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CONTENTS Volume 235 No 3134

This issue online

newscientist.com/issue/3134

News Leader
5 AI-aided doctors will improve diagnosis,

8 but there are hidden dangers

News
Beating 6 UPFRONT
withdrawal Tesla to build biggest battery farm in
Australia. Charmed particle discovered.
Hacking doses to
Vaccine could stop super-gonorrhoea
quit antidepressants 8 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
KATHLEEN FINLAY/GETTY

Greenland’s mountains crumble. Titan’s

resources could power huge colony. Why
older people sleep less. Quantum cheques
may be forgery proof. Storing video in living
DNA. Birds sing like jazz musicians. Toddlers
expect bullies to get more. Invisibility cloak
boosts solar panel efficiency. AI poetry so
On the cover bad it seems human. Invasive plants scale
warming peaks quickest. Oldest Denisovan

28 36 Trust me, I’m a... yet discovered. AI audits corporate diversity

Rise of the AI doctors 19 IN BRIEF
16 Lives of others Sunflowers work together to catch rays.
Goodbye Our mysterious relative Wire robot twists into any shape. Spiders
9 Moonbase Saturn use UV trickery to hunt bees
black holes Colonising Titan
We’re about to see one 8 People vs pills Analysis
for the first time – but The online movement to
22 Baby sleep Should you let a baby sleep
get off antidepressants
what if it’s not there? in your bed with you?
32 No brainer
24 COMMENT
Learning without neurons
Tech healthcare ambitions need new checks.
Blood dopers may have cheated themselves
Cover image
Julien Pacaud
25 INSIGHT
Three options to halt North Korea’s nukes

Features Aperture
26 Bioluminescent termite mound lures prey

36 Features
Trust me, I’m 28 Goodbye black holes (see above left)
32 No brainer The creatures that learn
an algorithm without neurons
Would you put your 36 Trust me, I’m an algorithm (see left)
40 PEOPLE
life in the hands of
Françoise Sironi and the minds of torturers
an AI doctor?
BRUNO MANGYOKU

Culture
42 Who are we? Human behaviour is too
complicated for simple explanations
44 Mouthful of history The food prints
etched on our teeth reveal our past
Coming next week…
Regulars
All by myself 52 LETTERS Sorry, not sorry
Behind the modern epidemic of loneliness 55 SIGNAL BOOST Vanishing white matter
56 FEEDBACK An inspirational pub crawl
Waste not... 57 THE LAST WORD Stirring up trouble
Is there any point to recycling?

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 3

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Mexico, the desolate spot where Gemini and Mercury capsules. Venture astronomer and astronaut-in-
the first atomic bomb was tested. into the Spaceport Operations Center at training Nigel Henbest. You’ll
Seldom open to the public, it will Virgin Spaceport America and interact also have time to soak up the
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15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 5

 UPFRONT
OLIVER BERG/DPA/PA IMAGES

What is harassment?
ONLINE harassment is on the rise, but political views, but women are 
no one can agree on what exactly it is. more likely to report abuse that
That’s according to the results of targets them for their gender alone.
a survey of 4248 people in the US, However, people’s ideas of
released on Tuesday by the Pew what constitutes harassment
Internet Survey. It found that 41 per was inconsistent. Roughly a third
cent had experienced harassment of participants who had had an
online, up by 6 per cent since 2014. experience that met the survey’s
The rise may seem small, but given definition considered it to be online
the long search for solutions, it’s harassment, whereas a third
surprising that the numbers are didn’t. The remaining participants
still going up, says survey author weren’t sure.
Maeve Duggan at the Pew Research This may explain why people
Center in Washington DC. are divided on what solutions,
What’s more surprising is that if any, are needed. Fifty-six per cent
people can’t agree on a definition. of respondents feel that offensive
That may be related to the finding content is taken too seriously,
that different groups experience including 73 per cent of young men.
online harassment in different ways. Most respondents did agree
For example, men are twice as likely that law enforcement should play a
as women to be targeted for their “major role” in addressing the issues.
–Abuse is on the rise–

Stop gonorrhoea his team analysed data from Particle discovery quarks. The third constituent is an
15,000 people in New Zealand up quark. Unlike in other baryons,
A VACCINE for meningitis B may who would have been offered THERE is a new member of the where the three quarks rotate
be a weapon against antibiotic- a meningitis B vaccine around particle family and it’s a real around each other, the two
resistant super-gonorrhoea. 12 years ago, they found that heavyweight. The so-called Xicc++ charm quarks are thought to sit
Last week, the World Health those vaccinated were 31 per cent is a baryon, the family of particles at the centre of the Xicc++, with the
Organization reported that less likely to get gonorrhoea that make up most ordinary lighter up quark orbiting them.
81 per cent of the 77 nations that (The Lancet, doi.org/b9jr). matter. Baryons contain three All that mass means Xicc++
A vaccine wouldn’t need to be quarks, fundamental particles weighs in at around 3621
“That an existing, hugely protective to have a big that come in six different flavours, megaelectronvolts, four times
licensed vaccine may impact. Modelling has suggested but many combinations have yet heavier than the proton, in line
control gonorrhoea is that if all 13-year-olds were given to be observed. with theorists’ expectations.
incredible news” a vaccine that only protected This latest find, by researchers Studying the new particle could
half of them, the prevalence of on the LHCb experiment at CERN’s help physicists test quantum
have looked for antibiotic- gonorrhoea in the population Large Hadron Collider, is the first chromodynamics, the theory
resistant gonorrhoea found would fall by 90 per cent in only baryon confirmed to contain two of the strong force, which holds
strains resistant to azithromycin, 20 years. heavier quarks known as charm quarks together in baryons.
the main antibiotic used to fight
TESLA

the disease. According to the Big battery

WHO, a vaccine “will ultimately
be the only sustainable way to TESLA plans to build the largest-
achieve control” of gonorrhoea. ever lithium ion battery in South
So far, all experimental Australia, it announced last week.
vaccines have failed. But an The 100-megawatt battery will
existing vaccine may do the act like an electricity back-up,
trick – a finding David Fisman at storing excess energy generated
the University of Toronto, Canada, by a wind farm when electricity
describes as “incredible news”. demands are low, then feeding
Gonorrhoea is caused by a it back into the grid during
bacterium that is closely related peak hours.
to the one that causes meningitis South Australia has adopted
B. When Steven Black of Cincinnati renewable technologies faster
Children’s Hospital in Ohio and –Electricity storage– than any other state in Australia,

6 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news
60 SECONDS

but repeated blackouts since CRISPR controversy The team behind the original Jupiter on the spot
September have sparked concerns study had assumed that the two
NASA probe Juno just made a fly-by
about their reliability. AS YOU were. In May, a study treated mice plus a control were
of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The probe
In March, Tesla founder Elon claimed that using the CRISPR essentially genetically identical
flew 9000 kilometres above the
Musk offered to fix the problem gene-editing technique can before CRISPR, but the way the
centuries-old storm with its sensors
with a large-scale version of a cause thousands of potentially colony of mice was maintained
and camera on to find out more
Tesla car battery. He said he would dangerous mutations, but this means this was unlikely, say the
about the iconic feature.
get the system up and running may be wrong. authors of one of the new studies
within 100 days of the agreement As nearly 20 human trials of (bioRxiv, doi.org/b9gz).
being signed, or else do it for free. CRISPR get under way, the results “We strongly encourage the
West coast wildfires
The battery will be made up of of the study prompted its authors authors to restate the title and From Canada to California, hundreds
thousands of Tesla lithium ion car to urge regulators to reassess the conclusions of their original of wildfires are burning. The fire
batteries packed into hundreds technique’s safety. paper or provide properly season was delayed in some places
of refrigerator-sized units spread However, this call was based on controlled experiments that can in the west due to a winter of heavy
across a field. Combined, they will evidence from just two CRISPR- support their claims,”Luca Pinello rains, but those also fed new growth
be able to store enough electricity treated mice. Now several of Harvard University and that has since dried out and is
for 30,000 homes. They are new studies say the original colleagues write. “Not doing so fuelling the flames. More than
expected to be ready in December. experiment got it wrong. does a disservice to the field.” 100,000 people have been forced
to evacuate their homes.

Headache prediction
France bans diesel Large carnivores’ range slashed Could a model predict migraines?
THE French government has set LIONS, tigers, and red and Ethiopian The Eurasian lynx and Australia’s A study of 1613 headaches across
out an ambitious goal for no more wolves have lost more than 90 per dingo have lost only 12 per cent of 95 people found that a rise in the
new petrol or diesel cars to be sold cent of their hunting grounds in their range. Striped, spotted and occurrence and intensity of stressful
in the country by 2040. the past 500 years, finds the first brown hyenas have conceded only events in daily life can help predict
The target, announced last global study of the ranges of big 15, 24 and 27 per cent respectively, when headaches are likely to
week by environment minister terrestrial predators. and the grey wolf 26 per cent. occur (Headache, DOI: 10.1111/
Nicolas Hulot, is part of a wider Chris Wolf and William Ripple In between, with losses of head.13137). The researchers
effort to wean the world’s sixth at Oregon State University looked between 30 and 90 per cent, are behind the work hope to refine their
biggest economy off fossil fuels. at large carnivores’ range largely various species of bears and big model to predict migraine attacks.
At a news conference unveiling based on a variety of historic maps cats such as leopards, pumas and
a five-year government plan to corresponding to around AD 1500, jaguars (Royal Society Open Science, Gig rights
encourage clean energy and meet and found that these animals are DOI: 10.1098/rsos.170052).
Gig workers such as Uber or
France’s commitments under the now present in just a third of the There was a strong link between
Deliveroo drivers should get better
Paris climate accord, Hulot said land area they occupied back then. range contractions and human
rights, concluded a UK government-
French car-makers have projects Most of the 25 big beasts studied expansion. However, Wolf says
commissioned review published
that “can fulfil that promise”. are now skulking on the margins reintroductions have a good chance 
on Tuesday. The Taylor review calls
The move came a day after of the areas they once occupied, of success in the future. “Many large
for the introduction of a new class
Sweden’s Volvo became the first making them more vulnerable to carnivores are resilient, particularly
of worker. These “dependent
major car manufacturer to extinction, says Wolf. But there when human attitudes and policies
contractors” would have flexible
pledge to stop making vehicles are exceptions. favour their conservation,” he says.
work patterns, but would gain
powered solely by the internal
some employment benefits such
DAVID PATTYN/NATUREPL.COM

combustion engine.
as holiday leave and sick pay.
France is unusually dependent
on diesel fuel, blamed for
pollution that often chokes its
Smoking sinuses
capital. The Paris mayor wants Sinus pain? Quit smoking and wait
to ban diesel vehicles by 2020. a decade. Chronic rhinosinusitis
Hulot’s plan would cover the causes problems breathing and
whole country and also target sleeping. Smoking worsens it, but a
petrol cars, but it could face study of people with the condition
resistance from drivers and has found that quitters improve
manufacturers. every year after they stop (DOI:
Hulot also said France will stop 10.1177/0194599817717960). The
producing power from coal – now study estimates that after 10 years,
5 per cent of the total – by 2022, the reversible effects of smoking on
and will encourage green energy CRS should have disappeared.
and technologies. –Big cats have less space to hunt–

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 7

 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Hacking antidepressant doses

An online movement is helping people taper their meds to fight withdrawal

Clare Wilson nausea and headaches when he tablets and dissolving them in project has distributed around
stopped taking the antidepressant water, or breaking open capsules 2000 kits for 24 different
PEOPLE who want to stop taking mirtazapine. of beads and counting them out. medications, the majority for
antidepressants are hacking Others who stop taking But the results of these DIY antidepressants or anxiety drugs.
their dosing regimens to avoid antidepressants report side effects methods can be variable. “I was Most of these were for people
withdrawal symptoms. A Dutch such as panic attacks or memory functioning one day, and the next in the Netherlands, where the
website that sells kits to help and concentration problems. I would be in bed,” says Moore, project is legal, but a few kits
people taper their doses has now Information leaflets that who has tried cutting up his pills have been sent to other countries,
launched an English-language manufacturers provide alongside into smaller pieces. including the UK. The English-
site, triggering safety concerns antidepressants warn of short- language site, launched this
among UK regulators and doctors. term withdrawal effects, and “Some people who stop week, is likely to make it easier
Around 1 in 10 people in the doctors usually advise people to taking antidepressants for people in other countries to
UK take antidepressants. Many reduce their dose slowly. But even report panic attacks or use the service.
find them helpful and even life- if people do that, once they stop memory problems” However, most medical bodies
saving, but some struggle to stop taking the lowest dose of tablet advise against buying medicines
taking them when they are ready. available, some still get problems. The Dutch website is part online. “Although prescription-
A study in New Zealand found People are often told to start of a project by medical charity only medicines can be imported
that 55 per cent of people got taking their pills every other day, Cinderella Therapeutics and for personal use, self-medication
withdrawal symptoms on but with some drugs this can lead Maastricht University. Together, is potentially risky,” says a
stopping antidepressants. to levels in the body fluctuating. they have been creating spokesperson for the UK’s
“I felt like I had been run over Instead, some people have been personalised tapering kits with Medicines & Healthcare Products
by a bus,” says James Moore, a turning to online forums to swap precisely weighed out tablets that Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
mental health campaigner in tips about how to taper their gradually reduce in strength over The Dutch site recommends
the UK. He experienced dizziness, medication – such as grinding up several months. Since 2014, the people use the kits under medical
supervision, and only sends kits to
those with a doctor’s prescription.
The MHRA spokesperson says
the agency will be contacting
its regulatory partners in the
Netherlands to make enquiries.
Sourcing pills online isn’t the
only other option. David Healy,
a psychiatrist in Bangor in the
UK, helps people with severe
withdrawal symptoms by
prescribing liquid formulations
of their specific medicine, which
can be measured out in small
amounts. But these formulations
aren’t as widely stocked as their
pill equivalents, and Healy says
most GPs refuse to prescribe them
because they are more expensive.
Tony Kendrick at the University
of Southampton in the UK
says another option for some
people is to switch to using
KATHLEEN FINLAY/GETTY

the antidepressant fluoxetine

(Prozac), which is widely
available in a liquid formulation.
However, switching doesn’t work
–Looking for a lower dose?– for everyone. ■

8 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

In this section
■ Quantum cheques may be forgery proof, page 10
■ Birds that sing like jazz musicians, page 11
■ Should you let a baby sleep in your bed with you?, page 22

Ice melt blamed sea, Kraken Mare, experiences up

to a metre of tidal change each day
for Greenland’s from the pull of Saturn. The tides
flow through a narrow channel
fake quake nicknamed the Throat of Kraken.
“The Throat of Kraken is
EARTHQUAKES in Greenland are rare. basically the Strait of Gibraltar,”
At least, they’re supposed to be. Lorenz says. “We’re pretty sure
So it was a surprise when a there’s a very strong flow of liquid
magnitude 4.1 “quake” struck back and forth every Titan day.
Nuugaatsiaq, a tiny island off If you want reliable power that
ASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA/UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

Greenland’s west coast on 17 June. you know is going to be accessible,

It triggered a tsunami that smashed that’s where I would go.”
homes, leaving at least four people Wind power is also tempting.
dead. But what residents – and Strong winds have been revealed
seismic equipment – initially labelled in the upper atmosphere by cloud
as a quake may be nothing of the sort. tracking and measurements made
“Everyone was fooled by the by the Huygens probe in 2005.
collapse of a mountain,” says Martin Hendrix says we could generate
Luethi, a glaciologist at the University 10 times more power than we
of Zurich, who has been studying do from wind turbines on Earth
Greenland’s glaciers since 1995. by using wind machines in the
“The tsunami wasn’t triggered by upper atmosphere tethered to the
an earthquake.” –Wrap up warm– surface, though this is beyond
Luethi thinks the culprit was a current technology.
landslide at nearby Karrat fjord. As
the falling mountain hit the ocean, it Titan’s conditions could The most unexpected idea is
solar power. At almost 10 times
created enough seismic noise to dupe
sensors and generate the waves that power US-sized colony as far from the sun as Earth, Titan
receives just one hundredth the
inundated Nuugaatsiaq. He blames sunlight. “The brightest it ever
melting ice for destabilising the rock SATURN’s largest moon could of this idea is mostly guesswork. is on Titan is like dusk on Earth,”
below. suit human settlement – if we Titan is rich in easily accessible Hörst says. But solar panels are
“Ice cannot hold a mountain can keep the lights on. Thankfully, methane. While the lack of getting ever-more efficient and a
together if the ice flows,” says Luethi. Titan may have several energy oxygen makes it inefficient civilisation on Titan would have
“Melting and freezing cycles mean sources that fit the bill. to burn hydrocarbons, future the space to construct extensive,
rocks are getting destroyed. There’s Titan is remarkably Earth-like: Titanians could make energy by permanent energy infrastructure.
so much unstable rock in Greenland a thick atmosphere protects its adding hydrogen to acetylene, Hendrix and Yung estimate that
and they have no earthquakes to surface from radiation and it is which is theoretically abundant, supporting 300 million people –
shake it down.” the only other place in the solar though yet to be detected. roughly the US population – would
That’s why it is such a powder keg, system with liquid on its surface. “It’s possible it’s being masked require a solar farm covering 10
Luethi says. This region is full of “I think long-term, after Mars, per cent of Titan, or the area of
craggy fjords with shifting ice – and Titan’s probably the next most “The strong flow of liquid the entire US. To make the same
rocks. That means more so-called important place that people will hydrocarbons through a amount of power on Earth would
quakes – and accompanying have an extended presence,” says narrow sea channel could take less than 10 per cent of the
tsunamis – seem imminent. Ralph Lorenz at Johns Hopkins produce reliable power” area of Kansas.
“All of these fjords are very steep,” University in Maryland. Despite Titan’s energy
says Martin Truffer of the University Humans could live under the by the atmosphere,” says Sarah resources, life there would be
of Alaska Fairbanks. “If you have yellow haze of the moon’s skies Hörst, a planetary scientist at tough. The moon is cold and has
loose materials cemented together by using its resources to power Johns Hopkins University. an unbreathable atmosphere of
with melting ice, there’s potential for their lives, according to Amanda Dams or waterwheels could nitrogen, methane and hydrogen,
more of these tsunamis.” Hendrix of the Planetary Science create power from hydrocarbons so colonists would need to wrap
Truffer, a physicist who uses Institute and Yuk Yung at the made liquid by Titan’s frigid up and carry their air with them.
ground-based radar to measure California Institute of Technology temperatures, but it would be Squeezed by 1.5 times Earth’s
the movement of glaciers, thinks (arxiv.org/abs/1707.00365). a big engineering project to get atmospheric pressure, yet
this is linked to temperature rise. Supplies from Earth could be them flowing downhill as the buoyant under one-seventh its
Now he believes the adjacent used to make a nuclear power largest lakes and seas are lower gravity, people on Titan would
mountains are at risk and could soon plant, fuelled by mining the than nearby terrain, Hendrix says. feel more like divers in an ocean
erode and cause another tsunami. moon – yet without studying its A better option could be to put than astronauts on an airless rock
Adam Popescu ■ interior geology, the feasibility turbines in the seas. The largest in space. Mika McKinnon ■

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 9

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Why people sleep

The Hadza sleep in grass huts, University in Durham, North
each containing one or two adults Carolina. Indeed, at least one
and often several children. They person was either awake, or

at different times live in camps of around 30 adults,

although several other camps
may be close by.
sleeping lightly and could easily
be roused, for 99.8 per cent of the
sleep periods sampled, and on
Samson recruited 33 adults average eight of the adults were
Linda Geddes enough to keep a community safe from two nearby groups of 22 huts awake at any given time. Further
at night? To investigate, David and asked them to wear motion- analysis revealed that this
NUMEROUS dangers stalk the Samson, then at the University sensors on their wrists to monitor variation in sleep timing could be
bushlands of Tanzania while of Toronto in Canada, and his sleep, for 20 days. “It turned out almost entirely accounted for by
members of the Hadza people colleagues turned to the Hadza, that it was extremely rare for the mixture of ages in the group
sleep, yet no one keeps watch. a group of hunter-gatherers in there to be synchronous sleep,” (Proceedings of the Royal Society B,
There is no need because it northern Tanzania. says Samson, now at Duke DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0967).
seems that natural variation in Humans live longer than many
sleep means there’s rarely a other mammals. One theory is
moment when someone isn’t that there’s an evolutionary
alert enough to raise the alarm. advantage to living beyond
That’s the conclusion of a reproductive age because
study that sheds new light on grandparents can help look after
why teenagers sleep late while the children in a group – the
grandparents are often up at the grandmother hypothesis.
crack of dawn. Fifty years ago, This study suggests there may
psychologist Frederick Snyder be another advantage: “We’re
proposed that animals who live in calling it the ‘poorly sleeping
groups stay vigilant during sleep, grandparent’ hypothesis,” says
by having some stay awake while Samson. “Having a mixed-age
others rest. However, no one had demographic increases the
tested this sentinel hypothesis in sentinel-like behaviour within
humans until now. a group.”
MATTHIEU PALEY/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

One way of maintaining this The findings could also reassure

constant vigilance might be by those suffering from delayed
the evolution of different sleep phase disorder, where
chronotypes – individual people don’t fall asleep until 4 am
differences in when we tend to or 5 am, or age-related insomnia.
sleep. This changes as we age, “This normalises the experience
with teenagers shifting towards of those individuals, and
later bedtimes, and older people sometimes that can be all it takes
towards earlier bedtimes. to get a better night’s sleep,”
Would such variability be –Sentinel: no time for sleep– Samson says. ■

Quantum bank Science, Education and Research in

Kolkata has shown that, by harnessing
with an amount of money and gives it
to Bob. The bank confirms that it’s a
memorised or locked away, the risk is
extremely low, says Moulick.
cheques may be this quality, it is possible to make a
quantum cheque that can’t be spied
qubit from its own system, and has
been encoded by Alice, and cashes the
Transporting qubits is tricky, too.
Current quantum computers need
forgery proof on, and so can’t be copied. cheque (arxiv.org/abs/1707.00182). huge cooling systems. It is possible
Say Alice wants to pay Bob using a The system has weak points, says to store qubits at room temperature
IT’S old meets new. Quantum quantum cheque. The bank verifies Subhayan Roy Moulick, a researcher with diamonds, but Moulick says that
computers could create cheques her identity and issues her two qubits at the University of Oxford who first a quantum cheque is more likely to be
that are nearly impossible to forge. linked to the remaining qubits within proposed the experiment. If someone a laptop-sized box than something
Quantum computers store data their central computer – a quality stole the passcode that Alice uses to you can slip into your pocket.
using qubits which, unlike ones and called quantum entanglement. encode her qubit, they could tamper This isn’t scalable just yet. In this
zeros in classical computing, can exist Measuring the state of any qubit in an with it. But as long as the passcode is scenario, the bank gives away two
in two states at once. It’s impossible to entangled system reveals the state of qubits every time it issues a cheque.
observe a qubit in this superposition – all qubits in that system. The bank can “The contents of a Even if it only issued one cheque a day,
it collapses into either a one or zero as use this to verify that its coffers were quantum cheque can’t be it would need hundreds of qubits, and
soon as you measure it. Now Prasanta the origin of a quantum cheque. spied on, and therefore quantum computers of that size are
Panigrahi at the Indian Institute of Alice encodes one of her qubits can’t be copied” still decades away. Matt Reynolds ■

10 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

Now we can
store video in
living DNA
LIFE is an open book and we’re writing
in it. A team at Harvard University has
used the CRISPR genome-editing tool
to encode video into live bacteria –
demonstrating for the first time that
we can turn microbes into librarians
that can pass records on to their
descendants – and perhaps to ours.
WILLIAM LEAMAN / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

DNA can store a lot of data: 1 gram

of single-stranded DNA could encode
100 billion DVDs. So far, this has been
done using synthetic DNA. You can
store big files like images and text, but
until now there’s been no way to record
something as complex as changes to
an image over time, like a movie. –Got a sense of swing–
However, Seth Shipman at Harvard
and his colleagues realised they could
use CRISPR to insert information into Some birds sing with convinced thrush nightingales
swing, she says the Australian
living bacteria, allowing them to
become active record-keepers. rhythm like jazz masters pied butcherbirds, whose songs
she studies, play with rhythm in
The team encoded five frames of this way. “Some birds sing phrases
video showing a galloping horse into IT DON’T mean a thing if it ain’t Or as jazz pianist Fats Waller is that seem to momentarily swing,”
DNA, and injected it into thousands got that swing, goes the Duke said to have put it: “If you gotta she says. “If I had a jazz band,
of E. coli bacteria. Then the living cells Ellington song. By that logic, ask, you’ll never know.” I’d let them sit in.”
took over. When they detected copies some bird songs really do mean According to an analysis by The most swinging birdsong of
of the first fragment of DNA encoding something. At least a few bird Tina Roeske of the Max Planck all is that of the veery thrush of
the video, the bacteria’s CRISPR species can swing in the same Institute for Empirical Aesthetics North America, says Rothenburg.
mechanism cut and pasted the way that human musicians do, in Germany and colleagues, the “It’s like a Miles Davis trumpet
sequence into their own genomes. New Scientist can reveal. song of the thrush nightingale solo.”
They added subsequent fragments, This claim has been made (Luscinia luscinia) has subtle Whatever you call it, there’s
too, in the proper order. To read the on the basis of a mathematical deviations in note timing that the question of why some birds
data back again, the team sequenced analysis of the songs of the thrush vary rhythms in this way.
the DNA of more than 600,000 cells, nightingale. Not all the musicians “The most swinging bird It might be to make their songs
to negate any individual variability New Scientist spoke to agreed what is the veery thrush – more interesting, but it could also
(Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature23017). the thrush nightingale is doing its song is like a Miles be that they lose rhythmic control
This technical demonstration can be called swing – but several Davis trumpet solo” when they get excited or when
proves it’s possible to create a detailed said they have heard other birds their muscles tire, says composer
history of events in the order they that definitely do swing. make it more “expressive”. Emily Doolittle, who has worked
happened, says Shipman. In the narrowest sense, swing In other words, they can swing with biologists to study birdsong.
“This is a really neat paper,” says means delaying the offbeat, in the wider sense (bioRxiv, DOI: What everyone agrees on
Yaniv Erlich at Columbia University so pairs of notes are played long- 10.1101/157594). is that we’ve barely begun to
in New York. Inserting information short rather than being of equal Rothenburg also thinks this scratch the surface when it
into living cells opens up many duration. This kind of swing is quality of the thrush nightingale comes to studying animal music.
possibilities, he says. For a start, it lets typical of jazz and related styles song qualifies as swing. But “Whether or not we consider
you amend the stored information of music. composer Hollis Taylor of some animal songs to be ‘music’,
later. And because the data is written Swing is also used in a wider Macquarie University in Australia I think it’s beyond a doubt that
into the bacterial genome, it gets sense to describe a certain feel. is not entirely convinced. “It’s a some have enough in common
passed down between generations. “It’s this quality of unevenness terrific study and a fascinating with human music that we can
Storing data in certain kinds of that is so hard to quantify,” says one, but not particularly helped understand them better by
bacteria could even let us store musician David Rothenburg by ‘swing’ being employed in the combining musical and scientific
information to survive a nuclear of the New Jersey Institute of title,” she says. methods of analysis,” says
apocalypse. Douglas Heaven ■ Technology. “You have to feel it.” However, while Taylor is not Doolittle. Michael Le Page ■

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 11

 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Invisibility cloak
boosts solar
panel efficiency
A CLOAK made of a polymer has been
used to hide the metallic strips in solar
panels, making the devices more
efficient at using the sun’s energy.
Invisibility cloaks are made of
materials that bend the path of light
around them and so hide things under
them from view. Martin Schumann
at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
in Germany and his colleagues have
created a prototype solar panel with a
cloak over the metallic contact fingers
MARKA/SUPERSTOCK

that extract the generated current.

Although crucial, these metal strips
reduce the light a panel absorbs,
–Fair shares? Only in an ideal world– lowering efficiency by about 10 per
cent. Schumann and his colleagues
designed a single solar cell with an

Toddlers expect
be handed an equal number of
pieces. If one puppet was given added polymer coating. They then
more, the infants showed surprise etched grooves into the coating, so

bullies to get more

by looking at the screen for an it guides incoming light around the
average of 6 extra seconds. contact fingers and towards the
But when the puppets had been solar cell (Advanced Optical Materials,
fighting, the toddlers were instead doi.org/b9fd).
Aylin Woodward 17-month-old toddlers use social surprised when the pushier, The team placed enough contact
cues to adjust their expectations dominant puppet wasn’t given fingers on the cell to cover 6 per cent
EVEN babies seem to expect of what a person should have. more Lego. They seem to have of the surface area. When they added
bullies to get more in life. For the “They are tuned to what they expected it to get more than its the invisibility cloak, the efficiency
first time, there’s evidence that observe – who is more powerful or fair share, watching this scenario rose by 9 per cent rather than the
infants expect socially dominant competent – and use that to make for an average of 8 seconds less expected 6 per cent. This is because
people to be treated differently. further predictions,” says team than the more surprising scenario light that would otherwise have been
From as early as 6 months, member Hyo Gweon at Stanford in which the Lego was shared reflected is trapped within the cloak
babies begin to judge other University in California. equally (Cognition, doi.org/b9dw). and later absorbed by the panel.
people’s characters, and by The team studied 80 infants “The fact that dominance and Gerhard Peharz, an engineer at
the age of 10 months, infants across a variety of experiments resource notions are aligned and Joanneum Research in Austria, says
anticipate that bigger things in which they watched videos of established so early may have the work is exciting, but he foresees
will master smaller ones. Now human-like puppets. In one set of consequences for larger societal problems. Dust will gather in the
an experiment has found that videos, the puppets happily sat on issues,”says team member Jessica grooves in the cloaking material and
toddlers expect dominant a purple chair and a brown stool, Sommerville of the University block sunlight, he says. And, over
people to have the lion’s share of Washington in Seattle. “This time, UV light will degrade the
of resources. “This might help explain might help to explain why people polymer, decreasing its effectiveness.
Previous studies discovered why we like the idea of endorse egalitarian resource “It needs to be shown that there
that, in the absence of any social equal sharing, but struggle distributions, yet we struggle to is a polymeric material that you can
differences, infants expect objects to change the status quo” change the status quo in which pattern in order to achieve this effect
to be equally shared out between some folks wind up with more and is reliable for 20 years outdoors
people. Toddlers who watched without conflict. In the second set, resources even if they are in the desert of Arizona,” Peharz says.
videos of Lego pieces being the puppets fought over who got undeserving of them.” To get round these problems,
shared between two people were to sit in the purple chair, and the All of the infants tested were Schumann wants to enclose the
surprised by variations from a pushier puppet won. from the US. Laura Van Berkel whole solar module in a glass case,
fair procedure. The findings were Lego pieces were then given to at the University of Cologne, sealing it off from the environment
similar in other studies involving the puppets. When the puppets Germany, wonders if toddlers and protecting the cloak. But he
sharing crackers or milk. behaved themselves, the toddlers from more egalitarian countries doesn’t yet know how that would
Now a team has discovered that seemed to anticipate they would would behave in the same way. ■ affect efficiency. Shannon Hall ■

12 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

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AI poetry is so bad
it could be human
Matt Reynolds Juliet while mimicking Eminem,
Hopkins says.
CAN a machine incapable of But flesh-and-blood poet Rishi
feeling emotion write poetry that Dastidar suspects that the AI is all
stirs the soul? A neural network surface and no subtext. Real
trained on thousands of lines poems explore ideas that might
of poetry has tried its hand at not be immediately apparent in
penning its own rhymes. Its best the text, he says. But an AI doesn’t
efforts even fool readers into deal in ideas, it just puts one word
thinking they’re reading the after another.
output of a human mind. Although it might be short on
The poetic bot is fully original thought, the AI poet did
tunable, says Jack Hopkins,
who developed the system while “It could write about Brexit
at the University of Cambridge. in the style of a Greek epic,
It can be programmed to write or write snippets of Romeo
in a particular rhythm or on and Juliet à la Eminem” –But is it better than monkeys?–
specific themes.
Set the theme to “desolation”, have plenty of examples to draw Tell the neural network to write “The art form and the craft stopped
for example, and the angst-ridden inspiration from. It was trained about fire, for example, and it thinking about these things 70
AI comes up with the following: on over 7 million words of 20th- will keep checking to make sure years ago,”he says. Modern poets
century English poetry. some of the words in the line it is deliberately choose when to follow
The frozen waters that are However, unlike most human writing concern fire. or depart from formal constraints.
dead are now poets, the neural network Hopkins employed a similar You can’t be truly creative, says
black as the rain to freeze a doesn’t think in words; rather, to mechanism to persuade the Dastidar, if your template is only
boundless sky, approximate poetic idiosyncrasies AI poet to write lines that rhymed what has already been written.
and frozen ode of our terrors with like archaic spelling and or followed a particular rhythm. Lack of creativity aside, the
the grisly lady shall be free to cry whimsical punctuation, it learned For example, Hopkins could make neural network still managed to
to write its stanzas one letter at the AI write verse in iambic fool some people. Hopkins asked
The AI can be endlessly tweaked a time. But rather than let the pentameter – the poetic rhythm 70 people to guess who’d written
to produce different flavours of network freestyle, Hopkins added that is common in Shakespeare’s a fragment of poetry – a computer
poetry. It could write about Brexit another element that encouraged plays and sonnets. or a living, breathing poet. The
in the style of a Greek epic, or it to write in particular styles or This puts the AI poet decidedly most human poem, it turned out,
rewrite snippets of Romeo and on certain themes. behind the times, says Dastidar. was actually written by an AI. ■

Invasive plants responding to climate change far

more quickly than the native ones,”
and their passage up the mountain
was helped by roads with verges that
scale warming says Matteo Dainese of the University
of Würzburg in Germany. He and his
provided convenient conduits toward
the summit (Nature Climate Change,
peaks quickest colleagues looked at the distributions doi.org/b9gv).
of 1300 plant species over 20 years – “A key finding of our study is
AS THE climate warms up, invasive from 1989 to 2009 – on an area that the combined effect of
weeds are outpacing native Alpine around Mount Baldo in north-east both global warming and human
plants to the tops of mountains, Italy. From 130,000 observations, disturbance has accelerated species
threatening them with extinction. they found that on average, the range expansion in an unprecedented
To avoid warming temperatures, non-native species were increasing way,” says co-author Lorenzo Marini,
plants can migrate to cooler habitats their elevation range at twice the of the University of Padua in Italy.
higher up mountains, but new speed of the native species such “Limiting growth of tourism, skiing
FILIPPO PROSSER

research is showing that invasive as Potentilla brauneana (pictured). developments and roads could be
species are beating them to it. The team found that the invasive central to reducing these impacts.”
“We find that invasive species are –It’s a race to the top– species spread their seeds more widely Andy Coghlan ■

14 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Milk tooth reveals

features seen in the other three could be recovered from the
specimens, consistent with those tooth – only about 1.5 per cent of
features being later mutations. the nuclear genome. “To really

oldest Denisovan Judging by the accepted rate of

mutation, the girl probably lived
20,000 to 40,000 years earlier
investigate the genetic diversity
of this group across space
and time, we would need to
than any of the three previously reconstruct full genomes from
Colin Barras Germany, and her colleagues have known Denisovans (Science additional individuals,” she
added a worn milk tooth lost by Advances, doi.org/b9gg). says, which will mean we need
THREE becomes four. The sparse a girl aged 10 to 12 years old. Despite these differences, the more fossils.
fossil record of the Denisovans – Unearthed in the Denisova cave DNA in the tooth is remarkably There is a good chance that
ancient humans who lived in what in 1984, it came from a geological similar to that from the three the Denisovans were reasonably
is now Siberia – has gained one layer formed between 227,000 younger fossils. This fits with widespread across Asia: chunks
more specimen: a tiny, worn tooth and 128,000 years ago, making the idea that the Denisovan of their DNA are present in some
belonging to a child. it potentially the oldest of the population was always small people in East Asia and Oceania
The Denisovans are perhaps four specimens. and had a low genetic diversity. today, suggesting the Denisovans
the most mysterious of all ancient DNA analysis supports that But Slon says it’s still difficult
interbred with modern humans
hominins. They were discovered idea: the tooth lacks some genetic to confirm this, since so little DNA
who arrived later on. But, for the
in 2010 when geneticists were moment, the details are sparse.
sequencing DNA from ancient “We really know nothing so far
bones, assuming they belonged about the Denisovan range,”
to Neanderthals. The DNA from says Chris Stringer at the Natural
a 50,000-year-old finger-bone History Museum in London.
fragment turned out to be so Stringer suspects that the
different from Neanderthal gene population that occupied the
sequences that the researchers Denisova cave might have been
concluded it must represent a unusual. The cave has also yielded
separate group. some fossil material containing
Later genetic studies suggested Neanderthal DNA – but like the
that these distinct hominins split Denisovan DNA, it shows signs
from the Neanderthals between of having come from a small,
470,000 and 190,000 years ago. potentially inbred population.
They were named the Denisovans “This does suggest that these
after the Denisova cave in Siberia populations of Neanderthals and
RIA NOVOSTI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

(pictured right), where the finger- Denisovans were present in small

bone fragment was found. Later, numbers at the very edges of their
Denisovan DNA turned up in two species’ ranges,” says Stringer:
teeth recovered from the cave. most Neanderthals lived much
Now, Viviane Slon at the Max further west of the Denisova cave,
Planck Institute for Evolutionary most Denisovans probably much
Anthropology in Leipzig, –Home to two ancient hominins– further east. ■

Corporate pictures of top executives taken

from the websites of nearly 500 of
percentage of female board members
was lower than the percentage of
lives. Using machine learning makes
it possible to examine their diversity
diversity under the largest companies in the world.
The final dataset comprised over
women capable of work in that
country. Twenty-two companies had
in a way that couldn’t be done before,”
says Polina Mamoshina at Insilico
AI microscope 7200 photographs from companies no women on their boards, with the Medicine. The firm says it will publish
spanning 38 countries. majority of those firms being in Asia. the research on arXiv.
BOARDROOM bias is tricky to assess. The team trained image recognition Nearly 80 per cent of the “This paper confirms that we live in
Many firms don’t publish diversity algorithms to automatically detect executives were white, with 3.6 per a biased world,” says Sandra Wachter
reports, hampering efforts to tackle the age, race and sex of the board cent black and 16.7 per cent Asian. at the Oxford Internet Institute,
institutional biases. Now artificially members, and compared the results “These huge companies lead UK. However, acknowledging the
intelligent algorithms have been used with the population profile of each industries and influence our everyday problems this causes is only a crucial
to dig into the data, confirming that firm’s country to highlight disparities. first step. “Having a public discourse
there is a lack of diversity at the top Overall, the team found that “Machine learning allows us about these issues is vital,” she says.
of the world’s corporate ladder. only 21.2 per cent of the corporate to examine the diversity of “It is important to find out where the
Researchers from biotech firm executives in the study were female. these influential firms in a biases stem from and tackle the
Insilico Medicine in Maryland compiled And in every single company, the way we couldn’t before” roots.” Timothy Revell ■

16 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

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Tiny laser vanishes

in a little water
ONE minute it’s a laser, the next
it has dissolved away. A new
postage stamp-sized device could
be injected into the body to help
with medical imaging. After use,
its non-toxic materials would be
absorbed by the body.
Traditional lasers amplify light
using mirrors on either side of a
special material, releasing laser
light through one of the mirrors.
The new device, created by
Yang-Fang Chen at the National
Taiwan University in Taipei and
his colleagues, bounces light
between closely packed zinc
oxide and titanium dioxide
nanoparticles instead.
The nanoparticles collide to
produce scatterings of light, like
sun streaming through clouds,
doing away with the need for
bulky mirrors.
The particles are packed into a
Coordinated leaning helps Follow-up experiments by Hall’s team revealed that
the pattern starts early in growth, when one “pioneer”
tiny polymer compartment that
dissolves in water after 40
sunflowers get more light plant leans about 10 degrees from the vertical to escape minutes (ACS Nano, doi.org/b9ds).
a neighbour’s shade. This causes the plants on either side
SUNFLOWERS growing densely in a field adopt a zigzag of the pioneer to lean in the opposite direction to escape
pattern, with neighbours leaning in opposite directions the pioneer’s shade, and the alternation cascades
Frogs have hidden,
to grab as much light as possible. The strategy – which outwards. “Each pioneer plant creates a wave,” says Hall.
other plants might be using, too, without anyone Yields of sunflower seeds were between 25 and 50 per ancient kneecaps
noticing – may give us a way to boost crop yields. cent higher in the leaning plants than in plants wired to
The alternating leaning isn’t easy to discern, remain upright, suggesting that the tilt allows them to FROGS’ legs have sprung a
because leaves mask the pattern. But when Antonio make better use of available light. Hall’s team also big surprise. Contrary to the
Hall, a crop eco-physiologist at the University of Buenos compared several sunflower varieties and found they textbooks, they have primitive
Aires, Argentina, visited an unusually dense field of differed in their leaning habit, suggesting that the trait kneecaps.
sunflowers at the end of the growing season, after the has a genetic basis and could be harnessed for crops in We failed to spot them earlier
leaves had fallen, he noticed it. the future (PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1618990114). because they aren’t clearly visible
on frogs’ bones, says Virginia
Abdala at Argentina’s Institute
Heavy head knocks double dementia risk In all, 696 of the 19,936 people of Neotropical Biodiversity.
with moderate-to-severe head Her team found evidence of
SERIOUS head injuries nearly injuries with no lesions, and were injuries went on to develop kneecaps in tissue slices from
double a person’s risk of able to go home within a day. dementia, while only 326 of the eight frogs, representing several
developing dementia. That’s the After accounting for education 20,703 people with milder injuries species. Reconstructing the
message of a study of the long- and socio-economic status, the did. The risk of dementia was evolutionary history of the
term health of over 40,000 group with moderate-to-severe highest in those who sustained kneecap, they found that it could
people who had head injuries injuries had a 90 per cent severe, traumatic head injuries be ancestral to all land animals.
between 1986 and 2014. higher risk of developing non- between the ages of 41 and 50 The team argue that kneecaps
Half of them had moderate-to- Alzheimer’s dementia than the (PLoS Medicine, doi.org/b9dh). may have begun to evolve
severe head injuries, which caused group with milder injuries, Previous studies have found 400 million years ago, when the
lesions in the brain and required found Rahul Raj at the University that blows to the head can raise a first four-legged animals reached
a hospital stay of three days or of Helsinki, Finland, and his person’s likelihood of dementia, land (The Anatomical Record,
more. The other half had milder colleagues. as can highly physical sports. doi.org/b9dm).

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 19

 IN BRIEF
For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news

Wire robot twists Bacteria implicated in nasty flare-ups of eczema

into any shape MICROBES that live on our skin while the skin was healthy, and from those children with more
may play a role in eczema. Certain during and after eczema flare-ups. severe eczema caused substantial
FROM wire to finished product: strains of Staphylococcus aureus They then used DNA sequencing inflammation, whereas other
a new robot-builder delivers in bacteria are linked to skin to identify the bacteria present. S. aureus strains provoked smaller
less than 13 minutes. It works by irritation in children with the S. aureus is common on skin reactions (Science Translational
bending wire with motors already disorder, it turns out. and is especially prevalent in Medicine, DOI: 10.1126/
attached into different shapes. Eczema affects up to 20 per cent people with eczema. What the scitranslmed.aal4651).
Once the robot’s task is complete, of children, causing bouts of dry team found was that particular Understanding the precise role
simply flatten it and feed back into and itchy skin. To learn more, strains of this species dominated microbes play could lead to new
the system to be recycled into a Heidi Kong at the National the samples during severe flare- treatments. “We are interested in
new type of robot. Institutes of Health in Bethesda, ups. When children had mild or figuring out what these bacterial
“The idea is that you analyse the Maryland, and her colleagues no symptoms, the mix of bacteria strains are doing on our patients,”
current situation, then make a robot sampled bacteria from the skin of was more diverse. says Kong. “If these are harmful,
on the fly that can deal with it,” says 11 children with eczema, as well as The team then let bacteria then finding a way to change what
Sebastian Risi at the IT University seven children who don’t have it. from the children colonise the strains are on eczema patients
of Copenhagen, a member of the The researchers took samples skin of mice. S. aureus strains may be helpful.”
team that came up with the system.
If you need a robot that can fit

JULIAN NIEMAN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

through a small space or around an
Drones that can
odd-shaped corner, you input those
constraints into the software and it dive like pelicans
will deliver something suitable (IEEE
Robotics and Automation Letters, FLYING submarines are about
doi.org/b9gw). to make a splash. The US Navy
“You then end up with a robot has developed a version of the
that can crawl under that awkward underwater drones known as
piece of rubble or over collapsed gliders – but souped up so the
walls in a burning building,” he says. vehicle can fly.
“They are cheap and easy to make, Gliders are so-called because
and afterwards you can easily they vary their buoyancy to
recycle them or make a new one.” slip through the water for great
The idea could be useful for space distances on little power.
missions, Risi thinks, as they can’t But they can’t get to a
accommodate 15 different robots destination fast. So the Flying Sea
to do different things, so being able Glider, which weighs around 30
to create and recycle them quickly kilograms, will attempt to fly for
would be handy. more than 150 kilometres and, at
Risi and his colleagues now want its destination, dive into the waves
to augment the robots with sensors, and convert into a submarine. Spiders use UV trickery to hunt bees
like cameras or microphones. A small test version has already
flown successfully, with the full- SOME spiders are ambush hunters, light than non-flower-dwellers
DANIEL CELLUCCI

sized drone scheduled to make but they neither use webs nor rely (Evolution, doi.org/b9dx). This
its debut flight next year. purely on the element of surprise. appears to be effective, because we
The dive is the trick. The navy They reflect ultraviolet light, making already know bees are more likely
team opted for a pelican-style the flowers where they live more to visit flowers with UV-reflecting
plunge as it was less likely to appealing to the bees they prey on. spiders perched on them.
damage the drone. When it enters Felipe Gawryszewski at the It is not clear why bees are lured
the water, sections of its body fill Federal University of Goiás in Brazil in, but one possibility is that they
with water until it becomes dense and his team collected and studied mistake the spiders for “floral
enough to glide at depths of up individuals from 68 species of crab guides” – natural bright spots on
to 200 metres. spider found in Australia, Europe flowers that guide pollinators to
At the end of its mission, a boat and Malaysia. They discovered that land on them.
will recover it, as with existing multiple species had evolved a It is also possible that bees
gliders. The idea is that groups of flower-based hunting strategy. prefer certain colour patterns and
the drones could be rapidly sent What’s more, flower-dwelling that spiders are tapping into this,
to find a crashed aircraft, for crab spiders reflected more UV says Gawryszewski.
example, or track an oil spill.

20 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

SC S
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ANALYSIS BABY SLEEP

Lullaby and goodnight

Paediatricians say sharing a bed with your baby is dangerous, but
anthropologists say it’s natural. Who’s right, asks Alice Klein
FOR decades, new parents have to protect them, just as other beds with butchers’ knives lying
been warned against sharing a bed primates do today, says Helen Ball next to them, warning: “Your
with their babies. While snuggling at Durham University, UK. “Babies baby sleeping with you can be
up with your newborn may seem respond to close contact – their just as dangerous.”
like the most natural thing in the breathing, blood oxygen and heart “Ninety-nine per cent of
world, prevailing medical advice rate are on a more even keel.” paediatricians would tell you
says this increases the risk of In Asia and Africa, most babies never to bed-share,” says Ian Paul
sudden infant death syndrome still share their parents’ beds at Pennsylvania State University.
(SIDS), sometimes called cot (see map, below). But in the
death. Instead, doctors say your West, bed-sharing fell during the “Ninety-nine per cent of
little ones should sleep in a industrial revolution as increased paediatricians would tell
separate crib in your bedroom. wealth let people afford separate you never to share your
On the other side of the rooms and value was placed on bed with your baby”
argument are anthropologists teaching early independence.
and proponents of “attachment Then, in the 1990s, the “We’re not sleeping on cave floors
parenting”, who believe that perception of bed-sharing went anymore, we’re on 21st-century

SANDRA SECKINGER/WESTEND61/PLAINPICTURE
infant-parent separation is from unfashionable to dangerous, mattresses with pillows and
unnatural and at odds with our after research suggested that blankets that can suffocate babies.”
evolutionary history. They favour SIDS was more common in babies But more recently, evidence has
not just room-sharing but bed- who slept in their parents’ bed. emerged that bed-sharing can be
sharing – putting them in direct In 2005, the American Academy done safely. A 2014 study of 400
conflict with paediatric advice. of Pediatrics (AAP) released SIDS cases in the UK found that
This debate was recently guidelines advising against sleeping with a baby is only
reignited by a study suggesting bed-sharing, which were also associated with SIDS if it is on
that room-sharing for up to nine adopted in the UK and Australia. a sofa, or the parents smoke or
months reduces a baby’s sleep, The AAP acknowledged that consume more than two units
which in theory could have future the association between SIDS of alcohol before bed. Japan and Hong Kong are slightly
health consequences. So what’s and bed-sharing wasn’t clear-cut, Parents without these risk different to those in Western
a sleep-deprived parent to do? but the link became gospel factors can prepare safe sleeping nations. Other countries where
Our ancestors slept in direct nonetheless. Billboards went up spaces for their baby, says Ball. bed-sharing is common don’t
contact with their young in order in the US depicting babies in adult “Use a firm mattress, keep pillows routinely collect data on SIDS.
and blankets away,” she says. Because we still don’t really
Sleeping soundly Lab observations show mothers know what causes SIDS, it’s
The percentage of parents who share a bed with their babies is higher instinctively curl around their difficult to know how bed-sharing
in African and Asian countries than in the West, where it fell out of babies, she says, but if you are and SIDS might be linked. But the
favour during the 19th century afraid of rolling onto your baby, latest research points to a role
place them in a bedside crib for biological factors unrelated
attached to the bed to form a to sleep location. For example, a
continuous but protected surface. study published last year found
In Japan, where bed-sharing that babies who died of SIDS had
rates are high but SIDS rates are faulty signalling from a brain
low, protective measures are part chemical called orexin, which
of the culture, says Fern Hauck made it harder for them to wake
SOURCE: Sleep Medicine Reviews, doi.org/b9dn

100 at the University of Virginia. up. Other research suggests the

80 Japanese mothers generally sleep condition is caused by brainstem
60 on firm futons, place babies on abnormalities that make it harder
40
their backs, and don’t smoke for babies to regulate breathing.
Percentage much, she says. However, Hauck, who co-
20 of bed Hong Kong also has high bed- authored the AAP’s most recent
0 sharing
sharing rates and low SIDS rates, SIDS guidelines, says she is still
No data although the SIDS definitions in not convinced about the safety of

22 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

develop object permanence – the

understanding that objects still
exist even when they can no
longer be seen. “Then babies
understand that even though they
can’t see their mum, she hasn’t
disappeared forever,” she says.
The AAP recently shifted from
recommending at least one year
of room-sharing to at least six
months. “We accepted concerns
that sleeping in the same room
for a year can be difficult,” says
Hauck. The UK’s NHS also
recommends six months.

Parental choice
Educating parents is better than
simply telling them what to do,
says Ball. “There’s no one-size-fits-
all guidance, and it bothers me
when people try to reduce it down
to: ‘you should do this or do that’.”
Rigid guidelines can also
backfire. For example, parents
who have been warned never
to bed-share may end up falling
into an exhausted sleep with
their baby on a sofa, which is
more dangerous than a carefully
prepared bed, says Ball.
–Sleep well- This idea is starting to catch
on. Since 2016, the AAP guidelines
bed-sharing, as her team’s review which babies were randomly location among other factors have included advice on how to
of all the evidence suggested there assigned to sleep in their mother’s on development is practically bed-share more safely, in case
is still a small risk of SIDS even if bed, a crib attached to her bed, impossible, says Ball. parents choose to do it or it
factors like parents being non- or a standalone cot adjacent to The long-term effects of room- happens accidentally. And in 2014,
smokers are considered. “We’re her bed. It turned out that babies sharing are also unknown. A the UK’s National Institute for
taking a cautious approach and sharing a bed or in bedside crib survey of 230 mothers in the US Health and Care Excellence
continuing to recommend that breastfed twice as often as those found that 9-month-old babies recommended discussing bed-
infants sleep on a separate in standalone cots. slept 40 minutes less on average sharing risks with parents,
surface,” she says. However, little research has per night if they shared their instead of banning it outright.
Even if bed-sharing can be been done on the long-term parents’room (Pediatrics, doi.org/ In Australia, the National Health
done safely, parents must still ask impacts of bed-sharing. One study b9bp). Poor sleep early in life and Medical Research Council is
themselves whether it is worth it. that followed 205 Californian could lead to cognitive and also updating its guidelines.
Proponents say that the security children for 18 years found behavioural problems, says The debate remains polarised,
children derive from sleeping with that bed-sharing as infants had Paul, who carried out the study. but the evidence suggests your
their parents helps make them no effect on self-acceptance, Whether this could have lasting baby can sleep wherever works
more caring and empathetic, relationships with others, effects is still conjecture. It is also best for you, as long as it is done
though little research has been attitudes to sex, the use of unclear whether sounder sleep is sensibly. If you want to bed-share,
done to support this. Others say it drugs and alcohol, or criminal desirable, since babies who wake there are ways to reduce the SIDS
simply disrupts everyone’s sleep. tendencies when they grew up. up less are thought to be more at risk. If you want to move your
One clear advantage is that But teasing out the effect of sleep risk of SIDS, says Hauck. baby into their own room after
bed-sharing makes breastfeeding Babies can usually be moved six months, you are unlikely to
easier, says Ball, which is linked “There’s no one-size-fits-all safely to their own room when stunt their emotional growth.
to a lower risk of SIDS, infections, guidance, and people they are about 6 months old, says The important thing is to have
allergic disease and obesity. She shouldn’t reduce it to: ‘you Ball, when the risk of SIDS drops informed choice – and hopefully,
led a trial in a postnatal ward, in should do this or do that’” off sharply and infants start to a good night’s sleep. ■

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 23

COMMENT

Reboot and reform

Broader oversight of big tech’s healthcare ambitions must follow
the flawed DeepMind-NHS deal, says Hal Hodson

SO THE deal struck over patient Its ruling can’t be the final line
data between the Royal Free drawn under a flawed agreement,
Foundation NHS Trust and AI but must herald the start of a
pioneer DeepMind “failed to much wider discussion about how
comply with” the law. That’s big tech firms use health data.
the long-awaited verdict of the How should such deals take
regulator charged with upholding the value of NHS datasets into
UK data protection rules. account? How do we ensure
The Information patients’ needs are served by the
Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said open standards DeepMind and
the trust, part of the UK’s national others are working on, and allow
health service, erred in four ways. new players into the market?
It did not examine the privacy How much control do US parent
implications of the agreement corporations have over UK-based
closely enough. It failed to tell subsidiaries (DeepMind is owned
patients about the deal or offer an by Google’s parent company)?
opt-out before handing over their It may seem premature to talk
records. Plus sharing 1.6 million of monopolies and competition
identifiable records was in excess when DeepMind’s NHS foray is
of that needed to test an app. barely a year old, but digital firms
This vindicates New Scientist’s can dominate fast. DeepMind is
story in April 2016, which revealed not just building an app for the
the true extent of the data transfer NHS, it is building infrastructure.
and questioned its validity. If rivals have to interface with that
However, there are bigger infrastructure, they may find it
questions beyond the ICO’s remit. hard to compete. Hopefully,

Flight of fancy?
EPO is no better than a placebo. to boost red cell counts, shown to
So the blood doping emperor improve race performance.
had no clothes? Maybe. For ethical Yet, this is still impressive work.
reasons, the study couldn’t use Will it have an impact in the anti-
If EPO doping in sport is just a placebo effect, elite competitors, and blood doping world? Possibly not. The
oxygen content may not have World Anti-Doping Agency will
would that stop its abuse, asks Chris Cooper been limiting performance in the not remove EPO from its banned
amateurs. Participants were also list as long as there is the slightest
asked to train as usual, so this chance it boosts performance.
THE Tour de France, the greatest from grace, he is portrayed being didn’t test any effect of EPO on One study, however careful, would
cycling race in the world, was injected with EPO accompanied how hard you can train. not be enough to sway opinion.
dominated by US rider Lance by the line: “This is science; The study also doesn’t address What about use by unethical
Armstrong from 1999 to 2005. no longer confined to Earth – use of a closely related doping coaches? Coaching is as much art
Then, in 2012, he got a lifetime ban now we have learned to fly.” technique: transfusions of blood as science. Harnessing the placebo
for doping, for using among other That science may be crashing effect is a key part of it, and
things the blood-oxygen-boosting back to earth. Using amateur “EPO’s relatively cheap injections are great placebos.
agent erythropoietin (EPO). riders injecting either EPO or price has led to a big rise in If improvements are seen in an
In a memorable scene in The saline, a Dutch study says that in use at the non-elite level, athlete’s performance, coaches
Program, a film based on his fall terms of road race performance, in club athletes” will dismiss contradictory papers

24 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion

Interopen, a new health data

standards body, will address some
INSIGHT North Korea
of these concerns.
While it may or may not be
a good idea for DeepMind to
build, run and control core NHS
infrastructure, it would certainly
be bad for it to do so with no
public debate whatsoever.
Turning that debate into robust
regulation will require something
beyond the ICO. Ofcom and
Ofgem oversee communication
and energy networks in the UK.
We may now need Ofdim, the
STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGE

Office of Digital Markets.

The agglomeration of power
and influence online is already
taking a toll. The rest of the –Kim Jong-un: mission accomplished–
media industry is suffering,

CanwestoptheNorth
as the bulk of online advertising launch site. Both South Korea and
flows through either Facebook the US initially downplayed the test
or Google. They also hold as “a land-based, intermediate-range

Koreannuclearthreat?
disproportionate power when ballistic missile”.
it comes to informing and But David Wright of the Union of
influencing the public. Concerned Scientists in Washington
We cannot afford to wait and DC says that its 37-minute flight time
see if analogous harms arise from means a more horizontal trajectory
digital healthcare platforms. It is Debora MacKenzie preventing further nuclear would have carried it 6700 km – well
a sorry state of affairs when a few development in exchange for halting into ICBM range. The US later admitted
big companies effectively control THIS week, North Korea gave what it US and South Korean military the missile was indeed an ICBM.
information dissemination in the described as a Fourth of July “gift” to exercises that threaten Kim Jong-un’s So all the evidence suggests Kim
rich world. Control of healthcare the US: the test of an intercontinental regime. Other allies also back talks, Jong-un is drawing ever closer to
delivery would be worse. ■ ballistic missile (ICBM) it claimed couldsays Cirincione. Without them, he achieving his nuclear dreams.
“strike the US mainland… with large fears escalation into catastrophic war. What can be done to stop him?
Hal Hodson is a technology writer heavy nuclear warheads”. So it is worrying that the US and “There are three options,” says
based in London. He broke the story of Such a missile, notes Joe Cirincione South Korea responded to the test Cirincione. “Negotiate a freeze with
concerns over DeepMind’s NHS deal of nuclear think tank the Ploughshares with a drill of their own missiles that North Korea; take military action to
Fund, could hit Alaska, and based on “showcased precision targeting of the destroy test sites; increase sanctions
North Korea’s rate of progress, he fears enemy’s leadership”, according to a and pressure. Trump has refused the
as irrelevant to that athlete. it will be able to strike Los Angeles, New
South Korean statement. first. The second is possible but carries
Personalised coaching is as hot a York or Washington DC in a few years. ICBMs are a game-changer because a high risk of catastrophic war. The
topic as personalised medicine. But hit them with what? North they extend North Korea’s reach, third is ineffective but most likely.”
But a real difference could be Korea has nuclear weapons, but no turning it into a global threat. An ICBM But that third option means an
made where EPO use is increasing one knows if it can make a nuclear uneasy short-term future, leaving
fastest. Its relatively cheap price device small enough to fly on a missile, “ICBMs are a game-changer the door open for the nuclear threat
has led to a big rise in use at the as it claims. because they extend North to grow. “The best we can hope for
non-elite level, in club athletes The country says this week’s Korea’s reach, turning it now is to sustainably deter, contain,
who know they will never be drug launch successfully tested part of that into a global threat” constrain and reform the regime over
tested. Knowledge of the real risk capability, however. ICBMs leave the the long term,” says Adam Mount of
of blood clotting from EPO use atmosphere before returning, so their must be able to travel 5500 kilometres the Center for American Progress in
and its small, or non-existent, payloads must be protected from the or more. Anchorage, Alaska, is 5500 Washington DC.
benefits may deter these heat of re-entry. North Korea said its km from North Korea; Washington DC And worse scenarios are not
occasional users. Let’s hope so. ■ test missile carried a carbon heat is over 10,000 km. impossible. Amid sanctions, military
shield, keeping the nose cool enough North Korea’s rocket flew near posturing and “blustery tweets”,
Chris Cooper heads sports and exercise that on-board electronics meant to vertical so it would descend close Cirincione fears, “North Korea or the
science at the University of Essex, UK. detonate a nuclear device still worked. enough for mission control to track the US could push too far, provoking a
His books include Run, Swim, Throw, Russia and China responded to the missile’s radio signals. That meant it military response that could quickly
Cheat (OUP), about doping science launch by calling for talks aimed at came down only 970 km away from its escalate out of control.” ■

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 25

APERTURE

26 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

The trap that glows
BENEATH this starry sky is a spectacular work of
nature with a sinister twist.
The glittery rock is an abandoned termite
mound taken over by firefly larvae. They dig tiny
U-shaped burrows in the mound’s surface, from
where they glow bright green at night using
bioluminescent chemicals in their heads. By
wiggling this light around, the larvae lure flying
prey such as butterflies, winged termites and ants
to their deaths. In the foreground, a curious
anteater sniffs around for prey of its own.
The image, shot in the Emas National Park in
Brazil, earned Brazilian nature photographer
Marcio Cabral a prize in the annual BigPicture
Natural World Photography Competition.
Cabral’s photo can be viewed alongside 47 other
prizewinning images at the California Academy of
Sciences in San Francisco from 28 July. A selection
of these shots is also online at biographic.com.
The sight of entire fields of glowing termite
mounds has astonished witnesses. One likened
the scene to “miniature cities or countless
illuminated Christmas trees”.
This firefly’s species name, Pyrearinus
termitilluminans, means “green fire that
illuminates the termite nest”. Adult females lay
eggs at the base of an abandoned mound, and
the hatched larvae climb up to burrow into it.
Eventually, the larvae seal the burrows to pupate,
finally emerging as adults. Andy Coghlan

Photographer
Marcio Cabral
fotoexplorer.com

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 27

 COVER STORY

Astronomers taking a first peek at our galaxy’s

black heart might be in for a big surprise,
says Stuart Clark

ASCINATING, bamboozling, vaguely find myself in 10 years’ time saying I was just holes represent the point where the very large,

F terrifying: black holes are the love-to-hate

monsters of the universe. These insatiable
cosmic cannibals are concrete predictions of
another arrogant, overconfident scientist.”
For all their complications, the basic notion
of a black hole is remarkably simple. In general
the domain of general relativity, meets the
very small, the domain of quantum theory –
and the results are not pretty.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the best relativity, the magisterial theory Einstein Such problems were already becoming
theory of gravity we have. Even so, theorists introduced in 1915, massive objects bend space apparent in the 1960s, but that didn’t stop
long debated whether they could exist – until and time around them, creating the force we astronomers imagining ways for nature to
astronomers saw the first signs of them. Now call gravity. An object with sufficiently large produce black holes. When a massive star’s
we see black hole paw prints all over: in huge mass, densely enough packed, bends space fuel was spent, for example, it might collapse
stars collapsing in on themselves, in distant and time so much and creates a gravitational under its own gravity into a stellar-mass black
collisions of massive objects that set the field so strong that nothing, not even light, hole. Such an object would by its nature be
universe quivering, and in the dark hearts of can escape once it crosses the “event horizon”. pitch black and impossible to distinguish from
galaxies including our own. The black hole is a celestial lobster pot, with a pitch-black cosmos, but could make its
This year, we should have the clincher: the the difference that it never gets emptied and presence known in other ways. Sure enough,
first direct image of the supermassive black in 1964, a huge outpouring of X-rays was
hole at the Milky Way’s centre. But as we gear
up for that shadowy mugshot, some physicists
“There’s still a prize for discovered in the constellation Cygnus.
Labelled Cyg X-1, it looked exactly like models
are entertaining a maverick thought: what if it anyone who can say of the radiation emitted by superheated gas

what a black hole is”

isn’t there? plunging down towards a black hole. By the
The new word is that our obsession with 1970s, astronomers felt confident enough to
black holes might have blinded us to the proclaim that Cyg X-1 was almost certainly a
existence of something even stranger – just keeps on accumulating lobsters, no trace stellar-mass black hole eating matter in its
a basic phenomenon of particle physics whose of which is ever seen again. surroundings.
significance we have failed to grasp. After all, The fact is, no one knows how black holes That wasn’t the half of it. In the early
there’s good reason to want whatever is at our work on the inside. Relativity suggests that universe, when giant nebulae were collapsing
galaxy’s heart not to be a black hole. For a start, anything that falls in will be crushed by the to form galaxies, the gas at their centres would
black holes make a nonsense of quantum black hole’s gravity into a “singularity” of zero eventually become dense enough to form
mechanics, the best theory of everything- volume and infinite density, but the prize is monstrous “supermassive” black holes, each
besides-gravity that we have. still out there for anyone who can say what weighing as much as millions or even billions
It is a speculative idea as yet, to be sure, that truly means. Meanwhile, theorists’ most of suns. The invisible object at the centre of the
but there are sound reasons to contemplate it. refined calculations show that black holes must Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*, is
“We scientists tend to be completely arrogant either destroy information – a complete no-no thought to be one. It was identified in the
NATALIE NICKLIN

about what we think we know,” says theorist in quantum theory – or surround themselves 1970s as a particularly strong source of radio
Luciano Rezzolla of the Frankfurt Institute for in a seething mass of energy called a firewall, signals. Subsequent studies, particularly of the
Advanced Studies in Germany. “I don’t want to which breaks a tenet of general relativity. Black way its gravity pulls nearby stars around, >

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 29

THE RIGHT have convinced us that it is indeed a black hole Radio telescopes
KIND OF BOSON with four million times the sun’s mass. such as ALMA in
Further convincing, but still circumstantial, Chile (below) will
Boson stars (see main story) depend evidence for black holes came last year with team up to picture
on there being bosons to make them. the announcement of the first detection of the bright X-ray
In 1955, US physicist John Wheeler gravitational waves. These ripples in space- source at the Milky
wondered whether stars might be time emanate from very massive objects that Way’s heart (right)
made out of photons of light, rather are accelerating – two bodies spiralling
than matter. He called these objects inwards to smash into each other, for
gravitational electromagnetic example. The signal observed by the LIGO
entities, or geons. But it soon turned collaboration in September 2015 was exactly
out that geons made of “spin-one” that predicted for the collision and merger of
bosons such as photons would be two stellar-mass black holes. LIGO has since
unstable and evaporate away. seen two more signals, each compatible with
In the 1960s, theorist David Kaup the mergers of stellar-mass black holes.
of the University of Maryland showed Case closed? Not so fast, says Rezzolla.
that spin-zero bosons could form “Although the presence of a binary black hole
stable stars. At the time, though, system is an obvious and simple explanation,
no spin-zero bosons existed. That it’s not the only explanation,” he says. In

NASA/JPL-CALTECH/ESA/CXC/STSCI
changed on 4 July 2012, with the particular, the signals might not come from
discovery of the Higgs boson. To black holes, but from an entirely different
those who had never lost faith in theoretical invention: boson stars.
boson stars, it came as a huge fillip. Let’s back up a bit. The fundamental
“We knew that there is at least one particles that make up most matter – you,
such boson in nature, so it was a me, those supposed black holes – all belong
motivation to go further in that to a class known as fermions. Their signature
direction,” says Frédéric Vincent of characteristic is that they obey the Pauli
the Paris Observatory in France. exclusion principle, which says that particles
There is still a big hurdle to clear. cannot occupy the same quantum energy them forming something on a bigger scale –
The way bosons all clump together state as one another. The Pauli principle perhaps much bigger. Some physicists even
means that the smaller their mass, explains the appearance of the material think they can form stars, although not as we
the bigger the star that they form. world: it determines how electrons arrange know them. “When we say star, we are
Very massive stars mean very themselves in different energy states around basically just saying a collection of stuff that
light particles. The Higgs, at an atomic nucleus, and thus the properties of holds together,” says theorist Steve Liebling of
125 gigaelectronvolts, or about the various chemical elements. Long Island University in New York.
250,000 times the mass of the When normal matter forms a star,
electron, was simply too heavy.
A possible alternative is an axion.
“Boson stars would hang gravitational pressure heats it so it ignites into
nuclear fusion, pouring out light. In contrast,
This hypothetical particle has been there like doughnut-shaped boson stars would just hang there like cosmic
proposed since the 1970s and is
cosmic couch potatoes”
couch potatoes. Doughnut-shaped couch
a candidate for dark matter, the potatoes: simulations suggest that if boson
mysterious glue that astronomers stars rotate as conventional stars do, centrifugal
believe holds galaxies together. That Bosons are a different kettle of fish. The forces would give the bosonic matter that form.
idea, in turn, opens up the possibility Higgs boson, discovered to great fanfare in These celestial doughnuts would be
that boson stars might account for at 2012, is perhaps the most notorious example. transparent. Emitting no light of their own,
least some of the dark matter. It provides matter particles with their mass; they would be invisible, and the primary thing
Although searches for axions have other bosons carry the forces that allow matter that would give them away would be their
yet to bear fruit, the discovery of a particles to interact. Bosons aren’t exotic. In intense gravity. Sound familiar? “Boson stars
boson star could help things along: fact, we see them all the time, quite literally: could mimic black holes,” says Liebling.
by telling us the axion’s likely mass, photons of light are bosons. “And it is possible that we are getting tricked.”
it could tell us where to focus in The thing about bosons is that they can The idea of boson stars isn’t new, but
experiments to make the particles cram together with virtually no limits. Rather astrophysicists pooh-poohed it because no
on Earth. than forming some kind of uncontrollable one could think what sort of boson might
subatomic mosh pit, they become what is in be used to make one – the particles such as
effect a collective particle, a state of matter photons that transmit the fundamental
known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. forces don’t cut the mustard. Then came
We know how to make Bose-Einstein the discovery of the Higgs boson. It revived
condensates in the lab. We also now know that, interest in novel bosons – not least because
given the right bosons, there’s nothing to stop they could be a boon for particle physics,

30 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 a black hole in the middle of the image.
This is a tall order, the equivalent of sitting
in London and taking a picture of a mustard
seed in New York. For that reason, Heino Falcke
of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the
Netherlands, who is one of the driving forces
of the Event Horizon Telescope, cautions
against overexcitement – although he is
enthusiastic about the data gathered so far.
“It’s not going to be a beautiful sharp image.
It’s likely to be an ugly peanut,” he says.
Or perhaps an ugly doughnut. Opinions
differ as to whether it will be easy to
distinguish between images of a black hole
and a boson star. Calculations by Frédéric
Vincent of the Paris Observatory in France
suggest that the gravity of a compact boson
star will bend light around itself, creating an
empty region that could be mistaken for the
shadow of a black hole event horizon. “A boson
star is really different to a black hole and yet
still it produces features that look like a black
hole,” he says.
Rezzolla thinks this analysis is overly
pessimistic. Like a black hole, a boson star will
be sucking in matter from its surroundings,
but the boson star’s transparency means this
matter will be visible at its centre. It is also
too (see “The right sort of boson”, left). have their own tone, boson stars will have likely to heat up and start emitting light or
That in turn has spurred physicists to ask another.” Unfortunately LIGO is not yet able some other form of electromagnetic radiation.
how we might seek evidence of boson stars. to hear this “ringdown” signal with sufficient “This light might remove the presence of a
LIGO is one obvious way, although the precision, and upgrades that will let it do so shadow all together,” says Rezzolla.
current detector can’t tell whether are probably at least five years away. Vincent agrees that the behaviour of matter
gravitational waves come from two black holes The Event Horizon Telescope – an inside a boson star is an area that needs
merging, or from two boson stars. The place to international project to look directly into the investigation. “It’s a programme of research
look for the difference is not in the pre-merger maw of a black hole – might deliver clarity that I am trying to develop. We are developing
phase, the inward spiralling that gives out the sooner. Radio telescopes across the globe have the codes to do this from scratch,” he says.
waves observed so far. Rather, it is in the been wired up with the aim not just of Falcke is not expecting any surprises when
aftermath, when the two objects have detecting emissions from Sgr A* as the first image from the Event Horizon
coalesced and are still quivering from the superheated gas spirals across its event Telescope finally comes together. “I am afraid
shock, like a rung bell. “As with bells, each horizon, but of mapping them out. Do that it is nothing other than a boring black hole,”
object will have its own frequency and tone,” with enough precision, and the shape of the he says. That choice of words indicates just
says Rezzolla. “Black holes of a given mass will black hole itself should show up as... well, how deep-seated the belief in black holes now
is. Even those working on boson stars admit
they are a long shot. “I am open to arguments
but still they are pretty exotic,” says Liebling.
Then again, the reward for killing off black
holes is potentially immense. Embodying the
conflict between general relativity and
quantum theory as they do, they are a massive
roadblock to progress on an overarching
theory of nature. Put like that, it seems this is a
puzzle where keeping our options open would
ESO/B. TAFRESHI (TWANIGHT.ORG)

be wise. “It is best to stay open minded,” says

Rezzolla. “Then let the experience tell you
what you really have there.” ■

Stuart Clark is a consultant for New Scientist and the

author of The Unknown Universe (Head of Zeus)

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 31

It’s a no-brainer
Some of the simplest life forms
are able to learn. How do they do
it, wonders Erica Tennenhouse

NAILS, jellyfish and starfish have taught

S us that you don’t need a brain to learn.

These seemingly simple creatures are
capable learners, despite being completely
brainless. Perhaps this is no great surprise.
After all, it’s not as if they lack nerve cells.
Strictly speaking, it’s neurons that enable
learning – theirs are simply spread out, rather
than being packed into centralised bundles.
But what if you take away the neurons?
Most life forms on Earth lack neurons,
and yet they frequently manage to behave in
complex ways. Previously, we have chalked
this up to innate responses refined over
generations, but it is beginning to look as if
some of these humble non-neural organisms
can actually learn. While that’s left some
scientists scratching their heads, others are
busy investigating how this ability could offer
new approaches to fighting diseases and
designing intelligent machines.
Take a slime mould. It certainly doesn’t
look smart. This unusual creature, which is not
a plant, animal or fungus, often resembles a
glob of lemon curd that has fallen on the floor.
Really, this manifestation is just one stage in
the slime mould’s life, formed when many
single cells, each with their own distinct DNA,
mingle and fuse. The resulting yellow blob can
grow to a few square metres, and is just one
enormous cell containing thousands of nuclei.
In nature, a slime mould relies on chemical
receptors on its surface to sense substances in
its path as it creeps along the forest floor. If it
gets a whiff of something attractive, like food,
it will rapidly pulsate, pushing itself closer to
the source. Toxins elicit the opposite response,
causing the slime mould to slow down its
rhythmic throbbing and retract from
potential harm.
They may be sluggish, with maximum
speeds of around 4 centimetres an hour,
but the fact that slime moulds are mobile has

32 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 allowed researchers to get creative with their
experiments. Last year, Audrey Dussutour
grew some in giant Petri dishes in her lab at
the University of Toulouse, France. Then she
prepared a feast of blended oats and placed it
strategically out of reach, save for a bridge that
the slime moulds could crawl across. Their
path was clear. That is, until Dussutour
polluted the bridge with bitter compounds
such as caffeine. Although the concentration
was not high enough to harm the slime
moulds, it was sufficient to stop them in their
tracks for several hours. Eventually though,

“Slime moulds aren’t just

capable of learning, they
can teach each other too”
the lure of a meal induced them to push past.
As time went by, the slime moulds began to
cross the bridge more quickly. After a few days,
the caffeine was no longer a deterrent: the
slime moulds had learned to ignore it.
“Learned” is the key word here. More
specifically, they had habituated – a simple
form of learning where the response to an
irrelevant cue weakens over time. “I was
surprised because they don’t have neurons
and everybody was saying that ability relies
on a neural system,” says Dussutour.
If neurons weren’t enabling the slime
moulds to learn, what was? Dussutour admits
she doesn’t know. But one idea she hopes to
test is that their experience modified their
genes. In a cell’s nucleus are swarms of
molecules that can stick to DNA and switch
genes on or off. They don’t rewrite the genetic
code, but they do temporarily alter how it’s
read. This process – known as epigenetic
regulation – satisfies one of the most basic
requirements for memory and learning,
according to neuroscientist David Glanzman
at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“All you need is to have some information in
the cell changed.” His research suggests this
might be how slime moulds learn.
Neuroscience tells us that the memories
created when an animal learns something get
DR AUDREY DUSSUTOUR

stored in the synapses between neighbouring

neurons. So when Glanzman took sea slugs
and broke apart the synapses that had
formed during training, he was not surprised
to find that the memories vanished. >

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 33

However, when he gave the neurons involved a
jolt of electricity, the synapses regrew and the
memories returned. Glanzman believes that
remnants of the memories had been stored in
the neurons’ DNA, in the form of epigenetic
changes. There is no reason why similar
changes couldn’t occur in other cell types,
he says. “You don’t really need a nervous
system to learn.”
And with slime moulds, it’s not only about
learning. Dussutour has discovered that they
can teach too. In a second experiment, she
allowed slime moulds habituated to salt to
fuse with others that had never encountered
the deterrent. These hybrids scurried across
JEFF ROTMAN/GETTY

a salt-laced bridge without hesitation. After

three hours, she tore the companions apart
and the once-naive slime mould continued
to ignore the salt when crossing the bridge,
as though the habituated mould had
somehow transferred its learning. don’t have a nervous system that can integrate they stopped withdrawing their leaves. They
“One might speculate that what is getting and coordinate, how is that happening?” had learned that they could safely ignore the
exchanged during the fusion is epigenetic That makes the research coming out of Monica fall. Even after being left undisturbed for a
information,” says Glanzman. Eva Jablonka, Gagliano’s lab at the University of Western month, a reprise of the dropping experiment
an epigeneticist at the University of Tel Aviv, Australia tough to explain. failed to elicit the slightest response. They had
can see how a single cell such as a slime mould A few years back, Gagliano’s team remembered their lesson.
could learn through such modifications to its repeatedly dropped potted mimosa plants 15 Encouraged by the plants’ ability to
DNA. But a brainless multicellular organism is centimetres to a soft landing pad on the floor. habituate, Gagliano wanted to see if they
another matter. “It’s not just that there are When mimosa plants are disturbed, they curl could do more. Could they learn to associate a
more cells, but they also have to behave in a up their leaves as though hiding in fear. But reward with a neutral cue, as Pavlov’s dogs had
coordinated manner,” she says. “When you after surviving about five drops unscathed, learned to link food with the sound of a bell?
A plant will naturally grow towards
light. So to train her pea plant seedlings,
Gagliano put them in the dark and then shone
Who needs brains? a light (the reward) towards them from one
direction and blew a fan from the opposite
Organisms with tiny brains, or no brain direction. She also switched it up for some
at all, are capable of amazing feats seedlings by blasting the light and the air from
the same side. Once their training was done,
SLIME MOULD: 0 NEURONS FRESHWATER SNAIL: ~20,000 NEURONS she removed the light and hit all the plants
When their food is scattered in a pattern Using a circuit of just two neurons with a fan. Those that were accustomed to
matching the layout of the cities around freshwater snails decide whether or not light and wind originating from the same side
Tokyo, slime moulds spread themselves into to eat. The controller neuron signals the grew towards the fan, while those that had
a network that closely resembles Japan’s presence of food, and the motivator experienced the light and wind from different
highly efficient rail system. neuron lets the brain know whether the directions grew away from it. The plants
snail is hungry. seemed to be seeking their reward. They
PEA PLANT: 0 NEURONS had learned to associate wind with light.
When allowed to grow their roots into either FRUIT FLY: ~250,000 NEURONS Other scientists have greeted the tantalising
a pot with a steady food supply or one with a Fruit flies take longer to distinguish results with a healthy dose of scepticism.
boom-or-bust supply, pea plants prefer the between very similar concentrations of A leading critic is plant physiologist Lincoln
former if food is plentiful, but gamble on the odours than very different ones, suggesting Taiz, now retired from the University of
latter if they are starved, accepting the that they deliberate rather than acting on California Santa Cruz. He thinks Gagliano’s
higher risk for a higher potential reward. impulse. initial evidence for habituation was tenuous
and she should have shored it up before
BOX JELLYFISH: ~13,000 NEURONS BUMBLEBEE: ~1,000,000 NEURONS building on it. He also points out that in
Box jellyfish use four of their 24 eyes to peer Bumblebees can learn to pull a string to get a associative learning experiments with
up through the water’s surface at tree sugary treat by observing another bee
canopies, which they use to help them performing the task. They can also be Big brains optional: sea slugs (above) and box
navigate mangrove swamps. trained to move a tiny ball to a target. jellyfish can do clever things with few neurons

34 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 THE POWER OF
ASSOCIATION

Pavlov’s dogs learned to associate animals you would expect around 90 per The mechanism may be elusive, but simply
the sound of a bell with the imminent cent of subjects to respond, whereas just over realising that brainless organisms are capable
arrival of food. It’s a simple form of 60 per cent of the pea plants did. However, the of learning could have some practical payoffs.
learning, but it could lie behind brunt of Taiz’s argument is rooted in language. “There are lots of unicellular organisms that
seemingly complex animal behaviours. According to neurobiology, “both learning and are very harmful for humans, like those that
Take chimps with a knack for cracking memory are mental processes carried out by cause malaria,” says Dussutour. “They belong
nuts with stone tools. This precision the mind, which is centred in the brain,” he to the same group as slime moulds, and we
behaviour is considered one of the most says. “By this definition, plants are incapable never thought about these organisms as being
sophisticated observed in wild animals, of learning and memory.” able to learn.” She suggests that knowing
but it might be learned as a sequence of Not everyone subscribes to such a strict whether and how pathogens learn could help
small associative steps in a process definition. For his part, Glanzman is open to guide new strategies for combating them.
called backward chaining. First the the idea of plants learning by association, but Considering epigenetic learning could also
chimp might steal a shelled nut from its wonders about the mechanism. He notes that help computer scientists improve artificial
mother, so it learns to associate nuts neural networks, which model biological
with a tasty reward. Then, when it
strikes a nutshell with a stone, that act
“Plants can learn to learning. Current neural network models are
based on the Hebbian theory of learning –
becomes associated with the reward. associate a reward with the idea that a synapse becomes stronger
Handling stones then becomes when the neurons on either side fire in
rewarding, and so on until the chimp is a a cue, like Pavlov’s dogs” synchrony. In other words, neurons that fire
proficient tool user. Establishing the together wire together. Jablonka believes that
sequence requires very little in the way animals link events together using molecules incorporating epigenetic memory into
of reasoning, but once the chaining is found in nerve cells called NMDA receptors, those models would enrich them.
complete it adds up to an advanced skill. which help strengthen connections between There’s also the provocative idea of memory
This idea could have far-reaching neurons that are repeatedly stimulated at the transfer. If one slime mould can teach another
implications for simple organisms. Even same time. A similar “associative molecule” by fusing with it, might something similar
some plants seem capable of learning would need to be operating in plants, he says. take place in animals? Experiments done
through association (see main story). Gagliano is equally mystified. “There must by James McConnell at the University of
So, in principle, they are equipped to be some system that allows this memory to Michigan over half a century ago suggest it
acquire more complex behaviours via be recorded and literally etched into the might. He trained freshwater flatworms to
backward chaining. And all without even organism, and those triggers then get fear light by repeatedly pairing it with electric
a single neuron. recalled and those are memories,” she says. shocks. Then he ground them up and fed them
to untrained flatworms, which proceeded to
twitch whenever a light flashed.
McConnell believed that the memories of
the trained flatworms were encoded in small
molecules that the naive flatworms then
ingested. Unfortunately, his findings proved
impossible to replicate. But the idea that
small strands of RNA – one type of epigenetic
molecule – could mobilise memories
resonates with many scientists today,
including Glanzman. “In principle, there
should be no reason why you couldn’t transfer
some aspects of memory by transferring RNA
from the brain of one animal to another,” he
says. The implications are mind-boggling.
Jablonka stops short of suggesting that
memories could ever be transplanted,
THOMAS P. PESCHAK/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

but she can imagine that it might be possible

to transmit something like an increased
sensitivity to a stimulus. “Once upon a time
I would have told you I don’t agree with this
kind of thing at all… but I think the more we’re
learning, the more flexible we should be in our
thinking,” she says. “There are very curious
things in this world.” ■

Erica Tennenhouse is a freelance writer based in

Toronto, Canada

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 35

With a little help
from AI friends
Artificial intelligence will soon be a standard
part of your medical care – if it isn’t already.
Can you trust it, asks Kayt Sukel

HE doctor’s eyes flit from your face to health insurers and national healthcare

T her notes. “How long would you say

that’s been going on?” You think back:
a few weeks, maybe longer? She marks it down.
providers are hopeful AI-based medical apps
will improve care. But is the hype around
medical AI all it’s cracked up to be? Would
“Is it worse at certain times of day?” Tough you trust your care to a robot?
to say – it comes and goes. She asks more For decades, researchers have been honing
questions before prodding you, listening artificial intelligence, including deep-learning
to your heart, shining a light in your eyes. algorithms, which are designed to learn
Minutes later, you have a diagnosis and a without being fed rules or constraints
prescription. Only later do you remember (see “A glossary of AI speak”, page 38). “These
that fall you had last month – should you would take in hundreds or even thousands of
have mentioned it? Oops. symptoms and then would learn to diagnose
One in 10 medical diagnoses is wrong, various diseases,” says Pedro Domingos,
according to the US Institute of Medicine. a computer scientist at the University
In primary care, one in 20 patients will get of Washington and author of The Master
a wrong diagnosis. Such errors contribute Algorithm: How the quest for the ultimate
to as many as 80,000 unnecessary deaths learning machine will remake our world.
each year in the US alone. “By training these systems with the data
These are worrying figures, driven by the from a medical database of patient records
complex nature of diagnosis, which can for, say, diabetes or lung cancer, or any other
encompass incomplete information from condition, you can push a button and literally
patients, missed hand-offs between care get something that will diagnose things
providers, biases that cloud doctors’ more accurately than human doctors can.”
judgement, overworked staff, overbooked
systems, and more. The process is riddled
with opportunities for human error. This is Outperforming doctors
why many want to use the constant and That’s not just hype. When Sebastian Thrun
unflappable power of artificial intelligence and his team at Stanford University in
to achieve more accurate diagnosis, prompt California trained a deep-learning neural
care and greater efficiency. network using more than 100,000 images of
AI-driven diagnostic apps are already skin problems, ranging from cancer to insect
available. And it’s not just Silicon Valley bites, then tested it on 14,000 new images, the
types swapping clinic visits for diagnosis via system correctly diagnosed melanomas more
smartphone. The UK National Health Service often than seasoned dermatologists. Deep-
(NHS) is trialling an AI-assisted app to see if it learning networks have also outperformed
performs better than the existing telephone doctors at diagnosing diabetic retinopathy,
triage line. In the US and mainland Europe, a complication of diabetes that damages >

36 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 BRUNO MANGYOKU

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 37

blood vessels in the eye. Other AI tools can black box approach. “If your doctor looks at
identify cancers from CAT scans or MRIs, your skin and says, ‘I think this is a melanoma,’
or even predict from data about general you aren’t going to stop him and say, ‘What
health which people may have a heart attack. are the rules you are using to determine this?’”
But should we trust their successes? he says. “No, you are going to have a biopsy
What are these systems seeing that highly and then, most likely, get treatment. We
trained doctors aren’t? It’s not a question shouldn’t distrust these rules just because
that can always be answered. While some we can’t say exactly what they are.”
deep-learning tools are designed to spit out
the rules they come up with, Thrun’s, for
instance, was a “black box”: it’s unknown Garbage in, garbage out
what features it homed in on. Still, Thrun concedes that deep-learning tools
That makes some nervous, with reason. are only as good as the data they are trained
Consider the experience of Joshua Denny, a on. Thanks to the rise of electronic medical
medical informatics specialist at Vanderbilt records, we finally have big enough data sets to
University in Tennessee. He recently do this training, but there are major logistical
developed a machine-learning tool to identify hurdles to overcome. The wide range of
cases of colon cancer from patients’ electronic healthcare IT systems can mean that their
health records, but soon learned that it was records vary just enough to skew any
latching on to the wrong information. algorithm trying to process them. That means
“It was performing excellently,” he says. up to 90 per cent of the effort in designing
Unfortunately, it was picking up on the fact these AI tools is spent simply cleaning up the
that all of the patients with confirmed cases data, Thrun says. Kyung Sung, a radiologist
had been sent to a particular clinic, not clues at the University of California, Los Angeles,
from their actual medical data. “There’s always agrees. It took his team more than five years to
the risk that a black box model can learn clean up a set of prostate cancer images for his
features that you won’t expect – and won’t AI, which aims to better identify aggressive
be stable over time,” he says. tumours. “Unfortunately, the fact that we now
While acknowledging potential pitfalls, have all these images available doesn’t always
Thrun is circumspect about the nature of the mean that they will be useful,” Sung says.
It’s even possible that an emerging or therapies over time and tracking progress,”
evolving disease might skew the results, Horvitz says. New, more detailed algorithms
A GLOSSARY OF which is something developers have to look out should help doctors better understand how
AI SPEAK for. For example, the creators of diagnostic app conditions progress. “Diabetes, arthritis,
Ada trained it on vast troves of medical files, hypertension, asthma and other chronic
Artificial intelligence Applying and it now refines its results with data from diseases – these are the expensive, challenging
computers to tasks that normally users. To avoid the AI picking up on the wrong cases. These are where most of the healthcare
require human-level intelligence, like things and warping the outcomes, human- costs come in. Machine learning may offer us
reasoning, decision-making, problem- supervised and unsupervised learning are both new opportunities to better manage them.”
solving and learning used to fine-tune the algorithms, says Claire Horvitz is not alone in his optimism.
Big data The huge data sets that Novorol, the company’s chief medical officer. Valentin Tablan, principal scientist at Ieso
can be analysed by computers and “We use multiple experienced doctors as well
algorithms to reveal patterns, trends
and associations
as other technical feedback loops,” she says.
Humans keep the AI in check, but there
“We can create a tool for
Machine learning The capacity of will be times when they shouldn’t. “If there human therapists that
an algorithm to learn from new
makes them superhuman”
are presentations not currently known by
information and modify its processing experts or in the literature, humans may not
as a result, without being explicitly be the best ones to catch that,” says Novorol.
programmed to do so “Those trends will be patterned in the data Digital Health, sees potential for AI to
Neural network An algorithm used and, ultimately, patient outcomes – and the revolutionise mental healthcare. Ieso
in deep learning that imitates the algorithms can help us identify those patterns provides cognitive behavioural therapy online
activity of layers of neurons in the and use them in a predictive way.” for NHS patients and has treated more than
brain, filtering data through tiers of Today, deep-learning diagnostic tools are 10,000 people to date, keeping digital records
virtual brain cells not used in hospitals except in research of every exchange. The company wants to
Deep learning The “black box” of AI. studies, but many think they will be within mine that immense data set to help understand
Unsupervised neural networks five years. By then, they will be able to do what really works. “Machines are very good
that create their own processing far more than diagnosis, says Eric Horvitz, at helping find the elements that are very
constraints as they learn from vast a medical AI researcher at Microsoft. “The important and can really help patients get
troves of training data hard part is managing diseases, figuring out better,” Tablan says.

38 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 and may shift away from rote learning to focus abnormalities in echocardiograms, for
on problem-solving, critical thinking and how example. “If a doctor is in the loop, the
to best deal with the probabilistic outcomes legal and ethical stuff is not going to be that
that so many AI systems produce. challenging,” he says; ultimately, it’s the
As medical AI matures, Thrun believes it will doctor’s responsibility. If AI and doctor
replace many roles in dermatology, radiology disagree, a supervising physician or
and pathology – those that mainly involve committee could break the tie.
repetitively reviewing images. At the same Standalone AI systems would require
time, there will be growth in other areas, such further consideration, however. “That is
as specialised surgery. indeed terra incognita and something we’ll
It could also change what it means to be have to figure out as we go along,” Kohane
a family doctor, says Kohane. “They will be
able to offer their patients specialty care, like
imaging and dermatology procedures right in
“Sharing health data should
their office, with expert-level performance – be a civic duty. Only those
and then refer the patient to a specialist if and
only if a truly actionable finding comes up.” who opt in should benefit”
That could mean a more holistic approach,
and not having to split care between half a says. Liability may ultimately switch from the
dozen doctors. “That would be a great thing physician to the manufacturer, as with self-
both for the doctor and the patient.” driving cars. “Volvo has said they will assume
There are a few significant obstacles to jump liability for their self-driving cars. For the kind
first. To start: how to provide the massive data of AI machines you might find in your corner
COLIN CUTHBERT/GETTY

sets that AI systems need, while protecting pharmacy, the company that made that
patient privacy. The advent of electronic machine is going to have to assume liability
medical records has also ushered in stringent for its range of parameters,” says Denny. As
regulations, such as the HITECH Act in the for what happens if that AI gets it wrong, “it’s
US and the Data Protection Act in the UK. something we need to really think carefully
Last year, New Scientist discovered that the about”, he says. “To my knowledge, the
NHS had shared patient data with Google malpractice industry hasn’t yet thought
An AI could spot the significant picture DeepMind, a deal the UK Information about this kind of thing. But it’s time that
much faster than a doctor Commissioner’s Office just found “failed to we do.”
comply with data protection law”. The irony Once these thorny issues have been
With some studies suggesting that patients is, for medical AI to truly take off, even more worked through, the question is whether
may be more open with therapists when rapid and wider sharing of data may be standalone AIs will ultimately replace
talking to them via a computer screen, necessary. That might require new legislation. doctors. Not likely, says Denny. By
is it time to consider removing the human “Current laws don’t really cover the kind of streamlining diagnosis, they will make it
altogether? Tablan scoffs at the idea. “AI sharing scenarios we need to make these easier to access credible medical advice no
doesn’t have the capabilities to work at that systems work,” Denny says. matter where you live and will assist with a
kind of level yet. But by building models based lot of routine care. “These systems will allow
on these data sets, we can create a tool for physicians to reduce their mental load, to pay
human therapists to use that makes them Who is in charge? more attention to each patient, to prioritise
superhuman therapists.” Domingos agrees that the legal framework will which patients need critical care right now –
That’s a recurring theme: the rise of the need to change, and stresses that any policies to be more efficient overall,” says Denny. “It’s
superhuman doctor. By equipping medical must require informed consent. But he also going to be a win for everyone.”
professionals with enhanced abilities, AI is argues that sharing your health data should be Doctors won’t be cut out of the picture,
poised to change the very delivery of seen as a civic duty, and that only those who because their empathic relationship with
healthcare, says Isaac Kohane, head of opt in should reap any benefits. “If someone the patient is an essential part of care, says
biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical won’t allow their data to be used, then they Vimla Patel, a cognitive psychologist and
School. At present, doctors have to manage shouldn’t have access to the better treatments specialist in biomedical informatics at the
mounds of paperwork and digital form-filling that result,” he says. New York Academy of Medicine. AI can
while trying to stay on top of the emerging Even as the debate over privacy flares up, augment clinicians’ abilities, but can’t do all
research to keep their knowledge current. there’s still the matter of liability. Malpractice the heavy lifting. “When things get complex,
If AI could ease some of this burden, that laws are complex and vary from place to place, and medicine often is complex, you need
would free them to focus more time on so it’s unclear how they might need to change human reasoning to make decisions,”
patients, to take detailed histories, to listen. to accommodate AI. Kohane isn’t worried, she says. “Computers, no matter how
Ultimately, it may even reshape what it though. He points out that doctors already use sophisticated, cannot replace that.” ■
means to train as a doctor. Denny says medical machines to make a diagnosis – software that
education will need to include data science helps them identify tumours in MRI scans or Kayt Sukel is a writer based in Houston, Texas

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 39

PEOPLE

Inside the minds

of torturers
How do ordinary people end up committing atrocities?
Françoise Sironi is one of the few people in the world
who tries to treat the perpetrators of violence

WHEN Françoise Sironi was 6, her abuse might say, “You’ll never be a man again.”
grandfathers met for the first time. To treat the person those words were directed
One was Italian, the other from the French at, you need an insight into the torturer’s
frontier region of Alsace. She remembers intentions. But often the victim is too
the conversation turning serious, then being ashamed to repeat this. I was ineluctably
mystified when the men fell weeping into drawn to become interested in torturers.
each other’s arms. They had discovered
they fought in the same first-world-war Do you believe in evil?
battle – but on opposite sides. The incident As a psychologist, you have a choice: either
sparked a lifelong interest in what drives you think of the person opposite you as a
ordinary people to extraordinary acts. She monster or as a human being. If they are a
became a clinical psychologist and, in 1993, monster, that’s the end of the conversation.
helped found the Primo Levi Centre in Paris It’s far more interesting to ask, what made
to treat the victims of torture. She is now them that way? In my view, people who
an expert witness for the International commit evil acts have followed life paths that
Criminal Court in The Hague, specialising have led them to view those acts as reasonable.
in assessing those accused of crimes against
humanity or genocide. Can you remember the first time you sat down
with a torturer?
Why did you decide to help people who have It was in the early days at Primo Levi. I treated
committed atrocities? many victims who had themselves tortured –
I was at the Primo Levi Centre in 1995 when a police officers who had fought jihadists
French NGO called Santé Sud asked if we could during the Algerian civil war of the 1990s, In Sironi’s experience,
help Russian veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war. for example, before the jihadists caught and the perpetrators of
These were young men who had come home tortured them in turn. It was the same with violence are often
psychologically damaged only to discover that veterans of the Yugoslav wars. Over the past the victims too
no one cared about that war any more because 25 years, I have treated the survivors of torture,
the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. massacres and forced deportations, and there new group – their fellow child killers – and in
Some of my colleagues refused to help them have always been perpetrators among them. particular, on the commander of that group.
because they had committed atrocities. I saw This may help to explain one of the most
them as time bombs that would go off if they What kind of person becomes a perpetrator? troubling scenarios, which is medics who
weren’t treated. They kept being drawn back Many have grown up in a violent family, or facilitate torture – advising interrogators
to violence. Many had been recruited by the experienced humiliation early in life. Then when to turn the electricity off, for example,
Russian mafia or as mercenaries. when they are recruited, their identity is often so that the victim’s heart doesn’t give out too
broken down in some way. This might involve soon. They no longer belong to a group whose
Helping both torturers and their victims didn’t a traumatic initiation process: children who identity is defined by doing no harm.
strike you as incompatible? are forced to become soldiers may be required
Not at all. By then I had realised that to to kill members of their family, for example. How does someone become a torturer?
understand one, you have to understand the They can no longer return to their families or There are schools. We know, for example, that
other. For example, a torturer inflicting sexual villages and they become dependent on the French soldiers who fought in Vietnam in the

40 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 Photographed for New Scientist
by Serge Picard/Agence Vu

the Rwandan genocide. They don’t fit any

known psychiatric category. Their behaviour
can only be understood in the geopolitical or
historical context in which it arose.

What are the main characteristics of such

individuals?
A strong sense of group belonging and duty,
and an ability to compartmentalise. Duch was
capable of talking normally about his family
one minute and discussing his “work” at S-21
the next. It wasn’t easy for him to torture, he
told us, yet he trained youngsters to do it.

“Child soldiers can be forced

to kill family members.
They can never go back”
When he expressed regret, it was on behalf of
the Khmer Rouge, not himself. At one point
I asked, “What happened to your conscience?”
He replied he didn’t understand the question.

Can you cure a torturer?

No, I don’t think they can be cured, as such.
But we can help them to dismantle the
psychological mechanisms that pushed them
to commit violence. You can lead them to
understand why they participated in torture,
how they became capable of it, and then to
process their emotional response to that.
Before this can happen, though, the person has
to want to address this dark chapter of their
past, and many – I would say most – do not.

What effect does it have on you to spend time

with torturers and murderers like Duch?
I interviewed Duch 16 times. Strangely, my
reaction was physical rather than emotional.
It was hot in Phnom Penh, but every time
I left his cell I felt cold. My colleagues and I –
I was always accompanied by a Cambodian
psychiatrist and an interpreter – would have
our debrief huddled together for warmth.

1950s learned techniques from their enemies they employed as consultants. Declassified What is your goal in all this?
that they later taught in camps in South manuals describe the techniques the CIA One goal, of course, is prevention – for the
America. Torture camps are well hidden, but considered effective. sake of the perpetrators as well as others,
there are plenty of them. Torture is thought because as I said they suffer too. My role is
to go on in half of all countries, and torturers In 2008, you assessed Duch, the Khmer Rouge to induce awareness in them, and if possible
have to learn somehow. The schools all have leader who tortured and killed thousands at the change. It’s also to transmit what I learn to
things in common: they are secret, they are notorious S-21 prison. What did you conclude? other professionals who deal with violence so
set apart from the military, they portray Duch is an example of what I call a man- that it may be of use in the treatment as well
themselves as elite. They inculcate a sense of system – someone who has relinquished as the prevention of extreme behaviour. ■
duty, necessity, pride, of impunity. their own identity and adopted that of the
There are cultures of torture. In the 1970s, ideological system they grew up in. The same By Laura Spinney.
the Syrian secret services used techniques is true of Pascal Simbikangwa, who I also How Do You Make a Torturer? by Françoise Sironi will
honed by former Nazi interrogators whom assessed and who is in prison for his role in be published by La Découverte in September

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 41

CULTURE

It’s complicated
Forget simple explanations. The story of
human behaviour needs the intellectual
equivalent of cinematic zooming out,
finds Alun Anderson

Behave: The biology of humans at our fluent in a new way of thinking,

best and worst by Robert Sapolsky, seeing behaviour as something
Penguin Random House modulated by interactions
between amygdala, hippocampus,
FOR sheer insula and, most important, the
ambition, it’s hard subregions of the frontal cortex,
to beat Robert which try to plan and control.
Sapolsky’s new Sapolsky adds more regions,
book, Behave. the nucleus accumbens and the
Sapolky’s goal is tegmentum, as he explains the
nothing less than relentless logic of the brain’s inner
a new way of dopamine-based reward system.
seeing ourselves, free from It ensures that what was “an
separate “buckets of explanation” unexpected pleasure yesterday is
and walled-off sub-disciplines. what we feel entitled to today, and
XINHUA NEWS AGENCY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Biology alone isn’t enough, he what won’t be enough tomorrow”.

explains, to understand the roots We zoom out to ever-wider
of cooperation, empathy and horizons: past the outer and inner
altruism (our best side), and sensations that affect you in the
violence, aggression and minutes before a decision, past
competition (our worst). the hormonal states that operate
Sapolsky, a professor of biology over hours to days, and on to the
and neurology at Stanford extraordinary plasticity of the
University, California, brings in brain, which allows change over
psychology and culture too, for all days to months. you will find, as you chat with explanation, examining big
are “utterly intertwined” in our Pull back again, through friends, a new sensibility to the questions about the best and
behaviour. And everywhere the childhood and adolescence, the inner question, “Why did I just say worst of our behaviour. Hierarchy,
writing is informed by his vast, influence of the genes you inherit, that?” This sensibility reaches obedience, morality, the hidden
world-leading knowledge of the centuries of culture which through the tiny biases and perils of empathy, free will, evil
baboon behaviour. affect how you categorise the physiological states that made and criminality, war and peace
Unsurprisingly, the book comes one sentence pop out rather than are all here.
to a huge 790 pages, requiring “If ‘we’ screw up, it is down another, through the inner Sapolsky explores at length our
time, stamina and a liking for to special circumstances. tremblings of fear and anxiety, inescapable and terrible tendency
Sapolsky’s chatty and exuberant If ‘they’ do, it’s because right back to an understanding of to create us/them dichotomies.
style. It reflects its author, a “card- that’s how ‘they’ are” the primate roots of our obsession The process is not only quite
carrying liberal” with a great grey with rank and hierarchy. It takes automatic but also easy to
beard and a quirky personality, world, and out to our primate in the status differences we detect manipulate, altering our sense of
who tells us that violence “scares relatives, where we witness the in a blink of an eye, our ever- who belongs to “us” and “them”.
the crap out of me”. evolutionary pressures shaping shifting groupings of “us” and We readily forgive “us”; if “we”
Sapolsky’s avoids the buckets of our ways of thinking and feeling. “them”, and why some two-thirds screw up, it is because of special
explanation through a device akin By then you are at the midpoint of our daily speech is gossip circumstances. If “they” do, it is
to the film-maker’s zooming out. of the book, where Sapolsky (“with the vast majority of it being because that is how “they”are.
His opening chapter looks inside encourages you with a “no one negative”, Sapolsky reminds us). Sapolsky’s liberal bent is
your brain during the second said this was easy”, although by You can then breeze through everywhere apparent. He is
before you do something, be it now the hard work is done. the book’s second half, in which passionate about the terrible
good or bad. Here you learn to be Having mastered his lessons, you zoom in and out of levels of things that childhood deprivation

42 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culture

message in the age of Trump, but other way. Even he seems a

enigmatic too. I think Sapolsky little overwhelmed by it all.
means that “context”, a word he “Nothing seems to cause
uses often, is always critical. anything; instead everything just
You may view testosterone, modulates something else,” he
for example, as the male hormone muses. This seems far from an
that boosts aggression. Wrong,
says Sapolsky. Rising testosterone “If maintaining status
levels do prompt behaviours requires people to be nice,
aimed at maintaining social extra testosterone makes
status. But if that requires people them more generous”
to be nice, extra testosterone
makes them more generous. “essentialist” view of life as linear
“In our world riddled with male causation, and closer to seeing it
violence, the problem isn’t that as a network of possibilities, with
testosterone can increase levels an open future.
of aggression. The problem is the Whether the thought of life
frequency with which we reward as “complicated” appeals to or
aggression,” he writes. appals you may reflect something
profound about human nature.
Sapolsky explores research on
Context wins, again how liberals and conservatives
Oxytocin you might see as the think. Liberals are more
“love hormone”. Wrong again. comfortable with “integrative
Oxytocin does elicit “trust, complexity”, whereas conservatives
generosity, and cooperation”, dislike ambiguity or novelty, and
but only among “us”. Bring in crave structure and hierarchy. If
some of “them”, and oxytocin you are a liberal, you may be
amplifies pre-emptive aggression happy that this sprawling book
and “advocacy of sacrificing Them has no one simple conclusion; if
(but not Us) for the greater good”. you are more conservative, its
And you might think that “a apparent incoherence may
gene causes some biological event prove worrying.
to happen”. Not at all. Sapolsky Inevitably, Sapolsky does
urges you to repeat the mantra: not try to say what constitutes
“Don’t ask what a gene does, “good” or “bad”, although we
ask what it does in a particular do learn how these categories
and inequality can do to people’s Human life: not so much linear context.” Take the 5-HTT gene, may differ across cultures
brains and health. He is also as a network of possibilities which affects the removal of the and be shaped by ecological
disturbed that people living in neurotransmitter serotonin from circumstances. But he does shift
unequal societies become less He is passionate too about synapses. One variant increases the perspective from which we
kind and more likely to displace reforming the justice system: the risk of depression, but only in might view our behaviour, and
their anger on to those lower words like forgiveness, evil, the context of childhood trauma. offers pithy insights to help us do
down in the pecking order: soul, volition and blame “are Moving on to culture, context it. Two I liked: “We are constantly
“Giving ulcers can help you incompatible with science and wins again. Zoom in, for example, being shaped by seemingly
avoid getting them,” he writes. should be discarded”, he argues. on the common view that boys irrelevant stimuli, subliminal
Sapolsky so dislikes the It angers him that it took so long “naturally” reach the top levels information, and internal forces
“caustic, scarring impact on for post-traumatic stress disorder of mathematics. It might seem we don’t know a thing about”,
minds and bodies” inflicted by to be recognised as a “real” true in US schools, but the more and “The road to hell is paved
the socio-economic status quo, condition for US military gender-equal the country, the with rationalization”.
which arrived with agriculture, personnel, and scorns lawyers better girls are at maths. In And, most important, never
that he values older, egalitarian who use bogus ideas from Iceland, “the most gender equal let your frontal cortex get tired:
hunger-gatherer groups. genetics, like the “warrior gene”, country on earth”, girls are better it consumes huge amounts of
“Agriculture. I won’t pull to excuse their clients’ wayward at maths than boys. energy and when stress and
any punches – I think that its behaviour. From my reading of this book, cognitive load tire it out, you
invention was one of the all-time By the book’s close, Sapolsky Sapolsky sees life as “complicated” start to screw up. ■
human blunders, up there with, attempts a summary of what he because there are always contexts,
say, the New Coke debacle,” he has said. It turns out to be: “It’s possibly ones we are unaware of, Alun Anderson is a consultant for
writes, not entirely joking. complicated.” This is a brave in which things could go some New Scientist

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 43

CULTURE

A mouthful of history
Teeth help reveal our past, but it’s a tricky business, finds Adrian Barnett

mechanically challenging thing In diet-based death, grasses and boisei, for example, didn’t crack
Evolution’s Bite: A story of teeth, diet,
a species ate on a regular basis, bushes mark their killers. Grass nuts with its huge, penny-sized
and human origins by Peter S. Ungar,
not day to day. So, while the food leaves, rich in silica crystals, etch molars all the time, but used them
Princeton University Press
that fuelled and formed a species a sketch of their passing on the to their mechanical maximum
WE BRUSH them of human, and around which its tooth surfaces that crushed them. only in the hardest times.
every day, flash social ecology and societal And different metabolic pathways However, change in food supply
a smile, chomp expectations were based, might operate in various leaves, so grass- isn’t only seasonal. One of Ungar’s
through our have one size and consistency, eating grazers and bush-chewing central themes is how diet and
meals. Yet it’s the teeth will only reveal what browsers will have different climate are intertwined, and so
easy to forget the that species needed to eat to get it how the presence of mountain
amazing role teeth through the worst of times. “Ungar was the first to ranges, rain shadows and
play in the story Those that withstood these apply NASA-style planetary precession cycles
of mammalian evolution. various mini-apocalypses are our landscape mapping to shaped us. The complexities of
Apart from being covered in ancestors, and their teeth show 3D tooth topography” such interactions and how they
one of nature’s hardest substances what was needed to survive. were discovered is told with
so that it can take anything a But dental morphology’s subtle carbon-13 and carbon-14 isotope enthusiastic clarity.
million years of geology can undulations can be a maze for the ratios in their fossil teeth and any With techniques ranging from
throw at it, a tooth’s 3D shape unwary. Luckily, as Ungar shows, bones that might still be attached. mapping deep-sea mud strata to
is a phenomenally subtle food palaeoanthropologists now have Such “foodprints”, as Ungar X-ray movies that visualise real-
processing surface. Unless its a well-stocked toolbox to probe calls them, have overturned many time chewing action, Ungar shows
main job is to threaten rivals, the inner secrets of incisor, established anthropological ideas. how cutting-edge studies of tooth
then, depending on where it is canine, premolar and molar. The early hominin Paranthropus shapes, wear patterns and
in the mouth, a tooth’s shape is palaeoclimatology combined to
one adapted to slice, shatter, uncover ever more about human
chop, crush, pulp or simply evolution. He relishes the use of
retain whatever foodstuff has new techniques to solve old and
just slipped past the lips. stubborn academic puzzles.
Matching form to function, Now head of anthropology at the
interpreting diet and, from University of Arkansas, he got his
that, the likely social ecology start there by being the first to
of a species: this has been a apply NASA-style landscape
cornerstone of palaeoecology mapping to the 3D topography
since its 19th-century beginnings. of tooth surfaces, revolutionising
Fine if you’re dealing with a science that previously used
sloths, bison or bears, but for laborious comparisons of the
socially sophisticated beasts, you positions of dental peaks.
hit the hurdle that behaviour The revelation of not only how
doesn’t fossilise – a key problem the science is done, but also what
for that most behaviourally a huge difference a tangential
flexible lineage of mammals, idea such as Ungar’s topographic
KENNETH GARRETT/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

the hominins. analysis can make, is one of the

In fact, as Peter Ungar shows great delights and strengths of
in his new book Evolution’s Bite, the book. Our mouths are full
even judging a species’ ecology of history. Evolution’s Bite will
by its teeth is not scientifically change forever how you see your
foolproof. Teeth tell you the early morning smile. ■
physical properties of the most
Adrian Barnett is a rainforest ecologist
‘Foodprints’ on fossil teeth show at Brazil’s National Institute of
what early humans ate to survive Amazonian Research in Manaus

44 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

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&ŽƌŵŽƌĞŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶƉůĞĂƐĞǀŝƐŝƚǁǁǁƌĂĚĐůŝīĞŚĂƌǀĂƌĚĞĚƵ to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin,
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law. We actively encourage applications from women and minority groups.

At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, we know what can be achieved when the brightest scientific
minds face the fewest barriers. That’s why we provide world-class facilities. State-of-the-art technologies.
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how your science translates into survival for the children we serve. Quite simply, at St. Jude, we encourage
you to dream big, and we give you everything you need to be the force behind our cures.
Multiple Faculty Positions
Department of Computational Biology
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St Jude Children’s Research Hospital is a private, not-for-profit institute that is internationally recognized for
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BRIGHTEST MINDS activities.

Recognized as a world leader of genomic research in pediatric cancer, the Computational Biology

ALWAYS INNOVATE.
department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is currently seeking exceptional candidates for multiple
FACULTY positions. We are seeking investigators to lead multidisciplinary research programs of systems
biology, biological image analysis, medical informatics, drug screening, and epigenetics, by integrating dry
lab computational methods with wet lab experiments. Research that has proven or potential biological
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As part of a significant expansion from a research program to an academic department, the newly
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space. Computational Biology investigators have access to dedicated departmental shared resources
established for BIG data analysis and functional validation. They include priority access to cloud computing
infrastructure and a local high-performance computing facility including a new state-of-art data center, a
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a genomics laboratory for developing new sequencing technologies and assays. The research environment
at St. Jude is highly interactive with collaborative opportunities across all basic research and clinical
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We offer very competitive packages, including generous startup funds, computing resources, equipment,
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Ready to join a team that is always innovating, because we believe anything is possible?
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48 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017
 newscientistjobs.com

“The honor is not in the grant we give you

today— w
w v
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is excited to announce
our 2017 awardees for the following grants:
Career Awards at the Amy Elizabeth Shyer, Ph.D. June Round, Ph.D.
Scientific Interface (CASI) UC Berkeley University of Utah
$500,000 career awards targeting Amy M. Weeks, Ph.D. Mohammad R. Seyedsayamdost, Ph.D.
advanced postdoctoral researchers bringing UCSF Princeton University
biophysical, engineering, and computational
Christina Stallings, Ph.D.
approaches to solving biomedical questions. Investigators in the Pathogenesis of
Washington University in St. Louis
Infectious Disease Award (PATH)
Scott E. Boyken, Ph.D.
Harris Wang, Ph.D.
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Jason M. Crawford, Ph.D. San Diego State University
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University of Wisconsin
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Leslie Wilson, Ph.D.
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Andrew Mehle, Ph.D. UCSF
Caltech
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Priya Moorjani, Ph.D.
Marion Pepper, Ph.D.
Columbia University
University of Washington

Visit www.bwfund.org for grant information | Follow us on Twitter @BWFUND for grant updates
Burroughs Wellcome Fund, 21 T. W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 49

newscientistjobs.com

50 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

LETTERS
[email protected] @newscientist newscientist

EDITOR’S PICK More ways we could

tackle climate change
Sorry, but ‘sorry’ has more meanings than making an apology
From Iain Climie,
person is being an idiot. When people empathy, as in “My mother died on Whitchurch, Hampshire, UK
bump into each other and say “sorry”, Sunday” – “I’m sorry, you poor thing”. The simplest retort to climate
it’s the concise way to say “I wish that I might also suggest that its use when change sceptics is that many
hadn’t happened”. And don’t we all say recovering from unintended contact is actions that are vital if global
“I’m sorry…” when learning someone not an apology but more a statement warming is occurring make sense
has lost a loved one? Surely we aren’t of empathy without assigning anyway (24 June, p 28). Restoring
saying that we are at fault. responsibility to either party. fish stocks, habitat conservation
with careful exploitation, and
From John Lucas, From Valerie Yule, Mount alternatives to fossil fuels make
Toronto, Canada Waverley, Victoria, Australia sense regardless of the extent,
Sorry, but when I almost bump into As a child I was constantly punished nature and origin of climate
somebody, what am I supposed to do? for refusing to say I was sorry for change. Reducing waste may be
Tell them to get out of the way or push something I did or didn’t do. If I refused, the simplest approach of all.
From Howard Bobry, them aside? Perhaps a ubiquitous I felt I had won; if I did say I was sorry, The UK’s Institute of Mechanical
Nehalem, Oregon, US “sorry” is a way to defuse the it meant I had lost and was being Engineers reported in 2013 that
Moya Sarner discusses the upsides of inevitable frictions when surrounded obedient. Then I married into a family at least 30 per cent of global
saying “sorry” – but seems to equate by crowds of strangers in our cities. that constantly apologised to each production fails to reach markets
the phrase “I’m sorry” with an apology other. I was amazed. I copied them and or shops; and it is wasteful to use
(17 June, p 38). It can also be an From Michael Harrington, Bonnet said sorry constantly. I was surprised human food for livestock feed
expression of regret. “I’m sorry, but you Bay, New South Wales, Australia at how easy it made my life. or biofuels. Can dealing with
are being an idiot” is not my apology; A regrettable omission from Sarner’s Social differences must affect all these obvious concerns really
it is an expression of my regret that the piece is the use of “sorry” to convey research in what it means to say sorry. be seen as anti-business or even

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52 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 “What are they articulating to whom?
Otherwise it’s just a piece of wallpaper”
Jac Hughes suggests it’s a stretch to call the images that
artificially intelligent painters invent “art” (8 July, p 14)

irreligious, even though the From Louise Doswald-Beck, Environment saying that my work evident, including the very strong
inability of conventional free Geneva, Switzerland “involves talking to people in correlation between the amount
markets to cope sensibly with Alice Klein mentions risks of short interviews”. The surveys of lead added to petrol and violent
gluts still has to be addressed? geoengineering. There is another were conducted through a web- crime rates in the US two decades
A few years ago, a colleague reason it is a really bad idea. based questionnaire, without later. What may the long-term
queried whether human activities Fossil fuel companies will use any researcher interference, to effects of diesel emissions turn
could really be so significant. the possibility to say that climate reduce or eliminate potential out to be?
I mentioned the points above and change is no longer a problem; bias. Respondents reported what In 1989, the UK government
he replied “But that’s a win-win; and governments are already products they were exposed to, proposed a tax break in favour
I’m happy to support that.” dragging their feet. If they get any and what they experienced. of diesel. As the then Chair of
sense that geoengineering could the Campaign for Lead Free Air
From Stewart Reddaway, “fix” the problem, they will use Knock, knocking on the I wrote to its chief scientific
Ashwell, Hertfordshire, UK this as an excuse to not bother atmosphere’s door advisor, John Fairclough, warning
Bob Holmes correctly says that with further efforts to switch to of the carcinogenic impact of
reducing air travel can have a renewable energy. From Robin Russell-Jones, diesel emissions. Diesels were
big effect on climate change. An Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, UK nevertheless encouraged through
equally big effect can be achieved Self-reporting surveys Fred Pearce’s article on Thomas the 1990s. The ability of
if people who currently fly of smell’s effect Midgley, the inventor of both governments to remain in denial
premium switch to economy. For lead additives in petrol and CFCs, in the face of scientific certainty
long-haul flights, first class seats From Anne Steinemann, is a timely reminder that blind itself deserves serious study.
occupy about five times more Melbourne, Australia enthusiasm for technology can
space than economy, and business Clare Pain reports research on have terrible consequences From Cedric Lynch,
class seats about three times exposure to fragrances (10 June, (10 June, p 42). There are parallels Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, UK
more. Configuring a plane to have p 34). She quotes Peder Wolkoff with the situation facing us today. Fred Pearce says that engine knock
more seats greatly reduces the of the Danish National Research Some of the long-term effects prevents the use of higher-octane
carbon emissions per passenger. Centre for the Working of lead are only now becoming fuel. In fact, knock is caused by >

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15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 53

LETTERS
[email protected] @newscientist newscientist

part of the fuel-air charge in the Quoting public opinion polls on over-the-counter markets in the loads of white, mass-produced
engine cylinder exploding before the subject of hunting, especially UK and elsewhere for years. bread. We do know that sourdough
the flame front spreading from when most people have little or tastes better and has an almost
the sparking plug reaches it. It no first-hand experience of the The editor writes: personalised ingredient make-up.
may be caused by the use of fuel activity, and with some of the ■ Generally you can sell anything
with too low an octane rating. wording designed to achieve the as a “food supplement” if it’s not Can scanning brains help
Tetraethyl lead does something desired results, can hardly be prohibited or poisonous. Claims validate witnesses?
else that made it very attractive to regarded as scientific. Harris’s of medical efficacy need more
vehicle manufacturers: it forms contention that the control of thorough backing. From Ed Prior,
deposits on hotspots that may be foxes is unnecessary is disputed Poquoson, Virginia, US
caused by pitting of a valve or seat. by other scientists. He ignores the Measuring metabolites Andy Coghlan’s report of brain
This makes the valves effectively obvious change the Hunting Act is no help with health signals from monkeys being used
self-healing and allows them to be has brought about, which is an to recreate photos of faces is
formed directly in the cast-iron increase in shooting (both good From Gareth Byrne-Perkins, potentially important for many
cylinder block or head of an and bad) that has filled the Broughton, Hampshire, UK reasons (10 June, p 14). One not
engine, reducing the engine’s cost. vacuum in hunting’s absence. I agree that Anthony Warner’s mentioned is law enforcement.
distaste for food trends, Witnesses to a crime often have
A free vote on hunting Why do broccoli pills particularly #JERF, is completely great trouble identifying suspects
was a sensible step need regulation? founded – as is that for the deadly or helping police artists sketch
marketing that has encouraged a recognisable face. I hope this
From Jim Barrington, From Giles Cattermole, us to consume the foods we do research will eventually be
Countryside Alliance, London, UK Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK (17 June, p 24). But the focus applicable to the human brain.
You introduce an online comment You report online that Anders on a randomised trial of only
piece by Stephen Harris by saying Rosengren and his colleagues are 20 people isn’t a good foundation
that a Conservative Party applying to regulatory authorities for a critique of sourdough, For the record
manifesto commitment was an for approval of sulphoraphane or anything else for that matter.
“unscientific vow to resume fox- powder to reduce diabetes The study has no reference to ■ Every last drop. The Bureau of
hunting” (1 July, p 24). What was complications, allowing a dose the long-term benefits of not Transportation Statistics reports
being offered was a vote on the equivalent to eating 5 kilograms shovelling down tasteless white jet fuel consumption by US scheduled
future of the Hunting Act – surely of broccoli a day, which “could pap. A spot-check on metabolic airlines as 42 billion litres per year;
a sensible step, providing an take as little as two years” (24 June, markers completely misses the and burning this or other
opportunity to debate what effect p 19). Why? Sulphoraphane tablets point. If we eat loads of sourdough hydrocarbons releases little
this law has had on wildlife. have been widely available in we will get fat, as we will if we eat methane (24 June, p 28).
■ Over there! Eoin Travers and
colleagues found that subliminal cues
TOM GAULD
made people slower at pressing the
right button. Even when cues were
wrong half the time, they could not
help looking in the direction of an
unconsciously perceived arrow, so
taking longer to respond (1 July, p 8).
■ Hellfire! Other drones capable of
firing anti-tank missiles are available,
at rather higher prices than the
Ukrainian proposal we mentioned
(1 July, p 22).
■ Only the rocket that SpaceX
launched on 23 June was pre-loved
(1 July, p 7).

Letters should be sent to:

Letters to the Editor, New Scientist,
110 High Holborn, London WC1V 6EU
Email: [email protected]

Include your full postal address and telephone

number, and a reference (issue, page number, title)
to articles. We reserve the right to edit letters.
New Scientist Ltd reserves the right to
use any submissions sent to the letters column of
New Scientist magazine, in any other format.

54 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

SIGNAL BOOST
6ќLYPUN`V\YWYVQLJ[ZHOLSWPUNOHUK

At the end of the rainbow

VANISHING white matter disease… never heard of it? That’s
not really surprising as it only affects 1 in 40 million people.
There are currently fewer than 200 children living with the
condition worldwide. Nonetheless it is a devastating and life-
limiting genetic condition. The mutation occurs in one of the
five genes that are collectively known as eIF2B. These make
proteins in the body without which we cannot exist.
Vanishing white matter disease (VWM) is characterised by
progressive breakdown and loss of white matter in the brain.
Deterioration continues with every fever, infection, head trauma
and stress a child experiences. It is incurable and because of
its rarity, very little research is currently being done to find a
treatment. However, a team led by Orna Elroy-Stein at Tel Aviv
University, Israel, has had promising results.
Her team has discovered that genetically-engineered mice,
developed to aid research into leukodystrophy, could help
researchers study the related condition of VWM. Drug matches
at the molecular level have already been identified, the next
step will be to test them on the mice.
“I feel that pursuing a VWM cure is my purpose in life.
I don’t dare stop and let these people down,” says Elroy-Stein.
Without effective treatments there will unfortunately be more
children like 4-year-old Bella from the UK (pictured above). Bella
is losing her motor skills; she lost the ability to walk at two and
a half. In the future she can expect to lose her arm movement,
core strength, vision, speech and hearing.
Most people with VWM die within 10 years of diagnosis.
With no current cure, parents are helpless. Bella’s family set up
The Rainbow Dream Charity to help fund Elroy-Stein’s promising
research. Peter Morris, charity chairman

Please visit www.therainbowdreamcharity.com for

more information, to raise awareness and to donate to the
research fund

Signal Boost is your chance to tell our readers about a project that
needs their help. We’re looking for campaigns, programmes or
ideas from non-profit or voluntary enterprises. Send a proposal,
together with images and information about yourself, to
[email protected]. New Scientist does not endorse
any  claims made in this donated advertising space. We reserve
the right to edit contributions for clarity and style.

15 July 2017 | NewScientist | 55

 FEEDBACK
For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback

the days of phototypesetting required FEEDBACK reader Mick Martin

the use of lead-based type metal and previously found himself on a
that might have been the cause of bus seemingly bound for the
such useless alternative names.” infinitely accommodating Hilbert
Hotel (1 July). “This reminded me
PAUL DORMER writes: “If Nina of a company in Ilford who might
Baker is interested in eponyms be capable of creating such a
named after women (10 June), she thing,” writes Steve Ingamells,
may be interested to know that in “Infinite Building Solutions Ltd”.
crosswords, a hidden message
discovered in the completed AUSTRALIA is a fearsome place,
grid is known as a Nina.” This overrun with an improbable number of
apparently stems, he says, from creatures ready to kill you. So it follows
the American caricaturist Al that a fighting man in this continent
Hirschfeld’s habit of hiding his needs to be just as fearsome to
daughter’s name in his drawings. survive. Every morning, The Macquarie
Dictionary – the authoritative text
EARLIER Feedback claimed that on Australian English – sends Pierre
the 7 in 7Up was derived from the Du Cray its word of the day. Thus
atomic number of lithium, one of the he discovers its definition of
ingredients (1 July). “When, long ago, “welterweight” is: “A boxer weighing
I was at school the atomic number of between 635 and 67 kg (in the
lithium was 3,” says Keith Parkin, amateur ranks) and 63503 and 66678
“albeit with a common isotope having kg (in the professional ranks).” That
a mass number of 7.” ought to tip the balance in their favour.
ALL great minds need lubrication, Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.”
and where better to fuel idle curiosity Elizabeth agrees with Glenn PREVIOUSLY Jake Burger related
than in the pub? Michael Zehse writes Pure that “em” and “en” are handy the retronym Esso, stemming
to tell us of his trip to The J. P. Joule words in Scrabble (24 June), and from the letters of Standard Oil
in Manchester, UK, named after adds “in my family we not only (13 May). “Meanwhile, Kuwait
physicist James Prescott Joule, allow names of letters in our own Petroleum International has done
who spent the last years of his life alphabet (including both ‘zed’ and quite the opposite,” says Dan
nearby. He wonders: how many ‘zee’, but also Greek letters such Salmons, “and trades as Q8.
other hostelries bear the names of as ‘mu’ and ‘nu’. However, after I Perhaps we ought to call these
famous scientists? played ‘aleph’ we agreed to be petronyms.”
Surely this name game has the cautious about using the names
makings of a great pub crawl. We can of Hebrew letters until we could NOT so fast, says Anton Fletcher, who
offer the John Snow in London, near agree on how to spell them.” thinks some retrospective correction
the location of the cholera-spreading is in order. “A previous contributor
Soho water pump whose handle was AND straying into the margins, Paul suggested that the oil company Esso REFLECTING on our colleague
removed at the epidemiologist’s Allen writes to say that as well as is derived from the first letters of who was told he “could already
behest. The John Snow’s taps continue being dashes, “en” and “em” were Standard Oil spoken aloud. This is have won” an imagination-sized
to flow, and thankfully with no trace used to measure lengths across the questionable, as the company’s full chocolate hamper (20 May), Pete
of the disease. page. “In the noisy environment of name was Eastern States Standard Oil.” Goddard has a suggestion. “Many
No doubt there are plenty more a printing works, it is very hard to Anton concludes that the name companies chose to disappoint
pubs named for great scientists. discriminate between the sound of Esso is simply an acronym. But the vast majority in this way,
Tell us where to head next. ‘em’ and ‘en’,” says Paul, “so printers Feedback has discovered that court given the small likelihood of
invented alternative names for them.” cases were fought over exactly this success,” he says. “Surely it would
ONE more for the retronym To make it easier to tell them apart, issue, after regulators broke up be better to send a message saying
store: Elizabeth Belben says an en space was referred to as a “nut” Standard Oil into 34 companies, that ‘you may already have not
PAUL MCDEVITT

“I am surprised that no one has and an em space as a “mutt”. one of which tried to hold on to the won’, and anticipate the
mentioned ‘alphabet’, created “Before you ask,” says Paul. brand heritage – or at least an echo unbounded joy when the hamper
from the first two letters of the “I should point out that printing before of it, by marketing their fuel as Esso. of whatever size arrives!”
Readers will doubtless be pleased
to learn that when the company using You can send stories to Feedback by
Doug Lawrence spies a local tool-hire company the Esso brand, Jersey Standard, was email at [email protected].
forced to give it up, they chose instead Please include your home address.
offering “various chemical free cleaning fluids”. to use Enco – a German-style clipping This week’s and past Feedbacks can
He suspects “they all must be very similar” of “Energy Company”. be seen on our website.

56 | NewScientist | 15 July 2017

 Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword
THE LAST WORD

Stirring up trouble ■ When the hot chocolate is significantly raise its temperature the surface area of the tea by 6 per
gliding around the edge of the is several orders of magnitude cent, simply because the liquid in
My son was vigorously stirring a very cup, it can move in layers when more than any vigorous stirring the resulting vortex is depressed
hot cup of drinking chocolate as he the flow is slow – known as by hand could deliver. at its centre and raised where it
thought that would cool it down. I said laminar flow – or turbulently So in theory, Son 1 Parent 1, meets the side of the cup.
stirring the liquid was adding energy when its movement is but in practice, Son 1 Parent 0. The undergraduates modelled
to it. Who is right? If him, what’s the disorganised, such as when it Sorry parent. the top of the liquid as a smooth
best speed to stir at to cool the hot is agitated by faster stirring. Adriana Fernandes hemispherical surface, but this
chocolate? And if me, is it possible The driving force for heat Urrbrae, South Australia probably underestimates the area
to heat it up by stirring very fast? transfer is the difference in across which convective cooling
temperature between the drink ■ The fastest method for cooling takes place. After all, the surface
■ Stirring will help cool a hot and the air. The greater the drinks is “saucering”, where you of a real liquid being stirred would
drink because it speeds up the difference, the higher the rate pour part of the beverage into be lumpy and constantly changing.
process of convection by bringing at which the heat will flow your saucer then back. This gives Turning over the liquid would
the hottest liquid at the bottom between them from hot to cold. a larger surface area and agitates also increase the rate of cooling
to the top, where it can be cooled In a laminar flow, the layers of the liquid. In my test, saucering by evaporation.
by the air. But in truth, convection fluid have an insulating effect, cooled the drink quickly. Some In any case, I suspect that
occurs pretty quickly anyway, reducing the heat transfer. In a people even sip the cooler liquid simply leaving a metal spoon
and you’re only slightly speeding out of the saucer, a practice that standing in your favourite hot
it up. “The driving force for heat is hundreds of years old, but fell beverage will lead to faster
Experiments show that, instead transfer is the difference out of fashion around the second cooling by providing an
of the conventional method of in temperature between world war and is now considered alternative thermal path.
stirring, the best way to cool a hot the hot chocolate and air” impolite in some circles. Mike Follows
drink is, in fact, to repeatedly lift Ron Dippold Sutton Coldfield,
a spoon in and out of it. This is turbulent flow, more fresh cold air San Diego, California, US West Midlands, UK
because the spoon heats up in will be in contact with the surface
the liquid and cools when of the hot chocolate, resulting in ■ Another time-honoured way
removed, taking heat from faster heat transfer due to a larger of cooling a drink is to blow on it. This week’s
the system more quickly. average temperature difference That brings cool air, with a fairly
It is understandable to think between the drink and air. Away low relative humidity, into questions
that rapid stirring would add from the surface, convection and contact with the liquid surface
energy to the drink, but to heat it contact with colder liquid will cool and increases cooling evaporation. PLAYING FOR TIME
up by a noticeable amount, your down warmer parts. Blowing and stirring together will How is it possible for concert
stirring would have to be so fast You are fundamentally correct work the fastest. pianists to play faster than the
it would cause the drink to be in stating that adding kinetic Eric Kvaalen eye can follow?
pretty much everywhere else energy to the fluid will increase Les Essarts-le-Roi, France John Sharvill
but inside the cup. its temperature. Proof of this Deal, Kent, UK
Overall, weighing up the principle is that you can heat up ■ In 2014, undergraduates at
marginal decrease in the time it soup by whizzing it in a powerful the University of Leicester, UK, LEAD ASTRAY
takes the hot chocolate to cool if blender over an extended period. calculated that stirring tea would How much lead was used in the
you vigorously stir it against the However, the difference speed up cooling. They would manufacture of leaded petrol
risk of a spillage, it’s probably best between the scale of heat loss to doubtless reach a similar before it was banned, and where
to just let it cool by itself. the air through convection and conclusion with hot chocolate. is that lead now?
Corry Traynor the amount of energy needed to Stirring at a rate of 100 Robin Moorshead
London, UK be added to the hot chocolate to rotations per minute increased Southolt, Suffolk, UK

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 Professor Dame Carol Robinson
2015 Laureate for United Kingdom
By Brigitte Lacombe

Science
needs
women
L’ORÉAL
Dame Carol Robinson, Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University, invented a ground-breaking
method for studying how membrane proteins function, which play a critical role in the human body.
Throughout the world, exceptional women are at the heart of major scientific advances.
UNESCO For 17 years, L’Oréal has been running the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science programme,
honouring exceptional women from around the world. Over 2000 women from over 100 countries
AWARDS have received our support to continue to move science forward and inspire future generations.
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