pass through tiny holes in metal foil. For some wavelengths, plasmons grab photons and guide them to the other side. Now a team led by Hiromi Okamoto at the Institute for Molecular Science
18 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
Plasmons from the disc probably leaped up through the hole and dragged out photons, which then gushed around the edge of the disc. A similar set-up could control light signals in optical computers.
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Smarter business for a Smarter Planet:
What a predictive model means to a hospital in Africa. It means that this hospital in Ethiopia will be able to help HIV patients receive the best treatment programme possible. The EuResist Network is helping doctors predict patient response to multiple HIV treatments with over
78% accuracy. I n a recent study, the EuResist prediction engine outperformed 9 out of 1 0 human experts in choosing the best drug combinations for a range of H IV genetic variants. The tool is built on an IBM analytics solution that integrates over 41,000 HIV treatment histories from a variety of disparate databases onto a flexible IBM DB2® platform.
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TECHNOLOGY
For daily technology stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/technology
the sound "clean" and saying that it was easier to hear the vocals and guitars. The team are now working with Danish start-up CrossOverGlobal to commercialise the technology. There are a few limitations, however. The time it takes to process the sound means that listeners can't get closer than 6o metres to the stage speakers
"You feel the base in your body. You just get this extra layer of sound that is very high quality"
Music to your ears Sound quality at festivals can be disappointing. Now a smartphone app promises to enhance your experience jacob Aron
THE roar ofthe crowd! The thumping bass! The. .. tinny vocals? Open-air music festivals aren't exactly renowned for their balanced sound quality, but that could soon change, thanks to an audio-enhancing app for cellphones. Jakob Eg Larsen and colleagues at the Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, have developed a system that transforms your phone into a personal concert speaker, letting high-frequency sounds like vocals, which don't travel well over long distances, come through more clearly. A mixing device on stage sends certain frequencies to an FM radio antenna that broadcasts the signal to phones at the gig. A simple portable radio won't work as a receiver because sound travels around a million times slower than radio waves. So the FM signal must be delayed once it reaches
the phone in order to align with sound from the stage. The phone's GPS sensor measures how far it is from the stage, and the software calculates the necessary time delay. The result is an augmented listening experience in which every note can be heard clearly through headphones. "The sound is basically so loud at a concert that you still get the sound from
the speakers, you feel the bass in your body," explains Larsen. "You just get this extra layer of sound that is very high quality." His team ran tests last June during two performances at the Nibe music festival in Denmark, recruiting 19 random concert goers to try out the app on Nokia Ngoo smartphones. "The overall reactions were very positive," he says, with several people calling
Enhancing open-air sound Sending high-frequency sounds via FM radio stops them getting lost in the crowd On-stage mixer sends high-frequency sound to an FM transmitter, which broadcasts the FM signal to cell phones in the crowd
& MIXER
TRANSMITTER
An app uses GPS to determine how far l isteners are from the stage, and de lays the FM signal to match up with the low-frequency sound
CELLPHONE
or the concert sound will arrive before the FM signal is played through the headset. The team expect to reduce this to 20 metres by optimising their software most fans aren't normally closer to the stage than this. Another problem is that the GPS sensor in the phone can't provide perfect location data, so users need to fine-tune the time delay manually. The team is also testing whether this can be done automatically, using the phone's microphone to match the FM signal with sound from the stage speakers. Atau Tanaka, a researcher in interactive music systems at Newcastle University, UK, says a system like this has "enormous potential", but Larsen's particular implementation might not work in practice. "Most mobiles on the market don't have an FM radio," says Tanaka. "This kind of application would need to migrate over to streaming audio over Wi-Fi or 3G networks." The system could also be used at other live events. "Outdoor theatre, sports events, anything where you would like to have some audio information," suggests Larsen. "This definitely has some artistic applications as well," he adds. There is no reason to limit the app to simply relaying what's on stage, so a dedicated sound artist could add additional audio effects. • 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 23
TECH NOLOGY
Robot internet to help machines share secrets A robot -only web will let auto matons learn from each other's experiences, a first step towards them carrying out jobs in the real world Celeste Biever Data57: Anyone got tips on how to pick up a cup of coffee? I either crush it or fail to lift. FastBot90: Hi Data 57. Human programmers worked for months to get me to do this perfectly. Click here to download my data. I have different sensors and physiology to you but hopefully you have software to adapt commands. This style of conversation will seem familiar if you spend time in web forums. While it is unlikely robots will ever communicate in such a human fashion, a World Wide Web for robots - dubbed RoboEarth - is being developed so that they can exchange information directly.
While robots have previously tapped into the human web for help - for example searching through Google Images when they stumble upon an object they can't identify - RoboEarth works differently. "The key innovation of RoboEarth is having robots generate information and knowledge and share it with other robots," says Markus Waibel of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, one of the roboticists developing RoboEarth. The idea is that when robots learn a new trick, they will upload how they did it to the RoboEarth database - much like a human adding information to Wikipedia. Then, another robot that needs to use the same trick, or which
The web is so last year. . . what about apps? With an internet for robots in the
of robe app developers who have
pipeline (see main story), the next
amazingly creative ideas for what
step could be a robot-only app store.
to do with robots," adds Brian
Over the last few years, the open-source robot operating system
Gerkey, also at the firm. Atfirst the apps will be aimed at
(ROS), pioneered by the firm Willow
hobbyists and roboticists. but once
Garage in Menlo Park. California.
domestic robots go mainstream.
has made it easier for roboticists to
consumers could buy them too.
share code. RoboEarth, a robot-only
Ciocarlie thinks this will get people
internet. could soon allow robots to
to think about robots in a new way.
share behaviours and experiences.
"One thing I really like about the app store is that it focuses the discussion
Both of these developments should pave the way for an app store
away from robots being metal
where ROS-compliant programs are
people," he says. If people have to
available for robots to download.
play a role in developing their robot's
Written by roboticists, the programs would be designed to create specific
intelligence through downloading apps, Ciocarlie says, then they will
behaviours for certain types of robot. says Matei Ciocarlie of Willow
soon see them for what they are "a cross between a smartphone
Garage. 'There is a new generation
and a washing machine".
enters the same environment, will download the data gathered by the first robot, enabling it to "learn" how to do it. "It's a compelling vision the idea of robots being able to learn from each other's experience, and mining that experience to improve their behaviour," says Brian Gerkey, director of open source development at Willow Garage in Menlo Park, California, who is advising the RoboEarth team. If robots are able to share data with each other without human intervention, then this could provide the skills they need to move out of the narrow industrial applications they are currently used in and into the wider world, where they will be required to deal with a range designed to play soccer- built of unpredictable situations. up a rough map of the room To form rules for how to behave using its laser beam to measure in many circumstances the robots distances, before uploading it to will need to fall back on huge the RoboEarth database. The team then wiped AMIGO's memory and amounts of data - something sent it back into the room to carry humans simply won't be able to program into each robot. "Without out a task: pick up a drink sitting on a cabinet and serve it to a a system like RoboEarth, robots will never be able to operate "This breakthrough will effectively in the unstructured not make robots more and highly complex human autonomous: an idiot using environment," says RoboEarth the internet is still an idiot" team member Heico Sandee of the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. "patient" in a bed. AMIGO RoboEarth remains in its succeeded thanks to the map early stages, but it is having some it downloaded from RoboEarth. success in testing. One such test, While the same robot was used carried out last month, involved for both parts of the test, it was a a wheeled robot called AMIGO good proof of concept. "What you and a room mocked up to look like see is that the robot can download a hospital ward. First, AMIGO - a the data, interpret the data and do modified robot originally something useful with it," says
24 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
For daily technology stories. visit www.NewScientist.com/technology
4G p h o n e network /wi l l create G PS dead zon es a c ross the U S' WHAT would you rather have - a
month, they say that overlaps
superfast data connection on your
between the two systems are
cellphone. or a reliable GPS signal to
inevitable, and that this "will result
pinpoint your location? If a plan to
in widespread. severe GPS jamming
install a network of base stations for
[and] will deny GPS service over vast
the new 4G mobile wireless protocol
areas of the United States".
goes ahead, it may mean you can have one but not the other. GPS satellites transmit their navigation signals in the range
jeff Carlisle of LightSquared says it is the GPS receivers, not his company's base stations, that are at fault. "The issue is that some GPS receivers may
1559 to 1610 megahertz. Telecoms firm LightSquared of Reston. Virginia. has long communicated with its satellites using low-power signals in the adjacent frequency band,
"The 4G network promises to bring 5 to 10- megabit download speeds to cell phone users"
from 1525 to 1559 MHz. part of the "l band". Despite the closeness of
be able to see into the l band where
the frequencies. satnav receivers
we operate." he told New Scientist.
have so far operated without any interference problems. But in january, the US Federal
network, which promises to bring
gave preliminary approval to a plan
download speeds of 5 to 10 megabits
by LightSquared to build 40.000
per second to cell phone users.
new 4G base stations on the ground.
Meanwhile, over a billion GPS
These stations would broadcast
receivers are in use worldwide.
1559 MHz range. to link to cellphones. Based on lab simulations of the
library will then translate these recipes into a series of detailed instructions that are suited to the capabilities of that particular robot. Waibel hopes to release the open-source software that will allow anyone to hook up a robot to RoboEarth in July. But if robots can exchange information independently of humans, could they become more intelligent than us? The roboticists that New Scientist spoke to say this is unlikely, as the robots will only be able to upload and download information that relates to their goals. This is not a breakthrough that will make robots autonomous, says Ben Goertzel, who heads the AI company Novamente in Washington DC. "If you have an idiot using the internet, they are still going to be an idiot." •
$6 to $8 billion to complete the
Communications Commission (FCC)
much stronger signals in the 1525 to
Waibel. His team have also used RoboEarth to share maps between two different robots. One hurdle still to be jumped is the creation of software that allows robots to pass on tips to other robots that operate in a different way, says Heather Knight, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Robots with different functions, construction and software will need to be able to download information on how to complete a task that is relevant to them. To solve this problem, the team are using a packet of programming code called an "action recipe". This is a simple way of describing how to do something - and is how knowledge will be uploaded, downloaded and stored in RoboEarth. An additional software
The stakes are high. By 2015. LightSquared expects to spend
LightSquared has until 25 February to submit a plan to the FCC for working with the GPS industry
new transmissions, Scott Burgett
and federal agencies to analyse
and Bronson Hokuf, engineers
interference issues; a final report
with satnav manufacturer Garmin
detailing a solution is due by 15 june.
International in Olathe, Kansas,
LightSquared wants all future tests to
say this will seriously damage GPS
be performed with real transmitters
reception. ln a report to the FCC last
rather than simulators. jeff Hecht •
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 25
TECH NOLOGY
Au g m ented rea l ity h e l ps tra c k pol i ce suspects o n a n i Phone PICTURE the scene: armed police officers are warned on their radios that a suspect male terrorist has been tracked to a crowded football stadium. Even with a full description, it's all but impossible to pick him out amid the match day melee. Perhaps smartphones fed augmented reality (AR) data by the police control centre could help focus the search. After booting up an iPhone app, an officer would train the phone's camera on the crowd. The suspect's position, after he had been tracked by covert police, would be highlighted by an icon overlaid on the image. Similarly, other icons could pinpoint the positions and range of other officers (see picture), including those operating undercover. The system, called iAPLS, has been developed by engineers at Frequentis, a surveillance systems company based in Vienna, Austria. It is a mobile extension of the firm's Automatic Personal Location System, which
shows the location of officers on control-room screens using GPS signals sent by their radios. If a suspect has a cellphone that police have a fix on, or they are being closely followed by a covert officer, they too can be tracked. Officers can also use their phone to "tag" the location of a suspect
I l l us i o n 'cl o a k' ma kes you see what i sn't there
package to make it visible to fellow law enforcers. What Frequentis engineer Reinard van Loo and his colleagues have done is package APLS data so that it can be sent via a regular 3G link to a standard iPhone, making location information available to all officers on duty, not just those in the control room. The extra data that this kind of AR app will provide could be a double-edged sword, warns David
Sloggett, a security researcher at the University of Reading, UK. "Terrorists have been very good at turning our own technology against us. The Mumbai attacks [in India in 2008] were meticulously planned on Google Earth, for instance. Ifterrorists get hold of police location data on mobile phones it could be disastrous." Stopping criminals hijacking AR data will require strongly encrypted data links. While the Frequentis demonstration system used a regular 3G network, van Loo says that by the time it is commercialised it could be using an encrypted emergency-services only 4G network -known as LTE for Public Safety. The UK Home Office is funding 12 months of tests on a range of AR systems, including iAPLS, at the University of Nottingham. These include motion-tracking visors that overlay data on to an officer's field of view, systems that overlay contoured street maps on live helicopter video in real time to help police, and a system that tracks troops as they scout for landmines to ensure their search pattern covers all the ground. Pau l Marks •
including porcelain and glass that do
light in 2009. Similar illusion devices
not conduct electricity and are more
could eventually be used for stealth
transparent to radio waves.
technology: for example, to "convert
The illusion only worked when the cylinder was viewed from the
the radar image of an aircraft into a flying bird", Cui says.
NOW you see it, now it looks like
so that it appears to be composed
side; what's more, the imaginary
The work, which will be published
something else. Radar images might
of another material altogether.
object it generated was the same
in Physical Review E, is still at an early
never be the same again, thanks to
Copper conducts electricity well and
size as the original. Future designs
stage, however. At 45 millimetres, the
an illusion device that can change an
reflects incoming radio waves, giving
would have to account for all three
team's illusion device is three times
object's appearance. The technology
it a bright radar signature. To alter this
dimensions, and might produce an
could ultimately be used to hide
behaviour, the team built a device
"Their device is still fairly bulky relative
military aircraft.
to the original object, so further work
designed to steer light along curved
"Similar devices could be used to convert the channels that prevent electromagnetic radar image of an aircraft waves reflecting away. instead, they into a flying bird"
paths. They have already been used to
guide the waves in a direction that the
make objects appear invisible and to
researchers choose specifically to
illusion quite different from the
invented first, the illusion technology
disguise a gap between two objects. Wei X iang Jiang and Tie jun Cui's
make the hidden object appear to have different electrical properties.
object they disguise. "In principle, this technology
might win the race to be put to practical use. "It is easier to falsify something
could be used to make an illusion
than to hide it;' Pendry says.
The device is part of a growing family of metamaterials - structures
team at Southeast University in
made of 11 concentric rings of circuit
boards etched with small metal-lined
Placed around a copper cylinder,
as wide as the cylinder it disguised.
needs to be done before a real device can be deployed," says john Pendry of Imperial College London. Although invisibility devices were
The team next plans to explore
Nanjing, China, have created a
the arrangement created the illusion
of an arbitrary shape and size," says
structure that changes the way radio
that the cylinder was made of a
Cui, whose team created an
ways to design devices with more
waves interact with a copper cylinder
dielectric, a class of materials
electromagnetic "black hole" for
complex shapes. Rachel Courtland •
26 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
i n s p i r i n g Fu tu re e n e rg y i n n ova to rs I nspired by the vision of the late His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan AI nahyan, the Zayed Future Energy Prize is a global prize that rewards renewable energy innovators.
The Z o \:j ed Future Energ\:j Prize is open to those w h o hove s h o w n l ea dersh i p i n deve l o p i n g ond o pp l \:) i ng Future energ \:j s o l u t i ons, ond w i l l hel p ensure t h a t t h e s e s o l u t ions con t i n u e to benefit the l i ves of peop l e m o u n d the w o rld .
www.Zo yed Futu reEnergy Prize.com E N E RGY P R I ZE
O PINION
It's over there! The main reason we explore Mars is to find out if life ever existed there. But we're looking in the wrong places, says Alfonso F. Davila WHEN searching for something, the first step is to look in the most likely location. That doesn't always work. Things sometimes show up in unexpected corners. But most of the time the milk is in the fridge, the phone is on the table, and the keys are by the door. Why would searching for life on Mars be any different? The main reason we explore Mars is to determine if life ever arose on the planet. We have tried for centuries, starting with telescopes and lately with satellites, landers and rovers. We have searched for it directly (the Viking mission) and indirectly (every other Mars mission). No luck so far. Some think life has never been there. Others think it was there in the past but is now gone. Many think why bother, but that's a whole different story. I think we are looking in the wrong places. Here is why. The surface of Mars is But first we need to find a year to study the habitability and extremely cold and dry. Cosmic environmental history of a region promising location, and that and solar radiation reach the surface unimpeded by the thin means reconstructing Martian on Mars that contains sediments atmosphere, and the soil contains history. We need to find out if formed billions of years ago. there was flowing water, the time strong oxidants that destroy The MSL is the most advanced and extent of the water, what type robot ever sent to another planet. organic compounds. Fat chance of minerals formed and ifthe Around 2018, a joint mission run for life. But it wasn't always so. geochemical conditions were by NASA and the European Space Early in its history Mars was warmer and wetter enough for the compatible with life. Once Agency will send two rovers to promising sites are identified, we the surface to pave the way for a development of rivers, lakes and need to find out if there are any perhaps oceans. The atmosphere Mars Sample Return mission physical or chemical processes was thicker and the protective beyond 2020. It will be the first that could have destroyed mission to collect and return magnetic field was switched on. fossilised evidence, and finally samples from another planet. its Mars might be uninhabitable search for that evidence. scientific value will be enormous, today, but life would have been This is not easy, and this is possible in the past. This is "Salt and ice are excellent why the search is getting more why future missions will focus substrates to preserve life on the study of ancient sediments, ambitious, sophisticated and and there are salty and icy hoping to find fossilised evidence expensive. The Mars Science environments on Mars" oflife. Laboratory will launch this 28 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
but in the process it might swallow NASA's planetary budget for the decade. Is this the best strategy? I think not. Let's turn to our own planet for a second. On Earth, life is almost everywhere, but some places seem to be out of bounds. At first glance the Atacama desert in Chile and the Antarctic Dry Valleys appear lifeless, and until recently we thought they were. Atacama is the driest desert on Earth, with only an occasional shower every 10 years or so. The Antarctic Dry Valleys are the coldest deserts on Earth. Most of the water is frozen in the ground, and the little snow that falls sublimates before it can melt. In both places liquid water, the key ingredient for life, is extremely rare. These deserts are the closest analogues we have to the Martian surface and allow us to study what happens to life as environments become drier and colder. What happens is that life seeks refuge in niches where liquid water can still form, even if only for a short time every now and then. This occurs in two substrates, salts and ice. Salts absorb water vapour from the atmosphere and form liquid solutions at low relative humidities, a phenomenon called deliquescence. When ice is in contact with sediment particles, it melts and forms thin films of liquid water that are stable even at temperatures well below freezing. In other words, salts and ice expand the window of physical conditions in which liquid water is stable, and provide small habitable niches even when the
Comment on these stories at www.NewScientist.com/opinion
environment becomes generally uninhabitable. In the Atacama, where most ofthe water is in the atmosphere, life is found inside salt rocks, whereas in the Antarctic Dry Valleys it is found at the interface between ice or snow and sediments. It turns out that salt and ice are also excellent substrates for preserving life. Ancient salt and ice deposits on Earth contain organic compounds, complex biomolecules and even entire cells which have been preserved for millions of years. Hence, the last niches where life can retreat as an environment becomes drier and colder are also the niches where remnants oflife are better preserved- a stroke ofluck that plays in our favour. More good news: there are salty and icy environments on Mars. Large deposits of salts are widespread in the southern hemisphere; the northern polar cap has thick sequences of sediments and ice layers, and ground ice is near the surface at latitudes higher than 6oo in both hemispheres. If there has ever been life on Mars, these are the niches where it could have retreated as the planet made the transition from wet and warm to cold and dry. These are also the places where fossil life would be best preserved. And these should be the first places we go searching. This could be done with small, low-cost missions. A small rover or lander could provide unambiguous proofoflife, if equipped with technology to detect the complex biomolecules that are only synthesised by living organisms. The technology is readily available. A positive result would be a turning point in history. A negative result would be strong evidence against the presence of life and biomolecules anywhere on the planet. Not a small prize for a comparatively small investment. • Alfonso F. Davila is at the SETI Institute
One minute with . . .
Li ly Col e The campaigning model is helping to promote a pioneering elephant conservation project in India
You are best known from the world of fashion and film, so how did you come to be involved in elephant conservation ?
Through a friend, I got involved with the Emeralds for Elephants campaign for the conservation charity World Land Trust. They invited me to India, where they have been working with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) to establish corridors of land along traditional elephant migration routes. These corridors link national parks and other protected areas so that the elephants can walk the routes they have used for hundreds of years. Conflict between humans and animals is reduced by enabling local NGOs to buy land in the corridors and offering the villagers living there houses and larger plots of land nearby. On your visit to India you saw some of these land corridors. Are you convinced they are a good strategy for conservation?
In Kerala we visited an area within a corridor where a village had recently existed. The evidence of elephants moving through the area - cut markings on the trees, trampled gates suggested that ordinarily, there would have been conflict here between villagers and elephants. In India in the past decade, some 3200 people and 1150 elephants have died due to these conflicts. What about the social implications of moving an entire village? What did you see of this?
We met villagers who used to live in the corridors but who were now resettled locally through a WTI initiative. One man said how glad he was to be able to sleep with his family at night now. Before, he had to keep watch in case elephants came. Are there any other benefits for conservation
PROFILE
Actress and model Lily Cole was the youngest English model to appear on the cover of British Vogue. Last year she helped to launch the Emeralds for Elephants fund-raising exhibition for the conservation charity World Land Trust. She is studying the history of art at the University of Cambridge
What other memorable things did you see on your visit?
I was particularly affected by the extraordinary landscape of the Himalayas. It took my breath away and made me feel so appreciative of this wonderful planet we live on. I know it sounds hideously hippy, bit it reiterated to me how much trees need protecting. We depend on forests to survive, so it is quite unbelievable, when you consider it logically, how blindly we cut down many forests each day. I say "we", as I think we are globally accountable for deforestation, whether it is happening now or happened in the past.
from the creation of land corridors?
They are used by other wildlife, such as tigers and monkeys. It was fantastic to see these efforts, which benefit humans but also promote biodiversity and harmony between species. There is no reason for conflict between humans and animals if the wildlife and their patterns of living are understood and respected.
Celebrity involvement in environmental causes seems to be on the rise. Do you think it can make a difference?
The more paths that can be created towards the same destination - environmental sustainability the more hopeful it is that we will reach it . Interview by Roger Highfield
in Mountain View, California 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 29
OPIN ION LETTERS
Trials on trial From Mark Nelson, Chair, Discipline ofGeneral Practice, University ofTasmania School ofMedicine Osagie K. Obasogie's criticism of clinical trials contains a number of misleading assumptions, including the implication that a clinical trial is by definition a drug trial (22 January, p 24). Clinical trials provide the best evidence for efficacy, safety and cost -effectiveness of many interventions, be they behavioural change, surgery, screening or pharmaceuticals. The increase in the number of trials should be applauded, as they provide the evidence essential for clinical decision making. Obasogie's rhetorical question "Is it ever ethical to ask the most vulnerable members of our society to give their bodies to science?" is at best patriarchal. Such an attitude has left the most needy in society, including the
young and the old, bereft of clinical trial evidence. As a result, physicians are left to treat many patients based on little or no information on how their interventions will perform. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia From Tony Grace I find Obasogie's decision to link the human rights atrocities of the second world war to current practices in clinical trials objectionable. It seems to me an unsuitable attempt to introduce an emotional tone to the piece. He goes on to discuss the trial by Pfizer in Nigeria of"an experimental antibiotic on children, leading to 11 deaths". His phrasing suggests a causal relationship between the antibiotic and the deaths, but I am unaware of any evidence to support such an implication. Indeed, more children might have died if Pfizer had not intervened. With stringent safeguards, independent overview and strong sanctions in place against those
Enigma N umber 1634
Symphonic buttons ADRIAN SOMERFIELD I was playing with
my touch-tone phone to see whether I could play tunes, and I had just discovered that I could make a reasonable approximation to the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony by keying 8883 2221 (using a rhythm similar to the Morse code for "v v'': - ), when I dropped the phone and all the buttons 1 to 9 fell out. I pushed them back, but then saw that no button was in its correct •
• • -
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•
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
*
0
#
place. l did notice that the top three rows were now perfect squares. What buttons do I now press to play Beethoven's opening bars?
£15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 23 March. The Editor's decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1534, New Scientist Lacon House, 84 Theobald's Road, London WClX 8NS, or to
[email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1628 Power crazy: Susan Denham is 57 The winner Dan Carr, lnverurie, Aberdeenshire, U K
WIN
who fail to meet the rights of other human beings, it is ethical to ask vulnerable members of society to give their bodies to science. Many such people experience life-saving therapies during clinical trials which, unfortunately, may otherwise be unavailable to them. Canterbury, Kent, UK
Robot autonomy / TuiT
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From Chris Wood The idea that robots do only what their designers intend, as David Flint's letter assumes, is outdated (29 january, p 25). Even in the 1960s, when developing the GEORGE operating system, we sometimes tested what happened in certain circumstances and left things as they were ifthe results seemed reasonable, even if they hadn't been designed that way. Within this century, robots might become so complex that we need to start treating them like humans. In the next century, they may take this decision out of our hands. Would it be bad for the world to be run by the products of our brains, rather than those of our loins? Hohenbrunn, Germany
The future, now From Peter Stockdale Reading your editorial about futurology (25 December 2010, p 5) reminded me of a course I took in 1970 while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the
30 I NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
University of California. The theme was "California in 2000 AD", and speakers gave presentations on topics as diverse as hydrology, farming, urban planning, forestry and economics. I have been amazed at how accurate their forecasts were. The prediction of a world population for the year zooo of 6 billion, increasing at a billion per decade, proved close to the mark. More worrying was the prediction of a population crash when we reached 9 billion in the middle of this century. Despite the changes in climate and loss of biodiversity that we are seeing, our political leaders seem unable to bring about the necessary changes in how we treat our planet. Watch the world news on TV and you will see the future: it is Haiti. Enderby, British Columbia, Canada
Selfish scientists? From Nigel Depledge I must take issue with Sebastian Hayes's assertion that scientists take it for granted that their work should be funded regardless of its benefits to society at large (8 January, p 24). To support his case he cites the failure of scientific job adverts to mention any benefit to humanity of the work in question. I would challenge this argument, as such adverts are attempting to attract people who have already chosen to work in science. Self-interest may guide a scientist's career path when they are looking for a job, but it is not what brings people to science in the first place. If this were the only motivation, wouldn't they all have become lawyers and accountants? Hayes also proposes setting up workshops at which scientists answer questions from the public "where ordinary people can challenge researchers to justify the apparent absurdities of quantum mechanics and the
To join the debate. visit www.NewScientist.com/letters
theory of transfinite ordinals". Given that funding available for science is limited, would this be a good use of a researcher's time? Events at which scientists share their research with a lay audience would be a more valuable use for a science workshop than the one Hayes proposes. Spennymoor, County Durham, UK
epileptic seizures. He went on to suggest that he would like to have an NDE. I suffered a severe case of adult onset drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy, which ultimately required a partial temporal lobectomy. Based on my experiences, I would like to warn Nelson to be careful what he wishes for. Sticklepath, Devon, UK
Hearty eaters From Ray Johnstone You report a study which shows that the consumption of fruit is linked to a reduction in the incidence of heart disease, concluding that perhaps people should be encouraged to increase their intake (22 January, p 7). However, just because people who eat more fruit are healthier, it does not mean that overall health can be improved by promoting the consumption of fruit. It could be that people who eat a lot of fruit are intrinsically different to those who don't. In fact, a report by the Cochrane Collaboration entitled "Multiple risk factor interventions for primary prevention of coronary heart disease" finds that in reality education programmes and healthy-eating campaigns have "little or no impact on the risk of coronary heart disease mortality or morbidity", and that "the continued enthusiasm for health promotion practices given the failure of these community intervention trials is curious, especially given the huge resources which have been put into them." Nedlands, Western Australia
Dear beer From John Peisley Petra Meier states that generally "alcohol has become steadily cheaper", and suggests that the price of alcohol in pubs and bars has increased only slightly in real terms over the past 20 years (29 January, p 22). I have heard this a lot recently, though rarely supported by any convincing evidence. My experience shows the opposite. In 1972, a pint of beer in a London pub cost 10 pence. A similar pint now costs £3.20, which is 32 times as much. By way of comparison, my salary in 1972 was £4000 and is now £52,000. That represents a 13-fold increase. One has clearly increased by far more than inflation. London, UK
july 2010. It was described as a meteorite in the review of Ted Nield's book Incoming! (22 january, p 47), but did it in fact fall from space? An online report in The Telegraph dated 30 july 2010 suggests, less exotically, that the object probably fell from the undercarriage of a passing plane. London, UK
The vampire virus
of its own (29 january, p 28). If AI reaches a point where it is From Cedric Mims Rabies would make an interesting conscious, what will it make of addition to Paul Collins's excellent life, the universe and everything? piece on the basis for belief in AI, if not evolved by natural vampires (29 january, p 40 ). selection, might not be able to understand life. Our selection In the legends, those bitten by a vampire often became vampires tested neurology helps keep us sane; will AI of the future have themselves. It was undoubtedly some form of protective filtering the prevalence of diseases such as tuberculosis and syphilis in the of its own ideas? Without it, what machines say could be hard to late 19th century that supported understand and maybe even the idea of a contagious spread of vampirism. harder to accept. More recently, the Spanish Hull, East Yorkshire, UK neurologist juan Gomez-Alonso, inspired by a Dracula movie, suggested a link with rabies. Tau good to be true Since the disease has circulated in Europe since the 18th century and From Mark Hardy I applaud Michael Hartl's efforts is spread by bites from infected animals, he thinks it could have to promote tau (which is 2 pi, or 6.28318 ... ) as the definitive circle been behind the great surge in constant (8 January, p 23). vampire tales. The disease causes a number He advises that we use the of bizarre behavioural changes, necessary factor of 2 when some of which are not unlike converting between tau and pi, those a vampire is supposed to which seems straightforward display. What's more, the vampire enough. I do wonder, though, how many Mars probes may bat, no doubt the inspiration for be lost during the inevitable the host of stories in which vampires can transform into transition period. these animals, is one of the most Aurora, Illinois, US significant transmitters of rabies in the US. Letters should be sent to: Griffith, ACT, Australia
Near-death wish From Dave Goodwin In your interview with neuropsychologist Kevin Nelson (25 December 2010, p 8o), he omitted one scenario in which near-death experiences (NDEs) can occur: during temporal lobe
Meteorite mystery From Frank Sierowski There is some debate over the object that fell from the sky onto a cricket match in Sussex, UK, in
Artificial sanity From Alan Worsley Anil Ananthaswamy's exploration of artificial intelligence failed to consider what might happen when a computer gets a mind
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19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 31
OPINION INTERVIEW Photography: Mark Petermanfor New Scientist
Portrait of the psychopath ic brain When Kent Kiehl visits some of the most dangerous prisoners in US jails, he doesn't just go to talk. He's there to find out what's different about the way their brains work. H e tells Samantha M u rphy what insights this has revealed about the origins of psychopathic behaviour - and what they could mean for future treatment
How did you become interested in working with psychopathic criminals?
I wanted to know how some individuals come to be psychopaths. One thing that motivated me was that I grew up just down the street from the serial killer Ted Bundy. I was always fascinated that a person with a seemingly normal background - if there is such a thing could end up on that sort of trajectory. What symptoms lead to someone being classified a psychopath?
A lack of empathy, guilt and remorse; callousness, impulsivity, promiscuity, hot headedness and pathological lying, among others. Each of these traits is scored on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, which is compiled from an interview and an extensive background report. The scale goes from o to 40. The average prisoner scores 22. We consider a score of about 30 as indicating that someone meets the criteria for the disorder. When someone scores 34 or higher, we find that we are dealing with a person who is fundamentally out of the ordinary. It is palpable in their clinical presentation. They are completely different from other inmates. And it turns out that their brains are different too, both in structure and in function. What exactly have you found that makes them so different?
We have now done more than 1500 scans of prisoner volunteers, using a mobile fMRI (functional magnetic resonance) scanner. In general, what we find in the brains of individuals with psychopathy is that one or more aspects of the paralimbic system -
part of the brain involved in the processing of emotions and impulse control - is abnormal. Finding out that the brains of psychopaths are different shouldn't surprise anybody. Only now, with the help of the imaging studies, we have been able to describe how they are different. Why do you use prisoners as your subjects?
Individuals with psychopathy have a large impact on the criminal justice system. Between 15 and 35 per cent of prisoners in US jails meet criteria for the disorder, compared with about 1 per cent in the general population. Why is it so important to study psychopaths?
In most places in the US, the way we treat psychopaths is to incarcerate them. We put antisocial people with antisocial peers, and guess what happens? They get more antisocial. It's a system that doesn't work. The estimated social cost of crime in the US is $2.3 trillion a year, and psychopaths are thought to be responsible for 20 to 40 per cent of that. Imagine if you could treat or remediate psychopathy. You would be able to save billions of dollars per year. The goal here is to use the very best science to understand and treat some of the most enigmatic and complex personality disorders that are associated with the worst crimes, to hopefully be able to prevent them.
inmate who had killed people before and he still had a crew that was out in the community killing for hire. He was on a life sentence for one murder, but he told me in our interview about all the other people he had killed. A while later, he was charged with another murder and he told his cellmate that he suspected me of breaking confidence and ratting on him. So the police came to my house and said they wanted to put me in protective custody until everything got sorted out. It made for an interesting day. Eventually, his lawyer told him that one
Have you ever found yourself afraid of someone you worked with?
I wouldn't say I've been afraid, but there certainly are a few occupational hazards. There was one time I worked with an
32 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
"Most psychopaths have a glibness and a superficial charm to them"
For more interviews and to add your comments, visit www.NewScientist.com/opinion
PROFILE
Kent Kiehl is a principal investigator at the non profit Mind Research Network and an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. His research focuses on the neuroscience of mental illnesses, particularly criminal psychopathy
Is this true of all people with psychopathy? What about those who manage to forge successful careers?
Psychopathy, as I understand it, is not typically associated with long-term success. Rather, psychopaths normally get into so much trouble, are so impulsive and fail to consider how their behaviour impacts others, that it is unlikely they would become highly successful. Nevertheless, I don't think it is impossible for an individual with psychopathy to have a "successful" career. When one pictures a psychopath, the image is almost always of a man. What do we know about psychopathic behaviour in women?
My lab is undertaking the first ever brain imaging study of female psychopathy to be funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Clinically, we are finding that they do tend to present very similarly to the men, but that it is just so much less common to see it in females. It's estimated to be one tenth as common. We don't yet have a good understandingwhy it is so rare, but we're in the throes of finishing our first 100 brain scans of female offenders, so hopefully we'll be able to say more soon. How is a better understanding of psychopathy going to help us do something about it?
of his crew had squealed on him, so he told his cellmate that I could be trusted. Things like that can happen, but I'm generally comfortable working with prisoners. I've heard that psychopaths such as Ted Bundy
the person again, they'll often say: "I didn't want to talk about the old me; I thought I'd tell you about the new me." So, I definitely find them clinically interesting and sometimes even entertaining, but not somebody I'd want to be friends with.
are likeable people. Do you find this as well?
Well, most psychopaths have a glibness and a superficial charm to them. It does sometimes happen that, if we don't get a chance to read a case file before we do an interview, we might walk away thinking, "Wow, what a nice guy! I can't believe he's in here," because, basically he hasn't told you the truth about anything that has happened in his entire life. Then when we actually do get a chance to look at the file, it's like you are reading about a completely different person. When you see
Are all psychopaths dangerous?
No. There are probably many psychopaths out there who are not necessarily violent, but are leading very disruptive lives in the sense that they are getting involved in shady business deals, moving from job to job, or relationship to relationship, always using resources everywhere they go but never contributing. Such people inevitably leave a path of confusion, and often destruction behind them.
That's exactly the question: what medicines and/or therapies are likely to help? We certainly know that some forms of therapy have been shown to make psychopaths worse. Group therapy, for instance, in some studies has been shown to actually make psychopaths more likely to reoffend than if you didn't treat them at all. So it's critical that we identify the psychopathic offenders and put them in a treatment programme that is made for them. Do you have hope that psychopathy can be cured?
Absolutely. Brain imaging is just one tool to help us understand things. I don't think it's a panacea but it does help us to know that, yes, behaviour originates in the brain and yes, it's malleable and treatable. So there's a lot of hope. • 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 33
Eve n th e m ost m u Mo n day are a nyth n da n e features of a n avera g e tim e travel, in vis i n g b ut. Rog e r Hig hfield exp e rie nce s ib ili ty a n d myste ries galore 34 / N ewS cie nti st 1 1 9 Fe
bru a ry 2011
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COVER STORY
6.45am I'm fast asleep, lying motionless in bed. Or am I? In reality, I am voyaging through the cosmos at a tremendous speed. My home world rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. At the equator - a circle with a circumference of about 40,000 kilometres - people are moving at a speed of 465 metres per second relative to the centre of our Earth. Lying in my bed in London, my relative speed is more like 280 metres per second, says Mark Lovell at the Institute for Computational Cosmology in Durham, UK. I can go faster by taking a god-like view. Relative to the sun, I am travelling at 30 kilometres per second, while the solar system whirls around the heart of the Milky Way at a dizzying 210 kilometres per second. Yet the Milky Way is moving too. My ultimate frame of reference is the echo of the big bang, the cosmic microwave background radiation. Relative to it, my bed is moving at a speed of 6oo kilometres per second and I am hurtling towards the constellation Leo.
£ '1 (..!
7-30am Like the majority of creatures on the planet, from algae to fungi and mammals, the cells in my body synchronise with the 24-hour rotation ofthe planet by an elaborate network of proteins called the circadian clock. The circadian clock of cyanobacteria is made up of three proteins, whereas most of the cells in the human body rely on about 20 proteins which turn on and off their production by acting on the genes that encode them. Within these interconnected feedback loops, proteins precisely regulate their own production over a 24-hour cycle, says chrono-geneticist, Michael Hastings at the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Hastings says that it is possible to work out my "body time" by measuring the levels of a handful of these so-called clock proteins in a lab test. Proteins called Clock, Npas and Bmal boost gene expression, while others called Per and Cry dampen it down. Of course, it is much easier for me to check the time on my alarm clock.
\fV j e. mam Waking up con be the h"d"t part afthe day and th"e'< g�d reason for it. Biological clocks tick in every cell of my body but the master ( �clock that orchestrates them sits in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) deep
�
0 �-
within my brain, near where my optic nerves cross. The SCN is made up oftwo tiny clusters of several thousand nerve cells and the molecular clocks that tick within them are set by external cues, such as mealtimes, light and darkness. My body's morning wake-up signal is transmitted from my SCN to specialised nerves called perifornical orexin neurons. These prepare my body for the day ahead by organising a shot ofblood-glucose from my liver, followed by a surge in stress hormones such as cortisol and aldosterone, explains Eric Fliers, a hormone and sleep specialist at the University of Amsterdam's Academic Medical Centre, the Netherlands. The orexin neurons also activate the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system, triggering increases in muscle tone, blood pressure and metabolism as I drag myself from horizontal to vertical.
>
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 35
7-45am Understanding my body clock reveals why I would rather lie in at the start of the working week: the average circadian clock runs 10 to 20 minutes slower than a day. This is not an issue during the working week, but after a weekend of allowing my body clock to overrule my alarm clock, getting up for work at the usual time is equivalent to an early start of about an hour, says Andries Kalsbeek of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam. The implications go beyond simple grogginess. In 2008 Imre Janszky of Karolinska Institute and Rickhard Ljung of the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, both in Stockholm, found that more heart attacks occur on the first three days after the transition to daylight-saving time in spring, when people have to drag themselves out of bed an hour earlier (The New England Journal ofMedicine, V0l 359, p 1966).
7-50am Relativity's effects on time are most pronounced near light speed or in the presence of crushing gravitational fields. Yet the pace of time even changes a little as soon as I get out of bed. Einstein's general theory of relativity says that time slows down as gravity strengthens. So clocks run a little slower on Earth's surface, where the planet's gravitational pull is greater, than in orbit. In bed, of course, my head and feet are at the same height and consequently experience the same gravitational field. However, when I roll out of bed there is relative time travel between my head and my feet because Earth's pull differs. As a result, we all have a slightly older head on a slightly younger body. Setnam Shemar at the UK's National Physical Laboratory in Teddington calculates that ifl stand up for about 14 hours a day then, given my height of1.87 metres, my head experiences an extra 10·12 seconds per day. So over a lifetime of So years, my head will have aged 300 nanoseconds more than my feet.
After a q u i ck shake, the Brazil n uts will
be at the
top of the jar
8.1sam Breakfast time and I reach for a new packet of muesli. Paradoxically, I find that the heavier nuts have congregated at the top ofthe packet. For decades, physicists have been debating gravity-defying nuts, partly because they seem a nifty way to create order from disorder and partly because industrial engineers always fret about the "unmixing" of grains or powders in factory processes. Known as the Brazil nut problem, the puzzle seemed to be solved in 1987 when Anthony Rosato at the New jersey Institute of Technology in Newark suggested that when a nut rose it created an opportunity for smaller oat flakes to infiltrate the gap. By contrast, several oat flakes would have to shift to make way for a nut to fall - a relatively unlikely event (Physical Review Letters, vol 58, p 1038). So case closed? Not according to Sidney Nagel ofthe University of Chicago, who has long been fascinated by the physics ofthe humdrum, from the messy tendrils of honey to coffee rings. Nagel believes that shaking a box of muesli causes both oats and nuts to rise to the top of the packet. Further shaking leads to the oats sliding down the side of the packet, but because there isn't enough room for the larger nuts to do so, the Brazil nuts are marooned on top. Even Nagel is hesitant to claim the Brazil nut problem is solved. "Every time we think we have it all understood, something comes along to knock us out of our complacency," he warns.
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8.45am. My train to work is running late. As a neighbouring train moves off, I have the uncanny feeling that I am moving backwards. I don't think much about it this is a well-known illusion of apparent motion, called vection- and begin to mull over the weekend's events. What is more surprising is that there is a link between the way I think and my apparent motion. Neil Macrae and Lynden Miles at the University of Aberdeen, UK, probed the daydreams of undergraduates as they gazed at a screen where stars seemed to zoom either towards or away from them, corresponding to the experience of forward and backward vection, respectively. They found that backward vection tends to make us think about events from the past, while forward vection prompts "future-oriented thinking". The team argues that the effects would be amplified with real movement, rather than simulated, and that this shows how the higher faculties of the brain are grounded in more primitive areas that deal with movement and the senses. As I move forward at last, I start to wonder: could this be why so many successful people like to drive fast cars?
g.]oam As I stroll out of the subway station, it begins to rain. With no umbrella, and the New Scientist office a good few hundred metres away, I am faced with a dilemma: will I get less wet ifl run to work instead of walking? This question has long vexed researchers. Calculations published in 199S by meteorologists at the University of Reading in the UK concluded that running is not worth the bother (Weather, vol so, p 367) . That view was challenged by two others caught in a downpour during a jog through the southern Appalachian forest near Asheville, North Carolina. Thomas Peterson and Trevor Wallis, who worked at the US National Climatic Data Center, decided that the original paper was wanting (Weather, vol sz, p 93). From their study they concluded that a runner would typically catch just 30 to so per cent of the water falling on a walker. The largest benefits are to be had when it is windy and the rain is heavy - exactly when people are most likely to run. I make a dash for cover.
9-45am As I slump, breathless, in my office I look up at the clock on my wall and, much to my surprise, it seems to take a little longer than a second for a single tick to pass. This delay is "real" in the sense that I am genuinely experiencing it. The phenomenon reveals how my brain edits my perception oftime, says psychologist Kielan Yarrow of City University London. During the time it takes my eyes to swivel and focus on the clock, the brain cuts off my vision so I am not distracted by movement blur. My brain then adds on the time taken to move the eyes to the next stable image so there is no gap in my conscious visual experience. But, rather than starting the perception when my eyes rest on the clock face, my brain extends my perception of what I see backwards in time by so milliseconds, to the moment before I started to move my eyes, so a second on the clock can seem fractionally longer. This is far from being the only kind of mental time travel I experience in a normal day.
10.45am. By mid-morning I am eager for a fix ofthe world's most popular drug, that insect neurotoxin popularly known as caffeine. And, yes, it really does take longer for the kettle to boil, if I watch it, due to the time-warping effects that attention has on the beat of a timer in my head. Warren Meek, a neuroscientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, studies how this biological stopwatch measures intervals in the seconds to minutes range, which is crucial for all kinds of tasks, such as figuring out ifl have enough time to cross a road safely or listening to music and timing the duration of my vowels and consonants as I speak (Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vo/ 6, p 7SS) . The level of nerve activity in my cortex oscillates and this rhythmic pattern of beats is picked up by the striatum, a region of the brain that is associated with reward. "The frequency of this 'beating' is governed by our level of anxiety and it is also influenced by the amount of attention that we pay to the clock," he says. So things we want to happen as quickly as possible seem to take forever because > we're more concerned about them. 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 37
1.30pm I encounter an additional form oftime travel as I nip out to a press conference at an unfamiliar venue. The journey there seems to take significantly longer than my trip back to the office. Amitav Chakravarti at New York University has found that this effect is real. "The idea of how long a journey takes has to do with subjective feelings of when a journey is 'well under way' and when you are 'almost there'," he says. On my outward journey I encounter familiar landmarks, such as shops, buildings, the subway station and so on, so I initially feel as if I am making less progress. Only when I leave the familiar, do I feel that the journey is well under way. And I don't feel that I'm almost there until I'm virtually at the venue. The opposite is true on the journey home: as soon as I leave the venue, I feel that I am making progress. And this time, the appearance of familiar sights tells me that I'm almost home.
2pm I decide to enjoy a light lunch of boiled egg and toast. Well-cooked eggs give me a chance to impress onlookers with a gravity defying trick. Spin a hard-boiled egg on its side and if you spin it fast enough, it will stand up and spin on its end (see video at bit.ly/hy7vzN). It took two substantial papers by Keith Moffatt and Michal Branicki at the University of Cambridge and Yutaka Shimomura at Keio University in Yokohama, Japan, to show why (Proceedings ofthe Royal Society A, vol 460, p 3643 and vol 461, p 1753, respectively). The secret is to work out how a spinning egg converts a frictional force that acts in the same horizontal plane as the table into a vertical force that lifts the egg. The answer lies with the Corio lis effect, which deflects objects moving in a rotating frame of reference. It's this effect that largely controls the circulation of Earth's atmosphere and oceans. In the same way, the Coriolis effect converts the frictional force into a turning force that lifts the egg to vertical. The trick occurs only when the egg is hard-boiled because the energy you supply in spinning a raw egg is dissipated immediately by the sloshing fluid inside. Still, the magic egg effect has not been completely cracked. We don't understand why it is so much harder to coax a soft-boiled egg to do the same trick. And theory fails to explain why a rapidly spinning egg makes tiny jumps during its relentless rise, though Shimomura speculates that they may be caused by imperfections on the surface where the egg spins.
"Spin a hard boiled egg fast enough and it w i l l seem to d efy g ravity"
2.10pm As I lift my buttered toast to my mouth, I drop it and, alas, it lands buttered-side down, just as Murphy's law predicts. Detailed calculations ofthe dynamics oftumbling toast made by Robert Matthews of Aston University in Birmingham, UK, have shown that this depressing tendency is no urban myth. Neither does it have anything to do with the smear of butter, the weight of the toast or its aerodynamic properties. The critical factor is height alone - the toast sliding off a plate spins so slowly that only if it falls from heights above 3 metres does it have much chance of landing buttered-side up (European Journal ofPhysics, vol 16, p 172). Matthews has confirmed his theory by having 1000 children push toast offplates more than 21,000 times in a mass experiment backed by the UK's Department of Education and a butter manufacturer.
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It's not just Murphy's law at work, but the laws of physics too
•
' "" 5.30pm The world has turned since I got out of bed. Now it's dusk and the inhibitory proteins in my circadian clock, notably Per and Cry, have reached their peak. These proteins turn down the production of Clock, Npas and Bmal which are so active during the day and prepare my body for the passing of another full rotation of the Earth. Deep in my brain, the SCN takes this body-clock information and passes it to the pineal gland, which secretes melatonin. The hormone tells the cells and organs of my body that it is night. I begin to feel tired.
6.30pm I cross the road on the way back to the subway and ponder why the ground feels so solid when I know that matter is actually 99-9999999999999 per cent empty space. The positively charged nucleus of an atom, where almost all of its mass resides, has a radius of 10·15 metres, while the entire atom is 10·10 metres across. Peter Coveney of University College London explains that the "empty space" in atoms, while empty of mass, carries the negative electrical charge of the point-like electrons within each atom. The negative electric charge on the outside of the atoms in the road exerts a repulsive force on the negative charge of the atoms in the soles of my shoe. "That you don't fall through the ground is testimony to the incredible strength of intermolecular forces," says Coveney.
3pm Even something as straightforward as a stroll in the sunshine after lunch is a thing of wonder. Everyone knows that it takes a little over 8 minutes for light to cover the distance from our local fusion reactor, the sun, to E arth. But the real story of sunlight is even stranger. It actually takes many millennia for light to escape from the sun in the first place, according to Louise Harra at University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. The outward flow of photons from the core to the surface of the sun around 70o,ooo kilometres away would take less than 3 seconds if the path was clear. However, the flow is continually blocked by collisions because the sun is extremely dense near its heart. The photons travel only a fraction of a centimetre between collisions, slowing them tremendously. "Overall it takes 170,000 years to get through the interior," says Harra.
Bpm I have a bowl of soup for a snack and it is striking how the croutons tend to clump together, making it much easier to eat them. Dubbed the Cheerios effect, this phenomenon applies to anything that floats, including bubbles on beer and the eponymous cereal. A review of explanations for the effect came in zoos from Dominic Vella, now at the University of Oxford, and Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan of Harvard University. Mahadevan enjoys applying mathematics to everyday life, from equations to describe the cut of a suit to what happens as paint dries (American Journal ofPhysics, vol 73, p 817) It turns out that croutons, like Cheerios, disrupt the cohesive forces between molecules on the surface of the liquid. In the case of Cheerios, the Os create tiny depressions in the milk's surface which cause them to drift towards each other. They also tend to clump against the edges of a clean bowl because the milk molecules are more strongly attracted to the molecules on the bowl's surface than they are to other milk molecules. This extra attraction pulls the Cheerios to the side of the bowl. My snack is telling me that pockets of additional attraction can emerge even when the forces between particles are the same in all directions, "something which is not obvious to everybody", says Arshad Kudrolli of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Galaxies cluster by an analogous mechanism, through the action of gravity. It is humbling to > think that the cosmos is a little like my bowl of soup. 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 39
I wipe my soup bowl clean and shudder as I recall a study that showed that about 100 million bacteria lurk in a typical dishcloth. Many are rod-shaped bacteria that originate from faeces. In fact there are more faecal bacteria, such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella, in my kitchen sink than in the toilet bowl after I flush it. "That's probably why dogs drink out of the toilet," jokes Chuck Gerba at the University of Arizona in Tucson {Journal of Applied Microbiology, vol 85, p 8tg). The culprit is mostly bacteria originating from raw meat. "These bacteria enter via the food supply and then multiply in the wet and moist environment in the kitchen," says Gerba. My sink carries the ultimate domestic biological weapons. "The object in the house with the most faecal bacteria and total bacteria is the kitchen sponge or dishcloth." Gerba advises me to make liberal use of bleach. 8.2opm
8-4opm As I settle to watch a DVD of Apocalypse Now, I remember an old friend telling me that Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece on the Vietnam war actually contains more continuity errors than any other movie he could think of. I still struggle to spot any ofthese howlers at all. Why? This is a prime example of"change blindness", according to Dan Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and co-author of The Invisible Gorilla (Harper Collins, 2010 ). "Many people are convinced they regularly notice such errors," he says, but in reality, we actually notice very few ofthem. Simons has gathered some remarkable evidence to show that it is possible to look at something without seeing it. In one experiment he carried out with Daniel Levin of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, a stranger asked people walking across a college campus for directions. During the resulting conversation, two men carrying a wooden door passed between the stranger and the subjects. Half of those tested failed to notice that as the door passed, the stranger had been replaced with a man wearing different clothes and of a different height and build. My change blindness occurs because it is not possible to perceive and remember all of the details of the world around me. Many howlers in films are continuity errors where items in one scene disappear, move or change colour in subsequent scenes. In the case of Apocalypse Now, perhaps my limited visual memory did not retain enough details between scenes to reveal the howlers, never recorded them in the first place, or simply did not compare them.
Even without the d i rty dishes, it is filthier than a freshly flushed toilet
11.2opm Before I go to bed, I pick up an old
issue ofNew Scientistto help research this feature. I think that both of my eyes focus on one part of the text but, in fact, my right and left eyes often focus on different parts of words, according to psychologist Simon Liversedge at the University of Southampton, UK, who has performed sophisticated eye-tracking studies. And although I think that my eyes are moving smoothly across the text, that is an illusion, he says: "When you read, you make a series of fixations interspersed with fast movements of the eyes called saccades." During a saccade my eyeballs swivel by between 2 and 5 degrees, over an interval of 30 to so milliseconds. The fixations that I use to read take up to 250 milliseconds (Psychological Bulletin, vol 134, p 742). My brain suppresses the confusing blur of words during a saccade, only collecting visual information at the start and end. It then integrates these snapshots to provide me with the sensation of a "smooth flow" of words and delivers them to my language processing system, via the visual cortex at the back of my head.
40 I NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
M.•tcwlA-4' . M.A �a.-- aJ 11.40pm Editing my vision is notthe only way my brain tricks me during my bedtime reading. Even though I have two eyes, and so two views of the page, I only perceive one world. To achieve this Cyclopean view, my visual system must coordinate the input of the two eyeballs precisely and systematically and then process it, says Mark Changizi, director of human cognition at the 2AI Labs in Boise, Idaho, and author of the Vision Revolution (Ben Bella, 2009 ). This is easy for me to investigate. I shut one eye and see that my nose alone takes up a considerable portion of my view. When I re-open that eye, it becomes obvious that my nose is actually transparent - I can gaze through it to the world beyond. In fact, says Changizi, I am seeing the future too. From the time light hits my eye, it takes one-tenth of a second for the brain to perceive it. "Your brain actually generates a perception of what the world will look like in a tenth of a second. You don't see reality but a construct, one which evolved to help you to survive."
"Even though I'm lying motionless, I'm hurtling at great speed through the cosmos"
11.45pm While I sit in bed and stir my bedtime cocoa, armies of microscopic machines in my body go marching. The machines are a family of protein motors called myosins that turn chemical energy into motion. Inside my nerves, for example, myosin V walks around on two "legs" along tracks called actin filaments, though their 74-nanometre stride is less than a 10-millionth of my own. In my muscles, myosin II forms filaments of around 300 molecules which also walk, like a millipede, along the actin filaments to make my muscles contract. Each myosin molecule can develop a force of a couple of piconewtons this way, according to Robert Cross at the University of Warwick in the UK. "Lifting a 40-gram spoon means that in your arm an additional two million million myosin molecules are working as a team," he says. Many more molecular machines take part in the serious business of keeping me alive, to open and close my eyelids, dilate my irises, help me to hear by sensing the motion of hair cells in my inner ear and, as I yawn, squeeze air out of my alveoli to move my vocal chords to generate a satisfied sigh.
11.55pm As I stretch and yawn before I succumb to sleep, I remember that there are plenty of ideas around to explain why I yawn. They include brain cooling, improving attention by helping us draw in more oxygen, synchronising our mood with others. Another suggestion is that baring teeth during a yawn evolved as a way of protection from predators intent on ambushing a drowsy foe. There are many more. No one is sure which explanation, or combination of explanations, is the right one. I close my eyes, satisfied that deeper understanding does not diminish life, but instead amplifies my sense of awe. • Roger Highfield
is the editor of New Scientist
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 41
The photosynthetic machinery i n p lants is hopelessly outmoded . U pdating it could boost yields to u n precedented levels, as Bob Holmes d iscovers
B l I on -yea r u pg rade 42 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
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Food production has been hit by heatwaves and floods
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prices are at an all-time high right now. And although they are unlikely to stay that way, the long-term outlook is clear. From an increasingly rich population in Asia demanding more meat to the weather growing ever wilder, there are many reasons to think the days of cheap food are over. So the focus is once again turning to ways to boost crop yields, just like so years ago, and a few biologists have grand plans for achieving this. Instead of tinkering around with the body, like conventional breeders, they want to upgrade the engine. Plants pirated the machinery they use for photosynthesis from bacteria more than a billion years ago. The same machinery is found in every single plant today, from tiny insect eating sundews to colossal redwood trees- and it has barely changed. For all the architectural complexity that plants have evolved, they are still powered by the same engine they have had from the beginning. That's a bit like building a modern aircraft carrier and powering it with a Victorian steam engine. By contrast, while photosynthetic bacteria don't look like they have changed much, some have made big improvements under the hood. They can convert carbon dioxide into food far more efficiently than most plants, and many are also able to make their own nitrogen fertiliser. If crop plants could be upgraded with just some of the improved machinery found in modern bacteria, agriculture could be revolutionised once again. The story begins about one-and-a-half billion years ago, when photosynthetic bacteria were enslaved by a more complex cell. The descendants of those bacteria lost their ability to live independently and evolved into the cellular solar power stations known as chloroplasts. There is one amoeba whose "chloroplasts" evolved from a modern cyanobacterium around 6o million years ago, but the chloroplasts in all algae and plants derive from a single ancient cyanobacterium. Why does this matter? Think ofthe countless cyanobacteria living in the sea. If a mutation enables one cyanobacterium to photosynthesise more efficiently, it will grow
and reproduce faster, and its descendants could come to dominate a population within weeks. The rampant gene-swapping among simple cells means other kinds of bacteria could acquire this trait too. Now suppose that same mutation occurs in a chloroplast in a plant. It might not be beneficial in plants, as what is good for chloroplasts can be bad for the host cell. Even if the mutation is beneficial, the odds are the chloroplast is in a leaf that will fall to the ground and die. And even if the mutation occurs in a cell that eventually gives rise to a new plant, the much slower reproduction rate of plants means it will take many decades for the mutation to spread through a population. These differing rates of evolution perhaps explain why, as levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fell over the past billion years, cyanobacteria evolved an elegant means to adapt to this change, while plants only managed a costly compromise.
Primordial air Plants need C02 for making food via photosynthesis. They add this C02 to another molecule, using an enzyme called rubisco, and by doing this over and over again, plants acquire the carbon needed to make sugars, proteins and fats. When photosynthesis evolved around 2 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere contained lots ofC02 and no oxygen. It did not matter that rubisco is in fact happy to grab either C02 or oxygen- and when it grabs oxygen it destroys food instead of making it. As C02 levels fell and oxygen levels rose, though, this unwanted reaction became ever more common, making photosynthesis less and less efficient. As rubisco's wayward tendencies became a serious handicap, cyanobacteria evolved a way to increase C02 levels within their cells up to a thousandfold, recreating the ancient C02-rich atmosphere rubisco evolved in. They do this The solar power stations in cells are the descendants of ancient bacteria
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 43
'These a re seri ously a m b itious schemes fo r boosti ng food p ro d u cti o n . We've g ot to try them"
CHAM BERS OF S ECRETS The textbooks will tell you that bacteria are not much more than bags of chemicals. In fact, many contain protein-walled microcompartments. By concentrating chemicals in these reaction chambers, the speed of certain processes - such as capturing C02 during photosynthesis (see main story) - can be greatly increased. Microcompartments can also protect cells by keeping toxic by-products contained until they can be converted into harmless forms. They are essentially tiny factories within cells - and their potential is making big industries pay attention. Researchers have already begun creating bacteria with customised microcompartments designed to carry out novel reactions. For example, Todd Yeates, a structural biologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, is trying to encapsulate all the enzymes required to produce butanol, a potential biofuel. This should help keep intermediate products in the pathway from leaching away and so increase the reaction's efficiency, he says. Martin Warren at the University of Kent has already achieved this with another simple biofuel, though he is unwilling to give further details until the work has been published. Our imagination is the only limit on the possibilities, Warren says. "I don't think people have realised just how easy and manipulatable these things are."
by putting the enzyme inside tiny internal compartments called carboxysomes. Unlike the membrane-bound organelles found in plant and animal cells, these microcompartments are made out of proteins and have regular geometrical shapes, like the shells of viruses. The beauty of carboxysomes is thatwhile it is difficult for C02 to escape from them, bicarbonate ions - formed when C02 reacts with water - can diffuse in. Inside them is another enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, that converts bicarbonate back into C02• C02 levels in carboxysomes are boosted still further by transport proteins in the outer membranes of the cyanobacteria. These actively pump bicarbonate ions and C02 into the cell. Most likely, cyanobacteria evolved these mechanisms just 400 to 350 million years ago. The amount of C02 in the atmosphere plummeted during this time, as plants spread across the land. Green plants took another direction. They evolved a slightly different form of rubisco that is less likely to grab oxygen. The catch is that it also works far more slowly, so plants have to pack their chloroplasts with vast quantities of the enzyme to keep photosynthesis ticking along at a reasonable rate. A quarter ofthe nitrogen plants need is used just to make rubisco. "Crop plants may have missed the boat in terms of getting some of the advanced carbon-dioxide-concentrating mechanisms that cyanobacteria have," says Dean Price, a plant molecular biologist at Australian National University in Canberra. Some plants have evolved something similar, though, although it is not as efficient. In the past 20 million years or so, as levels of C02 fell to new lows, a few found a way to concentrate C02 using a process called C4 photosynthesis. Two important crops, maize and sorghum, are C4 plants, and a big effort is now under way to transfer this trait to other crop plants such as wheat and rice (New Scientist, 14 September 2010, p 40). Price and his colleagues are taking a different approach. They are now working to upgrade the chloroplasts of crop plants with cyanobacterial innovations. The quickest way to do this is just to add some of the bicarbonate pumps to chloroplasts. In plants, C02 merely diffuses through the chloroplast membranes, so active chloroplasts can have 20 per cent less C02 than the rest of the cell. Two of the pumps, SbtA and BicA, are each encoded by a single gene and so should be relatively easy to transfer. "We think it's doable," Price says. "It's just a matter of having enough funds to try enough options."
44 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
If Price and his team succeed - and he thinks they will within three years - that single small upgrade could boost photosynthetic rates by between 15 and 25 per cent, he calculates. "These are the sorts of numbers that make plant breeders quite interested," he says. "They're interested in 3 to 5 per cent, so if we can get 15 per cent, that would make a big difference."
Grand goal The grander goal is to engineer the whole carbon-concentrating mechanism of modern cyanobacteria into chloroplasts. This would involve adding at least eight or nine genes to chloroplasts: about five for the proteins that form the carboxysomes themselves, plus those for transport proteins and carbonic anhydrase. They might also have to add the bacterial version ofrubisco and turn off carbonic anhydrase elsewhere in the chloroplast, to prevent it from turning hard won bicarbonate into C02 before it gets into carboxysomes. "There's a lot that has to be just right for this to work," Price says. "Some of the proteins are required in very small amounts and others in very large amounts. It's a question of getting all those balances right." In theory, though, it is simpler than converting plants to C4 photosynthesis, which might require tweaks to hundreds of genes. Price's team is starting by adding carboxysomes to the lab favourite, the Escherichia coli bacterium, which is easy to work with. Once they have done that, they will try to do the same with another lab standard, tobacco. Only then will they be ready to try it in crop plants. "It could happen very quickly or it could take a long time," Price says. So far, nobody has built a carboxysome from scratch. But Martin Warren, a synthetic biologist at the University of Kent, UK, and his colleagues have assembled another kind of protein microcompartment from scratch in E. coli. They have even managed to get the cell to deliver a fluorescent jellyfish protein to their construct and plan to use their tailor-made microcompartment to carry out industrially important reactions (see "Chambers of secrets", left). Their success strongly suggests that building a carboxysome is also feasible, says Warren. "I don't see it as being problematic. If anything, it should be slightly easier, because there are fewer subunits," he says. Some people are not so sure, however. Perhaps the reason green plants have never
Record spikes in food prices have contributed to unrest in many countries in the past two years
at the University of California at San Diego. What is understood, though, is how bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen, so genetic engineers are now considering adding the genes involved directly to plants. The chloroplast is the obvious place to put them. For one thing, cyanobacterial nitrogen-fixing genes might work best in this setting. "You're essentially putting bacterial genes in a bacterial system," says Eric Triplett, a microbiologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
juggling act
Record h i g hs The prices of basic foodstuffs are expected to fall from the current peak by 2012, weather and harvests allowing, but the underlying upward trend looks set to continue 250
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evolved anything like carboxysomes, says Andreas Weber, a plant biochemist at Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf, Germany, is that they do not work in plants for reasons we may be about to discover. Weber is optimistic about the prospects for another kind of upgrade -changing how plants obtain nitrogen. The element is vital for making protein and thus for growth, but most plants can only get nitrogen by absorbing whatever nitrogen compounds happen to be in the soil. This is why farmers usually have to add expensive nitrogen fertilisers, which damage the environment in many ways, including by increasing
emissions of a potent greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide. If crops could get nitrogen directly from the atmosphere instead, like some groups of bacteria and cyanobacteria, the benefits would be huge. Of course some plants, notably beans and peas, already exploit nitrogen-fixing bacteria by housing them in nodules in their roots. Can't we just get these symbiotic bacteria to associate with a wider range of crops? The problem is, no one is sure how to achieve this. "It would take a long time to understand all the genes necessary to have a symbiotic association with a higher plant," says james Golden, a molecular microbiologist
Better still, chloroplasts already produce several enzymes closely related to those used in nitrogen fixation. Borrowing these components could greatly reduce the number of genes that need to be added to just eight or so. "That's still a lot, but it's less than the 20 we used to think," says Triplett. The catch, and it's a big one, is that the key enzyme in the nitrogen-fixation reaction nitrogenase - is destroyed by oxygen, yet photosynthesis produces oxygen. The problem is so serious that in some filament forming cyanobacteria, one in every 10 cells or so turns off photosynthesis and specialises in fixing nitrogen- a rare step towards multicellularity in bacteria. However, a few bacteria, such as Azotobacter, perform a more delicate juggling act. They fix nitrogen at night and during the day they chemically convert their nitrogenase to an inactive form that is not destroyed as oxygen levels rise during the day. It might be possible to attach a molecular "timer" to nitrogen-fixing genes that could then be inserted into a chloroplast, Golden says. Alternatively, the genes could be activated only in root tissues where photosynthesis does not occur. The possibility of creating crop plants that produce their own fertiliser in this way is more than just idle speculation. At least one major company is already trying to engineer nitrogen-fixing enzymes into crop plants, says Ray Dixon, a molecular biologist at the john Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, though he cannot reveal any details. The billion-year upgrade is a few years away at best, but if it happens, the pay-off could be as great as that of the Green Revolution in the 1960s. "These are seriously ambitious schemes," says Dixon. "You've got to try them." • Bob Holmes is a consultant for New Scientist based in Edmonton, Canada
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 45
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46 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
Keeping up e-ppearances Resto ri n g you r reputation i n the i nternet age can feel i m possib le. So how ca n you go a bout it asks Sally Adee
HE mistake that left my online reputation in tatters began with some innocent office banter. It was 2003, and I was working as an office drone. Bored out of our minds, a colleague and I gossiped over email about the goings-on in the women's restroom. (I'll spare you the details.) Tickled by the exchanges, my partner in crime published the emails on her friend's website. We soon forgot about it. Four years later, I qualified as a journalist and began to build what I hoped would be a Pulitzer-studded career. Then, one day, in an act of narcissism all too common among journalists: I googled myself. And my heart stopped. Instead oflinks to stories I had written, I saw a list of pornographic websites. Further investigation revealed that our juvenile exchange about the women's restroom had proved titillating to an unexpected audience, and had found its way onto a coterie of fetish sites. Goodbye Pulitzer. My situation was uniquely humiliating, but I am not alone in feeling helpless about how my identity is presented online. Most people have stumbled across nasty surprises about themselves on the internet, be it an embarrassing photo, a record of a youthful indiscretion or even an entirely false claim. Thankfully, there are ways to restore your online reputation. While you might think that reducing your internet presence is the way to go, you'd be wrong. The key to managing your reputation is to spend more time online, not less. The advocates of this approach argue that polishing your online persona could soon join healthy eating and exercise in your arsenal of everyday life-maintenance chores. So how exactly do you go about it? We have been cultivating our social status ever since our primate ancestors picked bugs
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off each others backs to curry favour. The advent of the internet has made managing our reputation a lot harder, however, not least because it has transformed the way information about us circulates within our social circles and beyond. Consider, for example, an experiment designed to explore how much information people are willing to share online, which was conducted by a team led by Bernardo Huberman of the Information Dynamics Laboratory at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in California. He set up a mock auction, but with a twist. Participants had to bid to persuade others in their group to reveal their true weight something which many people would rather not confess to freely. Huberman found that low bids were more likely to be accepted when the bidder was a similar weight (IEEE Security
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"We are losing our abil ity to present separate selves o n l i ne, something many of us haven't adapted to yet" and Privacy, DOl: 10.nog/MSP.2005.137). The message? If you think you are among peers, you will share details you might normally consider private. Though Huberman's experiment wasn't online, it is salient for online social networks, where it can feel like you are only conversing with close peers. Yet this is often illusory. Many of us share highly personal information over the internet without appreciating that it could reach a much wider audience, and is very often permanent. In the real world, we can compartmentalise our
separate identities: you can have one identity at work and another when socialising at the pub with friends, for example. Such boundaries disappear online, however. The cross-pollination of all our different selves is known as context collapse among social scientists, says Alice Marwick of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge. We are losing the ability to present these separate selves online, something many of us haven't adapted to yet. For some very unlucky folk, the fallout has been public and unpleasant (see "Bad Reputation", page 49) Maybe the solution is to stay anonymous online. After all, if you hide behind a pseudonym like Spacegirl, you are safe, right? Not always, says Paul Resnick, a computer scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who studies online reputations. .
Digital trail Resnick set u p a n experiment where participants could converse online under pseudonyms. He found that if people were told they were speaking anonymously, they were more willing to share extremely personal information - the kind that would negatively affect their reputation were it attached to their name. "They shared their weight, pictures of all the food they had eaten, and a lot of their struggles," he says. But such information can easily be linked to you, says Resnick. Consider the fate of the customers ofNetflix, a US online video rental firm. Film suggestions are Netflix's bread and butter; their movie recommendation program anticipates the wishes of customers. In 2006, the company launched a contest with a $1 million prize to find the best improvement to its system. Netflix gave the 51,000 entrants a database of half a million customers, which included people's rental history. Don't worry about customer privacy, said Netflix, we have anonymised it. To show Netflix's folly, Arvind Narayanan and Vitaly Shmatikov at the University of Texas, Austin, got the database and cross referenced it with reviews posted on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). This allowed them to identify almost all of the names of specific individuals, and then infer things like political affiliation and sexuality from their movie choices. "Netflix wanted to make a better recommender engine," says Michael Fertik, who runs Reputation.com, a firm based in Redwood City, California, that manages online reputations. "And they just knocked a > bunch of people out oft he closet." 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 47
Protect i n g yo u r v i rt u a l vi rtue Un less your case i s serious, improving your online reputation i s easier than you think
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48 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
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Such gathering and cross-referencing of personal information is increasingly being automated. For example, a company called Spokeo in Mountain View, California, uses a program called a scraper to scour the web for information about you, and combines what it finds with public records. For a fee, anybody can then view a single profile about you sucked from online social networks, photo albums and mailing lists, very often next to your address, census data and even the value of your house (visit spokeo.com/privacy to remove your profile if you don't want it there).
Teenage tricks So what can be done to seize back control of your rep? Perhaps surprisingly, the first place to look for inspiration is the social network profiles of the younger generations. While often portrayed as having a carefree attitude to privacy, many teenagers are using social networking to actively promote themselves. Marwick and Darrah Boyd of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society are midway through a study of the Face book profiles of high-school students, and have so-far found that many teenagers adapt their profiles to appeal to prospective universities. Instead of stereotypical teenage pursuits, these students are highlighting wholesome events such as their tennis matches. "They're revealing only their most college-friendly selves," Marwick says. It is not just teenagers who are actively promoting their online selves. Marwick believes personal PR is becoming more common among all age groups. It is well known that public figures and corporations use social networking to market their brand, and now many private individuals are doing the same. There has been "a huge rise in people using advertising and marketing techniques to promote themselves", she says. Reputation. com is one of the many companies that have emerged over the past few years promising to wrestle back control of your online self. The firm says it can remove your name from objectionable sites, but its real focus is to improve the choice real estate the first few pages of your search results. The main way they do this is by flooding search engines with more information. Their tactics take advantage of the vagaries of search engine algorithms, but, more importantly, they trade on human laziness. When most of us do a web search, we don't often look beyond the first few pages of results. This is known as the Law of Surfing,
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • • BAD R EPUTATI O N • • her from the programme, according Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg famously • said that anyone who needs more than to The New York Times. • • one identity lacks integrity. Tell that to • these poor souls, who saw their lives TALE OF THE STA R WARS KID • suffer thanks to the public and viral If this schoolkid had recorded himself • • practising his light saber swing in 1975, nature of the internet the VHS tape might have resurfaced at a LAWSUIT IN 140 CHARACTERS
garage sale, if ever. But he did it in 2002,
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followers. "Horizon Realty thinks it's
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"Own as much of your name as possible," and has been verified many times since it was says Judith Lewis of Beyond, a reputation first described in 1998 (Science, vol z8o, p 95). tracking firm based in London. "I have my The upshot is that managing your online own website, my Twitter, my Linkedin page. reputation is often as easy as manipulating If there's some random mention of me, it's not the first page of search results. Reputation. com does that by "writing a comprehensive even going to make it into the top 100 search biography of someone's life story", says Fertik, results." Over the past few years, several companies essentially extending their resume and have emerged to help the uninitiated do just perhaps adding employer-friendly activities. that. One of these, a San Francisco-based Then they publish that narrative to websites startup called About.me, offers a single, free such as the professional network Linkedin. In "hub" web page with links to all the aspects of fact, Reputation.com has ties with about 500 your online identity that you wish to promote. such sites, and uses them to cross-pollinate links in order to push each other's content up Your own web page could become the first port of call for potential employers, stopping them the search results chain. In a matter of weeks, from having to trawl the internet to piece these sites displace the flotsam and jetsam together a picture of you, warts and all. making up your current online reputation. Of course, not everybody will relish the idea Here's why that works. The first page of a that we should tailor our online identities to web search is determined to a large extent by the employer's demanding eye. "Why should a bit of algorithmic magic, which in Google's the culture and norms ofthe workplace case is called PageRank. This essentially dominate our social life?" asks Marwick. "Most counts links from other sites as votes when of us have parts of our lives that we don't want determining where to rank a website. To push to bring up at work." Happily, employers may up your page in the search results, the pages eventually be forced to adapt to a world where that link to yours must be deemed important. nobody has a perfect reputation. A link from nytimes.com will carry more As for me, I'm just happy that pornographic weight than, say, kittensinunderpants.com. websites no longer feature in my search Without any "important" sites linking to a results. My online activity has long since page with your name on it, you are at the mercy of the internet gods. In my case, for driven that content far into Google's backwaters. With any luck, the publication example, nothing competed with my name ofthis article on the web will push it a little on those fetish sites. But when you associate your name with a more important site, such as further into obscurity. • Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, it ploughs those Sally Adee is a feature editor at New Scientist less popular pages down the search results. 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 49
CU LTU RELAB
Socia l networks fo r neu ro ns The fusion of humans and the internet may become reality, says jens Clausen. But do we want it?
World Wide Mind: The coming integration ofhumanity, machines, and the internet by Michael Chorost
Free Press, $26
IMAGINE a world in which there is no need to express your thoughts or emotions in words, where you can let others experience L------' your brain states directly. This is what Michael Chorost calls "telempathy": the ability to feel another person's emotions through a technological connection to their brain. It sounds far-fetched, but thanks to today's state-of-the-art technology, it may not be impossible. In fact, Chorost knows first hand what it means to wire your brain directly to an electronic device. In his first book, Rebuilt: How becoming part computer made me more human (Souvenir Press, 2006), Chorost related his own experience of receiving a cochlear implant after becoming thoughts, and deep-brain deaf. In World Wide Mind, he once stimulators, used to treat the again offers an impressively vivid motor symptoms in Parkinson's story, and it is a pleasure to follow disease and dystonia. him into his envisioned future These sophisticated of human beings with directly technologies appear outdated connected brains - a scenario that by comparison with what is in Chorost's book. What Chorost would render web-based social networks like Facebook obsolete, "How many parents will as information would flow give permission for directly through social networks elective open-brain of brains. The World Wide Web surgery on their children?" would be supplanted by the world wide mind. Today's clinical applications needs to achieve total telempathy of brain-computer interfaces are nanowires snaking through include those based on the brain's capillaries, sending electroencephalography (EEG), and receiving information, and which can be used to enable optogenetics - laser beams that severely paralysed people to can activate and deactivate single operate a computer with their neurons according to the light's
wavelength. Nanowires have already been shown to grow in rodent brains, and optogenetics has been used in rodents to trigger individual memories and generate specific behaviours. However, in his technophile mission Chorost sometimes overestimates technology. Optogenetics is presented not only as a promising tool for basic research but also as a round-the corner therapy for Parkinson's disease, one without any side effects, and this is presented as mere "low hanging fruit". That would be great, but is at best highly optimistic. While there are therapies that utilise !-dopa and deep-brain stimulation (DBS), there is currently no cure for
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Parkinson's, and unrealistic expectations of DBS are already a cause of post-surgical disappointment. The unknown impact of a highly investigational tool should be presented much more carefully. There are also practical obstacles. For instance, while children are the likely early adopters of world wide-mind technology, how many parents will consent to elective open-brain surgery on their offspring, and how many physicians will provide it? Chorost argues that ifthese devices develop as quickly as cochlear implants did, they will likewise be viewed as routine. But that misses a crucial point: surgery for cochlear implants, which involves drilling into the skull, is not without risk, but it is justified by the therapeutic benefit. There is no comparable benefit in sight for elective brain surgery. World Wide Mind is a thought provoking story about how technology will connect with the brain ever more intimately, merging humanity and the internet, providing technologically shared experiences and emotions. It forces the reader to think again not just about neuro-technology but also about communication, about how important eye-to-eye and body-to-body contact is. Setting aside the risks of surgery, less technophilic readers may nevertheless ask, why should we want to establish a global emotional network? But this may just be a daft question from an old-fashioned mind that has yet to sign up for a Facebook account. • jens Clausen is an assistant professor at the Institute for Ethics and History in Medicine in Ti.ibingen, Germany
For more books and arts coverage and to add your comments, visit www.NewScientist.com/blogs/culturelab
Ana logue a rtist A retrospective of media art's pioneer reflects our modern relationship with technology
Nomjune Paik
Tate Liverpool and the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool, UK, unt i l 13 March 2011 Reviewed by Jonathon Keats
EARLY in the 1960s, avant·garde composer Nam june Paik began experimenting with the wiring inside his TV. He learned how to manipulate the picture on his screen, bending and warping network broadcasts like free jazz. In 1963, after accumulating and tweaking a dozen more televisions, Paik organised a gallery show in which people were invited to interact one·on· one with his contraptions - an unprecedented experience in an era before video cameras and cable stations. The exhibition earned Paik a place in the history books as the pioneer of media art. Yet despite the genre's popularity, there has been scant attention given to his creations since his death in 2006. Tate Liverpool and the Foundation
for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) are doing their bit to set this right with an impressively thorough joint retrospective. In the glow of all those old cathode ray tubes, your first impulse may be to bask in nostalgia, or to radiate smug web 2.0 superiority. But Paik's artwork is too good to succumb to history. He may be the first media artist, but he is generations ahead of us. In his 1963 exhibition, Paik had the foresight to propose that the future of media was interactive, while counter-intuitively suggesting that interactivity could be isolating. Over the following decades, he went on to explore other potentialities, which could be as optimistic as they were visionary. One such vision was that cultural differences could be bridged through collective global channel surfing, with satellite feeds from studios around the world mixed live for everyone to see. In collaboration with
television networks, he produced several such events in the 1980s. More haunting are his contemporaneous "TV Buddha" installations, which embody the opposite extreme. In these works, a Buddha statue is positioned in front of a television that is itself connected to a CCTV camera trained on the watching Buddha. A Zen koan rendered in new media, "TV Buddha" appears to propose that our technologically mediated narcissism may bring about our enlightenment. Of course Paik was an artist, not a prophet, and combing his work for premonitions ofYouTube and Face book is bound to disappoint. What makes Paik's art relevant is that, technologically speaking, it is ancient. Resting outside the endless cycle of gadgets and upgrades, his work surveys our mediated future in ageless terms. Sometimes he can seem naive - he is out of step with the dystopian despair of contemporary media art, for example -yet his optimism is distinct from trade show hype. New technologies, he recognised, are opportunities to tinker with society's wiring.
The med ical ru bicon The Making of Modern Medicine: Turning points in the treatment of disease by
Michael Bliss, University of Chicago Press, $18.00/ £11.50
MODERN medicine found its feet around the turn of the 19th century. To illustrate the associated paradigm shift in medical thinking, Michael Bliss turns to historical fact: his examples include a devastating smallpox epidemic in Montreal, Canada; the growth ofleading medical schools in North America; and the discovery of insulin. Bliss's focus is patriotically Canadian, and I can't help but
wonder whether the story would follow the same course iftold by a different author. But whatever the book may lack in depth and breadth, it conveys an illuminating meta-narrative that recounts society's shift from a fear of medicine, compounded by ingrained religious fatalism, to doctors being hero-worshipped as modern-day deities. As this societal shift transcended national boundaries, Bliss has provided a short but insightful overview of how medicine was brought to the masses.
Comic genomics DNA: A graphic guide to the molecule that shook the world by Israel
Rosenfield, Edward Ziff and Borin Van Loon, Columbia University Press, $19.95 Reviewed by Cian O'Luanaigh
TRACING the history of DNA from Gregor Mendel's peas to genetic engineering, DNA: A graphic guide to lliiiiiii i ... i the molecule that shook the world outlines the key scientists, experiments and advances in the field of genetics. It also provides a helpful stepwise introduction to biological concepts. Given the visual potential of a graphic guide, it is a shame to see text dominate at the expense of images. The cartoons often feel like they exist merely to fill blank spaces between chunks of text, a problem exacerbated by a series of visual non sequiturs. Watson and Crick are depicted as Batman and Robin for no discernible reason, for example, and enzymes are shown as complicated trucks, which distracts from the concepts being illustrated. A graphic guide should make technical subject matter more accessible through illustration. Unfortunately, in this case the result reads more like an abridged textbook. Comic-book fans should seek their biology elsewhere. 19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 51
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concepts and testing of genetically
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A rg on n e National Laboratory
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epidemiolog ists, behavioral
IL - Illinois
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scientists, statisticians, and other
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Sales and Marketing by using
i nterested staff relevant study or
offers the opportunity for
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appointees to perform research in a
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with health care providers and
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environment present and publish
organizations.
research; contribute to the overall
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Science Opportunities Biogen Idee MA - Massachu setts, NC - North Caro l i na
Bioinformatics Scientist (002X6)
of basic and applied research; and and technical capabil ities.
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Positions immediately available include:
Scientist - Bio-
Pharm Development - Cell Line
M o nsanto M O - Missouri
Technology Associate Scientist
Monsanto is seeking a highly
- High Throughput Screening/
Novo Nord i sk US
motivated individual who is
Pharmaceutical Operations and
M l - M i chigan
excited about applying
Technology - Cell Line Development
S/he provides product and field
computational tools to large
Associate Scientists - Analytical
scientific support to Medical,
scale biological data to
Technology Engineer-BioPharma
Sales and Marketing, as well as
Senior Manager, Regulatory Affairs (Lead Regulatory Scientist) job
characterize the metabolic
Development - Devices Scientist
Managed Care and Government
i mpact of novel genes i n transgenic
- Analytical Development Scientist
by using academic credentials and
plants.
Formulations
Novo Nordisk US
scientific expertise to communicate
TX - Texas
with health care providers and
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Assist senior Regu latory Affairs
organizations.
personnel in assuring com pliance.
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Submit all types of applications to FDA. Provide significant input
1401094118
into development of regulatory
submission strategies.
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Medical Scientific Director, Endocrinology - Chicago job
Administrative Director
Faculty Position in Neuroscience, University of Washington
Langone Med i ca l Center
Medical Scientific Director Diabetes - Texas job
1401094120
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New York U n iversity NYU,
strategy documents. Responsible for development of regulatory
1401078144
NY - New York We are now seeking an energetic
U n iversity of Washington WA - Washington
Novo Nord i sk US
and highly motivated Administrative
Appointment at the ASSISTANT
NJ - New jersey
Director, preferably grounded in the
PROFESSOR level tenure-track
Additional key internal relationships
neuroscience field, to play a
is preferred but ASSOCIATE
are with the Regional MSA team,
key role in the establishment
PROFESSOR will also be
Clinicians, Marketing, Managed
organization and operation of the
considered, if appropriate.
Care and Government and Sales
Neuroscience Institute and to have
University of Washington
personnel. External relationships
a significant impact in realizing
faculty engage in teaching,
include key opinion leaders (KOL's),
synergies within our
research, and service. We seek
academic i nstitutions, physicians,
ra pidly expanding neuroscience
an individual (Ph.D. and/or
S/he provides field-based clinical
nurse practitioners, diabetes
efforts.
M.D.) with research interests
and scientific support to Medical,
educators, and pharmacists.
and demonstrated scholarly
Sales, Marketing as well as Market
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Shaping teams consistent with Novo Nordisk strategies and
1401094123
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achievements in the field of primate neuroscience.
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therapeutic interests by using academic credentials, clinical
Crop Scientist/Agronomist (003Jl)
1401090595
to communicate with the top
Epidemiologic Research Data Specialist
Endocrinologists and relevant
St. jude Children's Research
M O - Missouri
professional organizations on the
Hospital
The successfu l candidate will
Bioinformatics Scientist (002X6)
Area level .
TN - Tennessee
conduct laboratory, greenhouse and
Monsanto
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The Epidemiologic Research Data
field plant risk assessment studies
MO - Missouri
Specia list in the Epidemiology &
necessary to support worldwide
Monsanto is seeking a highly
Cancer Control Department assists
registration, commercialization and
motivated individual who is excited
expertise and scientific knowledge
1401054484
M o nsanto
52 1 NewScientist 1 1 9 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
www.NewScientistjobs.com Temple University invites applications for a full-time,
Support him as he grows stronger while your team supports you.
non-tenure-track position as Research Assistant Professor in the CardioVascular Research Center, Department of Physiology. The candidate should have a Ph.D. and/or MD with
post-doctoral experience in ceiVmolecular biology and/or immunology related to study important problems in cardiovascular diseases. Candidates should demonstrate
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research lnsritute t$ an lnrerdlsc.iplinary 1nstilution dPdi<"..at�d to conductmg bask, clinKa.l and translational research
a strong research background, ability to obtain extramural funding and a strong commitment to the education of undergraduates through teaching and research.
on conditions and diseases lhat affect children.
Applicants should submit curriculum vitae, transcripts, a statement of teaching
We have postdoctoral fellowships avaJiable In the
and research interests, and names and addresses of three references to:
following areas·
Abdelkarim Sabri, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Center for Childhood Cancer Rese:ar'h
School 3500 N. Broad Street MERB 1045, Philadelphia, PA 19140 E-mail:
[email protected] I Phone: 215 707 4915
Or. John Maris Or. Carolyn felix
Cardiovascular Research Center, Temple University Medical
Pediatric & Adult Comprehensive Bone Marrow Failure Center
Or. Monica Bessler
Temple University is an affinnative action/equal opportunity employer and strongly
Olv1slon of N�natology
encourages applications from women and minorities.
Dr. jason Stoller To leam mOre about the CHOP Rt!searr.:h Institute Visit IMWI research.chop.edu. Interested individuals
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
should send 1'1 cover letter, OJ, arld three references and/or letters of recommendation and must also complete e� profile on our website at \IWJw.chop.edu/ca.reers.
The Children's H
Postdoctoral Positions
(iH
pit.U ofJ>hiladdphii
a E S E A II C H
The University ofAlabama at Birmingham (UAB) is one of the premier research universities in the US with internationally recognized programs in AIDS &
I N $T I Y UTl
bacterial pathogenesis, bone biology & disease, cancer, diabetes & digestive &
One Career. Endless Opportunities.
kidney diseases, free radical biology, immunology, lung disease, neuroscience,
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.
.
UAB is committed to the development of outstanding postdoctoral scientists .. . ....
..
and has been consistently ranked in recent years as one of the top locations ..
among US universities for training postdoctoral scholars.
..
UAB is recruiting candidates for postdoctoral positions in a variety of
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research areas. UAB faculty are well funded (top 25 in NIH funding), utilize multidisciplinary approaches, and provide excellent research training
about applying computational tools
H oward Hug hes Medical
to large scale biological data to
I nstitute ( H H M I )
characterize the metabolic impact
PA - Pennsylvania
of novel genes in transgenic plants.
The Laboratory Manager will
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insure adequate supplies for
1401093344
experi mental needs, oversee equipment maintenance, manage the lab safety programs to i nsure compliance with all applicable
Crop Scientist/Agronomist (003J1)
regulations, assist with laboratory space and facilities planning, and
Monsanto
maintain inventory of laboratory
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There is an immediate opening
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within the Crop Assessment Team for an entry or mid-level
1401095129
agricultural scientist/agronom ist The successful candidate will conduct laboratory, greenhouse and
Science Advisor
field plant risk assessment studies
National Anti-Vivisection
necessary to support worldwide
Society
paternity leave are offered with every position as well as AD& D, disability & life insurance. Depending on the source of funding, retirement benefits may also be available. Birmingham is a mid-size city centrally located in the southeast near beaches and mountains and enjoys a moderate climate for year round outdoor activities and a cost of living rate lower than most metropolitan areas. Visit our web site at www.postdocs.uab.edu, under Postdoctoral Opportunities to
view posted positions. Send your CV and cover letter to the contact name for
those positions for which you are qualified and which interest you. University of Alabama at Birmingham, Office of Postdoctoral Education, 205-975-7020.
UAB is an equal employment opportunity employer. medicine at a minimum.
expression by nuclear hormone
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on transcriptional coregulatory
1401096340
receptors with an emphasis factors.
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1401094883
comm itted to advancing science
Robert Wood j ohnson Medical
without harming animals. Strong
School, U n iversity of Medicine and Dentistry of New jersey (UM DNj)
Postdoctoral/Research Assistant Professor Position
IL - Illinois National Anti-Vivisection Society
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(NAVS) seeks Science Advisor
written and verbal communication skills are critical. Qualified individual
Lab Manager, University of Pennsylvania, Phila., PA 19104
in academia, government or the private sector. Full medical coverage (single or family), competitive salaries/stipends, sick leave, vacation, and maternity/
Postdoctoral Fellow - New jersey - Medical School/ University
registration, commercialization and monitoring of agricultural products.
1401091184
environments that can lead exceptional candidates to entry level positions
U n iversity of South Caro l i n a SC - South Caro l i n a
will possess academic and/or
Nj - New jersey
Postdoctoral/Research Assistant
professional credentials with
A postdoctoral position is available
Professor position is available
graduate degree in science and/or
to study the regulation of gene
immed iately at the University
19 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 53
•
Mento red Experiences in Research, Instruction and Teaching Program
I
MERJT
I �-----�
Postdoctoral Scholars
School of Medicine
Sackler Institute Postdoctoral Program at NYU School ofMedicine NYU Langone Medical Center is committed to being a world-class patient
Postdoctoral Schol a rs for M E RIT Program, a newly funded N I H I RACDA program U n iversity of Alabama at Birmingham M E RIT Program i s seeking i ndividuals w h o a re i nterested i n outsta nding teaching a n d research experiences d u ri ng thei r postdoctoral tra i n ing. T h e M E RIT Program will provide opportun ities for research experience at UAB and teaching experience at m i nority serving i nstitutions, including M i les a n d Sti l l m a n Col leges, located near UAB.
care, education, and research institution.
country, helps fulfill that mission through training and developing our young scientists. We provide an unmatched combination of professional development and social events to build a sense of community among our
370 postdocs, who come from over 35 countries. Unique features of our program include formal coursework in grant writing, scientific integrity, career planning, and lab management.
M E RIT Fellows a re sup ported for t h ree years at N RSA rates beginning at $37,368; a re provided health i nsurance at no charge, a yearly travel a l lowance to p rofessional meetings; and yearly research or tra i n i ng a l lowance.
The Postdoctoral Program,
run by the Sackler Institute, is one of the oldest and most active in the
Informal career exploration
discussions with our Program Manager on career opportunities in all job sectors are regularly scheduled to help you decide what your next career step could (should) be.
Networking is a major focus at NYU, and you
will have numerous chances each month to take part in informal and fun sessions designed to foster collaboration and professional development.
Applicants to the M E RIT Program must be Ph.D. candidates or recent Ph.D. graduates (within the past year) and a U.S. citizen or non-citizen national; individuals with comparable degrees, including MD and DVM, are a lso eligible. Women and persons from diverse backgrounds, including underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, i ndividu a ls with
We invite you to learn more about us by visiting our extensive web site at: www.med.nyu.edu/postdoc The Office of Diversity Affairs works closely with our Postdoctoral Program to provide robust programs and initiatives to foster inclusivity and multicultural awareness at the Medical Center. Diversity at NYU Langone
d isabilities, and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, a re
is not just a matter of statistics; it is a shared commitment to breaking down
encouraged to a pply. Application materials as well as other i nformation
barriers and fostering excellence by tapping into the knowledge, skills and
are ava i lable by clicking on the M ERIT logo at the Office of Postdoctoral
creativity of all people. To learn more about our commitment to diversity,
Education Web site: www.postdocs.uab.edu.
visit us at: http:// diversity.med.nyu.edu/
of South Carolina (USC) for an
NewScientistjobs.com job I 0:
Doctoral research position in the
M l - M i c h igan
fields of gene expression control
This individual will be responsible
study the role of urinary
and cancer biology.
for oversight of the stabil ity
bladder smooth muscle ion
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testing program, physical testing,
extremely motivated researcher to
channels, such as BK, SK, IK and Kv channels, and their reg ulation by muscarinic and beta-adrenergic receptors.
For more information visit NewScientistjobs.com job 1 0 :
200662642
1401094139
Biotherapeutic Formulation Development Associate Scientist/Sr. Associate Scientist Rl/R2
1401096319
and investigative support. This individual wi l l interface with our manufacturing, internal Contract Sales group and, where appropriate,
M O - Missouri
PhD Cancer Biologist Postdoctoral Fellow
The Associate Scientist/Senior
Pfizer US
programs.
Associate Scientist Biologics
MA - Massach usetts
Pharmaceutical R&D is a laboratory
We are seeking a highly motivated
For more information visit NewScientistjobs.com job 1 0 :
Pfizer US
Principal Bioanalytical Chemist
based position for performing
Postdoctoral Fellow with a strong
formulation development and
background in cell and molecular
directly with external customers to support their stability testing
1401095132
St. Jude Children's Research
manufacturing process activities
biology to study the role of cancer
Hospital
(under general supervision) of
stem cells in resistance to anti
TN - Tennessee The Principal Bioanalytical
biotherapeutic products from pre
angiogenic therapy. The candidate
clinical and Ph I clinical trials through
will use new model systems to
U n iversity of the Vi rgin Islands
Chemist in the Preclinical PK
commercial ization.
explore the response of cancer
VI - Vi rg i n Islands
Shared Resource Department
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stem cells to hypoxia.
UVI is seeking faculty who will
For more information visit NewScientistjobs.comjob 1 0 :
ensure that students meet high
develops, validates, and implements LC/MS/MS and
1401096378
1401090786
HPLC assays for quantitation and/or structural elucidation of molecules in various matrices
Post-Doctoral Research
in support of precl inical studies.
U n iversity of Colorado at Boulder
CH E M ISTRY
supervision.
University of Colorado at Boulder)
Scientist I QA Chemist, Supply Chain Quality Services - Ada, Ml
For more information visit
is seeking candidates for a Post-
Am way
Performs laboratory functions
CO - Colorado
and experi ments with minimal
The Espinosa Lab (HHMI / The
54 1 NewScientist 1 19 February 2011 HotMags - Hot Magazines
Assistant or Associate Professor of Chemistry
academic standards in a nurturing and learner-centered environment in keeping with our HBCU status and with interests, experience and expertise in curriculum innovation, interdisciplinary studies and distance education, as well as teaching and scholarly excellence i n their specialties.
www.NewScientistjobs.com
Research i n Germany Alexander von Humboldt Sti ft u ng I Foundation The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables h ighly-qualified scientists and scholars of all nationalities and fields to conduct extended periods of research in Germany in cooperation with academi c hosts at German institutions. Fellowships are awarded solely on the basis of the applicant's academic record, the quality and
feasibility of the
proposed research
and
the candidate's
international publications. The Humboldt Foundation particularly welcomes applications from qualified, female junior researchers.
Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers •
For scientists and scholars who have completed a doctoral degree within the past four years
•
Allows for a stay of 6-24 months in Germany; applications may be submitted at any time; monthly stipend of2250 EUR
Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers •
•
SCIENTIFIC EDITOR Elsevier Science & Technology journals Elsevier seeks to appoint an In-House Editor for its new journals in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Immunology.
The suitable candidate
will act as the In-house Editor of two journals in
(l)
pharmaceutical
sciences and (2) immunology. Both journals are start-up journals and will interact closely with a cadre of already established journals. The In-house Editor will be responsible for managing submissions and fine tuning workRows between the established journals and the start-up journals. The position involves detailed administration and facilitation of scientific peer review for the start-up journals. This process includes:
For scientists and scholars who have completed a doctoral
assessment of submissions for suitability for the journals' scope; citation
degree within the past twelve years
analyses, selection of potential reviewers utilizing scientific expertise/
Fellowships may be divided into a maximum of three visits
topic searches via online databases such as PubMed and SCOPUS;
lasting three months or longer; applications may be submitted
contacting of Editors of established journals; arranging for review by
at any time; monthly stipend of 2450 EUR
appropriate researchers; management of decisions; and other associated
Additional allowances are available for accompanying family mem bers, travel expenses, and German language instruction.
www. h u m boldt-fou ndation .de
duties. The In-house Editor will need to build a network of editors, reviewers, and authors in multiple sub-specialties, as well as work collaboratively across multiple internal departments. Candidates should have scientific experience in one of the research
For more information visit NewScientistjobs.com job 1 0 :
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CLI N ICAL Clinical Research Associate RN I St. jude C h i l d ren's Research Hospital TN - Tennessee
development and testing of agronomic system concepts for our products. The Agronomic Research Associate will work with a team executing field research projects including, corn, soybean, cotton and chemistry.
For more information visit NewScientistjobs.com job I 0:
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Sciences operates under general supervision. Performs data
Monsanto
abstraction, collection, and entry to
MS - Mississippi
support clinical research. Prepares
The Research Associate will
submission for all reportable events.
primarily be responsible for
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supporting the activities related to fiber advancement in Cotton Breeding. The Field Research Associate will have the opportunity to support the Fiber
Agronomic Research Associate - Northeast, SO (OOlLA)
administering Standard Operating
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Procedures, QA QC and safety
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procedures.
We currently have an opportunity
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for an Agronomic Research Associate to assist with the
individual with breadth of scientific interest, an ability to think critically about a wide range of scientific issues, strong communication skills and ability to work independently as well as in a team. This is a superb opportunity for a talented individual to play a critical role in the research community, away from the bench. The In-house Editor is expected to have strong interpersonal skills and a strong research background. A graduate level degree (Ph.D. or equivalent) in life sciences, preferably in pharmaceutical sciences or in computer management of documents is highly desirable. The ideal
Field Research Associate (0025L)
1401097402
of the successful candidate include a highly motivated and creative
immunology, is required. Prior publishing experience and expertise
The Clinical Research Associate RN 1 position i n Radiological
areas that falls within the broad scope of the journals. Key qualities
Lead in coordinating various nurseries, im plementing and
candidate will demonstrate dedication to the scientific community and enthusiasm for communicating science. This is a full-time in-house editorial position, based at the Elsevier/Cell Press office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elsevier offers an attractive salary and benefits package and a stimulating working environment. Applications will be held in the strictest of confidence and will be considered on an ongoing basis until the position is filled. Please submit a CV and cover letter describing your qualifications, research interests and reasons for pursuing a career in scientific publishing, as soon as possible to our online jobs site:
http:/Ireedelsevier.taleo.net/careersection/51 Ijobdetail. ftl?lang=en&job=SCI00081 No phone inquiries, please.
Elsevier is an eqUdl opportunity/affirmative action employer, MIFIDIV
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1 9 February 2011 1 NewScientist 1 55
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This announces in the middle of a discussion about phosphate mining that: "The white or gray substance emits radon gas and is therefore used in only a few applications, such as peanut farming." Bob says this is "one of the oddest non sequiturs I have ever come across" and we cannot disagree. Nevertheless, perhaps we should now start searching for examples of the health-giving qualities of radioactive peanuts.
...
(25 December 2010 and 29 january) reminded Len Yaeger of the time an elderly relative confided to him that she had worked out what was causing global warming. Her theory was based on the notion that the world's population growth is out of control and more and more people are obese. Therefore, the Earth is getting heavier, which makes it move closer to the sun.
READER Les Whalley was surprised by the auto-reply message he
II WHICH century produced this, we wondered: "Merano, a pretty little town in South Tyrol, became a health resort thanks to its curative mountain air, mild climate and thermal baths . . . The waters contain radon and are claimed to cure circulatory problems." Hang on- radon? The radioactive noble gas? Our first thought was that this claim must be from the late 19th century, when radiation was new, new things were progress, progress was healthy, and therefore new things, such as radiation, were healthy. A little searching took us to a very wonderful web page at bit.ly/radlist. Unfortunately, the compendium of "hot" products that we found there gives no date for the radioactive suppositories that promised to make "weak discouraged men ... bubble over with joyous vitality" (sent in plain wrapping). However, we do have dates for the Revigator, a water crock lined with radium that provided "real,
healthful water" for drinking. According to the entry about it in the "historical collection" on the Oak Ridge Associated Universities website, the Revigator was on sale in the US as late as the 1930s. Then we realised the claim about the Merano spa was not from the past at all. It was spotted by reader Anabel Curry on 8 january in London's Independent newspaper. What's more, the spa's promoters are not alone. According to Bella Online (bit.ly/radmines) there are currently four "radon health mines" in the American state of Montana where those who agree that "radon is thought to stimulate growth of cells, repair DNA and improve antioxidant action and immune response" can expose themselves to it for a fee. The Free Enterprise Mine, for example, charges $175 for a season pass. Our surprise over this is increased by a page from Scientific American that Bob Michell scanned and sent us.
How's this for d ubious logic? A Twitter
you remember stuff. Water has a memory. Therefore homeopathy works"
received in response to an email he had sent to Findmeagift.com's
have backfired, lan Cash thought.
customer support team. It said: "Your
He noticed that Pharmacy At Hand's
email will be answered as quickly as
promotion of Head & Shoulders
possible by one of our trained
anti-dandruff shampoo states that
support staff within 8 working
its "Hydrazine formula is effective
hours ... If you do not receive a reply
in fighting the source of dandruff".
within 8 working hours, please call
Wikipedia describes hydrazine as "highly toxic and dangerously
us on 01926 818 800 as we may not have received your email."
unstable" and adds that it is "used in various rocket fuels". Is Head & Shoulders really making shampoo that could be used for propelling rockets? We're relieved to find that it isn't, of course. The Head & Shoulders website itself talks not of "hydrazine", but "HydraZinc" which, so far as we know, is definitely
ACCORDING to the article about the World Health Organization's objectives, which Nic Kosloverwas reading in the October 2010 issue ofthe Student BMJ, the WHO "has obliged to improve gender quality in the coming year". Leaving aside the curious use oflanguage in this statement, Nic wants to know if this means we can expect a lot more masculine men and more feminine women to appear as the WHO goes about achieving its objectives.
FINALLY, checking on the turbulent civil unrest in Egypt, a colleague looked at the latest on the London Guardian website. Dramatic pictures
not capable of flying us to the
of milling crowds, tear gas and street
moon. Whoever copied this onto
violence were accompanied by
the Pharmacy At Hand website
a Google ad offering the chance
can't have been concentrating very
to "win a fantastic Egypt holiday".
hard - either that, or the curse of
post by one "KerryHomeopath" announced recently: "Yo u r bra i n is 80 per cent water,
THE trend for ever more sciency sounding product descriptions may
the spell checker has struck again.
OUR stories about Australia's rising sea levels being caused by the weight of its population
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kind of information is used clinically to determine the integrity of a particular neural pathway. It can also be used to liven up otherwise dull parties. Joseph F. Gennaro University ofFlorida Medical Center Gainesville, Florida, US
The photograph (right) was taken near Mal don, Essex, in the UK, looking directly overhead. lt appears to show the result of an aircraft flying through thin cloud and dispersing it along its flight path. If an aircraft was responsible it had long since passed when the picture was taken. Is this a common sight and what mix of conditions is required to produce the effect? • This is a relatively common occurrence, known as a dissipation trail or distrail. Depending on the exact circumstances, one of three mechanisms may be involved. First, the heat from the aircraft's engines may be sufficient to evaporate the cloud droplets. Second, the wake vortices shed by the wings may mix drier air into the cloud, lowering the relative humidity and again causing droplets to evaporate. Finally, the exhaust may introduce glaciation nuclei into the cloud. These are particles around which ice crystals form, causing freezing to occur. The crystals then fall out of the cloud. This is a very common mechanism, but the photograph shows no sign of falling trails of ice, which are known as virga. The first mechanism seems to be rare and is not accepted by some authorities, so the vortex explanation is probably the most likely in this case. Storm Dunlop Chichester, West Sussex, UK
Ear whacks Why does having something pushed into my ear make me cough?
• This phenomenon is called Arnold's ear-cough reflex. It occurs in about 2 per cent of the population and was first described in 1832 by Friedrich Arnold, professor of anatomy at Heidelberg University in Germany. The vagus (Latin for "wanderer") nerve arises in the brain stem and provides a nerve supply to the external ear canal, larynx, heart, • This is one example of what stomach and intestine. Stimulation are called neural reflexes. They of the auricular branch ofthe nerve are generally explained as the "confusion" of one nerve path by objects inserted into the ear canal causes a reflex stimulation (usually sensory) with another of the laryngeal branches ofthe (usually motor). For example, rubbing the skin at the back of the vagus, which produces the cough neck produces a widening of the in susceptible people. pupils, and scratching the inner A variant of Arnold's reflex skin of a man's thigh will result is vomiting caused by reflex stimulation of the vagal branches in the raising of the testicle within the scrotum on that side. This supplying the stomach. Wealthy
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Anglo-Saxons who enjoyed feasting are said to have poured cold water into the ear to produce vomiting when they had eaten their fill so that they could continue to indulge themselves hence an alternative name for the auricular nerve: the alderman's nerve. The Romans are said to have achieved the same result during their orgies by tickling the ear canal with a feather. Maurice Little Maidstone, Kent, UK
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• When scuba diving in the tropics a couple of years ago I had the sensation that something had entered my ear at high speed. I don't recall coughing but I was so shocked I spat out my mouthpiece. I hastily replaced it and poked around in my ear to remove what had darted in there. When I saw the characteristic incandescent blue stripes of the bluestreak cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus), which cleans bigger fish for food, I assumed that I had just passed over one of its cleaning stations and been relieved of some earwax. Mike Follows Willen hall, West Midlands, UK
This week's questions TOMMY TASTE
Tomatoes on sale here during the winter don't taste as good as those available in summer. Does their nutritional value change too? Mark Alberstat Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada TIGER, TIGER
Why do tigers have stripes? The other big cats tend to have spots. Linda Veron Tarragona, Spain
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