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OVER THE EVENT HORIZON
Telescope as big as Earth

prepares to image black hole
FINAL MELTDOWN
It’s the end of the
Arctic as we know it
DROP YOUR WEAPONS
Beating bacteria by
learning to live with them
WEEKLY April 8 -14, 2017
CARBON WARS The surprising upside to the US climate reversal
REALITY IS REAL
...we’ve just been looking for it
in the wrong place
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CONTENTS Volume 234 No 3120
This issue online

newscientist.com/issue/3120
News Leader
5 Climate fatigue plays into the hands of
8 the deniers
News
Over the event 6 UPFRONT
horizon SpaceX relaunches orbital rocket. Copyright
quarrel. Killer landslide in Colombia
First snap of the black
8 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
hole at our galaxy’s Translating without transcribing. CO2 spike
centre coming soon warning. Apes understand false beliefs.
Fake humans teach AI to understand us.
ESO/B. TAFRESHI
Why female fertility falls with age. Dust

from the cosmic dawn of the universe.
Ancient people made exotic jewellery.
Projection mapping augments reality.
Tropical fish drug predators into releasing
On the cover them. Tadpoles see through implanted eyes.
Brain cells that link breathing and stress
28 8 Over the event horizon 18 IN BRIEF

Telescope as big as Earth Octopuses grow giant on jellyfish. Europe’s
to image black hole first cavefish discovered. ALS linked to
Reality is real 33 Final meltdown electromagnetic field exposure
The new Arctic
...we’ve just been 38 Drop your weapons Analysis
looking for it in the Make peace with bacteria
22 Carbon victory from defeat US climate
22 Carbon wars
wrong place U-turn is an opportunity we shouldn’t miss
Climate reversal benefits
24 COMMENT
42 The blot thickens
Geoengineering is scary, but we must start.
Secret history of the
Is cancer more chance or lifestyle?
Rorschach test
25 INSIGHT
Cover image
Francesco Bongiorni US citizens’ data is for sale to the high bidder
Aperture
People 26 Claws-up view of marine life
42 Features
28 Reality is real (see above left)
SCIENCE MUSEUM/SCIENCE & SOCIETY PICTURE LIBRARY
The blot 33 Final meltdown It’s the end of the Arctic as

we know it
thickens 38 Drop your weapons Beat bacteria by
learning to live with them
The rise and fall of
42 PEOPLE (see left)
Hermann Rorschach
Culture
44 Talking with hands Did our free-roaming
minds help turn gesture into language?
45 High price How new work made China sick
46 Who we are Art highlights an identity crisis
Coming next week… Regulars

52 LETTERS Flies’ eyes explain zebra stripes
Make like a leaf 55 CROSSWORD
Mimicking plants could transform future energy 56 FEEDBACK Dispose of your round pounds
57 THE LAST WORD Whither wasps?
Flash of inspiration
Mysteries of lightning laid bare
8 April 2017 | NewScientist | 3

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UPFRONT
LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Coca’s role in killer slide
NEARLY 300 people are thought to the soil, making it susceptible to
have died when part of Mocoa, a flooding,” Richani says.
town in Colombia, was swept away by The town’s position in a steep-
a torrent of water, mud and debris on sided valley also made it vulnerable.
1 April. The trigger for the landslide What’s more, the town ignored
was a night of extreme rainfall, specific warnings as far back as 2012
leading the president, Juan Manuel about the risk of a major landslide.
Santos, to blame climate change. “This vulnerability was known for
But while global warming may at least a few years,” says ecologist
have intensified the rain, this seems Liliana Dávalos of Stony Brook
to have been a disaster waiting to University, New York, whose work
happen. Deforestation in the first revealed how the drug trade
surrounding mountains, driven by drives deforestation in Colombia.
cattle ranchers and by farmers A 2014 article on a local news
growing coca, the source of cocaine, website, for example, described
degraded the environment and how small landslips in the mountains
helped create the conditions that led around Mocoa had blocked river
to the disaster, says Nazih Richani of channels, leading to a build-up
Kean University, New Jersey. of water in nearby soil and fallen
“The interplay of those factors debris. It warned of “a tragedy of
over the last three decades damaged unimaginable proportions”.
–The landslide killed hundreds–
900-year ice low low was 900 years ago (Geology, EPA science attack requires EPA to base new
doi.org/b46k). regulations on sound science
A MAJOR glacier in Alaska has They then ran climate THE US Environmental Protection that is publicly available, and
retreated to its lowest point in simulations to find out what Agency is facing a future in which not hidden from the American
900 years. triggered the rapid retreat of the it will struggle to make effective people,” said the chair of the
Glaciers around the world are in glacier over the past 30 years. policies based on science. House science committee, Lamar
retreat. But the Columbia glacier This revealed that summer air Last week, the US House of Smith, a Texas Republican who
is one of the most dramatic and temperatures about 1°C higher Representatives passed the sponsored the bill.
well-documented cases, as well as than normal between 1910 and HONEST Act, which, if approved While this may sound like a
the largest contributor to sea level 1980 led to the glacier thinning by the Senate, will prevent the EPA laudable move towards increased
rise out of the 50 or so glaciers until it became unstable in the from basing any of its regulations transparency, it would actually
that descend to the sea in Alaska. 1980s. The team attributes this to on science that is not publicly hobble the agency’s ability to
To put the current ebb in the human-caused climate change. accessible – not just journal develop good, science-based
context of the past millennium, “What was surprising was the articles themselves, but all the public health regulations, says
Anders Carlson at Oregon State tight coupling between surface underlying data, models and Andrew Rosenberg at the Union
University and his colleagues temperature of the glacier and computer code. “The HONEST Act of Concerned Scientists.
bored down into the mud at the its response,” says Carlson.
“A small temperature
“It shows that a small
temperature increase of less than
Launching again and again
increase of less than 2°C is sufficient to destabilise a EVEN Elon Musk was speechless – making the first successful landing
2°C is sufficient to glacier,” says Chris Rapley at well, for a moment. On 30 March, on a drone ship. It then went through
destabilise a glacier” University College London. in a first for space flight, SpaceX rigorous testing before getting its
International efforts to fight launched and successfully landed an certification to fly again. A year later,
bottom of the bay that the glacier climate change are focused on orbital rocket that had already flown the booster landed right in the centre
flows into, Prince William Sound, limiting warming to 2°C. once before. of the same drone ship.
on the southern coast of Alaska. It’s unlikely that this is an The Falcon 9 was carrying a Musk said he was at a loss for
They then examined the layers of isolated case. The authors say that communications satellite for firm words after the booster landed.
sediment deposited over the past at some sites around the world, SES, which got a discount for He called it an “incredible milestone
1600 years or so, and also looked retreating glaciers are exposing allowing its cargo to be transported in the history of space”, adding: “
at the age of tree trunks left on the trees that are some 7000 years on a used rocket. The booster for this This is going to be a huge revolution
surface by the retreating glacier. old, indicating that those glaciers mission first ferried a Dragon cargo in space flight.” He wants to have a
From this, they worked out that are now smaller than they have capsule to orbit last April before rocket relaunch within 24 hours.
the last time the glacier was this been in many thousands of years.
6 | NewScientist | 8 April 2017

For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news
60 SECONDS
GLENN LOCKITCH / SEA SHEPHERD GLOBAL

Copyright quarrel Sea to rise by 3 metres
The worst-case scenario for sea-
IT’S a fight for the future of the
level rise just got even worse. If the
web. The World Wide Web
latest numbers are correct, oceans
Consortium (W3C), which sets
could rise almost 3 metres by 2100.
standards for how the web works,
The new figure includes rapid loss of
has formally proposed adopting
mass from the Antarctic ice sheet,
a controversial anti-piracy tool.
and tops the 2013 IPCC estimate by
2 metres (Environmental Research
“Critics say that adopting Letters, doi.org/b46w)
the anti-piracy tool will
stymie innovation and
create security risks”
The dope on sport
There were more than 1900
The Encrypted Media violations of anti-doping rules across
Extensions (EME) mechanism 85 different sports in 2015, says the
allows web browsers to deal with World Anti-Doping Agency. That’s
digital rights management (DRM) –Hundreds of whales will be killed– 14 per cent up on 2014. Of these,
software. This means people can 280 infringements came to light
via “evidence-based intelligence”,
easily view copyrighted videos Open whale season evidence that Japan’s “scientific
rather than lab tests, reflecting the
without installing separate whaling” programme has no
plug-ins like Adobe Flash or THE harpoons are out. Norway’s scientific justification. agency’s push to expand its methods
encountering compatibility whaling fleet is setting sail this “It’s yet another example that for discovering dopers.
issues across browsers or devices. week, with a kill quota of 999 when an independent panel looks
But critics argue that minke whales. The mammals will at the science, they can’t see any Blink and it’s gone
standardising EME will stymie be caught for meat, and 90 per value in it,” says Matt Collis, from Around 90 per cent of the Red
innovation and create security cent are likely to be pregnant the International Fund for Animal Planet’s atmosphere was lost to
risks for users. As it is illegal to females. And Japan’s fleet has Welfare. “It’s so utterly pointless.” space in just a few hundred million
tamper with DRM systems in just returned to port with its Norway, meanwhile, continues years. NASA’s MAVEN orbiter
the US and European Union, cargo of 333 minkes, but will be whaling for commercial purposes. measured the ratio of two argon
security researchers also fear heading out again soon to catch isotopes to work out how much had
they will be unable to properly endangered sei whales in the Sexual health delay disappeared (Science, doi.org/b46r).
inspect browsers with EME for north Pacific Ocean, claiming it
bugs. “This is really bad security,” is for scientific research. IT HAS become harder to access Cancer progress
says Harry Halpin of the Inria sexual health services in the
Death rates for most cancers are
research centre in Paris. “An expert report doesn’t UK, finds a study of 220 of the
declining in the US, according to the
It’s not unprecedented for a see any value in Japan’s country’s 248 genitourinary
Annual Report to the Nation on the
proposal to be so controversial, scientific whale hunting. medicine (GUM) clinics.
Status of Cancer. Between 1999 and
says Philippe Le Hégaret at W3C, It’s utterly pointless” UK standards advise that 98 per
2013, cancer incidence fell in men,
but such divisions are rare. “It cent of people should get seen
but stabilised in women. Compared
happens only once every 10 years This comes as yet another within 48 hours of contacting a
with the mid-1970s, five-year
or so,” he says. report condemns as unnecessary clinic. But in 2015, researchers
survival rates had increased
the killing of whales for scientific pretending they had symptoms
significantly by 2012 for all types
SPACE X
research. Issued by a panel of were able to get appointments

of cancer, except those of the cervix
the International Whaling within two days less than 91 per
and uterus.
Commission – the body that cent of the time. In 2014 it was
introduced a moratorium on possible 95 per cent of the time.
commercial whaling in 1996 – the Researchers saying they had
Turing Award
report rejects the rationale behind concerns but no symptoms got World Wide Web creator Tim
Japan’s proposal for killing whales slots within 48 hours in less than Berners-Lee has been awarded the
in the north Pacific for scientific 75 per cent of cases (Sexually 2016 Turing Award, often described
research. “The proposal does not Transmitted Infections, DOI: as a Nobel prize for computing.
adequately justify the need for 10.1136/sextrans-2016-052882). The Association for Computing
lethal sampling,” the report says. “The biggest worry is that Machinery credits Berners-Lee with
The panel recommends no whales patients will go undiagnosed and inventing the web, the first web
should be killed until additional pass their infection on to other browser and “the fundamental
work is undertaken and reviewed. people,” says Elizabeth Foley at protocols and algorithms allowing
Conservation groups say the the Royal South Hants Hospital in the web to scale”.
–Used rocket, one careful owner– panel’s report adds to mounting Southampton, UK.

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
ESO/B. TAFRESHI
Piercing the
galaxy’s heart
We’re about to take the first images of our
galaxy’s central black hole, says Leah Crane
GET ready to peer into the genomes of some 2 billion

unknown. This week, we will have people – astronomers hope to take
our first chance to take a picture the first image of the event horizon
of the supermassive black hole at around a black hole, and the
the centre of our galaxy. The image bright matter hurtling around it.
could teach us how black holes “Event horizons have been part
work and even how the largest of the mythology of science, but
and smallest forces governing the they will become real, in a way,”
universe fit together. says Heino Falcke at Radboud
The Event Horizon Telescope is University in the Netherlands,
switching on. It consists of eight who is part of the international –One of many eyes on the sky–
radio observatories around collaboration. “Seeing is believing.”
the world, including telescopes The actual images may not be Once they can study that As other telescopes are
processed and ready for publishing “banana” of light for the first added to the network in coming
“Event horizons have been until next year, but simulations time, researchers hope they will decades, observations of the black
part of the mythology mean that the team has a decent be able to clear up some of the holes will become even more
of science, but they will idea of what they should see. long-standing enigmas of black precise, and should provide
become real” Even light is bent in the intense holes. One such puzzle is how fundamental insights into the
gravity around a black hole. The some supermassive black holes, workings of our universe.
in Spain, the US and Antarctica side of the black hole rotating like the one in M87, generate the One of the greatest mysteries in
(see map). And for just four or towards Earth should feature a enormous jets of particles that modern physics is how Einstein’s
five nights between 5 and 14 April, bright crescent of light warped shoot from their centres at near theory of general relativity, which
if the weather is clear at all of around its edge, while the side the speed of light and where all covers gravity and the behaviour
the observatories, they will all rotating away will be dimmer. that energy comes from. of very large objects, meshes
turn on at once. with quantum mechanics,
Each telescope will point at All together now whose realm is the very small.
Sagittarius A*, the supermassive The Event Horizon Telescope needs eight radio observatories in six different
Falcke hopes that observing
black hole at the centre of the locations around the world to work in sync the intense gravity at the edge
Milky Way, and measure every of a black hole will help us figure
radio wave coming from its out how the two main theories
direction. Linking together IRAM radio telescope (Spain) describing our universe fit
observatories spread across such together. “Something new will
a huge area and combining their Submillimeter Telescope (Arizona,US) happen, and I think that new
observations to filter out extra thing will happen at the event
light will effectively create a James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and horizon.”
powerful “virtual telescope” Submillimeter Array (Hawaii, US) “If you create an image at
almost the size of Earth. a resolution you’ve never had
These telescopes will together Large Millimetre before, you might see things that
capture sharper and more Telescope (Mexico) you’ve never even thought of,”
detailed data than we’ve ever had says Stefan Gillessen at the Max
from Sagittarius A*, which we still Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array Planck Institute for Physics in
know very little about, as well as and Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (Chile) Munich, Germany. The Event
the larger black hole at the centre Horizon Telescope’s first run
of nearby galaxy M87. should prove that event horizons
SOURCE: NATURE
With the telescopes generating really exist. Future runs could

a total of 2 petabytes of data per help us understand the basics of
South Pole Telescope (Antarctica)
night – enough to store the full our universe. ■

In this section
■ Dust from the cosmic dawn of the universe, page 11
■ Tadpoles see through implanted eyes, page 16
■ Carbon victory from defeat, page 22
Neural nets translate

The system could be useful for in the Native American tribe
translating speech in languages of the same name, and Ainu,
speech straight to text

that are spoken by very few a language spoken by a handful
people, says Sharon Goldwater at of people in Japan.
the University of Edinburgh, UK. The system could also be used
GOOGLE’s latest take on machine translate, each neural layer used International disaster relief to translate languages that are
translation could make it easier this knowledge to manipulate the teams, for instance, could use it to rarely written down, since it
for people to converse in different audio waveform until it was quickly put together a translation doesn’t require a written version
languages, by translating speech turned into the corresponding system to communicate with of the source language – unlike
in one language directly into text section of written English (arxiv. people they are trying to assist. conventional systems.
in another. org/abs/1703.08581). When an earthquake hit Haiti in Until it is tested on a much
Machine translation of “It learns to find patterns of 2010, says Goldwater, there was larger data set, it’s hard to tell how
speech normally works by first correspondence between the no translation software available the new approach really compares
converting it into text, then waveforms in the source language for Haitian Creole. with existing translation systems,
translating that into text in and the written text,” says Goldwater’s team is using a says Goldwater. But she thinks it
another language. But any error Dzmitry Bahdanau at the similar method to translate could set the standard for future
in speech recognition will lead University of Montreal in Canada, speech from Arapaho, a language machine translation.
to an error in transcription and who wasn’t involved with the work. spoken by only 1000 or so people Text translation service Google
a mistake in the translation. Translate already uses neural
To cut out the middle step, networks on its most popular
FLORESCO IMAGES/GETTY
researchers at Google Brain, language pairs to translate whole
the tech giant’s deep learning sentences at once. Intriguingly,
research arm, have turned to this system appears to use an
neural networks. By skipping “interlingua” – a common
transcription, the approach representation of sentences
could potentially allow for more that have the same meaning in
accurate and quicker translations. different languages – to translate
The team trained its system on from one language to another.
hundreds of hours of Spanish This means it could translate
audio with corresponding English between a language pair it hasn’t
text. It used several layers of explicitly been trained on.
neural networks – computer The Google Brain researchers
systems loosely modelled on the suggest the new speech-to-text
human brain – to match sections approach may also be able to
of the spoken Spanish with the produce a system that can
written translation. To do this, translate multiple languages.
it analysed the waveform of the But while machine translation
Spanish audio to learn which keeps improving, it’s difficult to
parts seemed to correspond with tell how neural networks are
which chunks of written English. coming to their solutions, says
When it was then asked to –I hear you– Bahdanau. Matt Reynolds ■
CO2 levels to hit hotter now than it was at the time.

These conclusions come from the
Human emissions are now
reversing the long-term decline in CO2
remove it from the atmosphere.
But CO2 is now rising too fast for
50-million-year best estimate yet of how CO2 levels
changed over the past 420 million
levels revealed by Foster’s estimates
for the past half a billion years. This
its warming effect to be counteracted
by this natural weathering. This has
high by 2050 years. To produce it, Gavin Foster at decline has balanced out a gradual led some groups to investigate
the University of Southampton, UK, rise in the sun’s warmth over the same whether it is possible to speed up the
WE ARE pumping carbon dioxide into and his colleagues compiled data from period, says Foster, keeping our process, to geoengineer our way out
the atmosphere so fast that it could more than 100 different studies. planet’s temperature in the habitable of global warming.
soar to its highest level for 50 million Comparing their estimates of past zone – with a little help from plants. “Plant-driven weathering processes
years by the middle of this century. CO2 levels with standard scenarios for Land plants help break down volcanic are too slow to save us from global
And if we carry on burning fossil future emissions, they say the level rocks that then react with CO2 and warming, but they can be accelerated
fuels, by the 23rd century CO2 levels will soon be as high as the average by applying crushed silicates to
will be as high as they were 400 around 50 million years ago, at around “By the 23rd century, croplands to capture CO2,” says David
million years ago. But this time the 600 parts per million (Nature carbon dioxide levels will Beerling at the University of Sheffield,
planet will be much warmer than it Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ be as high as they were who is leading a project to explore this
was back then, because the sun is ncomms14845). 400 million years ago” idea. Michael Le Page ■

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Great apes can

boxes and can decide to open having a false belief, A doesn’t
either one. actually know where the object is.
When A remained in the room, The apes chose to unlock each
read your mind the apes were equally likely to

unlock either box. But when
A wasn’t there for the switch, the
box equally often, perhaps, the
researchers say, because it was less
clear what the person’s intention
apes unlocked the box containing was (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/
Sam Wong Planck Institute for Evolutionary the object in 77 per cent of trials. journal.pone.0173793)
Anthropology in Leipzig, This shows apes can recognise Because the apes behave
OUR closest evolutionary relatives Germany, and colleagues tested when A is acting under a false differently in each of the two
are quite the mind readers. And 34 zoo chimpanzees, bonobos and belief, the researchers argue. scenarios, it shows they have
they can use that knowledge to orangutans, in search of more The apes guess that the person is some mental representation of
help people figure things out conclusive evidence. trying to find the object, and help what the other person believes,
when they are labouring under a In their test, person A places them by opening the right box. says Buttelmann, rather than
misapprehension, according to an object into one of two boxes, Their performance in this test just thinking that person doesn’t
the latest research. then either remains in the room closely matches the behaviour know where the object is.
The ability to attribute mental or leaves. Person B removes it, of a 16-month-old baby. The results show apes apply
states to others, aka theory of places it in the other box and locks In a second test, A gives the their understanding of others’
mind, is sometimes considered both boxes. Then A tries to open object to B, then leaves the room beliefs when deciding how to
unique to humans, but evidence the box where they left the object. while B puts the object in one of behave in social interactions,
is mounting that other animals The apes know how to unlock the the boxes. In this case, rather than he says. Many other studies
have some capacity for it. have found that great apes
In a study last year, chimps, understand other mental states
bonobos and orangutans watched such as goals, intentions and
videos of people behaving in desires. “The fact that we now
different scenarios as cameras have two studies that show
tracked their eye movements. evidence of belief understanding
The experiment found that the in great apes, shows that we
apes looked where an actor in the are not that different,” says
video would expect to see an Buttelmann. “Whether this
object, rather than towards its belief understanding is as fully
true location, suggesting the fledged as it is in humans is a
JOEL SARTORE/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE
animals were aware others could different question.”

hold false beliefs. Alia Martin from Victoria
But that experiment left open University of Wellington, New
the possibility apes were simply Zealand, isn’t convinced by the
predicting that the actor would conclusions. “I’m excited to see
go to the last place he’d seen the researchers look for this amazing
object, without understanding ability in apes, but we’re going to
that he held a false belief. Now, need more research to settle the
David Buttelmann at the Max –I know what you’re thinking– ape theory of mind debate.” ■
CGI humans images is natural for humans. Getting

computers to do the same requires a
and that’s just not possible,” says Gül
Varol at the École Normale Supérieure
than 65,000 clips and 6.5 million
frames. Randomly selected body
help computers lot more effort,” says Javier Romero at
the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent
in Paris.
So Varol, Romero and their
shapes and clothing were used for
the figures, each one set in different
understand us Systems in Tübingen, Germany. colleagues have made thousands of poses (arxiv.org/abs/1701.01370).
At the moment, the best computer videos of “synthetic humans”. They “With synthetic images, you can
WE ARE hard for computers to figure vision algorithms are trained using walk, they run, they crouch – and since create more unusual body shapes
out. Our actions are unpredictable thousands of images that have been the clips are computer-generated, and actions,” says Mykhaylo Andriluka
enough that machine vision systems, painstakingly labelled to highlight key every frame is automatically labelled at the Max Planck Institute for
such as those used in driverless cars, features. This is how they learn to with all the important information. Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany.
can’t readily make sense of them. distinguish an eye from an arm, say. In total, the team generated more Computers with an enhanced grasp
Fake people – videos and images of Ideally, every pixel in every frame of our movements could also better
computer-generated bodies walking, of a video would be labelled. “But this “With synthetic images, you predict them. A driverless car, for
dancing and doing cartwheels – could would mean instead of creating can create more unusual example, might be able to tell whether
help them learn what to look for. thousands of annotations, people body shapes and actions a person is walking close by or about
“Recognising what’s going on in would have to label millions of things, to train vision algorithms” to step into the road. Timothy Revell ■

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
Chaotic egg
division causes
fall in fertility
WOMEN are reminded only too
frequently about biological clocks.
Now we actually have a clearer idea
of what makes fertility fall – chaotic
mix-ups when egg cells divide.
One reason egg quality declines
is a loss of cohesion between
chromosomes during the final
divisions of eggs as they mature.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UCLA
Because the chromosomes in

older eggs stick together less well,
eggs can end up with too many or
too few chromosomes, usually
making them infertile. –A window on cosmic history–
But Greg Fitzharris at the University
Oldest-ever dust shines

of Montreal in Canada and his team the universe at all,” says Watson.
have now identified another way in The findings also suggest that
a light on early universe

which cells can be left with the wrong tracing cosmic dust could be a
number of chromosomes. They have useful probe for studying these
found that eggs from older mice are early galaxies.
more likely to behave chaotically THE early universe was filthy. gravitational lens and thus Astronomers usually study
during the first phase of dividing That much can be gleaned from magnified the distant galaxy by the universe’s first galaxies
than those from young mice. newly detected cosmic dust in a a factor of two, Laporte’s team by counting their numbers,
This is caused by microtubules, galaxy whose light reaches us discovered the distant dust. To measuring their luminosities and
structures that normally corral from when the universe was boot, there’s enough of it that it observing their colours, says co-
chromosomes to opposite ends of only 600 million years old. could fill the sun 6 million times author Richard Ellis at University
a cell before it divides. But in half The finding is a game changer over (arxiv.org/abs/1703.02039). College London. That’s much less
the cells taken from old mice, that might ultimately show how So much dust so early on information than we can get from
microtubules sent chromosomes in quickly the early galaxies evolved. provides a strict limit on the time observations of nearby galaxies,
different directions, causing clumps In the past 10 years, astronomers it takes to form, which should help of which we can take crystal-clear
in three or four spots. This made the have learned that dust is forged astronomers better understand pictures and detect spectral lines –
resulting egg cells more likely to have during the aftermath of the some of the mysteries about the spikes or drops in light at specific
the wrong number of chromosomes supernova deaths of massive, wavelengths based on the chemical
(Current Biology, doi.org/b46s). short-lived stars. But many “Examining dust may elements they contain.
Swapping the nuclei of young eggs mysteries surround dust’s origin. ultimately show But the detection of early dust is
with those from old eggs showed that Astronomers, for example, don’t how quickly the first a big step forward in investigating
it is the age of the egg cell, and not the know how dust can withstand galaxies evolved” the first galaxies – standing as a
chromosomes inside the nucleus, that the violent shock waves from proxy for the presence of heavier
seems to cause this problem. When supernovae and precisely how origins of dust. It also hints that the elements, which also form from
given a young nucleus, older cells still long it takes to form. early universe might have looked supernova explosions.
had dysfunctional microtubules. But In light of that, Nicolas Laporte familiar, with protoplanetary Next, astronomers want to
younger eggs hosting older nuclei at University College London discs or even Earth-like planets peer back to a time in cosmic
didn’t show chaotic division. and his colleagues turned ALMA, circling those early stars, says history when the emission
“It implies that there’s something the Atacama Large Millimeter/ Darach Watson at the University from dust disappears. These
about that aged cytoplasm, the big submillimeter Array, to peer out of Copenhagen in Denmark. first galaxies were so pristine
volume of that cell, that’s not able to at the early universe. They studied That’s because dust is a that they contained only the
direct the chromosome segregation a star-forming galaxy called crucial building block; it gives hydrogen and helium left over
machinery,” says Francesca Duncan, A2744_YD4, whose light dates all molecules something to bind from the big bang.
at Northwestern University, Illinois. back to just 200 million years to, from molecular hydrogen “That’s what we’re looking for,”
Fitzharris says that understanding after the birth of the earliest stars. within stars to the complex says Watson. “We’re trying to
what’s going on might one day equip With a little help from a molecules inside planets and push back far enough where we
us to make older eggs behave like foreground galaxy cluster called even you. “You need dust to do see the formation of the first
younger ones. Chelsea Whyte ■ Abell 2744, which acted as a anything actually interesting in galaxies.” Shannon Hall ■

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Prehistoric artists
used exotic beasts
Alice Klein quickly integrated these species
into their symbolic lives. Last year,
STONE Age style was all about for example, archaeologists
the latest animal necklaces reported on 42,000-year-old
and bracelets. Some of the first jewellery beads made from the
humans to cross the ocean from shells of Nautilus pompilius –
Asia to Australia fashioned a South Pacific mollusc – found
jewellery from the bones, teeth in a cave on the island of Timor.
and shells of the unfamiliar Now, a team led by Adam
creatures they found on islands Brumm and Michelle Langley at
along the way. Griffith University in Queensland,
The finding adds to evidence Australia, has dug up three
that early inhabitants of ancient ornaments created from
Australasia had symbolic the bones and a tooth of native
practices that were just as rich animals on the island of Sulawesi,
as those of their European north-west of Timor.
counterparts. One is a pendant made from
JUSTIN MOTT/MOTT VISUALS
the finger bone of a bear cuscus

“We used to think that the (Ailurops ursinus), a tree-dwelling
spark of human brilliance marsupial. A hole drilled in the
and artistic genius came top suggests it was strung from
out of prehistoric Europe” a necklace or bracelet. The other –Surprising finds on Sulawesi–
two are beads made from the
Modern humans first left Africa tooth of an odd-looking pig Brumm believes future work out the route humans took
at least 60,000 years ago, with known as a babirusa or pig deer excavations on Sulawesi and from Asia to Australia and how
some travelling west towards (of the genus Babyrousa). The other islands between Asia and they altered their symbolic
Europe. Others spilled east, ornaments – between 22,000 Australia – known as the Wallacea practices in each new habitat.
spreading to the southern edge and 30,000 years old – were region – are likely to yield further A 46,000-year-old kangaroo bone
of mainland Asia, before building found in an inland cave (PNAS, examples of prehistoric art and nose ornament recently found in
boats and island-hopping to DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1619013114) jewellery. “The area is woefully Australia has already confirmed
Australia about 50,000 years ago. The cave was excavated because underexplored,” he says. that humans continued to adapt
Along the way, they stumbled it is near some of the world’s Although there are 2000 islands their jewellery-making skills to
across a dizzying array of new and oldest rock art: a 35,000-year-old in Wallacea, only seven are being new fauna when they arrived
exotic plants and animals that painting of a babirusa and a investigated for early human from the islands.
differed from island to island. 40,000-year-old hand stencil occupation, he says. “For a long time, people
Growing evidence suggests they reported in 2014. More research is needed to thought that the spark of
human brilliance and artistic
genius came out of prehistoric
LATEST LINE IN NEANDERTHAL DECORATION Europe,” says Brumm. “But
A BONE from a raven’s wing carved notches 2 and 6 are shallower and notches, created similar patterns to all these emerging findings
with regularly spaced notches is the angled slightly obliquely. D’Errico those on the raven bone (PLoS One, show that there were complex,
best evidence yet that Neanderthals, thinks these two were most likely doi.org/b45g). “When you compare it sophisticated, symbolic cultures
too, had an eye for aesthetics. added later to fill in gaps in the with modern human variability in flourishing on the other side of
Francesco d’Errico at the University original sequence and create a more producing the same type of notch on the world at the same time.”
of Bordeaux, France, and colleagues regular pattern for aesthetic reasons. a bird bone, you see that there was a Peter Veth at the University
examined a 38,000 to 43,000-year- His team found that notches 2 and will by the Neanderthal to make them of Western Australia agrees.
old raven bone from a Neanderthal 6 are needed for the sequence to be equidistant,” D’Errico says. “The idea that complex,
site in Crimea. Five of its seven carved perceived as being evenly spaced. In He thinks the pattern may have figurative behaviours did not
notches are parallel, with a similar addition, volunteers given stone tools been symbolic, perhaps as a mark of exist in Wallacea and Australia at
depth and shape, suggesting they like those the Neanderthals had and ownership, but such explanations this time is just not true,” he says.
were cut with the same tool. But then asked to carve evenly spaced remain speculative. Sam Wong “It’s exciting that we’re now filling
in the gaps.” ■

EINSTEIN’S
UNIVERSE
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black holes, gravitational waves, time travel
and the search for a theory of everything.
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NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Augmented reality
Lightform, based in San The whole package will cost
Francisco, has designed its system more than a depth sensor like
to work with existing projectors, Microsoft’s Kinect but less than a
minus the headset the choice of which determines

the scale of the experience.
“You could do your coffee mug
mid-range laptop when it goes on
sale later this year, says Jones.
The mapping is not quite real-
using a tiny pico projector or you time – it takes about a minute to
Victoria Turk much-hyped Florida-based could do the side of a building do a scan – and you can’t interact
start-up Magic Leap is expected using a really big projector,” with the projected images, unlike
YOU don’t need special glasses to to follow suit later this year. says Lightform’s design director with some systems that use haptic
enjoy an augmented view of the Eliminating headsets would Phil Reyneri. feedback or motion tracking to
world. A new device superimposes mean many people can share in The device’s camera give users the illusion of touching
images over real-world objects an AR experience at once, without periodically rescans the scene and what they see.
without the need for a bulky head- special preparation. It also recalibrates if things have moved, Using light to augment reality
mounted display. sidesteps problems involving the making the system suitable for is exciting, says Natan Linder at
Combining camera and comfort, weight and power cables long-term installations. An app the Massachusetts Institute of
computer, Lightform connects of wearable displays. gives control over the graphics. Technology. Adding projection
to a video projector to beam mapping means you can “paint
images and animations on to with light” and give objects virtual
surrounding objects – a technique textures that fool the eyes.
called projection mapping. It Jared Ficklin, chief technologist
essentially turns any surface into at design firm Argo Design,
a screen by using depth sensors imagines projected interfaces for
to map the shape of objects, then controlling smart home devices
tailoring its lighting effects to fit. alongside voice-recognition
“The idea is to seamlessly technology like Amazon’s Alexa.
merge the virtual world with They could beam a recipe on to
the physical world, and to do it a kitchen surface, for example.
without wearing anything on But projected AR has its own
your face,” says Lightform CEO drawbacks, Linder points out.
Brett Jones. Initial demos show Shadows can be a problem if
a coffee shop’s price list anything gets between the
materialising on a blank slate, projector and surface, and it does
squiggly lines dancing across not work well in bright spaces.
a store window display, and a If projected interfaces become
cactus undulating with decorative integrated into the spaces we
pulses of light. live and work in, they could
VCG/GETTY IMAGES
Until now, augmented reality usher in a new kind of ubiquitous

(AR) has often been delivered via computing, Linder says. But first
a wearable device: Microsoft’s they need to find really useful
HoloLens uses a headset, and the –Immersed in a projection– applications. ■
Tiny fish drugs swim out unscathed. “The predators

shake and quiver, and open their jaws
effect. “What’s really unusual are
these opioid-like neuropeptides
neuropeptide Y act together to cause
a drop in blood pressure of as much
predators with and gills really wide,” says Nick
Casewell of the Liverpool School of
called enkephalins, which don’t
induce pain,” Casewell says. “Most
as 37 per cent in 4 minutes. “If this
happened in a human, you would
unique venom Tropical Medicine, UK. “They never eat animals that produce venom use it to feel faint, dizzy and quite sick,”
blennies again, so whatever the effect inflict pain, yet we found no evidence says Casewell. “We don’t really know
SOME little fish bite back. A tropical is, it seems to be very unpleasant.” of that with the blenny.” what sensations fish experience, but
blenny uses prominent fangs on its Casewell and his colleagues have The second, neuropeptide Y, they clearly suffer such an adverse
lower jaws to inject venom that sends tested the venom of 11 species from has been found in cone snails and sensation that they avoid ever eating
larger fish into a limp mess. reefs in the western Pacific, including causes blood pressure to drop. blennies again.”
When a predator engulfs a blenny, the striped poison-fang blenny Casewell thinks the enkephalins and The third main ingredient is PLA2,
the tiny fish bites the predator’s (Meiacanthus grammistes). The venom a phospholipase – commonly made by
mouth. The bigger fish’s blood has three main components. One is “When bitten, the predator’s snakes, lizards, bees and scorpions –
pressure plummets, its coordination enkephalins – seen in some scorpions blood pressure plummets, that probably causes inflammation
goes awry and its mouth gapes – which act on opioid receptors, its mouth gapes open (Current Biology, doi.org/b447).
involuntarily, allowing the blenny to suggesting they have a pain-relieving the blenny swims out” Andy Coghlan ■

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NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Neurons linking
breathing and
stress found
A TYPE of brain cell that connects
breathing rate to alertness has been
found in mice. Killing these neurons
ALLEN DISCOVERY CENTER AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY
made mice unusually calm, and these

cells may explain why deep breathing
makes us feel relaxed.
Kevin Yackle at the University of
California, San Francisco, and his
team have dubbed these brain cells
“pranayama neurons” in reference
to a yoga breathing exercise. They
–New eye in a new place– identified them using a database of
gene activity in mouse brain cells,
Tadpoles see with

nervous systems – an essential which showed that the pranayama
step for being able to send visual neurons are a distinct type of neuron
information to the brain for in the hindbrain.
transplanted eyes
processing. But this rose to There are only 350 of these cells
40 per cent in those given the in a mouse’s brain, located in a region
drug (npj Regenerative Medicine, responsible for controlling breathing,
doi.org/b448). and they are connected to a nearby
Jessica Hamzelou system, which controls the body What’s more, the tadpoles area known to control alertness.
and feeds information back to could see with the eyes, despite When the team used genetic
BLIND tadpoles have learned to the brain. To see if the body might them being connected to the engineering and a special drug to
see again – using eyes implanted be able to adapt to a new eye, for spinal cord, not the brain. The kill the pranayama neurons in three
in their tails. instance, Levin’s team turned to team found the tadpoles could mice, the animals took a greater
With help from a drug usually frogs. Although they are very learn the difference between red number of slow breaths and spent less
used to treat migraines, the eyes different to people, frogs share and blue areas, for instance, and time exploring and sniffing (Science,
grew new connections to the similarities with us at the avoid coloured triangles as they doi.org/b449). They also did more
tadpoles’ nervous systems. molecular level, says Levin. moved on a screen beneath them. grooming, becoming “super-chilled
The same approach may work The team removed eyes from That the tadpoles could see out”, says Yackle.
in people, allowing the body to three-day-old tadpoles, and using eyes connected to their The usual role of these neurons
integrate organs grown in the lab. attached one eye into each of spinal cords is surprising, says might be to ensure that when mice are
“If a human had an eye Bernd Fritzsch at the University more physically active – such as when
implanted in their back, “This work suggests you of Iowa, and good news for teams they are exploring a new place – their
connected to their spinal cord, could put an ear on the developing engineered organs sniffing and fast breathing trigger
would the human be able to see neck. It might look funny, like eyes and ears. greater alertness, says Yackle. If the
out of that eye? My guess is but it could still work” “We have no idea how we would same mechanism is at work in people,
probably yes,” says Michael Levin connect a retina to the brain, and slower breathing might make these
at Tufts University in Medford, the tails of other tadpoles of the if you wanted to replace an ear, neurons less active and so lower
Massachusetts. same age that were also blind. you would have to cut out a big stress levels.
Many people in need of new Some of these were then given a piece of the skull,” Fritzsch says. Many kinds of relaxation therapies,
organs spend years on transplant drug on the site of their new eye “This work suggests that this such as yoga and meditation, involve
lists. Synthetic organs might solve straight after the surgery. Called might not be necessary – that you deliberately slowing our breathing.
this, and teams around the world zolmitriptan, the drug activates could put the organ on the neck, Doctors also recommend deep
have created replacement a class of serotonin receptors for example, and connect it to the breathing to help combat anxiety
organs – bladders, for example – that seem to trigger electrical spinal cord. It might look funny, or panic attacks. Miguel Farias of
in the lab and tried implanting activity in cells – something but it could still work.” Coventry University, UK, hopes
them in people. Groups are now that Levin’s team had previously But Fritzsch says the team the findings will encourage more
working on more complex organs, discovered encourages the growth needs to find out whether the research into relaxation techniques.
such as eyes and hearts. of neurons. drug works the same way in “Deep breathing is a very effective
But to work, these particular Of those that didn’t receive the people, and whether its effects way of calming you down,” he says.
organs would need to be drug, only 5 per cent grew new extend beyond young animals “It’s a very strong and quick effect.”
connected to the central nervous neurons that reached their central to adults. ■ Clare Wilson ■

IN BRIEF
AUGUSTSNOW / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Space-time ripples
slow down star spin
THE rapid spin of a neutron star is
slowing in bursts – and it may be
because of gravitational waves.
Neutron star J1023+0038 flits
between a state in which it emits
mostly radio waves and one where
it mainly gives off X-rays, when its
spin slows more quickly.
Brynmor Haskell at the Polish
Academy of Sciences and his
colleague now suggest that
gravitational waves could be
behind the unusual slowing. In
the X-ray phase, they say, the star
steals material from a smaller
companion star that orbits it. The
material sticks to J1023’s surface to
build up a bump. This pushes the
atoms beneath deeper into the
star, where higher pressure fuses
them into heavier elements.
This could make the star’s
gravitational field asymmetrical,
and cause it to radiate
Stealthy sawfish is more movement to ensure the program mimicked it accurately.
“These are tools we use every day for engineering
gravitational waves that carry
away energy, slowing its spin
inconspicuous than it looks problems, but now the technology is able to cross more (arxiv.org/abs/1703.08374).
boundaries into biology,” says team member Phil Clausen.
YOU would think it would be hard to miss, but the We knew that sawfish use rostrums as weapons
formidable snout of the sawfish has evolved to be to bludgeon prey, sometimes impaling fish on the
Apps conspire to
undetectable to prey as it swishes through water. razor-sharp teeth. But Evans and his team found that
So says Sam Evans, an engineer at the University of the snouts also cut through water without creating steal your data
Newcastle, Australia, and colleagues. Evans was inspired vibrations – just like wind turbine blades through air
when he watched a TV programme about the sawfish (Journal of Fish Biology, doi.org/b43g). THOUSANDS of Android apps are
and realised its snout – called a rostrum – looked similar This is crucial to hunting because prey fish rely on colluding to obtain information
to the wind turbine blades he usually studies. To find out vibrations in the water to determine whether potential such as your contact list or
whether the rostrum had similar properties, his team predators are swimming nearby. It is especially true in location data, without permission.
CT-scanned three sawfish species and made 3D computer areas with low visibility like the muddy coastal waters Once Android apps are
models. They used videos of the rostrum’s natural and estuaries of Western Australia, where sawfish thrive. downloaded, they can function by
talking with each other without
notifying you. But some exploit
Dark web not all that dark, it turns out Sanchez-Rola at the University of this to gain access to data they
Deusto, Spain: anyone using the shouldn’t be able to touch.
IF YOU thought your anonymity websites such as Google. Owners same script as a dark web service Among the 100,206 most
was assured on the dark web, of these resources can track when could track a user’s activity and popular apps in the Google Play
think again. they are loaded, potentially potentially identify them when store, Gang Wang of Virginia Tech
Close links between the dark letting them monitor traffic to they visit less private sites. The and colleagues found 23,495 pairs
web and the regular “surface” dark web services. team presented their work at the in cahoots. But each pair
web could pose privacy issues Privacy researchers also found World Wide Web Conference in contained one of just 54 apps that
for users. An investigation of tracking scripts, designed to Perth, Australia, this week. instigated the collusion. Those
1.5 million pages on the dark web analyse users’ browsing Those using Tor proxies – most likely to be up to mischief
network Tor found that more than behaviour, on 27 per cent of the services on the surface web that included emoji and ringtone apps.
20 per cent imported resources hidden pages. Nearly a third act as gateways to the dark web, The researchers presented their
like pictures, documents and originated in the surface web. like the popular Tor2Web – are work at a security conference in
Javascript files from surface That’s a problem, says Iskander most at risk, says Sanchez-Rola. Abu Dhabi this week.

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Giant octopuses Europe’s first ever cavefish discovered in south Germany

live on… jellyfish A CAVE diver in Germany has Germany, who led the team that and just a few thousand years
discovered Europe’s first cavefish. analysed the fish. might be enough, says Behrmann-
AN ELUSIVE deep-sea giant has The pale-coloured loach is “Despite this short time Godel. “Cavefish could exist
been filmed with its prey for the thought to have begun to diverge span, the fish show trademark virtually everywhere in principle,
first time – and it’s surprisingly from surface fish as glaciers from adaptations to cave life compared and there’s no good reason to
low-calorie for a giant. The octopus, the last ice age receded some with loaches from surface expect long evolution times for
Haliphron atlanticus, was filmed on 16,000 to 20,000 years ago, locations nearby, including a them to adapt to caves,” she says.
top of a medusa jellyfish, devouring linking surface and cave waters. pale body colouration, much Simply dubbed “cave loach” or
its innards with its beak, with the “Our first genetic studies, plus smaller eyes, plus larger nostrils “barbatula” for now, the fish was
medusa’s sticky tentacles still knowledge of the geological and barbels,” she says. Larger discovered in 2015 by Joachim
hanging out of its mouth. The history of the region, suggest the barbels, whisker-like feelers, may Kreiselmaier, an amateur cave
researchers think the octopus might cave loach population is improve tactile sensing in the diver, in a water-filled cave
even be using the jellyfish tentacles amazingly young, certainly not dark (Current Biology, DOI: labyrinth called the Danube-Aach
to ensnare more prey. older than 20,000 years,” says 10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.048). System in southern Germany.
Little is known about this octopus, Jasminca Behrmann-Godel at the It shows fish can adapt quickly “To reach the area with the fish
which can grow to be 4 metres long University of Konstanz in to these subterranean habitats, takes an hour [of diving],” he says.
and weigh 75 kilograms. Steven
Haddock from the Monterey Bay
JAMES DAVIES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Aquarium Research Institute in
Planet and asteroid
California and his colleagues have
only seen it in the wild three times play chicken
in as many decades before filming
three of them using remotely THERE’S an asteroid in Jupiter’s
operated vehicles. orbit around the sun that’s going
The team also analysed the in the opposite direction – and it
stomachs of five museum may have been doing so for more
specimens, mainly finding the than a million years.
remains of gelatinous zooplankton Object 2015 BZ509 was
and jellyfish. The open ocean is discovered in 2015 and is the only
teeming with such creatures, asteroid we know of that shares
so the octopuses make use of a planet’s orbital space while
what’s available. But most other moving in the opposite direction.
octopuses eat more substantial Paul Wiegert at the University of
prey such as fish and crustaceans, Western Ontario in Canada and
so it is a surprise to see this species his colleagues have now
grow so large on jellyfish (Scientific examined it to see why it doesn’t
Reports, doi.org/b43h). Haddock crash head-on into Jupiter.
says this illustrates the complexity The asteroid passes the planet
of the ocean food web and the twice per orbit: once when it ALS linked to occupational exposures
overlooked role of gelatinous food. slips between Jupiter and the sun,
and once on the planet’s far side. WORKPLACE exposure to frequency magnetic fields were
© 2017 MBARI
Each pass provides a small electromagnetic fields is associated twice as likely to develop ALS as
gravitational tug, which keeps with a higher risk of developing people who have never had this kind
BZ509’s path just to one side of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). of occupational exposure
Jupiter’s so they don’t collide. Several studies have found a (Occupational & Environmental
The team has calculated that higher risk of ALS in electrical Medicine, doi.org/b43j). Jobs with
this precarious-sounding orbit is workers. One theory is that electrical relatively high exposures include
actually fairly stable and safe for shocks are to blame, or extremely welders, sewing-machine operators
the asteroid. It has been following low frequency magnetic fields. and aircraft pilots, says Vermeulen.
this retrograde path for at least Now a study of more than 58,000 “The effect of extremely low
1 million years and ought to men and 6500 women suggests the frequency magnetic fields on ALS
remain on it for a million more. second idea may be correct. Roel development is not clear,” says
We still don’t know what put Vermeulen at Utrecht University in Christian Holscher at Lancaster
it on its backwards path in the the Netherlands and his team found University, UK. He says the finding
first place, however. “It’s very that people whose jobs exposed should be interpreted with caution
peculiar,” says Mattia Galiazzo at them to high levels of very low as it may be a false positive.
the University of Vienna, Austria.

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ANALYSIS CLIMATE POLICY
LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
–Plenty more where that came from-
The price of emission

Donald Trump’s rollback of climate legislation is a chance for the world
to unite against the US with carbon tariffs, says Michael Le Page
LAST week, US president Donald of greenhouse gases has given up Such a global carbon price has Although some countries
Trump signed an executive order on even trying to meet its target historically been dismissed as have unilaterally introduced
that aims to reverse the climate under the agreement. politically infeasible. But that was carbon pricing, they have done
regulations introduced by the Now what matters is how the before Trump’s flagrant climate so only in a very limited way or
Obama administration. It could world responds. If other countries rollback. Suddenly, an intriguing with a very low price, or both –
effectively cancel plans to restrict stand by and let the US brazenly possibility has arisen: could the greatly reducing the effectiveness
carbon dioxide emissions, such flout its commitments, the entire outrageous behaviour of the US of the policy. Why so toothless?
as those from coal-fired power agreement could slowly unravel unite nations to take action on Countries fear that if companies
plants. Years of legal battles lie as its credibility evaporates. climate that will be effective? have to pay high penalties for
ahead, but the message could But what can the other nations An ever-rising price on carbon their carbon emissions, their
not be clearer: the US is turning do when the agreement includes has long been the most agreed-on industries will go bust or move
its back on efforts to curtail no enforcement measures? way to speed the transition to production elsewhere to avoid
global warming. There is an alternative zero-carbon economies. the higher costs.
The nightmare scenario that approach, and many think it But it is easier said than done. Take the European Union.
Trump’s inauguration posed for could lead to faster emissions In theory, it has carbon pricing
the nearly 200 countries signed cuts. It is introducing a global “Trump might just outrage in the form of its carbon trading
up to the Paris climate agreement price on carbon, and slapping the world so much that system. Companies in carbon-
has now become reality. The carbon tariffs on goods from any he makes the politically intensive industries – for
world’s second-biggest emitter country that refuses to join in. infeasible feasible” example, electricity, steel and

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
cement – must buy permits that it would create so much bad Germany has been analysing
Getting away with it
to emit CO2 (see chart, right). will, when Paris created good will.” using an economic model.
However, to keep these companies Now the situation has changed. Just under a quarter of the world’s CO2 His as-yet-unpublished work
emissions from fossil fuels and cement
competitive with their non-EU Trump has just demonstrated suggests more countries would
production should soon have a price on
counterparts, the EU dishes out how ineffectual the Paris them, but it is too low to lead to cuts need to join in to force the US to
free permits, for instance, to the approach is. The key problem, change course.
cement industry. Even when not as his executive order reveals, EU ~4.5
If tariffs are imposed only by
39 other ~8.5
given freely, the EU permits are so is that the Paris agreement does initiatives
the EU and China, the short-term
cheap they have failed to drive not deter selfish behaviour: ~9.5
costs to the US will be relatively
China
emissions reductions. nations leaving it to others to (predicted) small, Böhringer concludes.
How to break the stalemate? tackle climate change while China, by contrast, would lose
SOURCE: WORLD BANK

Carbon tariffs, also known as benefiting from their efforts. Global ~77.5 much if the US claimed carbon
emissions
border adjustment taxes, are one “The Trump case confirms that not covered tariffs violate trade rules and
answer. The idea is that countries climate change is a problem of retaliated by slapping punitive
that impose carbon pricing on international free-riding,” says tariffs on goods from China –
their own industries would also Ockenfels. “And carbon pricing in other words, if there was a
impose border taxes on goods could be an effective way of situation, says Oldag Caspar of trade war.
imported from countries that do preventing free-riding.” trade and environment group In principle, there shouldn’t
not. This would allow countries to So carbon tariffs are now back Germanwatch, based in Bonn. be. If carbon tariffs are designed
raise carbon prices to a meaningful on the agenda. After Trump’s “EU-China talks are already to be fair, they should be allowed
level without putting their own election, former French president starting on this.” under World Trade Organization
industries at a disadvantage. Nicolas Sarkozy openly called This could lead to new rules, says Sam Lowe of
Better still, if enough powerful for the imposition of carbon agreements between China and environmental organisation
countries banded together to tariffs on US goods. Mexico, the EU, Caspar says – possibly Friends of the Earth. But no one
institute carbon tariffs, it would whose relations with the US including one on carbon tariffs. can say for sure. “So much has
create a compelling incentive have been strained by the new China’s stance could be crucial.
for other countries to join in too. administration, has also said it In the past, it has been the “Climate change is a
That’s because if your exporters is considering it. proposed target of the tariffs, problem of international
are forced to pay a carbon tax, And in February, Europe’s and has fiercely opposed them. free-riding – one that
better to collect that money steel-makers joined the calls for But now its situation has changed. carbon pricing could solve”
yourself rather than see it go to a tariff, claiming that they are China has been making huge
another country (see “How to put losing out to competitors in other efforts to cut pollution, and it also been written on this question,”
a price on carbon”, below). countries because of the EU has plans to introduce a carbon Lowe says. “We will only find out
A global carbon price is the carbon trading system. trading system similar to that of if it gets challenged.”
approach that many prominent EU leaders have been more the EU. For the first time, China For many economists, the risk
researchers and economists, circumspect. In public, they may be starting to see some of trade wars is the strongest
including Axel Ockenfels at the have said they have no plans for upsides to tariffs as well as argument against carbon tariffs.
University of Cologne in tariffs – but conspicuously have downsides. However, world leaders will need
Germany, have been calling for. not ruled anything out. So could the EU and China join to weigh this risk against the
They argue that it will produce Even before last week’s climate together to impose them on the immense and growing costs of
much faster falls in emissions U-turn in the US, there was much US? This is the surprising scenario climate change. There is an
than simply setting targets, discussion behind the scenes that Christoph Böhringer at the opportunity here for countries
which is the current approach. about how to deal with the US University of Oldenburg in that are serious about tackling
For example, under the Paris climate change to bypass the
agreement, each country comes ineffectual Paris agreement
up with its own target for cutting HOW TO PUT A PRICE ON CARBON and club together to impose a
emissions – and there are no If someone vandalised your house, production – a carbon tax. The other global carbon price.
penalties for failing to meet them. you’d be outraged if they got away is to impose a limit on how much CO2 Here again, Trump might
Last year, the prospect of using scot-free. The idea of a carbon price can be emitted by large industries, make the decision easier.
carbon tariffs to force countries to is to make polluters pay for the and then sell permits to pollute – cap He has been threatening to slap
adopt carbon pricing faded after damage their emissions will do and trade, or carbon trading. big tariffs on goods from China
the apparent success of Paris. to people’s homes and livelihoods, We already know that a to boost US industries, an action
After signing the agreement, as a result of climate-change related high-enough carbon price that could spark a trade war. If it
countries could not then turn floods, storms and sea level rise discourages fossil fuel use, happens, imposing carbon tariffs
around and threaten to impose (see page 33). encourages energy efficiency and on US goods would be one of the
carbon tariffs on others, says One approach is to tax goods and makes renewables more competitive. ways China and others could
Glen Peters at the Center for services on the basis of how much To be really effective, the carbon respond while maintaining the
International Climate Research in carbon dioxide is emitted during their price just needs to rise rapidly. moral high ground. We live in
Norway. “The general feeling is interesting times. ■

COMMENT
The heat is on
Pumping chemicals into the stratosphere to cool Earth is a scary
idea, but we may have to do it anyway, says Jamais Cascio
FEW people working on ways to halt the rise in atmospheric

geoengineer the atmosphere to carbon dioxide and acidification
cool Earth think it’s anything but a of the oceans. It also risks
scary idea. Unfortunately, it’s one droughts and political conflicts
we may soon have to embrace. over control and liability.
Solar radiation management But we may eventually have to
(SRM) adds particles to the upper use it. Why? Because planetwide
atmosphere to reflect a small efforts to reduce greenhouse gas
fraction of incoming sunlight, emissions have been sluggish, all
potentially slowing, halting or but wiping out hope of avoiding a
reversing global warming. 1.5°C rise. Averting a 2°C rise also
Researchers at Harvard looks doubtful. And there is broad
University are about to launch a agreement that warming above
project in the sky above Arizona 3°C risks “apocalyptic” impacts.
to see if it works for real. The test This brings a key complication
will be too small to alter global to the fore: the lag between action
temperatures, but it still amounts and effect. Due to geophysical
to the biggest trial of the method. factors, such as CO2 persisting in
Those studying geoengineering the atmosphere for decades, even
emphasise that this technique, a rapid reduction in carbon
although potentially quick and emissions won’t immediately end
relatively cheap, would not offer a temperature rises. The longer we
permanent fix. It would be a wait to really get going, the greater
climate tourniquet to temporarily the chance we will see more than
stem rising temperatures. 3°C of warming, even after major
SRM alone would do nothing to action across the globe.
Avoidable illness?
from 69 countries. Hence the follow-up, showing
It is a follow-up to their 2015 that the link between stem cell
study, which suggested that divisions and cancer holds across
variations in cancer incidence in nations with very different
Is most cancer just bad luck or does lifestyle different tissues were linked most environmental conditions.
closely to the number of stem cell This time, the authors used
still matter, asks Darren Saunders divisions, and hence random DNA a model that could distinguish
replication errors, in those tissues. between internal and external
Unfortunately it was ripe for drivers of mutation in a more
COMPETING narratives of chance changes that characterise cancer:misinterpretation, usually that complete way. This goes some
and lifestyle often frame debate inheritance, random errors when “most cancer is just bad luck”. way to resolving apparent conflict
about cancer’s causes. Studies are cells replicate, and environmental
Some researchers questioned between biological mechanisms
frequently misinterpreted as exposures such as smoking. the study and insisted external and population-level estimates of
showing that cancer is either The latest attempt to do this factors still dominate. the role of environmental factors.
largely bad luck or almost entirely comes from US researchers For example, the authors cite the
preventable. Who’s right? (doi.org/ 10/b43q), who aimed to “So which of the competing fact that nearly 90 per cent of the
To answer that, we need to resolve conflicting evidence by narratives about cancer’s most common form of lung
gauge the relative contributions using genome-wide sequencing cause – chance or lifestyle – cancer is preventable, even if they
of three routes to the DNA and population-wide disease data is right?” find random stem cell copying

For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion
At the planetary level, this

would mean that our best efforts
INSIGHT Privacy
may not be enough to keep
temperatures at a liveable level.
So drastic changes to billions of
people’s lifestyles and dozens of
countries’ economies will have
delivered little apparent benefit.
Imagine the fallout when we
eliminate carbon emissions,
but temperatures keep rising
and climate disruption worsens.
Thus the importance of the
Harvard test. Simulations indicate
ASTRAKAN/PLAINPICTURE
that SRM could hold down

temperatures, while studies of
events such as volcanic eruptions
also support the idea, but there is
no hands-on experience with the –Generating valuable data–
technique outside labs.
Yourentireinternet
We need to know how it could Foundation, a digital rights campaign
work and, more importantly, how group. “It’s a lot more than advertising.”
it could fail before we face the It might also become more likely
historyisnowforsale
possibility of having to use it. that ISPs analyse your email account
Field trials may well prove critical in detail to look for useful information
to our civilisation’s ability to deal to sell.
with global climate disruption. For now, not much will change after
Even the co-lead of the Harvard the repeal, since the scrapped law
experiment, atmospheric Sally Adee giving up your privacy,” says Jeanette wasn’t due to go into force until the
scientist Frank Keutsch, calls the Hofmann, director of the Alexander end of 2017.
prospect of full-scale deployment ONLINE in the US? Everything you do von Humboldt Institute for Internet But what worries many is the
“terrifying”. He’s right, but it is for sale. On 28 March, US Congress and Society, Berlin. precedent it sets. In comparison with
might be the only way to avoid an finalised the process of scrapping laws And as ISPs aren’t required to say European Union directives like the
even worse outcome. ■ passed in the late days of the Obama what data they share about you, you right to explanation and the right to
administration, which would have will never know exactly what they are be forgotten, it’s hard not to see this
Jamais Cascio is a distinguished fellow required internet service providers gathering or where that data goes. as relegation of Americans to digital
at the Institute for the Future in (ISPs) from the end of 2017 to ask So who can they sell it to? The second-class citizenship, says John
California permission before selling the data Obama ruling explicitly mentioned Havens, who runs the IEEE Ethics
they collect about their customers to advertisers, but not because ISPs are Initiative in New York City.
third parties. This isn’t just another restricted to selling your data to them. The new ruling also bars the FCC
errors account for 35 per cent of small erosion of our dwindling privacy It’s just that advertisers are currently from adopting any similar rules to
DNA changes in this tissue. on the internet: it’s more fundamental, the highest bidders, and it might be govern ISP collection and behaviour
So which of the competing and worrying, than that. damaging to an ISP’s reputation if it in the future.
narratives about cancer’s cause is The repeal eliminates any got out that they were selling There are some small measures you
right? Unsurprisingly, the answer requirement by the Federal can take to protect your data. Different
lies somewhere in the middle. Communications Commission (FCC) – “If all ISPs collect and sell ISPs let you opt out of different data
Two key messages emerge. which oversees internet regulations in your data, it is impossible collection: you can call each ISP and
First, it is impossible to say with the US – that ISPs get consent from to use the internet without ask them what the opt in and opt out
certainty what caused a particular their customers before collecting and giving up your privacy” policy is, and to whom they sell data.
tumour, so trying to translate selling sensitive data: not just your web One way to minimise what they see
population-wide data to browsing history, but also geolocation individual customers’ data to, say, is to visit sites which use https.
individual cases is not wise. data, financial information – such as a pharmaceutical company. Another possibility may arise. In
Second, we can reduce cancer risk who you bank with – and metadata. But the absence of a rule means 2013, AT&T began to charge about
by modifying lifestyle, but chance It may sound like ISPs are just that if an ISP puts something into their $29 extra per month to customers
does play a significant role. ■ getting the same deal as tech firms like privacy policy, they can sell the data to who didn’t want their traffic analysed
Facebook and Google. But Facebook whoever they wish. “We’ve seen data using deep packet inspection. So take
Darren Saunders is a cancer biologist and Google are optional, ISPs are not. brokers sell lists of ‘gullible seniors’, or heart, Americans. You don’t have to be
at the University of New South Wales, “If all ISPs collect and sell your data, it is rape victims or AIDS patients,” says second-class citizens – if you’ve got
Australia impossible to use the internet without Jeremy Gillula at the Electronic Frontier the cash. ■

APERTURE

Scarily good in claws-up
THESE fearsome pincers are no B-movie prop.
Long before David Attenborough brought the
natural world to UK television screens, Jean
Painlevé was sharing his own passion for marine
life with French audiences through films and
photographs.
After studying biology at the Sorbonne,
Painlevé set up a studio on the coast of Brittany
in 1925, where he used microscopes to capture
close-ups of crabs, octopuses and sea urchins that
belie their true size. Admired by many on the Paris
avant-garde art scene, Painlevé showed that the
natural world was a source of images and tales
just as bizarre and shocking as anything Dada and
surrealism could offer.
Painlevé was also a pioneer of underwater
photography, encasing his camera in a
rudimentary waterproof box (pictured below) to
make films such as L’Hippocampe (The Seahorse).
He didn’t shy away from using anthropomorphism
and humour to help his audience relate to the lives
of animals, describing, for example, the labour
pains of the male seahorse, the courtship rituals
of the octopus and the vanity of a crab. He also
championed the use of film in scientific research.
By the time he died in 1989, Painlevé had made
more than 200 films in a career spanning half a
century. His work is the subject of an exhibition at
the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, UK, until 4 June.
Sam Wong
Images
Crab Claw (1928) and Painlevé with camera
(1935) © Archives Jean Painlevé, Paris
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, ikon-gallery.org

Speaking
Unseen influences may explain
the mysteries of quantum reality,
says Anil Ananthaswamy
N OCTOBER 1951, physicist David Bohm regardless of observers. Newton’s laws
I left the US for Brazil. Branded a communist

sympathiser, he had been arrested for
refusing to testify to the US Congress.
of motion, for example, say we live in a
clockwork, deterministic world that
behaves in well-defined, predictable ways
Acquitted, he was still stripped of his Princeton independently from what we are doing.
professorship. His departure began an exile The thin end of the wedge came in
that would last until his death, as a naturalised 1905, when Albert Einstein said that the
British citizen, four decades later. photoelectric effect, in which certain metals
The theory Bohm was nurturing as he left give out electrons when illuminated, can only
his native shores has spent even longer in the be explained if light is made up of quantum
cold. In part, that’s down to politics. But his particles – photons, as they came to be called.
ideas also seemed scientifically beyond the The thing was, light was known to be a
pale. Bohm proposed there was a hidden wave. In the early 1800s, Thomas Young had
reality to quantum theory, meaning its crazy done a version of the now classic double-slit
predictions of a world that doesn’t exist until experiment, in which light is shone at two
you choose to look at it are just that: crazy. parallel slits. The interference pattern formed
That went against the established grain, and on a screen beyond is what we would expect
still does. But more than six decades on, Bohm if waves of light were spreading outwards
is getting a fresh hearing, as new experiments from both slits – behaviour that seems
are hinting that he might have been on to impossible if it is made of single particles.
something. If so, some aspects of reality So which is it then – particle or wave?
would become easier to fathom, while others Both, as versions of Young’s experiment
would be harder to stomach. Forget standard have since confirmed. These involve light
quantum weirdness – the world Bohm revealed so dim that only one photon at a time passes
is a more profoundly and mysteriously through the double slit. Each photon lands
interconnected place than we ever imagined. on the screen at some seemingly random
It wasn’t always distasteful to suggest spot. Over time, however, these positions
that reality is, well, real. Before quantum turn out not to be random; rather, the
physics, our understanding was governed accumulated spots form an interference
by classical theories in which reality exists pattern, as if each photon were going

COVER STORY
through both slits and interfering with itself.

Try to detect the photons’ path through one
or the other slit, however, and the interference
pattern disappears. Not only is light’s nature
fundamentally ambiguous, but its guise
seems determined by what we choose to
measure. And as a young French physicist
named Louis de Broglie proposed in 1924, it’s
not just light. Experiments soon confirmed all
the quantum particles that make up material
reality have this dual nature, too.
Finding that reality’s true character is
slippery is still a big step away from saying
it doesn’t exist when we aren’t looking.
Yet this is exactly what orthodox quantum
mechanics says. In this picture, often called
the Copenhagen interpretation after the
Danish city where it took shape, a quantum
object is represented by a mathematical wave
function that allows us to make probabilistic
predictions of what we will find when we
measure things. Only on measurement
does this wave function “collapse” to reveal
“Reality’s nature is slippery,

but that’s a big step from
saying it doesn’t exist”
something localised in space and time. In the
words of Werner Heisenberg, a pioneer of the
Copenhagen interpretation, “the idea of an
objective real world whose smallest parts exist
objectively in the same sense as stones or trees
exist, independently of whether or not we
observe them… is impossible”. That remains
the dominant view to this day.
Yet it’s not the only possible interpretation
(see “The many guises of quantum theory”,
page 31). De Broglie suggested another: that
particles are real and have equally real waves
associated with them. In this picture, when a
particle goes through one of the double slits,
its “pilot” wave goes through both, interferes
with itself, and then guides the particle to a
location on the screen.
De Broglie presented his ideas at the 1927
Solvay Conference in Brussels, a legendary
gathering of the early quantum greats. But he
had not developed the theory mathematically,
and it received a lukewarm reception. He
quietly dropped the idea, becoming an
adherent of the Copenhagen interpretation.
David Bohm was unaware of de Broglie’s
work when, in the early 1950s, he developed a
SAM CHIVERS
mathematically solid theory in which a wave

with properties identical to that of the wave
function guides particles around. “This >

wave is a pilot wave,” says physicist Sheldon
Goldstein of Rutgers University in New Jersey,
“It choreographs the motion of the particles.”
Bohm’s theory made exactly the same
predictions as standard quantum theory. But
the fact that you could only predict outcomes
of experiments probabilistically was because
you lacked knowledge about the particles’
initial state, not because nature doesn’t exist
when you’re not looking. Bohm’s ideas made
de Broglie revisit and revise his own pilot-
wave theory. He developed a two-wave theory
in which every particle rides a pilot wave,
which in turn interacts with another wave
that behaves like a wave function.
IMAGES COURTESY OF DANIEL HARRIS AND JOHN BUSH, MIT
Spooky influences
Both of these pictures also explained another
central feature of the quantum world – the
way “entangled” quantum objects seem to
influence each other’s states instantaneously
at a distance. Standard Copenhagen quantum
mechanics provides no explanation for this
non-locality, or “spooky action”, as Einstein
dismissively referred to it. In the alternative
picture, though, if particles are entangled,
a common pilot wave guides them, and any
change in the position or momentum of one a philosopher of physics at Columbia And there it has largely stayed, bar the odd
particle instantly changes the pilot wave, thus University in New York City. It didn’t help that finding that, if anything, hindered its revival.
influencing all the other particles. “The fact Einstein, then in his twilight years and a vocal In 1992, for example, a thought experiment
that Bohmian mechanics is non-local is not critic of quantum theory, dismissed it too. In a by physicist Marlan Scully of Texas A&M
a defect of the theory,” says Roderich Tumulka, letter to Max Born, another quantum pioneer, University and his colleagues showed that
Goldstein’s colleague at Rutgers. “It is a feature he wrote: “Bohm believes (as de Broglie did, the theory made it possible for a particle to
that a true theory has to have.” by the way, 25 years ago) that he is able to be measured passing through one slit in a
In another world, Bohm’s work might have interpret the quantum theory in deterministic double-slit experiment, but then land on
been seen as a breakthrough. But by the time terms… That seems too cheap to me.” the screen at a position that implied it had
the idea was published in 1952, he was already Bohmian mechanics entered the twilight passed through the other. “Tersely: Bohm
in exile. “A lot of the reception of Bohm’s zone of scientific theories – not quite dead, trajectories are not realistic, they are
theory is tied up with that,” says David Albert, but not really a live concern either. surrealistic,” they wrote.
Really surreal
Quantum double-slit experiments tell us that nothing is quite as it seems
Measurements at the slits detect single photons Allow the photons to reach the screen and an Now introduce an entangled "probe" photon that
passing through one slit or the other: light is made interference pattern develops over time: light tells us which slit its partner photon passed through.
of particles is a wave, and it passes through both slits Measure at the slits again, and the states of the two
photons must agree
INTERFERENCE PATTERN
LASER
PROBE
SCREEN PHOTON

The many guises of more rigorous version of the experiment,
with proper shielding from air currents. They
quantum theory found, once again, that the bouncing droplet
creates a pilot wave that guides it on – and
Why does reality only seem to coalesce into a definite they discovered a second wave pattern.
Created by the interaction of the droplet with
state when you make a measurement? The answer the edge of the circular bath, this pattern in
depends on your preferred view of the quantum world the droplet’s position emerges over time and
has properties that mimic the wave function.
Copenhagen interpretation Quantum Bayesianism This is just as in de Broglie’s more complex
The “shut up and calculate” view: Quantum uncertainty is not intrinsic version of pilot-wave theory (Journal of Fluid
the quantum world does not exist to reality – it has to do with your own Mechanics, DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2016.537).
in any meaningful sense without lack of knowledge about whatever you The bouncing droplet experiments have
measurements. are attempting to measure. allowed Couder’s and Bush’s teams to observe
behaviour usually seen only in quantum
Many worlds interpretation Information systems. For example, the statistics of the
Make a measurement and the When you measure something, droplet’s seemingly chaotic movements
universe splits, taking you into the you extract some physical form of bear an uncanny resemblance to those of
parallel world where you got the information from it, forcing it into a an electron moving inside a corral of atoms.
result you did. high-definition state. “Now we have a macroscopic realisation of
the physical picture suggested by de Broglie,
Objective collapse Bohmian mechanics and it exhibits many of the allegedly
Spread-out quantum states are Reality is guided by pilot waves; inscrutable features of quantum mechanics,”
collapsing into definite states all the measurement just discovers what says Bush. “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”
time. Your clodhopping measurement reality is up to, in the same way as Maybe – but there was still the problem of
just helps things on their way. classical physics (see main story). those contradictory, surrealist particle paths
the alternative theory seems to allow. Last
year, a refined version of the double-slit
It was a series of unlikely experiments which gave the droplet a horizontal as well as experiment conducted by Aephraim Steinberg
involving oil droplets that started to change a vertical kick. The bouncing droplet started of the University of Toronto, Canada, and his
some minds. In 2005, Yves Couder and wandering across the oil bath, guided by the colleagues suggested that might not be quite
Emmanuel Fort at Denis Diderot University very wave that it had created and helped such a problem after all. Brace yourself,
in Paris stumbled upon a physical analogue sustain with each bounce. because this is where things get really weird.
of pilot waves. They discovered that if they The interesting thing was what happened First, the researchers created pairs of
let a millimetre-sized droplet of silicone oil fall when this wave-particle system encountered photons with entangled polarisations. One
on to a bath of the same oil that was vibrating a barrier, a fraction of a millimetre below the photon of each pair was sent through the
up and down, the droplet would bounce surface, with two gaps in it: a double slit. The double slit, which was designed so that if the
indefinitely on the surface. And not just that: walking droplet went over one or the other slit, photon was vertically polarised it would go
when it bounced the first time, it created a while its pilot wave went over both, and the through slit A, and if horizontally polarised
wave that it encountered on the next bounce, wave pattern that emerged on the other side through slit B. The second photon served
guided the droplet on. The researchers as a probe: thanks to the entanglement,
collected 75 such trajectories, and their measuring its polarisation was akin to
analysis suggested the formation of an knowing the polarisation of the photon
interference pattern on the far side of the passing through the slits, and thus which
slits. Despite there only ever being one slit it must have gone through (see “Really
Take measurements at the screen, however, and particle-like droplet in the apparatus at surreal”, below left).
half the time they disagree: the state of the probe
any time, its pilot wave was causing it to This set-up gave the team two bites at the
suggests the travelling photon went through one
slit, but its position on the screen implies it passed acquire seemingly wave-like behaviour. same cherry: they were able to determine the
through the other – a seemingly surreal trajectory If you couldn’t see the wave, the pattern travelling photon’s position as it went through
built up over time would make you think the apparatus, and could also measure the
the droplets had gone through both slits polarisation state of the associated probe
(Physical Review Letters, vol 97, p 154101). photon. They did this with tens of thousands
It was clearly only an analogy, and attempts of photon pairs, and found that, on average,
by other teams to repeat the work suggest at the moment a photon passed through
that the supposed interference pattern might slit A, the probe photon would be vertically
have been the product of air currents, as well polarised, as expected. But at the screen,
PROBE PHOTON as inadequate statistics. More recently, John things were a lot more ambiguous. When
Bush and his colleagues at the Massachusetts a travelling photon was measured at a
Institute of Technology have performed a position on the screen corresponding to >

having passed through slit A, half the time
the polarisation of the probe photon was
horizontal – suggesting that the travelling
photon had passed through slit B. These were
seemingly surreal trajectories, unmasked
(Science Advances, vol 2, p e1501466).
Reality regained
What’s happening? In a word, non-locality. The
experiment shows that the moving photon is
constantly changing the polarisation of the
probe photon. Look at the probe photon at the
moment the moving photon goes through a
IMAGES COURTESY OF DANIEL HARRIS AND JOHN BUSH, MIT

slit, and there is no contradiction. But look at
it the moment the moving photon hits the
screen and, half of the time, its polarisation
state has changed. This sort of non-locality is
admissible in standard quantum theory, but it
is baked into Bohm’s version. The experiment
is by no means a proof of Bohm’s theory, but it
shows that its prediction of surreal trajectories
cannot be used to debunk it.
So Bohmian mechanics can and should
remain a contender, says Albert. “Any realist
picture is preferable to any anti-realist
picture,” he says.
But winning hearts and minds will BRAIN DEATH showing that a Bohmian wave function can
still be a struggle. For a start, Bohmian create structures or “foliations” in space-time,
mechanics is formulated to replicate the Quantum mechanics gives a bizarre and that events on any one foliation are
predictions of standard quantum mechanics: twist to that old trope about a monkey simultaneous, leading to non-locality. It’s
experimentally, it’s almost impossible to tell at a typewriter with infinite time. the most sophisticated approach yet – but
them apart. Also, the theory is mathematically Ditch the monkey, and consider also very much still a work in progress.
fleshed out only for particles travelling far quantum fluctuations in an everlasting When Goldstein started learning standard
slower than the speed of light. Quantum universe. They could at some point quantum mechanics in the 1960s, he was
mechanics, in contrast, has been extended to spontaneously form anything, even a seduced by its mystery and spookiness, he
embrace relativistic particles travelling close brain. If one such “Boltzmann brain” says – only to realise gradually that Bohm’s
to the speed of light, and so forms the basis exists, it’s likely that many others do. ideas made more sense. Besides, he says,
of quantum field theory and the standard In fact, if we live in such a universe, Bohm’s ideas have their own sense of mystery:
model of particle physics. “Clean, worked-out it’s likely that our brains are this kind. the way in which every entangled particle
Bohmian versions of those things do not That sounds nonsensical. “If a influences every other particle in the universe,
exist,” says Goldstein. theory predicts that the majority of and the fact that the wave function is a new
For David Kaiser, a physicist and observers are Boltzmann brains, that’s kind of entity. “You have still got romance,”
historian of science at MIT, that may be bad for the theory,” says Roderich he says. “It’s in the right place now.
the theory’s Achilles heel. “My aesthetic Tumulka at Rutgers University. Not misplaced.”
concern is that it feels, in the original Standard quantum mechanics says In the end, though, it’s not about winning
description at least, horribly non-relativistic, that an infinitely enduring universe over minds, but being open to the Bohmian
anti-relativistic,” he says. exists in a “superposition” of all picture, says Steinberg. “The best thing
Goldstein and his colleagues have been possible states, including those with experiments like ours can do is to remind
trying since the mid-1990s to marry Bohm’s Boltzmann brains. But in Bohmian people that the interpretation exists,” he
ideas with Einstein’s special relativity. mechanics (see main story) such a says. “People aren’t aware of it, and we
The hardest part is to accommodate the universe evolves towards a static want to bring more attention to it.” Bush
instantaneous interactions of Bohmian state. The probability of that state feels similarly about his walking-droplet
mechanics. That’s at odds with relativity’s being one with Boltzmann brains is experiments. “That’s why I’m a believer in
limit on how fast influences can spread – minuscule, and even if it is, nothing this venture, even if its sole result is to get
namely, the speed of light. What’s more, is changing so the brain can’t be young people to question their views on
relativity does not distinguish points in space functional. “It’s much more likely that quantum mechanics,” he says. ■
as being in any one present. Goldstein and there are no Boltzmann brains, and
his colleagues have tried to get around this, then it stays that way,” says Tumulka. Anil Ananthaswamy is a consultant for New Scientist

“THAW #10 BY TIMO LIEBER”/WWW.TIMOLIEBER.COM
A year on thin ice
The Arctic’s four seasons have been radically transformed, finds Fred Pearce
HANGE is afoot at the top of our world. following a winter of heatwaves. February
C Spring has sprung, marking a crucial

moment in the Arctic’s annual cycle.
Each year, the ice sheet reaches its maximum
temperatures were above freezing.
These are the symptoms of a new Arctic that
is being created – perhaps the most profound
extent in March, then begins to shrink as change to the look of our planet for millions of
temperature warm up. years, with consequences for the rest of the
But this year, something is different. planet. In all likelihood the Arctic Ocean will
The floating sea ice, which at its peak normally soon be ice-free in the summer, surrounded
extends as far as the eye can see and feels by snow-free lands. “We are in a new Arctic
as solid underfoot as a continental shelf, regime,” says marine biologist Antje Boetius.
is rotten. For the third year in a row, its Follow us as we take you through a year
maximum March extent is at a record low, on thin ice. >

Winter SEASONAL CYCLE
n the world’s most northern settlement, an Satellite data collected by the US National The Arctic sea ice grows and shrinks with
I international research town in Svalbard

called Ny-Ålesund, the sun sets in the last
week of October and doesn’t rise again until
Snow and Ice Data Center show that the
growth of sea ice slowed down to a crawl at
times. Twice – in late November and
the passage of the seasons. But the total area
covered by ice is getting smaller year after
year, because of global warming
mid-February. The polar night ushers in December – the ice cap actually shrank.
freezing temperatures that are essential for The consequences of the warm winter are 1980 1990 2000 2010 2012
the region’s annual cycle (see diagram, right). likely to be long-lasting. Thin, broken-up ice is 2016 2017
As the mercury plummets, ice starts to grow far less likely to survive the summer melt and 18
out over the ocean’s dark waters, covering it in form sustainable multi-year ice. Three decades
a floating ice shelf. Winter has come. ago, 45 per cent of ice during the winter 16
Historically, the ice could grow to be 5 metres maximum was multi-year ice. In March 2016 it 14
Sea ice extent (million km2)

thick in places where it survived the summer was just 22 per cent and this winter is on track
and thickened with each passing winter. But to be equally extreme, although the numbers 12
SOURCE: NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE DATA CENTER (PIOMAS)

that is changing. Antje Boetius, at the Max aren’t in yet.
10
Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Current climate models don’t come close to
Bremen, Germany, experienced the new predicting the scale of ice loss we’re seeing in 8
conditions first-hand during an expedition the region, says Julienne Stroeve at University
last October. “Areas that showed up on College London. “We’re basically about 6
satellites with 100 per cent ice cover often had 30 years ahead of where the models say we
4
at best very broken ice. Even when there was should be.” Why this is the case is a hot topic.
ice, it was so thin we could often see through it,” One possibility is that the loss of ice brought 2
she says. “This rotten ice is causing misleading about by global warming is being amplified by
measurements,” says David Barber at the natural variabilities – decadal weather cycles 0
Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. that have nothing to do with climate change
Satellites can’t picture the planet’s surface in and fossil fuels. Another is that something
high enough resolution to show the broken-up isn’t quite right in the models. Boetius points
ice, which means that many of the usual out that they don’t properly mimic things like
statistics about ice cover underestimate local weather changes due to global warming, The thickness of the ice is also shrinking.
what’s going on. and the physical effects of winds and waves Heatwaves late in 2016 mean the volume of
Conditions didn’t improve as the winter that break up ice. the Arctic ice sheet is now much lower than
settled in. A heatwave in November and What is clear are the extreme conditions on any other winter on record
December brought temperatures that were as the ground. The ice cap reached its maximum
high as -7°C in some parts of the Arctic, 15°C extent on 7 March this year. At 14.42 million 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
warmer than the average over the past three square kilometres, it was the smallest it has 2015 2016
decades. The repercussions were remarkable. been in 38 years of satellite records.
30
Total sea ice volume (thousand km3)
FACT FILE: HIGHER SEAS

Q Glaciers on land are flowing into the oceans faster because
20
of climate change, pushing sea levels up worldwide
2017
Q Annual ice loss from the islands of the Canadian
archipelago has increased 10-fold in 10 years
10
SOURCE: PSC.APL.UW.EDU (PIOMAS)
Q Greenland’s glaciers release 250 cubic kilometres of water a

year, contributing 40 per cent of annual sea level rise
Q If all the ice on Greenland melted, global sea levels would 0

be 7 metres higher Jan Feb Mar

Spring FRAGILE ICE
he annual return of sunlight to the For a sense of scale, the team compared The average thickness of the ice sheet has
T Arctic triggers a cascade of events.

The rays warm the air and start to melt
the snow. Gaps between the sheets of floating
this with the warming effect of carbon dioxide
over the same period. They found that the loss
of sea ice has delivered a warming boost to the
dropped considerably. This a concern
because thicker ice can survive the regular
summer melt, but thinner ice cannot
ice get wider and the surface of the ocean entire planet equivalent to 25 per cent of the
warms up. effect of rising CO2 levels. This is the main
Beneath the ice, a unique food chain is set reason why the Arctic has on average been
in motion: as light begins to filter through, warming more than twice as fast as the planet
photosynthetic algae start to grow in tiny as a whole over the past half-century.
crevices in the ice, feeding tiny crustaceans
that in turn feed small fish. At the surface,
polar bears emerge from hibernation to seek
“You can’t ignore that,” says Eisenman.
“The sea ice is an important player in the
global climate change that we have observed
3.59m
out seals, while whales move about in the in the past 30-odd years.” Climate models do
widening cracks between the ice. include the loss of Arctic reflectivity – also
The return of light also highlights an known as albedo – in their calculations of
important way in which the new Arctic is future warming but, he says, the change
affecting regions further south: we are losing measured is twice as large as what
a vital mirror that helped keep the planet cool. models predict.
1975
SOURCE: 10.5194/tc-9-269-2015
White snow and ice typically reflect 85 per cent It’s not just sea ice that is disappearing.
of solar radiation back out into space, whereas Snow and ice are vanishing on land, too, and
dark ocean only reflects 10 per cent. As the ice
and snow disappear, the ocean’s reflectivity is
being almost entirely destroyed.
bare tundra reflects just 20 per cent of the
sun’s rays. This is also having a large effect,
warns Peter Wadhams, an ocean physicist at
1.25m
To calculate how much extra solar heat is the University of Cambridge. “The snowline 2012
being absorbed in the Arctic as the white retreat in midsummer is now 6 million square
surfaces turn dark, Ian Eisenman and kilometres, compared to the 4 million square
September 2016 was tied with 2007 for the
colleagues at the Scripps Institution of kilometres loss of sea ice,” he says, adding that
second-lowest summer ice extent on record.
Oceanography in San Diego, California, turned the warming effect of darker land masses
The oldest, thickest ice, which used to stretch
to satellite radiation data. They found that an could be as big as that from lost sea ice. The
over much of the Arctic Ocean, is now mostly
extra 6.4 watts is being absorbed today for calculations are rough, but the message seems packed up against Canada and Greenland
every square metre of the Arctic, compared clear: the Arctic is amplifying global warming
with 1979. on a large scale. Historical sea ice extent for September
(median for 1981-2010)
FACT FILE: OCEAN GRAB

Q Russia planted its flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole
in 2007, kick-starting a dispute over who owns the Arctic
Q The carve-up is likely to be done by the Arctic Council, an

intergovernmental club of all eight Arctic nations
Q The US Geological Survey estimates that 30 per cent of the

world’s undiscovered natural gas could be in the region
SOURCE: NOAA / NSIDC
Q Ice-free Arctic waters could also halve the journey time for
cargo from China to Europe
Sea ice concentration
September 2016 (%)
0 15 60 100

Summer HOT POLE
rctic summers are greener and more between huge globular sponges that are up Arctic temperatures have risen more and
A lively these days. Average June snow

cover has declined by 58 per cent since
1979, exposing more tundra for longer.
to a metre across and hundreds of years old.”
Her fear is that all this may be lost before it
is even found – an ice-free Arctic will be a very
faster than anywhere else on Earth
Howard Epstein of the University of Virginia different environment favouring a very

in Charlottesville has measured a 20 per cent
increase in plants on the tundra since 1982.
Woody shrubs are spreading at the expense of
different style of life. Recent years have seen
mass congregations of walruses on the
Alaskan and Siberian coasts of the Chukchi
+2ºC
more distinctive local species such as the lichen Sea, taking a breather on land because the sea
that are an important food source for reindeer. ice from which they normally hunt had AIR
Coastlines are also being transformed. disappeared. The new behaviour has resulted Air temperatures were 2°C warmer in 2016
Waves are pounding shorelines that ice once in overcrowding, stampedes that are deadly to than the norm*
protected. According to Irina Overeem at the young calves, and food shortages.
University of Colorado, erosion rates along It’s not just behaviours that have changed.
the coast of the Beaufort Sea have more than Melt the snow, warm the water, remove the ice
doubled in half a century to an average of that once kept the waters dark, and we can
14 metres a year. expect a biological cornucopia. According to
In some ways, the greening of the tundra the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
is good news. It is extracting CO2 from the
atmosphere, which helps to counteract global
warming. But many predict this helpful
Administration, last year the Barents Sea north
of Scandinavia had 19 per cent more biomass
than the average for 2003 to 2015. That could
+5ºC
feedback could soon be overwhelmed by the be the start of a predicted 70 per cent increase
release of CO2 and methane from melting in the Arctic Ocean’s biomass production.
permafrost on land and ocean sediments. The At the base of the ocean’s food chain, OCEAN SURFACE
frozen Arctic traps an estimated 1500 billion phytoplankton have increased by 20 per cent In August 2016, the surface waters were 5°C
tonnes of organic carbon, twice the amount of since 1998 thanks to more open water. warmer than the norm*
CO2 in the atmosphere. Under controversial On top of this, Atlantic species are moving
doomsday scenarios, large quantities could be north, lured by more food and warmer waters.
belched into the atmosphere, pushing global Some call this the “Atlantification” of the
temperatures up by a further 1°C or more. Arctic. In her latest expedition, Boetius found
Meanwhile, we are only just discovering the haddock at 85° north, just 100 kilometres from
richness of life in the Arctic. Last year, Boetius the North Pole. The fish are primarily a North
led an expedition to Karasik Seamount, a Atlantic species and don’t normally stray
submerged summit in a mid-ocean ridge just further north than Svalbard. Others have
400 kilometres from the North Pole, to shown that both Atlantic and Pacific cod have
document the world’s northernmost known also moved in. The concern is that an influx of
coral. The Arctic Ocean is a vast and largely
unexplored space, and Boetius was stunned
by the diversity she saw: “Huge white starfish,
newcomers could crowd out and even kill off
the natives. Arriviste orcas, for instance, are
hunting native narwhals in the archipelagos
+15ºC
blue snails, red crabs and brown clams, of northern Canada.
FACT FILE: RUBBISH

Q Arctic Ocean litter has increased 20-fold in 10 years
Q A 2014 survey recorded 6333 pieces of litter per square 2016 HEATWAVE
kilometre off the Fram Strait east of Greenland In November, air temperatures were 15°C
above the norm*
*compared with the average for 1981-2010
SOURCE: NSIDC/NOAA

Autumn SEA ICE & YOU
eptember marks a second turning point between 15 and 36 years away if greenhouse
S in the Arctic’s annual cycle – known as the

ice minimum – and one day soon it will
be monumental. This is the point in the year
gas emissions remain high, estimate
Alexandra Jahn at the University of Colorado
and colleagues. This could be delayed by a
3m2
of sea ice disappear for every...
when the shrinking stalls for a few days before decade or so if we were to reduce emissions.
winter starts up again and the cycle repeats.
With 4.14 million square kilometres of ice, last
Can anything be done to save the Arctic’s
ice? Stroeve reckons only the 2015 Paris
1 tonne
September’s minimum was tied with 2007’s Agreement’s aspirational target of halting of CO 2 emitted
as the second smallest on record. global warming at 1.5°C would deliver a
The downward trend is reliable, and realistic chance of this. Some fear the region
according to the most pessimistic climate may soon pass a threshold beyond which
researchers, an ice-free September is just years the warming effect caused by the loss of A typical US car emits
away. Wadhams is in this camp, having said reflective ice is sufficient on its own to melt
last year that he expects the first ice-free most of what’s left. That would be irreversible, 1 tonne
summer to be in 2017 or 2018. It’s worth noting and could unleash runaway global warming of CO2 per 4000 km
that what scientists have agreed to call “ice- that would continue whatever we did to
free” in fact makes allowances for 1 million emissions. Eisenman calculates that this is
square kilometres of ice, most of which will unlikely before all the summer ice is gone,
be packed up against the region’s convoluted but perfectly possible thereafter.
coastlines and inside the Canadian
archipelago, where the ice is thickest.
We always knew a warmer world would be
different, with deserts spreading north, super
1 tonne
of CO 2 is emitted for each seat on a
Wadhams is definitely at the extreme end El Niños, conflagrations in the rainforests and
return flight from London to San Francisco
of predictions. In practice, several factors – more intense hurricanes bubbling up above
including natural variations in the weather the hot oceans. Many saw the melting Arctic as
from year to year – make it difficult to a largely passive victim of that climate change.
pinpoint the first ice-free summer with that No longer. Feedbacks from an ice sheet that
The average American emits
degree of precision. A study published last has vanished faster than anticipated mean a
year estimated that any forecasts must have
an error bar of roughly 25 years. With that in
new Arctic is alive and kicking. ■
16 tonnes
mind, the first ice-free summer could be Fred Pearce is a consultant for New Scientist of CO 2 each year
The average European emits

ARCTIC ICE, YOUR WEATHER
What happens in the Arctic changes in the Arctic may Russia in 2010, the drought in
7 tonnes
of CO 2 each year
doesn’t stay in the Arctic. Studies explain a 10 per cent decline in North America in 2012 and
show that the shrinking ice cap is its speed since 1980, she says. Europe’s killer heatwave in 2003.
effectively helping to warm the The slower jet stream has Francis suggests it could also
SOURCES: DOI: 10.1126/SCIENCE.AAG2345, WORLD BANK, ICAO, EPA
rest of the planet (see Spring, begun to meander more. Instead explain persistent cold spells in
page 34). It may also be changing of pushing weather systems east Asia. Globally, we emit
your local weather. Jennifer along, it traps them in one Some researchers say weird
Francis at Rutgers University in
New Jersey has pointed out that
place, creating longer summer
droughts and winter cold spells.
weather can never be attributed
to a single cause in this way.
35 billion tonnes
rapid warming in the north is The frequency of such stalled Francis agrees it may be a long
of CO 2 each year
reducing the difference between weather systems in summer has time before we can be sure she
Arctic and mid-latitude air doubled since 2000, says Dim is right. But if the new Arctic At these rates, the Arctic summer
temperatures. That difference Coumou of the Potsdam Institute causes the jet stream to slow ice sheet will be gone by
drives the northern jet stream, for Climate Impact Research in permanently, Europeans and
which moves weather systems
around the hemisphere. So
Germany. He blames this for the
heatwave and forest fires in
North Americans could be in for a
bumpy ride of climate extremes. 2046
Living with
the enemy
There’s another big problem with antibiotics: indiscriminately killing bugs
is making us sick. It may be time to call a truce, says Drew Smith
OU are home to 10,000 species of infectious diseases fell by more than 90 per So how can we do it? The idea is to stop
Y bacteria. The vast majority, more than

99 per cent, cause you no harm. Indeed,
many actually help by providing you with
cent, contributing to a broader transformation
of society. We take for granted our long lives
and freedom from plague and infection, but
bacteria behaving badly. Before they can cause
an infection, bad bugs first need to stick in
places where they aren’t wanted. If they can’t
nutrients, tuning your immune system, this is unprecedented in human history. grab hold, they can’t invade.
balancing your metabolism and warding off This freedom comes with a cost. Ridding This strategy has already shown promise
mood disorders. You depend on these bugs. ourselves of all of these bugs has contributed for treating urinary tract infections, which are
Yet as anyone who’s had an upset stomach to a rise in disorders of the immune system, particularly common in women. Most UTIs
after taking antibiotics can attest, when we metabolism and even the mind (See “Are are caused by Escherichia coli, which use their
target the dangerous minority of disease- antibiotics making us sick?”, page 40). Taking hair-like pili to bind to carbohydrates on cell
causing species, we often wind up killing off a dose of antibiotics is like throwing a stink surfaces. But now researchers have found that
the good ones too. Now, after generations bomb into a subway. The criminals clear out, if you give people carbohydrates similar to
of doctors prescribing antibiotics for every but so do the citizens. The rats and those naturally found on cells, they act as
sniffle, we know that the collateral damage cockroaches remain, unfazed by the stench. decoys. E. coli bind to the decoys, and never
goes well beyond the occasional tummy ache. The survivors can become resistant to our get a grip on the cell surfaces. As a result, the
Indiscriminately wiping out bacteria may weapons. Every year, 23,000 people in the US bacteria get flushed out when people urinate.
be contributing to rising levels of asthma, alone die from antibiotic-resistant infections. In a small trial of women with recurrent
allergies, obesity and many more conditions. Proclamations of an impending superbug UTIs, just 15 per cent of those given the simple
These effects, together with the growing threat apocalypse are overblown – these bugs carbohydrate D-mannose got a UTI within
from antibiotic resistance, have some primarily attack older people and those who six months, compared to 20 per cent of those
researchers advocating a sea change in the are already ill – but it is clear that overusing treated with antibiotics and 61 per cent of
battle against the bugs: after 70 years of antibiotics drives up resistance, and we are the women given a placebo. In another trial,
fighting to wipe them out, it may be time for running worryingly low on replacements. women who drank a solution of D-mannose
a truce. If we can disarm harmful bacteria If we were to treat infections without killing didn’t get another UTI for more than six
without killing them, we may be able to reduce bacteria, they wouldn’t need to evolve months, on average, compared with 52 days
antibiotic resistance, take the strain off these resistance to our antibiotics. Not only could for those given antibiotics.
overworked drugs and leave our helpful this strategy, known as anti-virulence therapy, Daniele Porru and colleagues at the San
inhabitants be. Doing so may even mean provide alternative drugs to fight infection, it Matteo Foundation in Pavia, Italy, who ran the
resurrecting some forgotten strategies from could help to restore the potency of antibiotics trial, also found that antibiotics became more
the past. If the 20th century was defined by for when we do need them. “If we don’t always potent for the women treated with D-mannose
our ability to kill off deadly bugs, then the go to them for every infection, we can preserve instead. Because antibiotic-resistant bacteria
21st will be known as the era in which we their use for much longer,” says Brad are generally less fit than susceptible strains, in
learned to get along. Spellberg, an infectious disease specialist at the absence of antibiotics, regular bugs beat out
In the latter part of the 19th century, strong the University of Southern California. resistant ones for resources, and come to
evidence that germs cause disease kicked off outnumber them. That means when you do
more than a century of war against bacteria. need antibiotics, they are more likely to work
We expunged them from our water, food and 1 in 3 as most of the bacteria are the vulnerable kind.
homes with disinfectants; roused our Number of unnecessary When the researchers tested samples of the
RENAUD VIGOURT
immune systems against them with vaccines bacteria, that’s just what they found. “We noted
and wiped them out with penicillin and other
prescriptions for antibiotics an increased sensitivity to antibiotics, and very
chemical weapons. Human deaths caused by SOURCE: US Centers for Disease Control few side effects,” says Porru. >

More advanced blockers are in the works that bacteria produce to break open cells and
too. Scott Hultgren and Jim Janetka at gobble up nutrients. It is a strategy first used
Washington University in St Louis have in the 1880s by German bacteriologist Emil
developed synthetic mannose derivatives von Behring (right) and his Japanese colleague
that may be more effective and linger longer Kitasato Shibasaburo. The pair injected
within the body, meaning you need less to sublethal doses of diphtheria and tetanus
make a difference. Studies in mice show that toxins into animals, harvested the toxin-
a single dose can prevent E. coli infections for neutralising antibodies they produced, and
25,000 at least three days, and begin to clear existing then used these to treat patients. This strategy
People in the European Union infections within 6 hours. And by blocking eventually halved the death rate from
E. coli instead of blasting them with diphtheria and tetanus, and earned von
who die from antibiotic resistant
antibiotics, the bacteria didn’t need to evolve Behring the very first Nobel prize in medicine.
infections each year resistance to drugs, and beneficial bacteria But when antibiotics came along, anti-toxin
Source: World Health Organization living in the urinary tract were left unharmed. therapy was largely abandoned.
The potential impact is big: in the US alone, “A lot of treatments were forgotten because
more than 25 million antibiotic prescriptions antibiotics were so successful – and the loss of
are written for UTIs each year, and up to half these is now reflected in the lack of treatment
of the people who take them will have a choices,” says Laura Piddock, a microbiologist
recurrence. Hultgren thinks using blockers is at the University of Birmingham, UK. With
just the kind of approach that will “launch an the rise of antibiotic resistance, anti-toxin
antibiotic-sparing therapeutic revolution”. treatments are getting a fresh look.
If you can’t stop bacteria from sticking, One area in which anti-toxins have huge
the next line of defence is a long-forgotten potential is in treating diarrhoea. Each year
treatment. The idea is to neutralise the toxins nearly 30,000 people in the US die from
diarrhoea caused by Clostridium difficile
(pictured, left) an infection often acquired after
ARE ANTIBIOTICS MAKING US SICK? antibiotic treatment during hospital stays. The
solution is usually even more antibiotics, but
Antibiotics are among the safest Antibiotic use, especially in for a quarter of patients, the infection comes
drugs. Indeed, doctors even childhood, has been found to be back. In a recent trial, when people were also
prescribe them for viral infections, a risk factor for all of these. given a drug that neutralises C. difficile toxins,
knowing they are useless, on the In some sense, links to obesity it nearly halved the recurrence rate.
grounds that “it can’t hurt”. shouldn’t be news. Antibiotics have The trouble is, this kind of therapy doesn’t
Except that it can. And not just been used to fatten livestock since necessarily reduce risk of death from this
because it leads bacteria to develop the 1940s. The first study showing infection down the line. Richard Proctor, an
resistance to the drugs. Antibiotic- a similar effect in people dates to emeritus professor of microbiology at the
associated diarrhoea and allergic 1955. But the mechanism was a University of Wisconsin in Madison, is
reactions commonly send people to mystery and there was little interest nevertheless confident that next generation
hospital. And antibiotic use is almost in follow-up. Germs were our enemy, anti-toxin drugs will cover more strains of
always the cause of diarrhoea antibiotics got rid of germs, so bacteria and be more effective. “The concept
associated with Clostridium difficile, antibiotics were good, right? is correct,” Proctor says.
which kills nearly 30,000 Americans Until the last decade, few There is reason to hope: a lab-grown
every year (see main feature). imagined that gut bacteria might be antibody to toxins produced by the common
But people who study the needed for the development of our bacterium Staphylococcus aureus – known as
microbiome suggest the toll may be immune, metabolic and nervous MRSA in its antibiotic-resistant forms – can
far higher. One study in Denmark, systems. But it’s becoming clearer as prevent death and disease in infected mice.
for example, revealed that people links between the use of antibiotics It is now being tested to prevent pneumonia
who redeemed five or more and an increased risk of diabetes, caused by S. aureus in people on ventilators.
antibiotic prescriptions over the psychosis, anxiety, depression and Another approach is to play with the
course of a 15-year period were obesity steadily grow. relationship between dangerous bugs and our
DR KARI LOUNATMAA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
much more likely to develop type 2 There is a lot that we still don’t immune systems. This is tricky though. We
diabetes compared with those who know about the balance of bacteria have evolved together with bacteria in a game
took antibiotics once or less during in our bodies, but we now know
this time. enough to understand that
Beyond diabetes, changes in the constantly disrupting it is imprudent, 99 per cent
balance of bacteria in our guts are even dangerous. Even if the rise of The proportion of bacteria in or
now associated with obesity, antibiotic resistance did not drive a
inflammatory and autoimmune need for alternative therapies, the
on our bodies that do us no harm
disorders and even depression. need to preserve our health does. Source: US National Institutes of Health

Nobel pursuit: Emil von could prevent many types of bacteria from
Behring’s (centre right) producing a whole menu of toxins. And
140-year-old approach studies in mice show that the strategy works.
to defeating bacteria is The trouble is, if the ploy were too effective, it
being revisited could backfire; bugs that are resistant to these
quorum-sensing scramblers could be more
likely to survive and cause harm. Such drugs
“could inadvertently select new strains of
superbugs” that pump out high levels of
toxins continually, says Proctor.
GETTY IMAGES
It is still years away from human trials,
but there may be a less risky way to achieve
the same thing. It turns out that some of the
harmless bacteria that live on us also get a say
of cat and mouse that is millions of years old. one. The process is set in motion by so-called in whether bad bugs go on the attack. One
The bacteria hide; our immune cells evolve quorum sensing genes, which only kick into theory suggests that their presence deters
to seek out and destroy them; bacteria evolve action when there are enough relatives harmful bacteria from invading because they
new ways of hiding. S. aureus, for instance, around. If the signals from these genes can don’t want to share their plunder with
can cloak itself in human proteins, rendering be scrambled, the bacteria won’t attack. strangers. Corynebacterium, a common skin
it invisible to an immune system trained to This approach is appealing because it inhabitant, releases compounds that suppress
ignore the body’s own cells. works on a more global scale, says Vanessa S. aureus infections in mice. Not only do they
There is research into stripping away such Sperandio, a microbiologist at the University throttle production of S. aureus toxins, they
disguises, but the more promising strategy is of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In turn up the expression of genes associated
perhaps surprising: hide the bacteria on principle, a single quorum-sensing inhibitor with a non-infectious lifestyle. They don’t just
purpose. The most devastating consequences disarm S. aureus, they convert it to a pacifist.
of infection – particularly septic shock, which The golden age of antibiotics is over. We will
kills more people in US hospitals than cancer – EDIT BAD BUGS’ DNA? never again develop safe, cheap, effective new
are not caused by the infection itself, but ones as fast as bugs develop resistance to
an overstimulated immune system on One strategy to disarm harmful bugs them. But old habits will be hard to break.
a rampage. without wiping them out would be to Antibiotics have saved millions of lives. Even
disable the genes that make them in our current age of resistance, most first-line
attack. With the great strides taken treatments work most of the time. That means
See no evil in gene editing recently, why aren’t these new strategies have to clear a very high
One component of the cell walls of many more people trying it? bar before doctors take them seriously. “We
harmful bacteria is a molecule called The trouble is, bacteria often carry will almost have to get to the post-antibiotic
endotoxin. Its presence sets off an alarm many such virulence genes, and in a era before that happens,” says Proctor.
triggering our immune systems to react. But variety of combinations. “Targeting a None of these strategies is a silver bullet.
despite its menacing name, endotoxin itself single gene or factor can be a trap,” But they may provide alternatives, help make
does no damage to our cells. Indeed, mice says Brad Spellberg, an infectious existing antibiotics more effective, and
without the necessary gene to detect it are less disease specialist at the University of crucially, leave us less susceptible to disease.
likely to die from infection (though they are Southern California. Unless the gene That is where their real value lies. “We have to
more likely to get infections in the first place). is a linchpin for all factors bacteria reconsider antibiotic use in a wider context,”
In studies, multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter can use to drive infection, “knocking says Piddock. “We don’t want to disrupt the
kills all infected mice by driving them into it out is ineffective or even harmful”. microbiome and inflict collateral damage.”
septic shock. But when infected mice are given The basic problem is the incredible If we don’t reassess our use of antibiotics,
the experimental drug LpxC-1, which blocks diversity of the microbial world. Two we may have traded freedom from bacterial
the production of endotoxin, the death rate strains of the common gut bacterium plagues for death by a host of other ailments.
plummets. Because bacteria signal their E. coli may share only 40 per cent of Obesity, fatty liver disease, diabetes, arthritis,
presence in many other ways that prompt a their genes. In other words, these inflammatory bowel disease, multiple
less severe response than endotoxin, mouse bugs may be no more closely related sclerosis, asthma, anxiety and depression
immune systems eventually fight off the than a dog is to a dogwood tree. All have all been linked to use and overuse of
infections, but without setting off the alarms humans, by contrast, are more than antibiotics. Without the ability to fight off
that send the animals into shock. Human 99.5 per cent genetically identical. infections, modern life would be impossible,
trials may begin in the next few years. Targeting a specific gene in bacteria but we also need to preserve the microbial
Another strategy for thwarting harmful is unlikely to take out more than a communities so crucial to our health and
bacteria rather than wiping them out is to break subset of the offending bugs, and well-being. It’s time we learned to get along. ■
up their social networks. For many kinds of they will quickly be replaced by
bacteria the decision to switch from peaceful mutants and variants missed by Drew Smith is a molecular biologist and writer in
grazers to aggressive predators is a communal precision gene editing technologies. Boulder, Colorado

How you see it,
how you don’t
When psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach used inkblots to
open a window into his patients’ minds 100 years ago,
he also opened a can of worms, finds Damion Searls
UREMBERG, 1945. Hitler, Himmler and to integrate into a whole, so that while some
N Goebbels were dead, but two dozen

other leading Nazis were awaiting trial
for crimes against humanity. The prize catch
of us can pull together a big picture, others get
hung up on details. And do you see movement
and life, or only cold, inanimate forms?
was the creator of the Gestapo and the death There’s one blot that almost everyone says
camps, Hitler’s number two: Hermann Göring. looks like a bat or moth; do you say likewise?
SCIENCE MUSEUM/SCIENCE & SOCIETY PICTURE LIBRARY:PORTRAIT WWW.BRIDGEMANIMAGES.COM

While they waited, prison psychologist Rorschach gave scores based on the
Gustave Gilbert administered psychological frequency of what he termed “whole”, “detail”
tests, keen to solve the mystery of the “Nazi and “movement” responses, among others.
mind”. Most of the prisoners responded like You could calculate ratios with those scores,
show-off schoolboys, eager to beat their peers. and track patterns. The test results were
They did well on IQ tests, but to assess their derived from these measures. Rorschach
personality there was another technique to originally called his inkblots a perception
try, and the prison psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, experiment, not a test; it simply explored
had written a book on it. He and Gilbert gave how people process visual information.
19 Nuremberg prisoners the Rorschach test. Only later did he realise that different kinds
Hermann Rorschach, a psychiatrist working of people tend to see the blots differently.
alone in a remote Swiss asylum, had invented
the inkblot method in 1917 and published it
in 1921. Rorschach was a follower of Freud, Nazi personality
though never doctrinaire or dogmatic: he once In the decades after his early death in 1922,
joked to a colleague, “In Vienna, they’re going aged 37, of appendicitis, Rorschach’s test
to be explaining the rotation of the Earth languished in Switzerland and Germany.
psychoanalytically before long.” He had also But practitioners in the US helped it surge to
studied with Carl Jung in Zurich, where Jung prominence. That’s why in 1945, Kelley and
had developed the first empirical test of the Gilbert, both Americans, saw a golden
unconscious mind: word association. opportunity to try it on prominent Nazis. became the leading“X-ray of the unconscious”.
Rorschach was a lifelong artist. In school Ultimately, though, the Rorschach test It was used in the most ham-fisted ways
he was known for his drawing skill and, aptly, wasn’t considered a success at Nuremberg imaginable, and was expected not just to reveal
his nickname was “Klex”, the German word for because it didn’t identify a “Nazi personality”. mental illness or personality, but to practically
inkblot. He was visual, whereas Freud was a Although it found some common elements, read minds. Too many death-related responses
word person. Psychoanalysis was built around such as a certain lack of introspection, the to an inkblot dubbed the suicide card and you
the talking cure, slips of the tongue, what we Nazis showed essentially the same range of became a candidate for electroshock therapy.
say and don’t say, but Rorschach thought how variation, from the psychotic to the very well Had he lived, Rorschach would have been
we see was more revealing than what we see. adjusted, as any other group. This result was appalled that an inkblot test could result in
After extensive revisions, Rorschach unacceptable to both psychologists and the such drastic treatment. Shortly before his
decided on 10 inkblots to make up the test. general public – surely only monsters could
The same 10 are still used today, 100 years on. do what the Nazis had done – and so the “Used in the most ham-fisted
They are not random smears: they have findings were disregarded for decades.
structure, visual qualities beyond mere Meanwhile, in the mid-century heyday of
ways, the test was expected
ambiguity. For instance, they are challenging Freudian psychoanalysis, the Rorschach test to practically read minds”
PEOPLE
objectively. Although he initially logged

responses as “+” or “-” for being good or poor
descriptions of the card, he collected a large
data set as quickly as he could and shifted to
scoring answers as Popular or Uncommon,
independent of his own subjective judgement.
The mountains of data collected and
analysed
since the test was invented allowed statistical
norms
to be established. After psychologist John
Exner devised a “Comprehensive System” for
scoring in 1974, the test gave a more complex
readout than ever before, with all sorts of
measurable numerical thresholds.
These in turn could be mapped to diagnoses in
the US psychiatrist’s handbook, the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or
other accepted assessments.
Whether such mapping is reliable has
been controversial for decades, and is the
subject of a great deal of research. Is the
Rorschach test, even in its modern
incarnation, just an excuse for a psychiatrist
to draw whatever conclusions they want?
According to a giant meta-analysis published
in 2013 in Psychological Bulletin, the answer
is no. In the light of that study, even some of
the test’s most vocal critics agreed that its
ability to detect and differentiate between
psychotic thought disorders now had
scientific support. And those of Exner’s
scores that were found not to meet scientific
standards of validity and reliability were
removed from the system, leaving the rest
on a firm footing.
The inkblots have been used in so many
ways in the 100 years since Rorschach sent
them out into the world that they can seem
Hermann Rorschach as hard to pin down as human nature itself.
(above) and card 2 And, as with any tool, there is scope for misuse.
of his 10 inkblots. Gilbert failed to heed what the inkblots told
What do you see? him in Nuremberg, and continued to believe
that there was a “Nazi personality”: in 1963,
death, he wrote to a colleague eager to use the is better than arbitrary interpretation.” he published an article with the lurid title
test to evaluate academic potential: “When I Yet many psychiatrists preferred their “The mentality of SS murderous robots”.
imagine some young person, who has maybe own interpretations, and so the Freudian Yet Kelley, the more expert Rorschacher,
dreamed of going to university from an early incarnation of the Rorschach test captured the had found nothing particularly out of the
age, being prevented from doing so as a result world’s imagination, spreading into film noir, ordinary – simply the banality of evil.
of failing at the experiment, I naturally feel a advertising and popular culture. This version No test can get around the complexity of
bit like I can’t breathe.” eventually, justifiably, met with widespread how different people see the world, and that
Rorschach anticipated many objections to criticism. In the late 60s, it began to fall out complexity will always generate controversies.
his test, in particular the potential conflict of favour, along with Freud. In the UK and One can only wonder what Rorschach himself
between its numerical results and a doctor’s elsewhere, it has never recovered. But in the would have made of it all. ■
subjective insight into their patient. This US, the test was reinvented in the 1970s with
“dilemma… comes up unfortunately quite a renewed emphasis on numerical results. Damion Searls is a writer and translator based in
often in the test,” he noted. But Rorschach From the beginning, the test was meant New York City. His new book is The Inkblots: Hermann
took the side of scientific objectivity: “All my to be a science, not an art. A priority for Rorschach, his iconic test, and the power of seeing
work has shown that crude systematisation Rorschach was that it could be scored (Simon and Schuster)

CULTURE
Talking with hands

Did our free-roaming minds help turn gesture into language? Alun Anderson explores
The Truth About Language: What it is

and where it came from by Michael
Corballis, University of Chicago Press
HUMAN language
has long appeared
miraculous.
It has enabled us
to accumulate
knowledge, build
cultures and
conquer the
planet, making us a creature
seemingly apart from the rest of
the animal world.
During the 19th century, Alfred
Russel Wallace doubted whether
natural selection could explain
such a unique power. In our
century, Noam Chomsky, the
Massachusetts Institute of
ERICH LESSING/MAGNUM PHOTOS
Technology academic who has

dominated linguistics for 60
years, has supported a hypothesis
that language and thought
arose suddenly within the past
100,000 years.
In The Truth About Language,
Michael Corballis rejects all such a computer science professor account unique in stressing Tricky question: just how could
“miraculist” explanations. He lays at the University of Southern “mind wandering”, the subject mime morph into speech?
out a plausible route by which California in Los Angeles. of one of his earlier books, and
spoken language might have They have a good reason to storytelling as important parts works backward.” We have the
evolved, not from the calls of our consider that human speech of the long journey to language. good sort that allows us to travel
primate ancestors, but through didn’t evolve directly from When we have nothing much forwards, too. Without that, we
stages in which a language of primate vocalisations. Ape calls to do, our minds travel through would live in an “eternal now” and
gesture and mime dominated. are spontaneous, involuntary past experiences, future plans language couldn’t have evolved.
Corballis, now an emeritus expressions of emotion, made and imaginary possibilities. The Where did mind wandering
professor at the University of even when there is no one to hear. process of mind wandering, or come from? Corballis explores the
Auckland, New Zealand, has spent Hand movements are different. daydreaming, is more remarkable evidence that other animals share
a lifetime studying language and They are voluntary and can be than it seems. It shows our some of this power of thought.
his book is a delight; it is finely controlled. It’s easy to shape capacity to recall particular Birds that cache food may
confident, wise and witty. fingers to represent objects or episodes from the past and remember where they hid it and
The idea of rooting language wiggle them to mimic movement. project them freely into possible also its “use by” date so they won’t
in gesture is not new. Its key Each of the Michaels has their situations in the future, even go to find it after it has gone off.
exponents are two more own story, with Corballis’s new though we are not using words, Chimps and bonobos that have
Michaels: Michael Tomasello, but thinking in images. been shown King Kong-style
a co-director of the Max Planck “Our ‘mind wandering’ may Corballis quotes approvingly movies demonstrate by where
Institute for Evolutionary be built on an ancient the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s they look on screen that they
Anthropology in Leipzig, ability to map movements Through the Looking-Glass: “It’s a anticipate what will happen next
Germany, and Michael Arbib, and plan journeys” poor sort of memory that only when they watch the films again.

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

Crucially, recordings of the
rat hippocampus – the part of
the brain that lays down
memories – show how the brain
constructs maps of movement
in space and time. Our mind
wandering may be built on an A film telling the stories of desperately sick Chinese workers shows
ancient ability to map the shocking price of modern electronics, finds Victoria Turk
movements and plan journeys.
Complicit by Heather White and Lynn began to work on a smartphone paperwork: a document from the
Acting it out production line, spending health authorities that states she
Zhang, Human Rights Watch Film
Telling stories allows us to share Festival, London 15 hours a day in a poorly has an occupational disease
those wanderings with others. ventilated space polishing phone caused by exposure to benzene.
Corballis quotes another YI YETING’s bones hurt. It feels, screens. She was poisoned by Sickness and struggle take their
researcher’s fictional account of he says, like ants are eating him n-hexane, a solvent used as a toll. For many young workers
our early ancestors returning from the inside out. Yi has cleaning agent that can cause seeking a better life in the city,
from a hunt with a kill and acting leukaemia, caused by exposure nerve damage and paralysis. leaving is not an option. Like Xiao
out the day’s events, then miming to the carcinogen benzene, while None of the workers knew about Ya, Shang Jiaojiao was poisoned by
plans for tomorrow. It is easy to working in a factory. He has the dangers until they got sick. n-hexane. Even when she was in
picture and to see how the power already been to hospital 28 times The film-makers found sick hospital unable to walk, she
of such stories could drive future for chemotherapy when we see workers just by walking into wouldn’t tell her mother. She left
cooperative activity. him there, putting on a brave face home, she sobs, to avoid being a
Corballis agrees with Aristotle as his wife and son visit. “Shang Jiaojiao was burden. Now she is one.
that fiction is more important Yi’s story is one of many in poisoned by n-hexane. She Those who fight back face
than history because it deals Complicit, a documentary by left home to avoid being a brutality. Protesters are arrested,
with possibility. If the gestures Heather White and Lynn Zhang burden. Now she is one” activists’ offices raided, Yi’s group
of mime become standardised that premiered recently at the has had to move several times.
and abstract – which happens Human Rights Watch Film Festival hospitals near the factories. “The most vulnerable are... targets
naturally in modern sign in London. The film gives a voice Others were directed to them by of the crackdown the government
languages – communication to workers exposed to toxic Yi, who campaigns against the use is waging,” says White.
would grow ever more fluent. chemicals making smartphones of benzene and n-hexane and There has been some positive
This is a move towards language. and other electronics in Shenzhen helps workers get compensation. action. Samsung announced an
All this is just a part of the vista and Guangzhou. This is not easy since sick $85 million fund for workers with
Corballis wants us to see. There is Xiao Ya is another victim. One workers must have an official occupational illnesses including
much more, including the ability of hundreds of millions of China’s diagnosis of occupational disease. leukaemia and lymphoma. And in
of languages to refer to things that migrant workers, she left her rural One worker says when he sought 2014 Apple banned benzene and
are not present, theory of mind home as a teenager to seek a a diagnosis, company officials n-hexane in final assembly
and the emergence of grammar to better life in Guangzhou and accompanied him to the health manufacturing processes.
make language more efficient. authorities, carrying a bag of But Complicit shows this is not
The trickiest section, however, is Poisoned lives: work in the big city money. One crucial scene shows a enough. When you have global
at the end when we reach the final turns sour for many migrants woman revealing a rare piece of subcontracting and outsourcing,
step, as sound goes from an says White, it is easy for brands to
accompaniment of mime to a look the other way and they have
replacement, turning into speech. no legal liability for workforces.
At this point, I have doubts and But Western consumers can use
must admit, as Corballis does on their voice, she says, to bolster
his final page, that he too might campaigners’ efforts and force
be writing a just-so story, despite big brands to take responsibility.
the breadth of his evidence. Still, I At the end of the film, Xiao Ya
much prefer a speculative account is out of hospital and has gone
of how language might have home. Yi has left his job for health
evolved to an invocation of reasons, after still more chemo.
miracles. And, right or wrong, His dedication acts as a call to
Corballis will make you see your arms. The film-makers remind
FROM COMPLICITFILM
own mind differently. ■ us of an Apple advertising slogan:

“The people who are crazy enough
Alun Anderson is a consultant for to think... they can change the
New Scientist world, are the ones who do.” ■

CULTURE
Who is Dominique Lambert?

How official tools represent us can distort our very identity. A tantalising
exhibition dissects the troubling connections, finds Laura Spinney
of a receding hairline and a high

Identité, FraenkelLAB, San Francisco,
STÉPHANIE SOLINAS; DOMINIQUE LAMBERT (DETAIL), 2004-2010; ©STÉPHANIE SOLINAS, COURTESY FRAENKEL GALLERY
forehead. He wears round glasses
to 13 May
high on the bridge of his nose,
WHAT is the essence of you? and a well-trimmed moustache.”
What is it about you that makes Using these texts, graphic
you, well, you? These are no mere artist Benoît Bonnemaison-Fitte
academic questions for armchair produced sketches, which police
philosophers, but practical ones investigator Dominique Ledée
with real consequences. transformed using Electronic
Take a police artist sketching Facial Identification Technique
a suspect from an eyewitness (E-FIT) software. Armed with the
description, or a profiler writing E-FITs, Solinas used a large-format
up the behavioural idiosyncrasies camera to photograph Parisians
of a particular “perp”. These who closely resembled them.
representations become tools The final step of the project
in criminal investigations that is a series of books, one for each
often lead to arrests. If they fail to Dominique Lambert, that
capture the essence of the person document the process from start
being sought, the wrong person to finish. Each book is completed
may be arrested. by the original passport photo of
French artist Stéphanie Solinas one of the Dominique Lamberts,
is fascinated by the elusive nature hidden in a sealed envelope. You
of identity, and her exhibition at can’t see the photo at the show –
the FraenkelLAB in San Francisco you have to buy the books.
is called Identité, in a nod to her Even then, Solinas doesn’t
nationality. In one project, Sans Identity crisis: 12 attempts to colour, I would be…”. Of the reveal which face completes
Titre (M. Bertillon), for example, define Dominique Lambert 65 people who responded, which series. She just says that
she takes an 1893 mugshot of 20 complied with her other some of her portraits do not
Alphonse Bertillon, the French images into near caricatures in request to send a passport photo. resemble the original person at
police officer who, years before the process. Both Sans Titre and This became her sample group. all, others come very close and
fingerprinting became popular, Traits show how we distort Solinas set up the Advisory still others resemble a different
invented a way of identifying identity simply by trying to define Committee for the Description Dominique Lambert more than
criminals based on photography it, but the project that does this to of Dominique Lambert, with a the one they should represent.
and anatomical measurements. best effect is Dominique Lambert. There is a serious point to this
Solinas ran the mugshot In France, Dominique is the “If representations of a tantalising effort. Each step is
through facial analysis software most popular first name shared suspect fail to capture inevitably accompanied by both
to produce a 3D paper mask, cut it by men and women, and the 27th their essence, the wrong loss and gain of information,
into pieces and invited people to most popular first name overall, person may be arrested” making many interpretations
assemble them to reconstruct while Lambert is the 27th most possible. Solinas reminds us that
Bertillon’s face. common surname. When Solinas psychologist, a statistician, official bodies use these tools to
In another project, Traits, she launched the project, the French a police inspector, a lawyer and represent us. But rather than
photographed young men face-on phone book contained 191 a corporate identity consultant. criticise, she says that Dominique
and in profile, the way police Dominique Lamberts. She wrote The five had to collaborate on Lambert questions “the power of
forces worldwide record suspects. to all 191, inviting them to take a written physical description the representation over identity
She drew on the resulting images part in an artistic experiment that of each of the 20 Dominique itself”. The result is utterly
with a permanent marker, to meant completing a personality Lamberts, based on their captivating and very powerful. ■
highlight the facial characteristics test and a questionnaire. This questionnaire answers.
by which a person is commonly involved completing a list of One reads, “He is a 45-year-old Laura Spinney is a writer based in
identified – transforming the statements such as, “If I were a man, stocky, with the beginnings Paris, France

THE
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TOMORROW
For more details, and to book tickets, visit newscientist.com/thetomorrowclub
CLUB
15 June 2017 13 July 2017
THE EXPLORERS’ CLUB THE GAMERS’ CLUB
Is the golden age of What happens when
exploration just beginning? virtual worlds become
Acclaimed authors better than reality?
Adam Roberts and Stephen Playwright Lucy Prebble
In partnership with Into the Unknown: BaxterƌQGRXW talks to futurist Pat Kane
A Journey through Science Fiction.
7KHJHQUHGHƌQLQJH[KLELWLRQRIDUW
GHVLJQƌOP OLWHUDWXUH 29 June 2017 27 July 2017
THE DREAMERS’ CLUB THE TRANSHUMANISTS’ CLUB
Who decides what the Do new technologies enhance
future should look like? our humanity or endanger it?
Ask speculative architect Broadcaster Adam Rutherford
Liam Young, space writer talks to digital anthropologist
Piers Bizony and editor in Beth Singler and writer
chief of 2000 AD Matt Smith Joanna Kavenna
LETTERS
letters@newscientist.com @newscientist newscientist
EDITOR’S PICK Another reason for the less likely to survive, compared
brain’s border control with those with an efficient
Flies’ visual filters may explain zebra stripes blood-brain barrier. I fear it
From Chris Good, may be dangerous and counter-
Could the reason instead be the Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK productive to interfere with this
Reichardt-Hassenstein filters that all James Mitchell Crow discusses barrier therapeutically.
sighted animals have in our vision the blood-brain barrier (18 March,
neurology? These detect visual flow. p 34). But he doesn’t mention an How safe are tobacco
You can feel them working if you walk important reason for limiting the pouch products?
fast down the middle of a corridor entry of inflammatory cells and
(which will feel comfortable) and then cytokines to the brain. From Harry Lake,
do the same close to one wall. Your The brain is the only organ Bussum, Netherlands
filters detect the difference between (unless you count bone marrow) I am amazed that you didn’t
the fast visual flow of the close wall encased in a rigid container. mention the risks of tobacco
and the slow flow of the far one, It has just one significant exit, products such as snus (18 March,
making you instinctively want to the foramen magnum at the p 6). I seem to remember reading
equalise them to minimise the danger base of the skull. over the years about them causing
From Adrian Bowyer, of collision. Expansion of the brain, such as cancers. Has something changed?
Foxham, Wiltshire, UK The filters give a strong visual flow that associated with haemorrhage,
Reviewing Tim Caro’s book Zebra signal for movement at right angles to inflammation or injury, can only From Lars-Erik Rutqvist,
stripes, Matthew Cobb says that “for stripes, and a weak one for parallel occur here, which compresses the Scientific Adviser, Swedish Match,
reasons that are still unclear, flies movement. This gives conflicting hindbrain. This process is called Stockholm, Sweden
dislike landing on striped surfaces” information about how fast a fly is coning and is rapidly fatal unless You report smoking rates for men
(18 March, p 42). He notes the approaching a striped surface, which treated. Organisms with brains in their 30s in Sweden plunging to
conjecture that flies cannot see stripes would make landing difficult. Hence, not protected from the usual 5 per cent. As you say, this is likely
of some widths. maybe, the evolution of zebras’ stripes. processes of inflammation are linked to 18 per cent of Swedish
in f o rm ed
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and paper, visit
www.twosidesna.org
Two Sides is an industry initiative to promote the responsible use of print and paper as a uniquely
powerful and natural communications medium. †American Forest & Paper Association, 2015

“@POTUS needs to read this before declaring war on the
environment. Shame it’s more than 140 characters”
Glenda Charles commends our report on coral bleaching
to the President of the United States (1 April, p 7)
men using snus as a smoking p 6). But couldn’t the decrease energy used will release more emotions (11 March, p 40).
substitute. But is snus safe? in Australian smokers after the carbon dioxide, as will the planes Whenever the article mentions
The World Health Organization advent of plain packaging be bringing in tourists, with their one of these “new” emotions,
says that it is “considerably less caused by other facets of an anti- own enormous footprints. they are always explained as a
hazardous” than smoking. The smoking campaign? This is a microcosm of the combination of others.
EU Scientific Committee on It may be a “record decline”, but spiral of hedonistic lifestyle we For example, the Japanese
Emerging and Newly Identified is it dramatically different from have got ourselves into ever since arigata-meiwaku is the negative
Health Risks says the relative the decrease in smoking since the we started on the industrial feeling when someone does you
health advantages are anti-smoking campaign began? bandwagon. a favour that you didn’t want.
“undeniable”. In the longer online It’s time for a big – global – cost- I wonder whether there is in
version of the article you quote a The editor writes: benefit analysis of what we are fact a set of “primary” emotions
Cancer Research UK official ■ Several readers asked similar expecting to take from the which, like primary tastes, forms
singling out pancreatic cancer as questions. The introduction of environment and what we put a basis on which cultural concepts
a concern. Swedish men have the plain packaging coincided with out. It may already be too late, of emotions build.
lowest rate of pancreatic cancer in an abrupt steepening in the trend but we must continue to try.
the EU. Swedish Match is happy to line for declining smoking rates. Lisa Feldman Barrett writes:
provide public health bodies with Are emotions a palette ■ One version of the classical
independent scientific evidence. The carbon emissions built from primaries? view does propose that a small
from building islands set of emotions are “basic” and
Could smoking reduction From Giuseppe Sollazzo, universal. But research shows that
have other causes? From Daniel Hackett, London, UK people in different cultures have
London, UK Lisa Feldman Barrett argues different emotions that feel to
From Tamsin Nicholson, Does anyone else see an irony in that the way our brain interprets them like “primaries”. For
Glasgow, UK the Maldives building up islands any single emotion is culture- example, in situations where
You say that plain packets help or constructing new ones as sea dependent and we “rewire” our a Westerner might feel sad,
Australian smokers quit (4 March, levels rise (25 March, p 12)? The brain to conceptualise different Tahitians feel an emotion called >
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LETTERS
letters@newscientist.com @newscientist newscientist
pe’ape’a which is more similar to physical movement, nuclear Modifications to what personal data theft, subverting
“ill” or “fatigued”. reactions and biological evolution kind of gravity? them to mislead healthcare
become instant? professionals could cause real
We define dimensions Wouldn’t a major effect be to From Ian Payne, harm to patients by misdiagnosis.
because they are useful provide the universe with an Coulsdon, Surrey, UK These apps are being used for
absolute time, uniform for all Mark Anderson (7 January, p 9) diagnosis, so they should be
From Steven Day, Mayfield East, frames of reference everywhere? tells us that Erik Verlinde’s new formally approved under the
New South Wales, Australia Albert Einstein’s argument theory of gravity builds on EU medical device directives.
Stuart Clark asks whether there against simultaneity would fail, Mordehai Milgrom’s modified
are really just three dimensions since we could then ascertain Newtonian dynamics (MOND) Another reason not to
(4 March, p 31). whether any two events anywhere theory. But does the new theory give up bread for Lent
Weren’t the three dimensions were simultaneous by simple still support space-time in which
created by us as a convenient observation. gravity is linked to the curvature From Richard Weeks,
mathematical way to understand Time would just rumble on, of space? Does it have time Felixstowe, Suffolk, UK
and measure spaces and to plan a constant framework for the dilation and does it explain the The information in New Scientist
and construct things? other main forces of nature. precession of Mercury? In other comes to my rescue again. I had
Shouldn’t the question be “Can words, is it rather a Modified been thinking of decreasing my
we better understand, measure, From Roy Harrison, Einsteinian Dynamics? carbon dioxide emissions in Lent
model and make things by using Verwood, Dorset, UK by switching to unleavened bread
a mathematical method that has Clark mentions the experiment All medical data must and eliminating the generation of
more dimensions than the by US physicists Albert Michelson be kept secure yeasty gases. However, since “the
traditional three?” and Edward Morley that tried to equivalent of half a kilogram of
measure the then-expected From Sam Edge, carbon dioxide goes into the
Life in a universe with difference in the speed of light in Ringwood, Hampshire, UK atmosphere for every loaf”
an infinite speed of light “the direction of Earth’s rotation” In your report on the roll-out (4 March, p 14), it seems my
and at right angles to it. of two apps that help people sacrifice would only be symbolic.
From Ron Partridge, It’s worth recalling that this monitor their health at home by
Sittingbourne, Kent, UK difference was expected to be UK National Health Service trusts, End of an era
Stuart Clark suggests that, if the caused primarily by Earth’s I didn’t see any mention of data
speed of light were infinite, “cause rotation around the sun (with a security (18 February, p 11). From Brian Cordon,
would sit on top of effect and velocity of 110,000 kilometres per Have any of these apps been Wirksworth, Derbyshire, UK
everything would happen at once” hour) not that on its axis (1700 independently security audited? F. White suggests we should leave
(4 March, p 29). But would all kilometres per hour). Apart from the dangers of the naming of the new geological
period to whoever inhabits it
(Letters 18 March). I have thought
TOM GAULD
for many years that we humans
are presently living in the
Endoscene period.
For the record

■ Thar she blew. The early 1900s was
when blue whale numbers crashed
because of factory-ship whaling
(18 March, p 44).
■ The tectonic plates of Europe and
North America are separating (UK and
Australian editions, 18 March, p 51).
Letters should be sent to:

Letters to the Editor, New Scientist,
110 High Holborn, London WC1V 6EU
Email: letters@newscientist.com
Include your full postal address and telephone

number, and a reference (issue, page number, title)
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Reed Business Information reserves the right to
use any submissions sent to the letters column of
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CROSSWORD
Compiled by Richard Smyth
Crossword No5
ACROSS
1 The manipulation of materials on covers the insular cortex (9)
the scale of atoms or small groups 19 Compound with the chemical
of atoms (14) formula CH2 (9)
10 African hoofed mammal of the 20 To find and resolve defects (in
family Giraffidae (5) software, for example) (5)
11 Scientist who studies the 22 A 10-legged creature (7)
measurement and representation 25 In meteorology, a rapidly rotating
of the Earth (9) column of air (7)
12 A visualisation of the movement 27 The toughest form of natural
of groundwater through aquifers diamond (9)
(4,3) 28 Solution of sodium chloride in
13 Rod-shaped bacteria (7) water (5)
14 The injection of fluid into the lower 29 Part of the digestive tract that
bowel for medical purposes (5) includes the caecum, colon and
16 The part of the human brain that rectum (5,9)
DOWN
2 An instant of realisation, revelation approaches zero as they get
or creative impulse (3,6) closer to infinity (9)
3 Constellation in which the stars 17 An anode or cathode, perhaps (9)
Rigel and Betelgeuse are found (5) 18 The apparent oscillating
4 92 (6,3) movement of an orbiting body
5 Informal term for a thermonuclear such as the moon (9)
weapon (1-4) 19 British ___ Journal, scientific
6 Fatty substance in olive oil (5,4) periodical founded in 1840 (7)
7 Oxford college whose alumni 21 Hollow mineral masses found in
include two science Nobel some sedimentary and volcanic
laureates (5) rocks (6)
8 Chemical element, atomic number 23 Sampling tool for retrieving
39 (7) sediments, pollen or ice, for
9 “A mathematician is a device for example (5)
turning ___ into theorems” – Alfréd 24 Outlet for removing water from a
Rényi (6) system or blood from a wound (5)
15 In geometry, a line whose 26 Term for an automaton
distance from a given curve popularised by Karel Capek (5)
Answers to Crossword No4

ACROSS: 6 GLYCINE, 7 LEECH, 9 MEME, 10 VACUUM PUMP, 11 ANGSTROM, 13 ONLINE, 15 IDEA,
17 L-DOPA, 18 AIDS, 19 LINEAR, 20 EXPOSURE, 23 PLANCKS LAW, 26 CUBE, 27 RANGE, 28 MELANIN.
DOWN: 1 CYBERSPACE, 2 SILVER, 3 NERC, 4 GLAUCOMA, 5 NEAP, 6 GLENN, 8 HOMINID, 12 MOORE,
14 LEAP SECOND, 16 DAIMLER, 17 LORIKEET, 21 POWELL, 22 RUBIN, 24 NINE, 25 LAMP.

FEEDBACK
For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback
protections against interference, electricity whatsoever – prompting

after Metropolis Studios announced reviewer Ashley Iredale to wonder
the world’s most expensive why it needs plugging in at all.
headphones would be on show. “Our testing shows Geoclense has
A press release boasted that all the effectiveness of a tin foil hat,
delegates would be able to try out a but lacks the hat’s potential for use in
pair of Sennheiser HE 1 headphones, food preparation,” writes Iredale.
or walk away with them for a cool “If you are thinking of blowing $150,
£55,000. For this much money, why not buy a roll of aluminium foil
musical aesthetes might prefer having instead? The money you save could
their favourite band play live in their buy you a subscription to CHOICE – a
own sitting room instead. resource that’s been proven to work.”
PREVIOUSLY Feedback discussed ON TO the mountains of Chile,

the concept of the Erdös-Bacon- from whose fertile soils sprout
Sabbath number, a way to radio telescopes in ever greater
PAUL MCDEVITT
measure the connectedness of diameters, leaving us bereft of

those in the fields of science, film superlatives (25 February).
and music (18 February). M. Myqle reports that “the olive
Richard Chapman says this packers solved the problem long
THE UK has rolled out a new, 12-sided giants to make everyone’s technique “may come up with ago. On the shelves of my local
pound coin (given the pound has been communications insecure. some unexpected results when grocery I find: small, medium,
hit hard by Brexit, we assume the Readers will remember that the expanded to all figures of note”, large, colossal, mammoth.”
original design had 14 sides). Still, previous home secretary, Theresa in all walks of life. Feedback However, our investigations
John Crofts relays that his local church May, became fed up with waiting doesn’t like the idea of having to find that even the olive industry
is doing its bit to tidy up any resulting for drugs to be proven harmful choose a paragon for each field – appears to have run short on
scrap: “Arnold Methodist Church is before they were banned, and the sportiest, the cleverest, the terms: the commercial terms
pleased to announce a Free Collection banned the sale of all things that fairest – students of Greek beyond mammoth are given by
Service for all of your old redundant could possibly affect citizens’ mythology will tell you wars have some as “super mammoth”, and,
pound coins,” a circular reads. “For the minds, known and unknown, been fought over such accolades. er, “super super mammoth”.
next few months, during the Sunday unless otherwise exempted. In any event, the results may
morning service, a receptacle will be We can only presume that not be interesting: we suspect the
passed round to enable you to deposit Rudd will soon outlaw anyone UK is already organised according
all your old pound coins, which will be having secrets without to degrees of separation from
disposed of in an environmentally government pre-approval, and figures of note, with the
friendly way.” ban anti-surveillance measures hypothetical zero point floating
Feedback is moved to add that such as gummed envelopes, somewhere over Eton.
pound coins can also be disposed of curtains and whispering.
at newsagents, anyone depositing FIGHTING the good fight, Australia’s
more than four at a time with the SPARE a thought for the discerning consumer advocacy group CHOICE has
cashier is entitled to a free copy of audiophile, faced by ever more been putting the Geoclense Home
New Scientist. innovative ways to separate them Harmonizer through its paces.
from their cash. Feedback readers will Bernie Broom directs us to their
FOLLOWING the recent attack in no doubt recall the peerless sound review of what is succinctly described KARMA Beauty in Colchester, UK,
central London, politicians are quality offered by eye-wateringly as a “block of green plastic with a has a hot offer for customers, reveals
once again lining up to demand expensive vacuum-sealed, gold- plug”, which promises to somehow Philip Woodcock. He sends Feedback
that mathematics, like terrorism, plated audio cables that are immune shield the home against all kinds of a flyer announcing their “new molten
be outlawed. UK Home Secretary to radio interference, corrosion and invisible electrosmog, from stray Wi-Fi lava stone massage”, which is
Amber Rudd told the BBC’s the advent of robust digital signals. beams to electromagnetism leaching “designed to melt away deep tension”.
Andrew Marr that end-to-end The wallets of those attending last from those cheap, non-vacuum- It certainly will, Philip thinks, as well
encryption was “completely month’s Headroom trade show in sealed, gold-plated audio cables. as taking any nearby tissue. Effective,
unacceptable”, calling on internet London could do with similar Unfortunately, the Geoclense failed but hardly a recipe for repeat custom.
to perform in any of the tests, proving
incapable of altering electromagnetic
UK baker Warburtons is to open a new R&D fields, the Earth’s magnetism, light You can send stories to Feedback by
centre in Bolton. “This will be daunting work,” levels or negative ions. However, email at feedback@newscientist.com.
it did pass one test with flying colours: Please include your home address.
writes Tom Patton, “as they’ll be trying to when plugged into the mains, the This week’s and past Feedbacks can
invent the best thing since sliced bread.” block of inert resin consumed no be seen on our website.

Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword
THE LAST WORD
Whither wasps? If many queens are searching for nothing about any problems shadows on nearby houses,
a nest site in spring, there can be getting the boots off. which causes indoor light levels
I grow several varieties of soft fruit, intense competition for suitable Andrew Baker to fluctuate. This effect is called
so I am used to an annual battle with places and usurping another Epsom, Surrey, UK shadow flicker. Here, wind farms
wasps. Last year (2015), I only saw queen’s nest becomes common. are laid out so no turbine casts a
a few small ones. This year (2016), Nests with several dead queens shadow on a house for a
I have not yet seen any at all. What in their entrance bear testimony On the farm significant percentage of time.
causes yearly fluctuations in the to attempts at takeovers. But when one does create a
wasp population? Philip Spradbery It always seems that, in any wind shadow, the turbine is turned
Yarralumla, ACT, Australia farm, at least one of the cluster of off for a time.
■ “Wasp years” – those occasional turbines isn’t turning. What is the Similarly, some countries limit
years when wasps abound – occur Philip Spradbery is author of reason for this? Is it undergoing repair the amount and type of noise a
in irregular cycles with no marked Wasps: An account of the biology or are there other, more interesting, wind farm can produce, to avoid
periodicity. In the UK between and natural history of solitary factors at work?
1864 and 1931, wasps were and social wasps (Sidgwick & (Continued) “In some countries, wind
abundant in 10 of those years and Jackson, 1973). farms are not allowed to
scarce in another 10, with peaks ■ Wind turbines need a cast moving shadows on
separated by between two and minimum wind speed, called nearby houses”
16 years. The last major wasp year Ant hill mob the cut-in speed, to generate
in the UK was 2013. electricity. Below this, they are disturbing local residents. Noise
The key to wasp numbers is the While mowing the grass, I noticed usually switched off to minimise production can vary with wind
successful establishment of nests that in several places ant nests were wear. The wind speed can vary speed and direction, so when local
in spring. Weather plays a crucial situated under clumps of daisies. Do across a large site, so that it is only limits would otherwise be
part. Unseasonal warm weather in the ants choose to nest under daisies, above the cut-in speed in some exceeded, one or more turbines
late winter can bring queens out or do these flowers grow where they places. The cut-in speed also may have to be shut down.
of hibernation prematurely and do because of the ants’ activity? varies with turbine size and Colin Watters
they then fail to find food and die. (Continued) design, so on a wind farm with a Molesworth, Cambridgeshire, UK
Clement spring weather is mix of different makes of turbine,
essential during the vulnerable ■ In the 29 October 2016 issue, the wind might be fast enough to
period when the queen builds the the Last Word quotes the lyrics of operate some, but not all, of them. This week’s question
nest on her own and also has to Lonnie Donegan’s My Old Man’s a Another issue is that wind slows
feed her daughters, until these Dustman as saying, “He’s got such down as it passes through a GIVE US A CLUE
worker wasps can take over the a job to pull them off that he calls turbine, creating a “wind shadow” I do cryptic crosswords. On my
role of foraging for food and them daisy roots.” After checking effect behind. Wind farms are first attempt, I usually finish
building materials. several lyric websites, I confirmed usually laid out so no turbines are about half the clues and get stuck.
Once the colony has roughly my suspicion that it is actually, in the shadow of any others when When I return to the crossword
20 adult workers, the queen has “He’s got such a job to pull ’em up the wind blows from its prevailing the following day, even if I haven’t
probably won the wasp lottery that he calls them daisy roots.” direction. But when it comes from been consciously thinking about
of life. Apart from human and The picture painted is one of other directions, it may drop it, I usually get a few more clues
badger interventions, such nests the singer’s father looking silly below the cut-in speed at a very quickly. But after half an
will generally thrive until new because he hasn’t pulled his boots downwind turbine. Therefore hour at most, I become stuck
queens are reared in late summer up enough. The previous line is, this turbine will be switched off again. What’s going on?
and autumn. “He looks a proper nana in his while the others continue to run. Melanie Green
One phenomenon seems to great big ’obnail boots… .” So it is In some countries, wind farms Hemel Hempstead,
occur after a major wasp year. the look that matters, and it says aren’t allowed to cast moving Hertfordshire, UK
The writers of answers that are published submitted by readers in any medium
in the magazine will receive a cheque for or in any format and at any time in the
£25 (or US$ equivalent). Answers should future.
be concise. We reserve the right to edit Send questions and answers to
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Reed Business Information Ltd to receive payment for answers).
reserves all rights to reuse all question Unanswered questions can also be found
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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.
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