CO NTE NTS
Volume 205 No 2745
NEWS 5 6
B
EDITORIAL We've much still to learn about
"vegetative" patients UPFRONT Clinical trials should include the elderly, Stem cell science "stifled", NASA hit in US budget. Pacific waves are getting taller
COVER STORY
32
'-. ' Why water .. issow eird Secrets of
THIS WEEK
the strangest
How to communicate with people who seem unconscious, Huge impact of exported UK emissions, Concern over DIY sperm counters, Can headache pill save trauma victims? Quantum secrets of photosynthesis 16 IN BRIEF The warming power of water. How Asians got the booze-battling gene, Complex smells make food more satisfying, Laser fusion breakthrough, Comets doomed
liquid revealed
•
.
'
Cover image BIWNGa liery Stock
.
"' .. - . . ..
19 TECHNOLOG Y
Internet telescope inspects web's dark heart. Elegant photos for all. Sun-storm warnings from a chip-sized spacecraft
36
Life'sa gas Where did all the oxygen
OPINION
come from?
24 Neurons for peace Neuroscientists must stop
their work being used to advance torture and aggressive wars, says Curtis Bell 25 One minute with .. , Rob Hopkins, promoter of the Transition Towns movement 26 LETTERS Alternatives to robot border guards, Pitfalls of consciousness studies 2B Rewriting Darwin Let's admit that natural selection isn't the whole story, say Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
FEATURES 32 Why water is so weird (see right) 36 On the origin of Earth's oxygen (see right) 40 The age of the whale Vast numbers of the
mighty mammals once ruled the oceans
Coming next week
43 Bye-bye wires Will beamed power finally free
Impossible star
your appliances from the socket on the wall?
REGULARS
Relic from a
26 ENIGMA
long lost universe
46 BOOKS & ARTS Reviews What liberal democracy owes to science, A history of death by poison, Bacteria and fungi galore, A Nobelist's musings
Speaking to the brain We can now communicate
56 FEEDBACK
with people once thought to
57 THE LAST WORD
be unconscious
4B JOBS & CAREERS
PLUS A marriage made in e ndocrinol ogy
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6 February 2010 I NewScientist 13
EDITORIAL
A peek into the twilight zone We may now be a b l e to co m m u n i cate with people who seemed to be u n responsive IT TOOK Jean-Dominique Bauby hundreds of thousands of blinks to dictate his book about how a stroke had left him paralysed yet still aware. Now comes the remarkable news that neuroscientists have communicated with a man presumed to be in a vegetative state, by studying the activity in his brain with functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI. Vegetative usually means awake but unresponsive and devoid ofintellectual activity. However, a handful of people have defied that diagnosis. The Anglo- Belgian team led by Adrian Owen and Steven Laureys describe how they scanned the brain of one of the group as he thought of one of two different activities - tennis and navigating his way round his house. Different brain areas lit up, depending on whether he wanted to answer yes or no to questions about his family (see page 8). To discover awareness in someone who is supposedly vegetative will be unsettling for friends and family. But surely ignorance can't be preferable to understanding their plight. Some argue that the discovery that a "vegetative" person actually possesses a degree of consciousness suggests they can suffer and may increase pressure to discontinue their life support. However, this
research now offers a way to ask someone if they wish to end their life. The ethical issues surrounding assent to suicide will be just same as for someone who is terminally ill. The central question remains: are they capable of making a life-or-death decision and deciding their own fate. Bauby had locked-in syndrome, which means his mind was intact but trapped inside an almost useless body. But many other people exist in a twilight zone between consciousness and coma. The new study underlines arguments by bioethicists such as Joseph Fins of Weill Cornell Medical College, "The central question remains: are these individuals capable of deciding their own fate"
New York, that scanners will be critical for categorising disorders of consciousness, on which there is little consensus at the moment. Excitement about the ability to communicate with some people who have been unreachable until now should also be tempered by pragmatism. Doctors will now need to find cheap ways to read minds ifthese patients are to have any chance of rejoining society. Many groups around the world, including the one led by Owen and Laureys, are now working on cheaper and more portable alternatives to fMRI, based on EEG recordings. In the short term, the study will ease fears that we may be withdrawing life support when there is a chance of recovery. At least now there is a way to respond to these patients' needs, even if we do not know how to make them happy. In this new era of consciousness science, we can explore the twilight zone.•
Holster the harpoons till we have the facts WHEN settlers arrived in the New World in the nth century, they found waters so thick with whales it was said you could walk across the bay of Cape Cod on their backs. Such stories have been dismissed as fantasy. Nevertheless, it appears that the whale population was once vastly bigger than we thought, and that our slaughter of them was more thorough than history records (see page 40). This matters because commercial whaling may be allowed to resume once populations reach 54 per cent of their "historic" levels. This is generally assumed to be the population of the mid-19th century, before the explosive harpoon was invented. But if this historic benchmark is too low, the whaling moratorium must continue. Ironically, the vast slaughter of whales past may yet help to secure their future.•
Quantum visionaries QUANTUM biology has come in from the cold. First came news that birds may see magnetic fields, thanks to quantum effects. Now it seems that pigments used in photosynthesis use quantum calculations to harness light (see page 12). Physicists had ruled this out at life friendly temperatures because heat disrupts an effect called quantum coherence. The implication is that we, too, could possess quantum computers. We may only need to look into our own eyes to find the evidence, in the form of the pigment rhodopsin.•
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6 February 2010 I NewScientist 1 5
UPFRONT
US abandons moon shot DREAMS of a moon base will have to remain just that. The US is cancelling Constellation, the Bush-era p lan to
Constellation programme. It was not all bad news, however. The space station wil l now be
return humans to the moon by 2020.
funded until 2020, rather than being
The programme is a victim of cuts
abandoned after 2015 to free up
announced by President Barack
money for the moon shot. A nd NASA
Obama in his 2011 budget request. The cancellation will leave
is to invest $7.8 billion overthe next five years on new technology for
NASA without its own rocket capable
human space exp loration, such as
of sending astronauts into space
orbiting fuel depots that could act as
after the retirement of the space
staging posts for future missions.
shuttle later this year. Instead, NASA is betting that astronauts will
Science as a whole also fared well. Obama is seeking $61.6 billion
be able to pay for rides to and from
for research in 2011, 5.6 per cent
the International Space Station on
more than in 2010. A mong the
commercial launch vehicles.
winners is clean-energy research,
The new p lan must now be
with $300 mil lion req uested for the
app roved by Congress. The White
new Advanced Research Projects
House faces fierce opposition from
Agency-Energy, created to make
officials who rep resent areas with
investments in potentially game
thousands of jobs tied to the
changing energy technologies.
Referee or rival?
including Nature and Science. Frustrated by the lack of res ponse, some signatories decided to publicise the letter's content more widely this week. The letter called on journals to publish anonymised comments from referees alongside published papers, so that the fairness and scientific validity ofthe comments can be judged by all, a practice already adopted by The EMBO Journal. "Because all comments would be published, it would hopefully make biased or careless refereeing less common, and it would embarrass journals if people could spot biased or stupid comments," says Lovell-Badge. The fact that only two signatories were from the US hinted that most disenchantment lies elsewhere, he adds. "There does seem to be this bias against groups from the rest of the world." Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief at Nature, says The EMBOJou rnal model " is still on the table", but says it's up to journal editors to decide if referees' demands for extra experiments are justified, and to spot referees who appear to be causing delays.
WOULD top-flight scientists stoop so low as to sabotage disclosure of rival research that threatens to scoop their own? Although short of proof, a group of senior stem cell researchers warn that it may be ha ppening. They are calling for journal editors to be alert to referees who might abuse their position in the peer-review process to discredit or block rival research. "It's all done in secret, so it's very hard to gather information "If all peer-review comments were published, it would hopefully make biased refereeing less common"
on this," says Robin Lovell-Badge of the National Institute for Medical Research in London. He and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, Japan, who famously reprogrammed ordinary cells to become similar to embryonic stem cells, are among 14 signatories to a letter of complaint sent in July 200g to major scientific journals, 6 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
Emissions dance THE Copenhagen climate dance continues. This week, 55 nations representing 78 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions from energy use, submitted pledges to the UN to cut emissions by 2020. The commitments were made to meet a deadline set at the climate talks held in Copenhagen in December. But they mostly reiterate national pledges made before the summit, and are steeped in conditions. The US, for instance, reaffirmed its
commitment to cut emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels, contingent on legislation being passed at home. China repeated that it would "endeavour to lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of G DP by 40 to 45 per cent" between 2005 and 2020. "The vast majority of nations has failed to seize this opportunity to make their pledges more ambitious," says Niklas Hahne, a policy analyst at ECofys in Cologne, Germany. "Our analysis suggests that the world is still on track for a 3- 5 °C rise."
Pacific waves are getting bigger GOOD news surfers: waves in the
occurring in any given year - could
north-east Pacific are getting taller,
be 40 per cent larger than previous
and the height of the most extreme
estimates, at 14 metres high.
"lOO-year" waves is increasing fastest. Previous data had shown wave height to be increasing in
Peter Ruggiero of Oregon State University, who carried out the analysis, found that average wave
the north-east Pacific and north
heights increased at the rate of
Atlantic since the late 19805. Now
1.5 centi metres per year, while each
measurements from a deep-water
year's biggest wave increased by an
buoy moored off the Oregon coast
average of 10 centimetres per year.
since the mid-1970s indicate that
He says climate change is a l i kely
the "lOo-year" waves - the monster
culprit, but more measurements
waves with a 1 per cent chance of
are needed to confirm this.
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
60 SECONDS
Oil nay, nuclearyea...
Wanted: the elderly
Big oil took a hit and nuclear got
CLINICAL trials must include more older recruits if thousands of lives are to be saved, say researchers who have drawn up a charter calling for such a change.
a boost from US president Barack Obama's budget proposal. It calls fo r a $36 billion i ncrease in loan guarantees for nuclear p ower plants and cuts $36.5 billion in subsidies to oil and natural gas companies over
"Non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs are not trialled in the over-70s but are prescribed to them"
The team told the British Medical Association on Monday that the elderly are under represented in clinical trials, and that in a quarter of cases the reasons for excluding them are unjustified. Paul Dieppe at the Mass overdose pact University of Bristol, UK, says that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory NOTHING more thana sugar rush drugs, which are not trialled in was reported by hundreds of patients over the age oho but are volunteers who took part in a mass-overdose stunt around prescribed to people of this age, the world. The aim was to show may have caused thousands of that homeopathic remedies are avoidable deaths because these nothing more than sugar pills. drugs are more toxic in over-70s. "There were no casualties at Andrew Beswick ofthe UK's all, as far as I know," says Martin Medical Research Council says that the elderly may experience Robbins of the 10: 23 campaign, more underlying health issues created to highlight the alleged ineffectiveness of homeopathic and interference from other remedies. "No one was cured of drugs, but that this isn't a reason to exclude them as it " represents "Each pillule is a tiny sugar the real-life situation". pill dabbed with a drop of The charter calls on trial sponsors, regulators and ethics homeopathic remedy at 'infinite'dilution" committees to offer support to those with communication or anything either." Like an mobility problems that might estimated 300 volunteers in hamper their participation. several cities in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US, Robbins swallowed a bottleful of around 80 "pillules" at exactly 10.23 am on 30 January. Each pillule is a tiny sugar pill dabbed with a drop of a homeopathic remedy, produced by " infinite" dilution. This involves diluting a solution so much that not one molecule ofthe " active" component is likely to remain, according to the Avogadro constant - the origin of "10:23". Robbins says that the aim was to draw attention to homeopathic medicine's lack of scientific
10 years. If app roved by Co ngress, the money could be used to finance six new nuclear power plants.
... but not in Yucca The US is finally abandoning plans to store high-level nuclear waste in an underground repository in Yucca mountain in Nevada, having putthe p rogramme on hold last year after
foundation and to embarrass the British high-street pharmacist Boots into withdrawing its treatments. Boots said: "Many people believe in the benefits of complementary medicines and we aim to offer the products we know our customers want." Robbins said that the campaign would be a success if it led others to question homeopathy more.
a decade of local oppositio n. The waste will now be stored a bove ground for the foreseeable futu re.
A whole latta vaccine An "unprecedented" donation of
$10 billion towards vaccine research and delivery could dramatically reduce child mortality, says the World Health Organization. The Bill and Melinda Gates Fo undation p ledged to donate the sum overthe
Climate and Gates THE world's richest man has been funding geoengineering research, it emerged last week. According to a report posted online by Science, Bill Gates has committed $4.5 million of his own money to funding a number of climate scientists interested in geoengineering. It is not clear whether all of that has gone to geoengineering studies. Atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California, says he received $1.1 million over three years for "blue skies" research. He estimates about one-third ofthat was spent on investigating geoengineering. Caldeira says he sees no moral dilemmas in Gates funding geoengineering. "There is no attempt to profit from this," he says. He contrasts Gates's involvement with commercial geoengineering ventures.
next decade, to p rotect children in p oor co untries against big kil lers such as diarrhoea and pneumo nia.
Finch bucks evolution Things are looking up forthe rarest of Darwin's 13 finches. A three-year p rogramme to kill black rats on Isabela Island in the Galapagos has resulted in fewer nests being raided (Philosophical Transactions Of the Royal Society B, vol 365, p I). Researchers have seen yearling mangrove finches fo r the first time in 10 years.
Autism paper dumped The discredited 1998 paper linking the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism has been retracted byThe Lancet. The journal cited falsehoods that were exposed last week by the UK General Medical Council following a lengthy i nvestigation of lead autho rA ndrew Wakefield and two co -authors.
6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 7
THIS WEEK
A voice for the voiceless It is now poss i b l e to "ta lk" to people who seem to be u n conscious, by tap p i n g i nto th e i r bra i n activity state (VS) to picture herself carrying out one of two different THE innervoice of people who activities. The resulting brain appear unconscious can now activity suggested she be heard. For the first time, understood the commands and researchers have struck up was therefore conscious. a conversation with a man Now Owen's team has taken diagnosed as being in a vegetative the idea a step further. A man also diagnosed with VS was able state. All they had to do was monitor how his brain responded to answer yes and no to specific to specific questions. This means questions by imagining himself that it may now be possible to give engaging in the same activities. some individuals in the same The results suggest that it is possible to give a degree of choice state a degree of autonomy. to some people who have no other "They can now have some involvement in their destiny," way of communicating with the says Adrian Owen of the outside world. "We are not just University of Cambridge, who showing they are conscious, we led the team doing the work. are giving them a voice and a In an earlier experiment, way to communicate," says published in 2006, Owen's team neurologist Steven Laureys of the asked a woman previously University of Liege in Belgium, diagnosed as being in a vegetative Owen's collaborator. Celeste Biever
Talking tothe brain By asking people to imag i n e one activity for yes and another for no, researchers can use brai n imag ing techniques to identify the answers to simple questions in both hea lthy volunteers and some "vegetative "patients
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B 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
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When someone is in a VS, they can breathe unaided, have intact reflexes but seem completely unaware. But it is becoming clear that some people who appear to be vegetative are in fact minimally conscious. They are in a kind of twilight state in which they may feel some pain, experience emotion and communicate to a limited extent. These two states can be distinguished from each other via bedside behavioural tests - but these tests are not perfect and can miss patients who are aware but unable to move. So researchers are looking for ways to detect consciousness with brain imaging. In their original experiment, Owen and his colleagues used functional MRI to detect whether a woman could respond to two spoken commands, which were expected to activate different brain areas. On behavioural tests alone her diagnosis was VS but the brain scan results were astounding. When asked to imagine playing tennis, the woman's supplementary motor area (SMA), which is concerned with complex sequences of movements, lit up. When asked to imagine moving around her house, it was the turn of the parahi ppocampal gyrus, which represents s patial locations. Because the correct brain areas lit up at the correct time, the team concluded that the woman was modulating her brain activity to cooperate with the experiment and must have had a degree of consciousness (Science, DOl: 10.1126/science.1130197). In the intervening years, Owen, Laureys and their team repeated the experiment on 23 people in Belgium and the UK diagnosed as being in a VS. Four responded positively and were deemed to possess a degree of consciousness. To find out whether a simple conversation was possible, the researchers selected one of the four- a 29-year-old man who had been in a car crash. They asked him to imagine playing tennis
ifhe wanted to answeryes to questions such as : Do you have any sisters? Is your father's name Thomas? Is your father's name Alexander? And if the answer to a question was no, he had to imagine moving round his home. The man was asked to think of the activity that represented his answer, in la-second bursts for up to 5 minutes, so that a strong enough signal could be detected by the scanner. His family came up with the questions to ensure that the researchers did not know the answers in advance. What's more, the brain scans were analysed by a team that had never come into contact with
In this section
• Concern over DIY sperm counters, page 10 • Quantum secrets of photosynthesis, page 12 • Can headache pill save trauma victims? page 15
they can answer yes/no questions should be extremely disturbing to our clinical practice." One of the most difficult questions you might want to ask someone is whether they want to carry on living. But as Owen and Laureys point out, the scientific, legal and ethical challenges for doctors asking such questions are formidable. "In purely practical "One of the most difficult questions you might want to ask someone is whether they want to go on living"
the patient or his family. The team found that either the SMA orthe parahippocampal gyrus lit up in response to five of the six questions (see diagram). When the team ran these answers by his family, they were all correct, indicating that the man had understood the task and was able to form an answer (The New EnglandJournal ofMedicine, DOl: lO.los6/nejmoaogoS370). The group also asked healthy volunteers similar questions "We are not just showing that people are conscious we are giving them a way of communicating"
relating to their own families and diagnoses on how someone found that their brains responded behaves: iffor example, whether or not they can glance in different in the same way. directions in response to "I think we can be pretty confident that he is entirely questions. The new results show conscious," says Owen. "He that you don't need behavioural has to understand instructions, indications to identify awareness comprehend speech, remember and even a degree of cognitive what tennis is and how you do it. proficiency. All you need to do is So many of his cognitive faculties tap into brain activity directly. The work " changes everything", have to have been intact:' says Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist That someone can be capable of all this while appearing at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, who is carrying out completely unaware confounds existing medical definitions of similar work on patients with consciousness, Laureys says. "We consciousness disorders. don't know what to call this; he "Knowing that someone could persist in a state like this and not just doesn't fit a definition:' Doctors traditionally base these show evidence of the fact that
terms, yes, it is possible," says Owen. "But it is a bigger step than one might immediately think." One problem is that while the brain scans do seem to establish consciousness, there is a lot they don't tell us. "Just because they can answer a yes/no question does not mean they have the capacity to make complex decisions," Owen says. Even assuming there is a subset of people who cannot move but have enough cognition to answer tough questions, you would still have to convince a court that this is so. "There are many ethical and legal frameworks that would need to be revised before fMRI could be used in this context," says Owen. There are many challenges. For example, someone in this state can only to respond to specific questions; they can't yet start a conversation of their own. There is also the prospect of developing smaller devices to make conversation more frequent, since MRI scans are expensive and take many hours to analyse. In the meantime, you can ask someone whether they are in pain orwould like to try new drugs that are being tested for their ability to bring patients out of a vegetative state. "For the minority of patients that this will work for, just for them to exercise some autonomy is a massive step forward - it doesn't have to be at the life or death level," Owen says.• 6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 9
THIS WEEK
The chip tallies the electrical perturbations due to the beads and cells, and comparing bead concentration to that of the spermatozoa provides the sperm count (Lab on a Chip, in press). Segerink says the chip could take just 12 seconds to determine sperm concentration with the same measurement error as a manual count. But while she
"There would be the potential for harm to be caused to patients ifthey were not provided with the relevant information about the impact of a positive result for for medical staff. The ejaculate infertility," he says. GENTLEMEN, ever been curious must be submitted for analysis about your sperm count? If so, As other research teams a home fertility test could be just develop similar devices, this within an hour - which generally precludes men from producing the thing. is becoming an increasingly the sample at home - and once Loes Segerink and colleagues important issue. Hywel Morgan submitted, a lengthy manual at the MESA+ Institute for and colleagues at the University Nanotechnology at the University count remains the" gold of Southampton in the UK are standard" for spermatozoa "Self-diagnosis could be of Twente in Enschede, the developing microfluidic chips concentration analysis. harmful if the patient does that could hel p diagnose Netherlands, have developed a "With our system we overcome not understand the impact conditions from viral infection 10-centimetre-long "lab-on-a-chip" these problems," Segerink of a positive result" which could determine fertility to anaemia using a pinprick of in a matter of seconds. While says. Their microfluidic chip blood. "Devices of this nature contains a tiny channel through undeniably useful, such kits stresses that the chip would allow you to distribute healthcare also raise the ethical issue of which the spermatozoa are drawn be used as part of hospital-run into the community," he says. by pressure flow. The sample whether diagnosis without the fertility treatment, it could "But if you're diagnosing disease, professional advice that normally is first doped with a known be adapted to produce a cheap the answers you're providing accom panies it could do more concentration of polystyrene and easy-to-use version for have to be handled appropriately." beads, and as beads and cells are harm than good. self-diagnosis at home. "Even if the technology is Male fertility analysis can ready for the marketplace," says drawn along the channel they Michael Dunn, a healthcare pass between two electrodes, be embarrassing for the person ethics researcher at the University Morgan, "whether society is ready altering the electrical impedance. of Oxford, says this is a concern. in question and time consuming to use it is an issue." Colin Barras.
Home test for sperm count cou ld leave men in a mess
Helium clue found in echo of the big bang THE subtle signal of ancient helium has shown u p forthe firsttime in light left over from the big bang. The discovery will help astronomers work out how much of the stuff was made during the big bang and how much was made later by stars. Helium is the second-most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen. The light emitted by old stars and clumps of hot pristine gas from the early universe suggest hel i u m made up some 25 per cent of
hydrogen and so alters the way
the ordinary matter created d u ring
pressure waves must have travelled through the young cosmos. But
earlier measurements, although less accurate. "I think CMB measu rements
helium's effect on the CMB was on a
will surpass them eventually," says
on how q u i ckly this expansion took
scale too small to resolve until now.
team member David Spergel.
place. That could help test theories
the big bang. The new data provides another measure. A trio of telescopes has found helium's signature in the
By combin ing seven years of data
These observations are in l ine with
More accurate numbers cou l d
expanding as they decayed into protons. 50 the amount of helium that formed places important limits
that postulate extra di mensions or
cosmic m icrowave background (CMB,
from NASA's Wi lkinson Microwave
reveal how quickly t h e early universe
pictured), radiation em itted some
Anisotropy Probe with observations
expanded. Helium forms from the
Better data should be ava i lable
3BO,000 years after the big bang.
by two telescopes at the South Pole,
interaction between protons and
in the next few years. The European Space Agency's Planck satellite,
as-yet-unseen particles.
The patterns in this radiation are an
astronomers have confirmed its
neutrons. This is constra ined by the
important indicator of the processes
presence. "This is the first detection
number of ava ilable neutrons, which
which launched last year, is poised to
at work at that time. Helium affects
of pre-stellar helium," says WMAP's
would have dropped during the ti me
measure the amount of helium even
the pattern because it is heavier than
chief scientist, Charles Bennett.
the brand new universe was
more precisely. Rachel Courtland .
10 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
THIS WEEK Imports mean UK emissions are up not down
respond to their opponents' actions. So although they moved faster, they never won. Is there any truth in the Hollywood version of the gunfight, where the last guy to draw is the winner? If there were, a gunslinger would have to wait for the hotheaded villain to move first. But that couldn't have worked when two clued-up cowboys faced each other. Now Welchman says neuroscience doesn't support Hollywood's portrayal either. The only way the last guy to draw
THE UK government is sitting on a report that shows its emissions rose by 13.5 per cent between 1992 and 2004. It previously claimed they fell by 4.6 per cent overthe same period. The discrepancy appears when emissions from goods that are made abroad and imported into the UK are included. "We seem to emit less because we don't produce much here any more," says Giovanni Baiocchi, an
"It would be hard to get fast enough to recover the time it takes to react to your opponent"
economist at Durham University, UK. "But more emissions are released now in other countries because of our consumer demands." Baiocchi and his team were asked by the UK Department for Environ ment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to carry out an audit of the nation's emissions. They found that efforts to decrease national CO2 emissions, mainly by shifting from coal to natural-gas power plants, cut148 megatonnes between 1992 and 2004. But this was outweighed by a 217-megatonne rise in CO2 emissions from imported goods. "This undermines the whole Kyoto process," says Glen Peters of Norway's Center for International Cli mate and Environment Research. Under the Kyoto protocol, developed
He who draws last, draws his last breath
nations are only required to cut emissions produced within their own
Debora MacKenzie
borders. "The UK can pat itself on the
N IELS BOHR once had a theory on why the good guy always won shoot-outs in Hollywood pushed those emissions elsewhere." westerns. It was simple: the bad DEFRA has not yet publ ished the guy always drew first. That left the report, whose results now appear in Environmental Science &- Technology good guy to react unthinkingly and therefore faster. When Bohr (DOl: 10.1021/es902662h). "[It] was finished six months ago," says Peters, tested his hypothesis with toy who reviewed the study for DEFRA. "It pistols and colleagues who drew could be a slow bureaucratic process first, he always won. or it could be that they are worried Andrew Welchman of the University of Birmingham, UK, about the impact of the reSUlts." "Unfortunately it has taken longer has now taken this a step further. than anticipated to publish the report Bohr may have won a Nobel prize for his work on quantum due to the techn ica l nature and mechanics, but it turns out the terminology used in initial drafts," answer to this puzzle is more DEFRA told New Scientist. DEFRA complicated than he thought. aims to publish the report later this Welchman pitted pairs of year. Phil McKenna . back and say they reduced carbon
dioxide emissions, but they just
111 NewScientist 1 6 Feb ruary 2010
people against each other. The task? Lift your hand off a button, push two other buttons, then return to the first (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 001: 1O.lOg8/ rspb.200g.2123). There was no start bell. "Eventually, one decides it's time to move," Welchman says. "The other player will then try to move as fast as possible." The players who had to react took 21 milliseconds less time to move, on average, than the first ones. Welchman thinks reaction movement involves a faster brain pathway than intentional movement. So Bohr was right? Not quite. There was also a " reaction time", a delay of 200 milliseconds before the players started to
could win is if the reactive part of the brain makes him move so fast that the time it takes him to draw, plus his reaction time, is less than the time it takes the first guy just to draw. "[ t would be hard to get fast enough to recover the time it takes to react to your opponent," says Welchman. He thinks fast reactions evolved for avoiding unexpected danger, or for confrontations in which animals are in a face-off and the second to move needs speed. "Voluntary and reactive movements differ in basic ways," says Florian Waszak, who studies movement at the University of Paris Descartes, France. The system has evolved so that reactions may be very fast but perhaps less accurate, Waszak speculates. Indeed, Welchman's "reactive" players hit the buttons less accurately than the "intentional" players, another reason fast reactions may not win gunfights. So it was all Hollywood legend. "I've found little evidence for face-to-face duels on the streets of Dodge," Welchman says. And Bohr? "Maybe he was just a good shot." Or maybe everyone just expected the great Niels Bohr to win.•
THIS WEEK
algae perform their work at 21°C. emitted light, the team can work "Scholes's work is fantastic," out the details of the quantum superposition that created it. says Gregory Engel at the University of Chicago. "The The results are a surprise. Not only are the two pigment difficulty ofthis experiment is extraordinary." Engel molecules at the centre of demonstrated the same principle the antenna involved in the one of the co-authors of the paper superposition; so are the other in 2007 at the University of California, Berkeley, though at a six pigment molecules. This published inNature this week (DOl: 10.1038/nature08811). frigid -196°C. His team examined "quantum coherence" binds a bacteriochlorophyll complex But Scholes and his colleagues them together for a fleeting 400 femtoseconds (4 x 10 13 seconds). have found that the energy found in green sulphur bacteria and discovered that the pigment routeing mechanism may actually But this is long enough for the energy from the absorbed photon be highly efficient. The evidence to simultaneously " try out" all comes from the behaviour of "This is going to change possible paths across the antenna. the way we think about pigment molecules at the centre of the Chroomonas antenna. When the shared coherence ends, photosynthesis and The team first excited two of the energy settles on one path, quantum computing" these molecules with a brieflaser allowing it to make the journey pulse, causing electrons in the molecules were similarly without loss. The discovery overturns some wired together in a quantum pigment molecules to jump long-held beliefs about quantum mechanical network. His into a quantum superposition mechanics, which held that of excited states. When this experiment showed that the quantum coherence cannot occur quantum superposition allows superposition collapses, it emits at anything other than cryogenic photons of slightly different the energy to explore all possible temperatures because a hot routes and settle on the most wavelengths which combine to form an interference pattern. environment would destroy the efficient one (DOl: 10.1038/ effect. However, the Chroomonas nature05678). In a sense, he says, By studying this pattern in the the antenna performs a quantum computation to determine the � best way to transfer energy. � Engel and his group at � Chicago have just repeated the � � '" experiment at a more life-friendly 4°C. They found the duration of the coherence to be about 300 femtoseconds (arxiv.orgl abs/1001.5108v1). Exactly how these molecules remain coherent for so long, at such high temperatures and with relatively large gaps between them, is a mystery, says Alexandra Olaya-Castro of University College London, who has been collaborating with Scholes to understand the underlying mechanisms and apply them elsewhere. She believes that the antenna's protein structure plays a crucial role. "Coherence would not survive without it," she says. The hope is that quantum coherence could be used to make solar cells more efficient. The work is going to change the way we think about photosynthesis and quantum computing, Engel says. "It's an enormous result." •
Hot green quantum computers revealed Kate McAlpine
WHILE physicists struggle to get quantum computers to function at cryogenic temperatures, other researchers are saying that humble algae and bacteria may have been performing quantum calculations at life-friendly temperatures for billions of years. The evidence comes from a study of how energy travels across the light-harvesting molecules involved in photosynthesis. The work has culminated this week in the extraordinary announcement that these molecules in a marine alga may exploit quantum processes at room temperature to transfer energy without loss. Physicists had previously ruled out quantum processes, arguing that they could not persist for long enough at such temperatures to achieve anything useful. Photosynthesis starts when large light-harvesting structures called antennas capture photons. In the alga called Chroomonas CCMP270, these antennas have eight pigment molecules woven into a larger protein structure, with different pigments absorbing light from different parts of the spectrum. The energy of the photons then travels across the antenna to a part ofthe cell where it is used to make chemical fuel. The route the energy takes as it jumps across these large molecules is important because longer journeys could lead to losses. In classical physics, the energy can only work its way across the molecules randomly. "Normal energy transfer theory tells us that energy hops from molecule to molecule in a random walk, like the path taken home from the bar by a drunken sailor," says Gregory Scholes at the University ofToronto, Canada, 12 1 NewScientist 15 February 2010
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
At last we will know how bright the stars really are LIGHT is the bedrock of astronomy,
a couple of much dimmer ones - to
so it may come as a surprise that
a precision of 1 per cent or better.
astronomers don't have a very good
That is twice the accuracy of current
handle on measurements of
measurements, an advance that will
brightness. That is set to change, however, as the antiquated
be possible thanks to the ca libration of the telescope's sensors with
brightness scale undergoes a long
artificial light sources before launch.
overdue upgrade that could help to reveal the true nature of dark energy. More than 2000 years ago, the
The measurements ACCESS makes will serve as a benchmark to calibrate the observations of other telescopes.
Greek astronomer Hipparchus
This will al low the brightness of
devised a scale ranking the apparent
supernovae and other objects to
brightness of different stars. Today,
be measured more accurately.
astronomers use much the same
Such precision will be key to
system, measuring brightness
finding out the secrets of dark
relative to a handful of standard
energy, a mysterious entity that
reference stars. The trouble is, the
is causing the universe to expand
reference stars' brightness is not
at an ever faster rate. The existence
known very accurately, and
of dark energy was deduced in
measurements of it have not kept
199B when astronomers noticed that distant supernovae were
pace with developments in detector
fainter - and thus farther away
"The most accurate measurements of the bright star Vega date back to the 1970s"
than expected. Astronomers still don't know where dark energy comes from. It could spring from a fundamental new force, or it might point to a flaw
technology. For example, the most
in our understanding of gravity.
accurate measurements of the bright
To better understand it, researchers
star Vega date back to the 1970s.
are examining the history of cosmic
"It's surprising. There has been
expansion, searching for slight
relatively little work on that in the
variations in the expansion rate
past couple of decades," says Gary
over time. This req u i res more
Bernstein of the University of
accurate measurements of the
Pennsylvania in Philadelph ia.
brightness of supernovae at different
To redress this, a team led by Mary Elizabeth Kaiser of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,
cosmic epochs. ACCESS team member Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University, one of
Maryland, is planning to launch a
dark energy's discoverers, says subtle
rocket-borne telescope to make the
errors can crop up when combining
most accurate measurements yet of
brightness data from multiple
the reference stars' brightness (arxiv.
telescopes, potentially misleading
org/abs/1001.392S). Cal led the
astronomers about the nature of the acceleration. "You cou l d think that
Absolute Color Calibration Experiment for Standard Stars
dark energy is changing with scale
(ACCESS), the NASA-funded m i ssion
ortime, but it's only an artefact of the
will lift off in a yea r or two a nd make
fact that your observatories have not
four su borbital flights, each taking it
all used the same reference poin!'''
above Earth's distorting atmosphere
he told New Scientist.
for a few minutes ata time. During these brief jaunts,
The ACCESS mission will help astronomers avoid this pitfall, he
ACCESS will gauge the brightness of four common reference stars - the
says. "It doesn't measure dark energy
sky's brig htest star, Sirius; Vega; and
accurate." David Shiga .
itself but it makes your scale more
6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 13
THIS WEEK
Cannibal bonobos Ineeded the food' Fowler's team lost sight ofthe apes not long afterwards, but early the following day he saw SO MUCH for the "hippy chimp". Olga join them carrying Olivia's Bonobos, known for their peaceable ways and casual sex, body, which had already begun to decompose. "It was smelling, have been caught in the act of cannibalism. limp and wet," he recalls. Olga and seven others spentthe rest An account of a group of wild bonobos consuming a dead infant, ofthe day devouring the corpse published last month, is the first (American Journal ofPrima tology, report of cannibalism in these animals - making the species the "In all of the great apes last of the great apes to reveal a except for the chimpanzee, taste for the flesh of their own kind. all documented cases of The account comes from a cannibalism are outliers" group of primatologists led by Gottfried Hohmann of the Max DOl: 10.1002/ajp. 2080 2). Planck Institute for Evolutionary "We've never seen anything like Anthropology in Leipzig, this," says Vanessa Woods at Duke Germany. The team has studied University in Durham, North bonobos in the wild at a site in Carolina, who studies semi-captive Salonga national park in the bonobos at a reserve. "The last time Democratic Republic ofthe Congo I saw an infant die, the mother held on hundreds of days since 2002. onto it for days and the keepers had Among the most eventful were trouble taking the body away." Though bonobos mostly eat 9 and 10 July 2008. Early on the morning of 9 July, fruit and leaves, they are known to hunt monkeys and the small Andrew Fowler spotted an ape known as Olgawith her two antelopes called duikers. But daughters, 5 or 6-year-old Ophelia Fowler noted signs that this meal and Olivia, three years her junior. was somehow different. More "By 8 o'clock Olivia was dead," says individuals got a taste of the Fowler. She showed no obvious infant than is typical when the traces of blood or bruises, so it apes share meat. They also spent seems unlikely she had been killed 7'/, hours eating the body - longer by other members of her grou p. than they take over a similar-sized Ewen Callaway
monkey. Some even played with it. reasonably large piece of meat, "If they just think ofit as another you may as well eat it," he says. piece of meat, why do they behave " It's perfectly normal that you differently with it?" he asks. would eat the meat that's available, even if it's in the form Fowler warns against over of a dead infant:' interpreting the events, and Frans de Waal at Emory reckons that the need for University in Atlanta, Georgia, nourishment was the animals' agrees. "It may be that bonobos main driver. "Ifyou eat meat and are craving animal proteins and you can see [the infantI as a fats more than we realise!' Bonobos are studied far less in WH EN PRI M ATES EAT T H EIR OWN the wild than chim panzees, and it is impossible to tell from this one CHIMPANZEES Of all the great apes, Spain, and more recent Neanderthal Nothing has been reported since. observation whether cannibalism ORANG-UTANS Two instances have chimpanzees resort to cannibal ism fossil bones suggest that our distant most often. Typically, males will kill ancestors ate the flesh of their own been documented in orang·utans is a regular feature ofbonobo behaviour. David Dellatore, a and eat the infant of another female, species. More recently, thousand living wild in Sumatra. In both cases, primatologist at Oxford Brookes usually in their own group but year-old bones discovered in the the mothers ate their infants after University in the UK, who last year occasionally in another. When chimps carrying their corpses around for American Southwest bear clearsigns kill adults from other groups in a became the first to document an several days. David Dellatore of Oxford of butchery. There are even signs of instance of cannibalism in orang fight, they do not eat the body. Brookes University in the UK, who cannibalism in the human genome: utans, doubts it. "In all of the great GORILLAS In the 1970s, observed both events, thinks they a mutation has been found in Papua primatologist Dian Fossey found were due to stress. New Guineans that protects them apes except for the chimpanzee, all form kuru, a prion disease documented cases of cannibalism remains of two gorillas in the faeces HUMANS Cut marks on BDO,OOO-yearare outliers," he says. (see "When of a mother gorilla and her daughter. old hominin remains from Atapuerca, transmitted through cannibalism. primates eat their own").•
14 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
Headache pill cou ld save earthquake crush victims JUST one tablet of paracetamol
in rats via m uscular injections of
(acetaminophen) could help save
sugar, Boutaud and colleagues
earthquake survivors who otherwise
demonstrated that the human
risk dying from kidney failure after
equivalent dose of acetaminophen
rescue. Experi ments in rats have
successfully b l ocked both of these
shown that the drug prevents "crush
processes, whether given before or
syndrome", or rha bdomyolysis, in
shortly after the injury (Proceedings
which muscle debris from crushed l imbs floods the kidneys soon after
001: 10.1073/pnas.0910174107).
of the National Academy of Sciences,
the limb is freed from rubble, causing
"We don't know whether it would work, but we must m uscle through rescue, debris goes try because it could save to the kidney. It's like a chain reaction, thousands of lives"
them to fa il.
"When you release the pressure on
and acetaminophen blocks it," says Olivier Boutaud of Vanderbilt
Although the finding has (orne too
University in Nashville, Tennessee,
late to save lives following the quake
and head of the research team.
in Haiti, Boutaud is hopeful that the treatment can be validated in humans
The destruction of muscle through crushing leads to the release of
before, or even d uring, the next big
myoglobin, a protein vital for
quake. "We don't knowyet whether
delivering oxygen to muscle and
it wou l d work, or how soon we'd need
other tissue. When the myoglobin
to give it to prevent kidney damage,"
reaches the kidneys it clogs the
he says, "but we must try because
tubu les and produces harmful
it could save thousands of lives."
chemica l agents called free radicals. These free radicals destroy fatty membranes in the kidney,
Martin de Smet of Medecins Sans Frontieres will refer Boutaud's results to the International society of
which die and turn black. They
Nephrology's Renal Disaster Relief
a lso trigger constriction of blood
Task Force, which has developed
vessels, cutting off blood flow to
validated protocols for treating crush
the kidney and halting filtration
syndrome victims, involving the rapid
of blood, rapidly leading to death
infusion of sal ine fluids. The drug
through kidney fai l u re.
might be testable as a supportive
After inducing crush syndrome
treatment, he says. Andy Coghlan .
6 February 2010 I NewScientist 1 15
IN BRI EF
Urban heat islands feel cooler in white
Beware of geoengineering using volcanoes' tricks
simulate the impact of volcanoes on ocean chemistry. Before oceanic oxygen levels tumbled, something caused a big change in atmospheric sulphate levels. "That
CITIES can battle the "urban heat island" with paint. Highly reflective white roofs could cool cities by an average of 0.6 ·C, according to a global simulation. Dark city surfaces like roofs and roads absorb and radiate heat, leaving cities up to 3 ·C hotter than surrounding areas. A team at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, combined climate models with a simulation of how temperatures are modified by city landscapes. They found that i n a hypothetical world i n which cities sported highly reflective white roofs, urban temperatures were on average 0.6 ·C cooler than in cities with existing, mostly black roofing materials. In the real world, says lead author Keith Oleson, the benefits might be slightly less as rooftops get covered in dust (Geophysical Research Letters, in press).
something was probably volcanoes;' says Hurtgen. He says WE HACK the climate at our peril. Volcanoes spewed so much sulphate into the atmosphere 94 million years ago
their sulphate emissions triggered vast phytoplankton
that the oceans were starved of oxygen and 27 per cent
as these died and decomposed. According to the team's
blooms and much of the ocean's oxygen was gobbled up
of marine genera went extinct. Geoengineering our
model, oceanic sulphate was extremely low prior to the
climate (ould inflict a similar fate on some lakes.
eruptions (Nature Geoscience, 001: 10.1038/ngeo743).
Fusion fuel gets round a big problem
PAN CAKES have been getting in the way of nuclear fusion: the process comes unstuck when fuel sulphur isotopes in sediments on the floor of the Western modern lakes are poor in sulphate, so it's possible that pellets end up spread out flat. geoengineering the climate [using sulphate aerosols Interior Seaway. The WIS was a vast body of water Now the world's largest laser to reflect sunlight] could trigger blooms and ulti mately that divided the continent of North America down the complex has solved the problem. anoxia in some la kes." middle at the time. The team also developed a model to Fusion should start if a laser pulse heats a fuel pellet and Water vapour fingered in climate change that happened in the 1990S (Science squeezes it very tight. But if the nuclear fuel spreads out from the 001: 1O.1126/science.1182488 ) . implosion zone, input energy is A RISE in water vapour in the and weather balloon data to track The model also suggests that lost. Using the huge laser power of atmosphere fuelled 30 per cent changes in the concentration of the decline in water vapour the US National Ignition Facility, of the global warming that took watervapoun6 kilometres up concentrations that occurred a team led by Brian MacGowan of place during the 1990S. This in the stratosphere, between the in 2001 slowed down the rate of discovery suggests that the potent 1980s and today. global warming in the last decade the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have greenhouse gas plays a bigger role Water vapour levels in the by 25 per cent. in climate change than we stratosphere increased in the 1990S "This research does not change managed to squeeze fuel into spheres for the first time. The next previously imagined. but dropped by 10 per cent in 2001. the consensus view that human step is to create spherical pellets Susan Solomon and colleagues After feeding their measurements emissions drive climate change," says Fortunat loos, a climate of deuterium and tritium - the key at the US National Oceanic and into a climate model, the team ingredients for fusion (Science, Atmospheric Administration suggests that vapour was to blame modeller at the University of combined satellite measurements for almost a third of the warming Bern, Germany. 001: 1O.1126/science.u8s634). 50 claims Matthew Hurtgen at Northwestern
University in Chicago, who with his colleagues measured
16 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
This has implications for geoengineering, says
Hurtgen. "Like the mid·Cretaceous ocean, most
For new stories every day, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
Feeling stuffed is a complex matter INCORPORATING complex smells into what you eat may produce more satisfyi ng foods. That's the conclusion of Ria nne Ruijschop at Nizo Food Research in Ede, the Netherlands, and col leagues, who were investigating what effect different aromas have on the feeling of fullness. The team added two different strawberry aromas to small pots of yoghurt and asked volunteers which was the most fi lling. Although to the u ntrained nose the smells were
Did rice wine lead to flushed faces across Asia? A MUTATION that causes some Asians to flush red when they drink alcohol may have evolved to help their ancestors cope with rice wine. A genetic study suggests that it evolved around the same time as Asians were starting to farm rice and ferment it into boozy drinks. Bing Su, a geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Kunming, studied the genes of 2275 people from 38 east-Asian populations. He was looking for a mutation that modifies the gene responsible for the enzyme
alcohol dehydrogenase (BMC Evolutionary Biology, VOl lO, p IS).
south-eastern China but becomes less common further north and The mutation causes alcohol to west - dates and locations that be metabolised 100 times faster dovetail with archaeological evidence of early rice cultivation. than it otherwise would be. As a result, it protects people from the Pottery shards from the same harmful effects of booze. Those period show traces of alcohol. The mutation in alcohol who have the mutation also tend to flush red when they drink. dehydrogenase would have The mutation is most prevalent protected those who had it from inAsia and least frequent in Europe some of the nefarious effects of and Africa, but the reason for this alcohol and alcoholism. As a has remained a mystery. Su's result, Su says, natural selection analysis shows that it cropped up for the mutation caused it to spread west in near-synchrony between lO,OOO and 7000 years ago, is virtually ubiquitous in with rice paddies.
indistinguishable, one pot contained a simple aroma from one chemical. and the other a more complex aroma made up of 15 chemicals. All 41 volunteers reported
Chikungunya foiled by copycat 'virus'
feeling more satiated after eating the yoghurt with the complex aroma. However, in a separate experiment, Ruijschop found that given a much larger supply, volunteers ate the same amount of both yoghurts (Chemica/ Senses, 001: 10.1093/chemse/bjp086). Jennifer Coelho, a cli nical psychologist at Maastricht university in the Netherlands, says this is not surprising since we don't necessarily stop eating when we feel satiated. Ruijschop ad mits that aroma is only one contributing component and hopes next to alter the texture of the yoghurt, with the a i m of developing more satiating foods to help dieters eat less.
A VACCINE that masquerades as chikungunya virus might finally defeat the mosquito-borne disease. In 2006 a single mutation in the virus allowed it to burst out of Africa via a new species of mosquito. Chikungunya now infects about 1 million people a year around the Indian Ocean and causes intense joint pain which can persist for years. It could invade temperate regions as the mosquitoes' range expands. Gary Nabel of the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues put genes that code for the virus's protein coat into cultured human cells. The proteins assembled themselves into virus-like particles (VLPs), which mimic the virus but aren't infectious. "We got structures that beautifully replicated the natural virus," Nabel says. Rhesus monkeys injected with the VLPs produced antibodies that gave them complete protection against the virus. Their antibodies also worked for immune-deficient mice that are normally killed by chikungunya (Nature Medicine, 001: lO.1038/nm.2lOS). Nabel hopes the vaccine will be tested in people in one to three years.
Planetary nebu lae snack on comets WHEN the sun dies. it's not just
results. a discrepancy that has
Earth that will be doomed - the
baffled astronomers for decades.
destruction will reach as far as the comets in the outer solar system.
Now William Henney of the National Autonomous University of
That's according to a new explanation
Mexico in Mexico City and Grazyna
of the behaviour of planetary
Stasi nska of the Paris Observatory
nebulae - bubbles of gas sloughed
i n France suggest that material from
off by dying stars (pictured).
vaporised comets could be skewing
There are two methods
the recombination method's result.
for calculating the abundance of
This is because pockets of gas rich in
elements in planetary nebulae:
heavy elements would be created ifa
looking at light emitted when
comet in the outer regions of a solar
electrons and ionised atoms
system got vaporised by a dying star
recombine, or looking at the energy
in its red giant phase or by the
emitted by atoms excited by
expanding planetary nebula that
collisions. Yet they yield very d ifferent
follows it (arxiv.org/abs/1001.4513).
6 February 2010 I NewScientist 1 17
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TECHNOLOGY
For daily technology stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/technology
search and rescue COULD seeing with heat and light simultaneously improve search and-rescue missions? Nathan Rasmussen of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, thinks so. He has created a hybrid video system that integrates visible and infrared footage into a single shot. Search drones already use visible and infrared cameras, but making sense of two videos at once is hard. So Rasmussen has devised a way to calibrate the feeds from two such cameras on a model aircraft, and then overlay the infrared images on the visible stream. In tests, subjects were better able to carry out tasks simultaneously when watching the hybrid stream than when viewing separate videos, suggesting that the new dis play is easier to interpret. The findings were presented at the Applications of Computer Vision conference in Snowbird, Utah.
Sylvain Gigan and colleagues at E cole Superieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles in Paris, a g iassl da rkly France, have transmitted a simple image through a painted slide and IT'S not quite X-ray vision, but a reconstructed it on the far side way has been found to transmit simple images through opaque (arxiv.org/abs/091O.5436). They worked out the slide's objects using ordinary light. Researchers have used the method transmission matrix - how light to project an image through glass bounces around inside it - by hitting it with a laser beam more covered in thick paint. Some things we consider than 1000 times, changing the shape ofthe beam each time opaque actually allow a small amount of light through. But it is and recording the different light patterns that made it through to a scattered so much as it bounces around inside the opaque digital camera beyond. They then used the information to decode material's lattice of atoms that it an image sent through the slide. was considered beyond practical use for transmitting an image. "Once the matrix is known, reconstructing the image is very But by reverse engineering quick," Gigan says. the scattering process, physicist
We see t h rough
Hybrid video to a id
64 hours. The time it takes to fill the tank of Honda's FCX fuel cell vehicle at its new solarhydrogen station in Los A ngeles
"It i s ve ry s i m i l a r to a n a i rp l a n e flyi n g i n the sea" Richard Branson unveilsthe Necker Nymph, the p rototype for a three - perso n submarine, which he hopes to rent to peo p le wanting to enjoy spectacu lar u nderwater sights - without having to get wet (TheSun.co.uk, 29 January)
6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 19
TECH NOLOGY
A telescope that sets its sights on cyber-crime
work with was a cyber-security risk. Using the internet telescope, it zoomed in on the geotagged data to determine that some of the proposed partner company's computers had indeed been compromised by a botnet. UK government officials told the conference that more real world countermeasures like As govern m ents beco me i n c reasi n g ly awa re of the threat from Endgame's are needed - and fast. cybe r-wa rfare, n ew i d eas are being d eve l oped to com bat it Without them, today's attacks on crucial infrastructure, such as banking networks, may information which could be encourage nation-on-nation instructions from once the Paul Marks current control domain expires passed onto law enforcers. cyber-warfare in future. A TELESCOPE that can peer into "We underestimate the skill Endgame's CEO, Chris Rouland, a trick they play to evade presented his company's work at detection. Once these domains the depths of the net to spot the set of organised cyber crime. It gathering threat of a bot net could are known, Endgame buys them the Cyber Warfare conference in is persistent, very well organised up before the person controlling London last week. The firm's and focused," says Amit Yoran of help combat cyber-attacks. Botnets- networks of customers include government cyber-forensics firm NetWitness the botnet, or "botmaster", does, agencies and companies who compromised computers that based in Herndon, Virginia. ensuring that it seizes control of the entire botnet when it switches are controlled by someone with It is also increasingly successful. "The skill set of botnet malicious intent - are an to its new control address. Over $1 trillion was stolen online Endgame can then either kill increasingly common feature of creators is underestimated. in 2008, according to computer They are persistent, well the internet. They can be used to security firm McAfee. "That's the botnet - by ordering all bots because we are using technology organised and focused" flood a target website with useless to cease activity - or try to catch the botmaster by interfering with data to bring it down, launch designed to fight the cyber-threats spam, or spy on computer users want to know if the organisations OfI99S," Yoran says. the botnet's activity in such a they plan to do business with by looking for their banking way as to blow their cover. The Most security software impedes logins and passwords. botmaster might, for example, could infect their computers. known threats, but the most To combat this threat, Endgame contact their domain registrar In his presentation, Rouland skilful botnet operators don't Systems of Atlanta, Georgia, has gave the exam pie of a company use known malware. A survey to find out what's wrong with come up with a system, called the their domain. This would provide that wanted to know whether an by communications company energy firm it was planning to the registrar with contact internet telescope, that can map Verizon, based in New York City, the physical location of computers infected with the malicious software, or malware, used to run botnets. It can even identify the type of malware on the machine and pre-empt its next moves. Cyber-criminals use the internet to plant malicious code on computers that lack up-to-date security patches. Thousands of such machines, known as bots, can then be controlled by the botnet operator without the owner realiSing their computer has been recruited into a botnet. Endgame passively tracks these compromised PCs from the botnet traffic they disgorge, geotagging the data to create a global threat map. It then dissects the malware to work out the web addresses of the next few domain name servers each bot is programmed to seek 20 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
For daily technology sto ries, visit www.NewScientist .com/techno logy
Disorderly measu re beats encrypted viruses Computer virus recognition needs
of viruses evolve, each needing
an overhaul if online attacks are to
to be assigned a unique signature
be fought successfully, security
before they can be stopped.
Softwa re doctors bad photos to make them l ook l i ke a pro's IT MAY seem crude to reduce
a ny distortion is not so noticeable so
not change the degree of disorder,
aesthetics to number crunching,
there's more freedom to alterthe size."
or "entropy", in its program code. By
but software can now manipulate
is to use an algorithm to create a
working out a figure for the disorder
an amateu r's photographs to make
"hash" signature - a nu mber derived
in the sequence of Is and Os that constitute a virus, Butterworth's
them more pleasing to the eye.
destroy their aesthetics. When the
from a string of its instruction
Algorithms score a photo's
software processed the i mages, the
text - that uniquely identifies it.
firm, Guidance Software of
aesthetics using simple composition
Pasadena, California, assigns
"The image is automatically cropped, or parts of it automatically cropped, or parts of it moved and resized, to moved and resized, to boost its score. boost its aesthetic score"
expert Jim Butterworth told the Cyber Warfare conference. A common way to fight viruses
To check for a particular virus, software only needs to look for this hash, rather than trawl through all
However, encrypting a virus does
itan entropy value. Paul Dickens, a cyber·operations
rules widely used to guide budding
photographers. The i mage is then
its instruction code for all possible
planner with the U K's Ministry of
viruses. The problem, however, is
Defence in Corsham, Wiltshire,
that antivirus software won't
believes it is an approach worth
Lior Wolf at Tel·Aviv University, Israel,
recognise the virus if it has been
checking out. "looking for a single
with colleagues at Zhejiang U niversity
encrypted. So multiple iterations
score seems a good idea," he says.
in Hangzhou, Chi na, the software
found that 59 per cent of cyber attacks involve custom-written programs that bypass existing security systems. Some excellent programmers are behind these attacks, says Jim Butterworth, a director at computer forensics firm Guidance Software of Pasadena, California. "Some malware code has been through far more quality assurance than a lot of commercial software."
At risk from c yber -attack
In trials, the team manually cropped professional photos to
Developed by Daniel Cohen-Or and results were similar to the ori g i nals. Martin Constable at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore
spots the key features of a n i mage
says the new softwa re fits with a
based on their colour and shape. The
recent trend for easy-to-use creative
positioning of those elements is used software. ''This is a high-level Developing countermeasures to judge a photo, then tweaked to is being made tougher by the example. Doubtless we will see improve it, says Wolf (see below). speed of online developments, such things in future versions of "In regions without key features, Photoshop." Colin Barras . says Yoran. The shift to mobile computing platforms and social networks such as Twitter Photo composition by num bers helps malware to spread in New software can alte r a photogra p h taken by an amateu r to obey some basic milliseconds, he says. aesthetic g u i d elines on h o w to compose shots The speed of cyber-attacks has also had an effect. In the US, the newly established 24th Air Force heads up the military's cyber security operation. Charles Shugg, the 24th's second in command, says his "hunter" teams, who fend off online attacks or pre emptively seek out online vulnerabilities, often have no time to develop countermeasures. "Things ha ppen so qUickly in the One such guidline is the "rule of thi rds". It says that the main e l e m e nts o f an image cyber-domain that the hunter should be positioned near the four "power poi nts" created by d ividi n g it i nto n i n e teams' offence and defence are e q u a l parts using horizontal a n d verti cal l i n es often one and the same thing." Tools such as Endgame's internet telescope may have a role to play in providing the intelligence needed to combat botnets as this type oflocation aware technology may slash the number ofbots available to launch cyber-attacks. Without action, says Gerard Vernez, a cyber-security expert with the Swiss army, the networks we depend on will be vulnerable. The software recrops the image and w i l l even move or resize i n d ividual e l ements to "What are we doing now? I call bring them closer to the power points. The result reta ins t h e features of the original image but should make for a better looking ph oto it plug and pray," he says.• 6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 21
TECH NOLOGY
If a space storm is com i ng the 'sm a rt d u st' will know normal-sized spacecraft but is significant at the millimetre scale. The grooved edges ofthe "spacecraft-on-a chip" deflect incoming photons in such a way as to ensure it always faces the sun. The craft's miniature size would let it hitch a ride into space on the back of another satellite mission headed for the Lagrange point "They can edge closer to between the Earth and the sun. the sun than a larger craft A Lagrange point is a kind of monitoring solar activity, gravitational sweet spot, where buying an extra 13 minutes" a small object can be stationary relative to two larger objects. engineer at Cornell University in The chips are essentially small Ithaca, New York, and his colleague solar panels with a radio antenna, Justin Atchison have designed and could act as a solar wind a l-centimetre-square spacecraft sensor (Acta Astronautica 001 : that is 25 micrometres thick and 10.1016/j.actaastro.2oog.12.008). weighs under 7.5 milligrams. The team envisage sending a The craft is modelled on the whole swarm of these "smart dust particles that orbit the sun dust" chips to the Lagrange point, and are propelled by the photons where they would monitor the streaming out from the sun. strength of the solar wind. They This solar radiation pressure would also warn of any oncoming gusts of charged particles that would have a negligible effect on A SWARM of "smart dust" spacecraft, positioned at a sweet spot between the Earth and the sun, could alert us to the approach of dangerous space storms well before a conventional craft can. The first prototypes are due for launch into low-Earth orbit this year, perhaps as early as May. Mason Peck, a mechanical
could disrupt communications and electronic systems on Earth. After the tiny craft has been dropped off at the Lagrange point, the effect of solar radiation moves it closer to the sun. Peck estimates that this could give an extra 13 minutes' notice of a storm compared with larger solar monitoring craft such as NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer. The prototype is in the final stages of development, and in the next few months will undergo tests at the terrestrial testbed at Cornell to examine its communication capabilities and durability.
At least one chip capable of sending back temperature data will be launched later this year. "At this stage we're just hoping to demonstrate that a spacecraft the size of a fingernail is feasible," Peck says. Colin McInnes from the University of Strathclyde in the UK says: "There is a strong international interest in 'spacecraft-on-a-chip' concepts. Peck's group have some great ideas which are firmly grounded in terrestrial applications of microelectromechanical technology." Jessica Griggs .
INSIGHT The location-aware internet can
The world wide web wants to know where you are right now
suggest where to g o for d inner with physical d isabilities
THAT the i nternet is the same for
experi ence is becoming inextricably
could easily obta i n i nformation about
everyone, wherever they a re, is
li nked with where they are, not j ust
a ccessible places and routes based
one of its defi ning features, But
who they a re, It's not j u st the a d dition
on where they are, he says,
increasingly your location maners,
of new features to these services that
and wi l l alter what you see online,
is making them more location- based;
Two events last week offer a preview of the web's location-aware future, Social network Twiner started
While location-based services have been tried before - typically from
users are a d d ing to the trend by
businesses looking to a d vertise their
changing their online behaviour,
wares - what i s significant today "is the intent", says Bedi. Users are actively
People are now thinking locally
sharing their location as a way to
telling users the most talked-about
about the ir use of the global network,
topics in thei r vi cin ity, Meanwhile,
says John Breslin, co-author of
"you're beginning to go beyond
specify the i nformati on they want to
Ca nadian newspaper publisher Metro
The Social Semantic Web a n d a n
fun" and a re add ing important
recei ve, whether restaurant reviews or
teamed up with location-based social
electronic engineer at the National
contextual information to the filters
the most-shared gossip in their city,
network Foursquare to offer users
University of Ireland, Galway, adding
you apply to strea ms of data,
restaurant reviews based on the ir
location-awaren ess to their own
GPS-enabled phone's location, Those may seem sma l l cha nges, butthey mean people's web
22 1 NewScientist 1 6 Feb ruary 2010
That could be empoweri ng for some
Advertisers may gain too, but for now the growth of the location-based
contributions, For example, by tagging
people, says Bharat Bedi, a n emerging
web depends on users' appetitefor
a Twiner update about an event
technol ogy consultant at IBM Hursley
new ways to filterthei r online
you are anending with its location,
in Ham pshi re, UK, For example, people
experience, Gareth Morgan .
da r 20 1 0 ca l en
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OPI N ION
Neurons for peace It's ti m e fo r n e u rosci e n ce to catch u p with oth e r p rofessions a n d pledge not to support a g g ressive war a n d to rture, says Curtis Bel l NEUROSCIENTISTS can take pride in the many contributions that their work can make to enhancing human life. These include improved treatment of illness, better education, creation of sophisticated information processing machines and new insights into ancient human mysteries such as the nature of the mind and the self. But there is also a dark side to neuroscience. Like any body of knowledge, it can be used for good or ill. Yet neuroscientists often seem unaware of the potential of their field to threaten or damage human life. Aggressive wars and coercive interrogation methods such as torture are two particularly egregious ways in which human life is damaged or threatened. Not only are both immoral, they are also illegal under national and international laws. At the Nuremberg trials following being used in Afghanistan and the defeat of Nazi Germany, aggressive war was judged to be elsewhere. Autonomous robots not only an international crime, that can move, perceive, decide and kill on their own are in the but the supreme international crime. Prevention of such wars offing, as political scientist and military commentator Peter W. was a major reason for the founding of the United Nations. Singer describes in his book Wired Neuroscience can be of service for War. Neuroscientific work on to both aggressive war and to motor control, perception, and coercive interrogation methods. cognition can be readily applied to the construction of such robots. Potential contributions to aggressive war include Potential neuroscience pharmaceutical agents that contributions to torture are also enhance the effectiveness of one clear. These include the creation nation's soldiers or damage the of drugs that cause extreme pain, anxiety or unwarranted trust, effectiveness oftheir enemy's. as well as manipulations such In addition, war is becoming as focused brain stimulation more and more dependent on or inactivation. robots such as the MQ-g Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles now A pledge is being circulated 24 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
among neuroscientists around the world with the aim of creating greater awareness of the potential dark side of neuroscience. Those signing the pledge commit to two things. First, to make themselves aware of possible applications that would violate international law or human rights, and second, to act in accordance with national and international law by refusing to knowingly participate in the application of neuroscience to such violations. Thus signers of the pledge are committing to "Neuroscience can be of service both to aggressive war and to coercive interrogation methods"
acting responsibly, morally and in obedience to the law. Once signatures have been gathered, neuroscience organisations, such as the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and the Society for Neuroscience, will be asked to amend their ethics statements to forbid knowing participation in such applications. Similar pledges and petitions have been signed by scientists from other disciplines. The majority of members of the American Psychological Association have signed a petition declaring that "psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g. the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva conventions) or the US Constitution". The governing bodies of the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have also condemned participation in torture. Many anthropologists have signed a pledge issued by the Network of Concerned Anthropologists in relation to the US's "war on terror", declaring that "anthropologists should refrain from directly assisting the US military in combat, be it through torture, interrogation or tactical advice". The American Association of Anthropology's executive board has issued a statement in accord with the pledge. Unlike psychologists, physicians or anthropologists, neuroscientists are unlikely to provide direct assistance to
Comment on these stories at www.NewScientist.com/opinion
combat forces fighting an aggressive war or participate directly in torture. They could provide tools for such purposes, however, and thus act as accessories to the crime. Opinions may vary as towhether a given application constitutes torture and whether a given war is an aggressive war. Here one can be guided by international law as embodied in the UN charter, the Geneva conventions and the Convention Against Torture. Aggressive war, for example, is defined as a war that is not in self defence, with the corollary that all peaceful means of resolving a conflict must be pursued before a war is begun. Opinions will be especially varied concerning aggressive war, but the pledge simply commits signers, once convinced that a war is aggressive, to refuse to provide the government conducting the war with additional tools. Signing this pledge will not stop aggressive wars or human rights violations, or even the use of neuroscience for these purposes. But by signing, neuroscientists will help make such applications less acceptable. The pledge gives neuroscience the opportunity to join with other professions in moving away from militarism and violence toward a culture of peace and respect for human life. Professionals and their organisations have a special responsibility in this regard, because they are members of a respected elite with knowledge and influence. Our goal as neuroscientists and human beings should be to create a culture that encourages a pplications that enhance human life while discouraging those that damage it. If you are a neuroscientist and you agree, sign the pledge.• Curtis Bell is a neuroscientist and
One minute with ...
Rob H o p kins A prime mover behind the Tra nsiti on Towns move ment explains why he is opti m i stic about our a b i l ity to wea n ou rselves off o i l
Can you tell m e more about the Transition Towns movement? A Transition Town is formed when a group of i ndividuals gets together to ask how their community can m itigate the effects of a potential reduction in oil and drastically reduce their carbon emissions to offset climate change. The scheme has become so su ccessful we now have 250 official Transition Towns and Cities worldwide, with many more interested in becoming involved. Transition Towns have set up bartering systems like local currencies and seed exchanges; what other in itiatives are they taking? In England, Totnes and Lewes are setting up
PROFILE
the first energy companies owned and run by the
Rob Hopkins taught a permaculture course
community - Transition Stroud has written the
in Ireland before found ing his com m unity-led
local council's food strategy. One group i n Scotl and
response to peak oil and climate change, the
has managed to get access to land for new
Transition Towns movement
a l lotments in their area and the first university scheme has just been set up at the U n iversity of Edinburgh.
oil ava i lable to having less cheap oil ava i lable each year. It's the shift from a time when our economic
You're about to launch an Energy Descent
su ccess, our perso nal prowess and wealth is
Action Plan for Totnes. What is it?
directly li nked to how much fossil fuel we
It's based on the idea that the way out of our
consume, to a time when our degree of oil
current economic situation isn't to carry on as
dependency is a vulnerability. By 2030 we will be
normal. We have to look at the local economy and
entering a time of increasing volatil ity in terms of
askwhat a town could look like i n the next 20
price and availabil ity. For an economy which is
years if oil production has peaked - "peak oil" - and
designed to function on a plentiful supply of cheap
climate change is a real ity. So the vision for food
oil, that's a histor i c transition.
might be that people have a local food economy with more urban agriculture employing local
Are there specific characteristics that make
people. We then work out how we might a chieve
a Transition Town more likely to succeed?
this. For instance, we look a t the land ava i lable,
We have a thing called the "cheerful disclaimer" -
how it is used and to what degree the area could
which means we have no idea if the idea is going
be self-reliant.
to work or not. It's a n invitation to have a go.
When do you think we're going to run
If the majority of people in a Transition Town
outof oil?
were on-board, are they more likely to survive
We're probably not going to run out of oil in our
peak oil or climate change?
lifetime. There won't be a mythical moment when
There are no guara ntees tha t your community wi l l b e immune to cli mate cha nge. But I think human
Senior Scientist Emeritus at Oregon
someone i n Leicestershire pours out the last drop
Health and Science University in
into thei r car and that's it; what matters is the
beings have an i n-built survival mechanism.
Portland. The pledge can be signed
poi nt at which we move from havi ng more cheap
Interview by Jessica Griggs
at tinyurl .com/neurosci entistpledge
6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 25
OPINION LETTERS
Hi g h-tec h b ord ers From Christos Giannou
spent more money and effort ensuring that the "have nots" had more access to what the "haves" have, then we could spend less on keeping the "have nots" away from the "haves".
Paul Marks ends his article on robot border guards (9 January, p 20) with a question about the privacy implications of such Taroona, Tasmania, Australia surveillance technologies for people who live close by. There are other questions we should be asking, such as whether technology really is the answer to controlling illegal immigration. The main reasons people leave their homes, often under dangerous circumstances, are poverty, war, tyranny, corruption and injustice. Are better radar and sensors the way to deal with these issues? If the world tackled the socio-economic problems behind illegal immigration, perhaps rich countries would not have to hide In your head behind high-tech borders. Kastro, Monemvasia, Greece
From Stuart Leslie
Ray Tallis gets it right when he argues that we are a long way Regarding the emergent high-tech from explaining the origin of consciousness (9 January, p 28), border guards reported by Paul Marks, it strikes me that if we but while he does a very good job
From Tim Sprod
of deconstructing some of the research and assumptions surrounding this topic, he fails to address the biggest hurdle: what does he, or indeed anyone else, mean by "consciousness"? Humanities students are taught to carefully define their terms before beginning to discuss them. Philosophers have wrestled inconc!usively with the term "consciousness" for centuries. The concept of consciousness may seem self-evident. Indeed, most people will think that they have understood it until they try to describe exactly what they mean. The difficulty arises because we are dealing with an abstract idea, and a simple definition like "self-awareness" immediately runs into trouble because it uses more abstractions without concrete reference points to define another term which also lacks such reference points. Dorrigo, New South Wales, Australia From Gerald Rudolph
Enigma N u mber 1581
Daley's Gold RICHARD ENGLAND I n J u ly 2009, 16 months after winning the individual divi ng
THOMA S DA L E Y G O L D
gold medal from the lO-metre platform board at the European
No number starts with a zero.
Championships at the age of 13,
Since there are 11 different lellers,
Thomas Da ley won the gold medal
everythi ng is in base 11 - use the
at the World Championships. So it is
dig its 0 to 9 as normal and add a
filling that I can offer this puzzle: In this subtraction, digits have been consistently replaced by
symbol of your choice for the extra digit. Please send in the 6-digit
I ellers, with different lellers
number (sti l l in base 11) that
representing different d igits.
is represented by THOMAS.
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 10 March. The Editor's decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1581, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobal d's Road, London WClX 8NS, o r to
[email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1575 All our days: the FAMOUS n u mber is 528941 The win ner Doug Fenna of Ryde, Isle of Wight, UK
Perhaps Ray Tallis could have gone a bit further in his article on consciousness. He wrote of science beginning when we escape our first-person subjective experience. Yet the conceptual understanding of science itself, with its logical and mathematical thinking, consists of activities occurring in that same piece of flesh that the neurophysiologists are exploring. Even if we believe that we have a form of scientific objectivity, each one of us is still limited by the fact that we are corporeal human beings, and consequently are constrained by the particular types of chemical activity that take place in our brains as we reason about their perceptions. However objective neurophysiologists try to be, their research still boils down to consciousness studying consciousness. Lexington, South Carolina, US
26 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
From Derek Bolton
When discussing the "unity" of consciousness, Ray Tallis says he "can relate [experiencesI at a given time (the pressure of the seat on my bottom, the sound oftraffic, my thoughts) to one another as elements of a single moment". Maybe he can, but I can't. I can contemplate each different input in turn, but to what extent am I really aware of them all at once? There are known limits to how well we can discern the order of two sensory inputs of different types. An explanation of continuity of experience and the simultaneous nature of events could be that they are illusions constructed from memory. Tallis further maintains, when talking about the biology of the brain, that " there is nothing in the convergence. . . of neural pathways that gives us this ... ability to see things as both whole and separate". Not so. For example, it is possible to experience the whole of a piece of music when I listen to it : I am aware of the melody and the rhythm, and the synthesis of the two, because each ofthese three aspects ofthe music can have its own neural correlate. Birchgrove, New South Wales, Australia From Tim Wilkinson
As Ray Tallis suggests, any account of consciousness based on brain function will lack a plausible explanation for how the cold unconscious world of particles and forces is able to perform the trick of generating a subjective, self-aware experience. Nevertheless, if we show that the brain can generate consciousness, it is not necessary to know how it does so to rule out supernatural sources. We can be sure that the provenance of consciousness is entirely natural. By what means we will solve the difficult "how" question we cannot say at this stage. The answer may involve completely
For more letters and to join the debate, visit www.NewScientist.com/letters
new phenomena, hitherto unnoticed. Perhaps we will never know, but while we wait for the answer, philosophers are justified in claiming that a proper explanation of consciousness cannot come from any possible rearrangement of the kind of physics we already have. We should be pleased : even if space and matter yield their secrets to the Large Hadron Collider, we have something even more fascinating to investigate.
glory, a passion, an intensity that constitutes a marvellous synthesis of both intellect and emotions. Sydney, Australia
Weather isn't climate From Michael Payton
Michael Le Page roundly turns on anyone who dares to suggest that the current severe winter conditions throughout the northern hemisphere put a Hough ton-Ie-Spring, question mark over the existence Tyne and Wear, UK of global warming (16 january, p 20). Ifthat were right, he says, the sceptics would have to accept F e el the music that a spell of hot weather would mean the climate was getting From Georg Pedersen, Sydney warmer - equally nonsensical, Conservatorium ofMusic The list of obscure or little-studied since extreme weather proves nothing about climate change. emotions in jessica Griggs's Yet don't those who subscribe article (16 january, p 26) barely to the idea of climate change scratched the surface. regularly fall into the same As any music-lover knows, there is a world of intense emotions trap, using extreme weather out there that are impossible to scenarios - or the lack of them to make their case? For example, verbalise or conceptualise. To experience music is to experience in 2000 David Viner, then of the a separate universe, one created University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, claimed a entirely by humans. The deeper consequence of global warming we penetrate this world, the more would be that within a few years subtle it becomes and the harder to describe. children in the UK "just aren't going to know what snow is". Would Le Page also dismiss Viner as "intellectually challenged or plain dishonest"? London, UK
Apple Mac users would voluntarily install unknown software." I must assume that this expert Palmerston North, New Zealand either works in academia, where the world may look different, The editor writes: or has had little exposure to • "The 1609.3 kph car" would commercial security testing. have lacked charisma. The teams There is little evidence that Apple we reported chose 1000 mph as Mac users are any more security their target, so just this once, for ease of comparison, we used miles conscious than anyone else. per hour throughout the article. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK scientific magazine such as yours condones the continued use of this anachronism?
Blink of a butterfl y
From Michael Shaw
From Bern ie Mason
I was astounded to read in The Last Word piece about how high butterflies fly (16 january) that commercial airline pilots have reported seeing monarch butterflies at between 3000 and 4000 metres. What I would give for eyesight that good: commercial airlines cruise at about 250 metres per second. How do pilots manage such feats of observation? Flowerdale, Tasmania
Rac e to m etric From Ross Richdale
Perhaps in trying to understand our experience of music we are faced with the same kinds of problems we encounter when trying to understand consciousness - in other words, we have little idea how it comes about or even how to talk or think about it. But for anyone who listens to music, there is a
I was disappointed by David Cohen's article about the 1000 mph car (21 November 2009, p 38): surely in this day and age you could use metric units. In New Zealand and Australia we gave up the archaic imperial measurements about 30 years ago. I know that the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK insist on staying in the dinosaur age but how can they be expected to join the rest of the world if a
Pizza perfect As an employee of a chain of pizza restaurants, I initially found Stephen Ornes's article on the mathematics of preparing perfect pizza portions highly insightful (12 December 2009, p 48). However, as soon as I began to attempt the method it described I floundered. This only appears to work with margherita pizzas and others with a strictly uniform distribution of toppings. Alas, I found it oflittle help when sharing pizza with my fellow employees. Bristol, UK
F or the r ec ord • Possessing a "grid" of bra i n cells
that helps us to navigate might explain why some people a re better at finding their way around than others (23 Janua ry, p 15). Although these cells provide a virtual grid on which locations in the world can be represented i n the brain, we should
Mac attack From Kevin Sheldrake
have made it clear that the celis themselves are not arranged i n a physical grid.
In Paul Marks's article on the dangers of hackers using networks Letters should be sent to: of computers to eavesdrop on Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, conversations on your laptop or 84 Theobald's Road, London WClX 8NS Fax: +44 (0) 20 7511 1280 smartphone (16 january, p 17), an Email:
[email protected] anonymous " security expert" claimed that such attacks are too Include you r full posta I add ress a nd telephone crude to pose a serious threat. number, anda reference (issue, page number, title) to articles. We reserve the rightto edit letters. "It is unlikely any worthwhile Reed Business Information reserves the right to target will use Windows use any submissions sent to the letters column of unpatched," he says, "and few New Scientist magazine, in any other format. 6 February 2010 I NewScientist 1 27
OPI NION TH E BIG I DEA
Survival of the fittest theory Darwi n was only half-right a bout evol uti o n : evi d en ce agai nst natu ra l se l e cti o n is m o u nting u p, arg u e Jerry Fodor a n d Massimo Piatte l l i-Palmarini
READERS in search of literature about Darwin or Darwinism will have no trouble finding it. Recent milestone anniversaries of Darwin's birth and ofthe publication oWn the Origin of Species have prompted a plethora of material, so authors thinking of adding another volume had better have a good excuse for it. We have written another book about Darwinism, and we urge you to take it to heart. Our excuse is in the title: What Darwin Got Wrong. Much ofthe vast neo-Darwinianliterature is distressingly uncritical. The possibility that anything is seriously amiss with Darwin's account of evolution is hardly considered. Such dissent as there is often relies on theistic premises which Darwinists rightly say have no place in the evaluation of scientific theories. So onlookers are left with the impression that there is little or nothing about Darwin's theory to which a scientific naturalist could reasonably object. The methodological scepticism that characterises most areas of scientific discourse seems strikingly absent when Darwinism is the topic. Try these descriptions of natural selection, typical ofthe laudatory epithets which abound in the literature: "The universal acid" (philosopher Daniel Dennett inDarwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995); "a mechanism of staggering simplicity and beauty ... [it] has been called the greatest idea that anyone ever had... it also happens to be true" (biologist Jerry Coyne in Why Evolution is True, 2009); "the only workable theory ever proposed that is capable of explaining life we have" (biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins, variously). And as Dennett continues in Darwin's Dangerous Idea: "In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm oflife, meaning, and purpose with the realm of s pace and time, 28 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
cause and effect, mechanism and physical law:' Golly! Could Darwinism really be that good? Darwin's theory of evolution has two connected parts: connected, but not inseparable. First, there is an explanation of the taxonomy of species. It is an ancient observation that if you sort species by similarities among their phenotypes (a phenotype being a particular creature's collection of overt, heritable biological properties) they form the hierarchy known as a " taxonomic tree". This is why most vertebrate species are more similar to one another than they are to any invertebrate species, most species of mammals are more similar to one another than they are to any species of reptiles, and so forth. Why is this? It is quite conceivable that every species might be equally different from every other. What explains why they aren't? Darwin suggested a genealogical hypothesis: when species are relatively similar, it's because they are descended from a relatively recent common ancestor. In some ways, chimps seem a lot like people. This is not because God created them to poke fun at us, or vice versa; it is because humans and chimps are descended from the same relatively recent primitive ape. The current consensus is that Darwin was almost certainly right about this. There are plaUSible exceptions, notably similarities PROALE Je rry Fodor is a phi los opher and cognitive scientist at Rutgers U n iversity, New Jersey, Mass i m o Piatte l l i Palmarini is a cognitive scientist at the Uni v ersi ty of Arizona, Tucson. This essay draws on material from their new book, What Darwin
Got Wrong, pub lished in the US by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and in the UK by Profile
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that arise from evolutionary convergence, phenotypes from each generation to the next but evidence from a number of disciplines, are " imperfect" in the sense given above. Then, including genetics, evolutionary all else being equal, the coloration of the i + lth generation will form a random distribution developmental biology and palaeontology around the mean coloration of the parent argues decisively for Darwin's historical account of the taxonomy of species. We agree generation: most of the offspring will match that this really was as brilliant an idea as it is their parents more or less, but some will be more red than brown, and some will be more generally said to be. brown than red. But that cannot be the whole story, since This assumption explains the random it is not self-evident why species that have a recent common ancestor- as opposed, say, variation of phenotypic traits over time, but it to species that share an ecology - are generally doesn't explain why phenotypic traits evolve. So let's further assume that, in the environment phenotypically similar. Darwin's theory of natural selection is intended to answer this that the species inhabits, the members with brownish coloration are more "fit" than the question. Darwinists often say that natural ones with reddish coloration, all else being selection provides the mechanism of equal. It doesn't much matter exactly how evolution by offering an account of the fitness is defined; for convenience, we'll transmission of phenotypic traits from generation to generation which, if correct, follow the current consensus according to explains the connection between phenotypic "Much ofthe vast n e o similarity and common ancestry. Moreover, it is perfectly general: it applies Da rwinian lite ratur e is to any species, independent ofwhat its distr essingly uncritical" phenotype may happen to be. And it is remarkably simple. In effect, the mechanism of trait transmission it postulates consists which an individual's relative fitness co-varies of a random generator of genotypic variants with the probability that it will contribute that produce the corresponding random its phenotypic traits to its offspring. phenotypic variations, and an environmental Given a certain amount of conceptual and filter that selects among the latter according mathematical tinkering, it follows that, all else to their relative fitness. And that's all. again being equal, the fitness of the species's Remarkable if true. phenotype will generally increase over time, and that the phenotypes of each generation will resemble the phenotype of its recent Compel ling evidence ancestors more than they resemble the But we don't think it is true. A variety of phenotypes of its remote ancestors. different considerations suggesting that it is That, to a first approximation, is the neo not are mounting up. We feel it is high time Darwinian account of how phenotypes evolve. that Darwinists take this evidence seriously, or To be sure, some caveats are required. For offer some reason why it should be discounted. example, even orthodox Darwinists have Our book about what Darwin got wrong reviews always recognised that there are plenty of cases where fitness doesn't increase over time. in detail some of these objections to natural selection and the evidence for them; this So, for example, fitness may decrease when a article is a brief summary. population becomes unduly numerous (that's Here's how natural selection is supposed to density-dependent selection at work), or when work. Each generation contributes an imperfect a species having once attained a "fitness copy ofits genotype - and thereby of its plateau" then gets stuck there, or, of course, phenotype- to its successor. Neo-Darwinism when the species becomes extinct. suggests that such imperfections arise Such cases do not show that neo-Darwinism primarily from mutations in the genomes is false; they only show that the "all else being of members of the species in question. equal" clauses must be taken seriously. Change the climate enough and the next What matters is that the alterations of phenotypes that the mechanisms of trait generation of dinosaurs won't be more fit transmission produce are random. Suppose, than its parents. Hit enough dinosaurs with for example, that a characteristic coloration meteors, and there won't be a next generation. is part of the phenotype ofa particular species, But that does not argue against Darwinian and that the modal members ofthe ith selection, as this claims only to say what generation of that species are reddish brown. happens when the ecology doesn't change, or Suppose, also, that the mechanisms that copy only changes very gradually, which > 6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 29
OPI NION TH E BIG I DEA
organisms contribute to determining how next-generation phenotypes differ from parent-generation phenotypes is random variation. All the non-random variables come from the environment. Suppose, however, that Darwin got this wrong and various internal factors account for the data. If that is so, there is inevitably less for environmental filtering to do. The consensus view among neo-Darwinians continues to be that evolution is random variation plus structured environmental filtering, but it seems the consensus may be shifting. In our book we review a large and Driven from with in varied selection of non-environmental constraints on trait transmission. They These analogies are telling. Skinner's theory, though once fashionable, is now widely agreed include constraints imposed "from below" to be unsustainable, largely because Skinner by physics and chemistry, that is, from very much overestimated the contribution molecular interactions upwards, through that the structure of a creature's environment genes, chromosomes, cells, tissues and organisms. And constraints imposed "from plays in determining what it learns, and above" by universal principles of phenotypic corres pondingly very much underestimated form and self-organisation - that is, through the contribution of the internal or "endogenous" variables - including, in the minimum energy expenditure, shortest paths, optimal packing and so on, down to the particular, innate cognitive structure. morphology and structure of organisms. In our book, we argue in some detail that Over the aeons of evolutionary time, the much the same is true of Darwin's treatment of evolution: it overestimates the contribution interaction ofthese multiple constraints has the environment makes in shaping the produced many viable phenotypes, all compatible with survival and reproduction. phenotype of a species and correspondingly underestimates the effects of endogenous Crucially, however, the evolutionary process in such cases is not driven by a struggle for variables. For Darwin, the only thing that manifestly does not apply i n the case of the dinosaurs and the meteorite strikes. So much for the theory, now for the objections. Natural selection is a radically environmentalist theory. There are, therefore, analogies between what Darwin said about the process of evolution of phenotypes and what the psychologist B. F. Skinner said about the learning of what he called "operant behaviour" - the whole network of events and factors involved in the behaviour of humans and non-human animals.
If Darwin had known what we know now, he might have come to differentconciusions
30 I NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
survival and/or for reproduction. Pigs don't have wings, but that's not because winged pigs once lost out to wingless ones. And it's not because the pigs that lacked wings were more fertile than the pigs that had them. There never were any winged pigs because there's no place on pigs for the wings to go. This isn't environmental filtering, it's just physiological and developmental mechanics. So, how many constraints on the evolution of phenotypes are there other than those that environmental filtering imposes? Nobody knows, but the picture now emerging is of
"Eve ry case offr e e-riding is a c ounter- exampl e to natura l se l ecti on" many, many of them operating in many, many different ways and at many, many different levels. That's what the evolutionary developmental school of biology and the theory that gene regulatory networks control our underlying development both suggest. And it strikes us as entirely plausible. It seems to us to be no coincidence that neo-Darwinian rhetoric in the literature of experimental biology has cooled detectably in recent years. In its place, we find evolutionary biologist Leonid Kruglyak being quoted in Nature in November 2008 (vol 456, p 18) thus: "It's a possibility that there's something [about the contributions of genomic structure to the evolution of complex phenotypes1 we just don't fundamentally understand ... That it's so different from what we're thinking about that we're not thinking about it yet." And then there is this in March 200g from molecular biologist Eugene Koonin, writing in Nuc/eic AcidsResearch (vol 37, p 1011): "Evolutionary-genomic studies show that natural selection is only one ofthe forces that shape genome evolution and is not quantitatively dominant, whereas non adaptive processes are much more prominent than previously suspected." There's quite a lot ofthis sort of thing around these days, and we confidently predict a lot more in the near future. Darwinists say that evolution is explained by the selection of phenotypic traits by environmental filters. But the effects of endogenous structure can wreak havoc with this theory. Consider the following case: traits t1 and t2 are endogenously linked in such a way that if a creature has one, it has both. Now the core of natural selection is the claim that phenotypic traits are selected for their adaptivity, that is, for their effect on
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Notall the traits passed on between generations haveto be selected for their adaptive value
fitness. But it is perfectly possible that one of two linked traits is adaptive but the other isn't; having one ofthem affects fitness but having the other one doesn't. So one is selected for and the other "free-rides" on it. We should stress that every such case (and we argue in our book that free-riding is ubiquitous) is a counter-example to natural selection. Free-riding shows that the general claim that phenotypic traits are selected for their effects on fitness isn't true. The most that natural selection can actually claim is that some phenotypic traits are selected for their effects on fitness; the rest are selected for... well, some other reason entirely, or perhaps for no reason at all. It's a main claim of our book that, when phenotypic traits are endogenously linked, there is no way that selection can distinguish among them: selection for one selects the others, regardless of their effects on fitness.
even to aesthetics and theology. Some people That is a great deal less than the general really do seem to think that natural selection theory ofthe mechanics of evolution that the Darwinists suppose that natural selection is a universal acid, and that nothing can resist provides. Worse still, there isn't the slightest its powers of dissolution. reason to suppose that free-riding exhausts However, the internal evidence to back the kinds of exceptions to natural selection this imperialistic selectionism strikes us as very thin. Its credibility depends largely on that endogenous structures can produce. "All right," you may say, "but why should the reflected glamour of natural selection anybody care?" Nobody sensible doubts that which biology proper is said to legitimise. evolution occurs -we certainly don't. Isn't this Accordingly, if natural selection disappears a parochial issue for professional biologists, from biology, its offshoots in other fields seem with nothing cosmic turning on it? Here's why likely to disappear as well. This is an outcome much to be desired since, more often than not, we think that is not so. Natural selection has shown insidious these offshoots have proved to be not just post imperialistic tendencies. The offering of post hoc but ad hoc, crude, reductionist, scientistic hoc explanations of phenotypic traits by rather than scientific, shamelessly self reference to their hypothetical effects on fitness congratulatory, and so wanting in detail that in their hypothetical environments of selection they are bound to accommodate the data, has spread from evolutionary theory to a host however that data may turn out. So it really of other traditional disciplines: philosophy, does matter whether natural selection is true. psychology, anthropology, sociology, and That's why we wrote our book.• 6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 31
No l i q u i d behaves qu ite as odd ly as water, but a controversial new theory may fi n a l ly have wrung out its secrets, says Edwin Cartlidge
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of Stockholm University, Sweden, and their colleagues, we could at last be getting to the bottom of many of these anomalies. Their controversial ideas expand on a theory proposed more than a century ago by Wilhelm Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays, • I who claimed that the molecules in liquid • water pack together not in just one way, as today's textbooks would have it, but in two fundamentally different ways. • Key to the understanding of water's . • mysteries is the way its molecules - made up .. of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom .,. � "einteract with one another. The oxygen atom ":!". e are confronted by many mysteries, from the nature of dark matter and has a slight negative charge while the hydrogen . the origin of the universe to the quest atoms share a compensating positive charge. � for a theory of everything. These are all puzzles As such, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms of on the grand scale, but you can observe neighbouring molecules are attracted to one another, forming a link called a hydrogen bond. another enduring mystery of the physical world - equally perplexing, if not quite so Hydrogen bonds are far weaker than the bonds that link the atoms within molecules grand - from the comfort ofyour kitchen. Simplyfill a tall glass with chilled water, throw together, and so are continually breaking and reforming, but they are at their strongest .- in an ice cube and leave it to stand. when molecules are arranged so that each The fact that the ice cube floats is the first oddity. And the mystery deepens if you take a hydrogen bond lines up with a molecular bond (see diagram, page 35). The shape ofa water thermometer and measure the temperature of the water at various depths. At the top, near molecule is such that each HP molecule is the ice cube, you'll find it to be around 0 °c, surrounded by four neighbours arranged in but at the bottom it should be about 4 0c. the shape of a triangular pyramid - better known as a tetrahedron. That's because water is denser at 4°C than it is at any other temperature - another strange At least, that's the way the molecules trait that sets it apart from other liquids. arrange themselves in ice. According to the Water's odd properties don't stop there (see conventional view, liquid water has a similar, "Water's mysteries", right, and page 34), and albeit less rigid, structure, in which extra some are vital to life. Because ice is less dense molecules can pack into some of the open ga ps than water, and water is less dense at its in the tetrahedral arrangement. That explains freezing point than when it is slightly warmer, why liquid water is denser than ice - and it seems to fit the results of various experiments it freezes from the top down rather than the in which beams of X-rays, infrared light and bottom up. So even during the ice ages, life neutrons are bounced off samples of water. continued to thrive on lake floors and in the deep ocean. Water also has an extraordinary True, some physicists had claimed that water placed under certain extreme capacity to mop up heat, and this helps conditions may separate into two different smooth out climatic changes that could otherwise devastate ecosystems. structures (see "Extreme water", page 35), Yet despite water's overwhelming but most had assumed it resumes a single importance to life, no single theory had been structure under normal conditions. able to satisfactorily explain its mysterious Then, 10 years ago, a chance discovery by Pettersson and Nilsson called this picture into properties - until now. Ifwe can believe question, They were using X-ray absorption physicists Anders Nilsson at Stanford spectroscopy to investigate the amino acid University, California, and Lars Pettersson •
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WATE R'S MYSTE R I E S Picturing water as a liquid that can form two types of structure, one tetrahedral and the other disordered, could explain many of water's unusual properties. Here are 10 of them Water is most dense at 4 O( EXPLANATION: Heating reduces the number of ordered, tetrahedral structures in favour of a more disordered arrangement in which molecules are more densely packed. However, the heat also agitates the molecules in the disordered regions, causing them to m ove further apart. Above 4 0(, this effect takes precedence, making the water less dense Water has an exceptionally high specific heat capacity: it takes a lot of heat energy to raise water's temperature by a given amount EXPLANATION: Much of the extra heat energy is used to convert more molecules from the tetrahedral structures to the disordered structu res, rather than into increasi ng the kinetic energy of the molecules, and hence the temperature. Specific heat capacity is at a minimum at 35 O( but increases as the temperature falls or rises, whereas the heat capacity of most other liquids rises conti nuously with temperature. EXPLANATION: Between 0 and 35°(, increasing the temperature steadily removes regions of ordered, tetrahedral structure, reducing water's ability to absorb heat. Above 35 0(, so few of the tetrahedral regions are left that water behaves like a reg ular l iquid. Water's compressibility drops with increasing temperature unti l it reaches a minimum at 46 0(, whereas in most l i quids, the compressibility rises continuously with temperature EXPLANATION: As the temperature rises, the dense, disordered regions become more prevalent, and these are more difficult to compress. However, rising temperature also forces molecules within these regions further apart and hence makes them more compressible. This effect takes precedence beyond 46 0(,
6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 33
IIWh at we saw i n the water was sensatio n a l, so we had to g et to the bottom of itll
XPbANATION: The strong attraction between water molecules keeps them more closely packed than the molecules of many other liquids. This effect is particularly marked when the higher-density disordered structure dominates The speed of sou nd in water increases with temperature up to 74 0(, after which it starts to fa Ii again EXPLANATION: This isthe result of the interplay between water's u n usual density and compressibility profiles, which directly stem from the changing balance between the two types of structure. Water molecules diffuse more easily, not less easily, at higher pressures EXPLANATION: High pressure converts more molecules to the disordered structure, in which they are more mobile. Unlike many liquids, water becomes less viscous,
glycine. The peaks in the X-ray absorption spectrum can shed light on the precise nature of the target substance's chemical bonds, and hence on its structure. Importantly, the researchers had got hold of a new, high-power X-ray source with which they were able to make more sensitive and accurate measurements than had ever been possible. They soon realised that the water containing their glycine sample was producing a far more interesting spectrum than the amino acid. "What we saw there was sensational," Nilsson recalls, "so we had to get to the bottom of it."
not more viscous, at higher pressures EXPLANATION: Molecules are freerto move when in the disordered structures, which are favoured at higher pressures, than when they are in the ordered, tetrahedral structure. Increasing the pressure increases the amount by which water expands on heati ng EXPLANATION: Rising temperature causes disordered regions to expand more rapidly than ordered, tetrahedral ones, and high pressure favours fluctuations to the disordered regions. Properties such as viscosity, boiling point and melting poi nt are significantly d ifferent in "heavy" water - made from the heavier hydrogen isotopes deuteri um and tritium - compared with their equivalents in normal water. EXPLANATION: The heavier isotopes change the quantum mechanical properties of water molecules, altering the balance of the disordered and tetrahedral regions. David Robson
34 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
Dramatic impl ications The feature that sparked their interest was a peak in the absorption spectrum that is not predicted by the traditional model ofliquid water. In fact, in a paper published in 2004 they concluded that at any given moment 85 per cent ofthe hydrogen bonds in water must be weakened or broken, far more than the 10 per cent predicted by the textbook model (Science, vol 304, p 995). The implications ofthis finding are dramatic: it suggests that a total rethink of the structure of water is needed. So Nilsson and Pettersson turned to other X-ray experiments to confirm their claims. Their first move was to enlist the help of Shik Shin of the University ofTokyo, Japan, who specialises in a technique called X-ray emission spectroscopy. The key thing about these spectra is that the shorter the wavelength of the X-rays in a substance's emission spectrum are, the looser the hydrogen bonding must be.
The team struck gold: the spectrum of emitted X-rays included two peaks that might correspond to two separate structures. The spike of the longer-wavelength X-rays, the researchers argued, indicates the proportion oftetrahedrally arranged molecules, while the shorter-wavelength peak reflects the proportion of disordered molecules. Importantly, the shorter-wavelength peak in the X-ray emissions was the more intense of the two, suggesting that the loosely bound molecules must be more prevalent within the sample - an assertion that fitted the team's previous models. What's more, they also found that this peak shifts to an even shorter wavelength as the water is heated, while the other peak remains more or less fixed (Chemical Physics Letters, vol 460, p 387). That suggests that the hydrogen bonds connecting molecules arranged in a disordered way are more likely to loosen upon heating than those linking the more regularly arranged molecules - which again is what the team had predicted. They then reanalysed older experimental data that had seemed to support the traditional picture of water and now argue that these results, too, are consistent with the new model. If the team is right, another question arises: how large are the different structures within the liquid? To find out, they turned to the high-power X-rays generated at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource in California, this time measuring how water scatters rays arriving from various angles. The results, they say, reveal that water is dotted with small regions of tetrahedrally
arranged molecules, each region being 1 to 2 nanometres across (Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences, vol 106, p 15214). Combined with further measurements carried out by Uwe Bergmann at Stanford University, they concluded that the ordered structures consisted of roughly 50 to 100 molecules, on average, surrounded by a sea of the more loosely bound molecules. These regions are not fixed, however. In less than a trillionth of a second, water molecules are thought to fluctuate between the two states as the hydrogen bonds break and reform.
The two faces of wate r Each water molecule has the potential to form hydrogen bonds with four neigh bouring m o l e c u l e s : one via each of its hydrogen atoms plus two via its oxygen atom, Fluctuations betwe en the two resulting structures could explai n waters u n i q u e prop erties With a l l fou r hy drogen bonds i n place, the
result is a regu lar tetrahedral structure
Water m o lecu l es are more densely packed w h e n they are i n a m o r e ran d o m, disordered
structure
Explaining the inexpl icable The changing balance between Nilsson and Pettersson's two types ofwater provides an explanation for the way water's density peaks at 4°C. In the disordered regions, water molecules are more closely packed, making them denser than regions where the molecules are arranged in a tetrahedral structure. At 0 °C these disordered regions should be relatively uncommon, but as the water is warmed the extra heat energy tends to shake the more ordered structure apart, so molecules spend less time in the tetrahedral structure and more time in the disordered regions, making it more dense on average. Counterbalancing this, the loosely bound molecules will move around more vigorously as the temperature rises, gradually forcing them further apart from each other. Once enough ofthe molecules become loosely bound - at 4 °C - this expansion effect will dominate, and the density will fall with increasing temperatures. According to Pettersson, the theory offers equally tidy explanations for many of water's other previously inexplicable anomalies something they say that no other theory can
MOLECULAR BOND HYDROGEN ATOM
yet achieve (see "Water's mysteries", pages 33 and 34). Martin Chaplin, a chemist at London South Bank University, agrees. Explanations based on the conventional one-component system have to "go round the houses" to try to accommodate the maxima and minima in various properties as the temperature of water changes, he says. "The dual-structure idea is strongly supported by experiment and can explain water's anomalies far more readily than the conventional picture," Chaplin says. Nilsson and Pettersson's 2004 paper in Science has now been cited over 350 times by other researchers. Yet many remain sceptical. One criticism is that the team's explanation of their X-ray spectroscopy results is based on simulations of at least 50 interacting water molecules - an immensely complex model that can only be resolved approximately. "We need a much more accurate theory
EXTRE M E WAT E R The dual structure of water proposed by
seen as fluctuations i n water's density. Sure
Anders Nilsson of Stanford U niversity,
enough, the size of the fleeting high and
California, and Lars Pettersson of Stockholm
low-density regions seen in Nilsson and
University in Sweden may be a ghostly
Pettersson's X-ray scatteri ng experiments
echo of the strange properties of
are consistent with his theory's predictions.
"supercool" water - water that has been cooled to below O°C withoutfreezing. Eugene Stanley of Boston University and his colleagues have long claimed that
However, physicist Alan Soper at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire in the UK is not convinced that these density d ifferences are anything
at temperatures below about -50°C and
other than the density fluctuations that
pressures of more than 1000 times
can occur in any l iquid.
atmospheric pressure, distinct high and
The crux of this dispute concerns the
low-density forms of supercool water should
precise statistical distribution of regions of
exist. Several research groups claim they
different denSity. According to Nilsson and
have found evidence for these two structures. Stanley, however, believes there should
in order to make such drastic claims," says Richard Saykally at the University of California, Berkeley. He claims that minor ad justments to the arrangement of the hydrogen bonds in the conventional structure are enough to explain Nilsson and Pettersson's X-ray results. One member oftheir group, Michael Odelius of Stockholm University, even left the collaboration because he disagreed with their interpretation of the X-ray emission data. One detail that alienated many sceptics was an assertion in the 2004 paper that the more loosely bound molecules form rings and chains - and indeed Nilsson and his colleagues are now less specific about the structure ofthe disordered molecules. Eugene Stanley of Boston University, however, does not believe that this fatally damages the team's case. "I don't think they should be condemned forever," he says. Though their argument is not yet watertight, the X-ray scattering results provide "one more piece of supporting evidence", he says. There is no doubt that Nilsson and Pettersson still face stiff opposition, but the rewards of a comprehensive understanding of the structure ofliquid water could be considerable. It could lead to a better understanding of how drugs and proteins interact with water molecules within the body, for example, and so provide more effective medicines. And by giving us a better idea of how water behaves around narrow pores, it might improve water desalination attempts and so increase access to clean water. "Our understanding of water is an evolving picture," Pettersson says. "Further research by many different groups is needed before this exciting and important journey can end." With so much to gain, who could disagree? •
Pettersson's model, there should be two peaks attwo distinctly different densities,
Edw i n Cartlidge is a j ournalist based in Rome,
be small but discernible traces of this
but Soper believes only one continuous
Italy. To enjoy more stunning images of water in
behaviour at higher temperatures too -
distribution is possi ble.
moti on by Shinichi M a ruyama, visit his website: www.shinichimaruyama.com
6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 35
Oxygen made us, But what made oxygen, asks Nick Lane
as O
XYGEN i s life. That's true not just for us : all animals and plants need oxygen to unleash the energy they scavenge from their environment. Take away oxygen and organisms cannot produce enough energy to support an active lifestyle, or even make them worth eating. Predation, an essential driver of evolutionary change, becomes impossible. It is easy to picture a planet without oxygen. It looks like Mars. Our nearest planetary neighbour was probably once a water world too, primed for life to evolve. But it lacked a vital ingredient: a protective shield of ozone derived from oxygen. Without an ozone layer, the sun's rays slowly atomised the Martian water. The hydrogen floated off into space while the oxygen oxidised the iron-rich Martian topsoil, turning it rust-red. Perhaps there is - or was - life on Mars. But ifso it never progressed beyond the bacterial stage. So how did Earth get lucky? Ten years ago, when I was writing my book Oxygen, it didn't seem too big a deal. Photosynthesising bacteria were the magic ingredient. These tiny organisms popped up in Earth's oceans early on, sometime between 4 and 3 billion years ago. In the cou pie of billion years that followed, their oxygenic exhaust fumes slowly did the job. By 600 million years ago, the air was primed for complex animal and plant life. Now this cosy story has collapsed. We are no longer so sure how Earth's atmosphere got and retained - its oxygen-rich atmosphere. "Photosynthesis by itself was not enough," says Graham Shields, a geochemist at University College London. "It was a complex dance between geology and biology:' Uncovering life's earliest origins is never an easy task. There are no large animal or plant fossils to draw on: these only make an appearance starting around 600 million years ago. Yet perhaps remarkably, hints of life's humble beginnings do survive in ancient 36 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
rocks, crushed by the weight of sediment and time. With ardour, patience and skill, they can be marshalled into a convincing story. William Schopf had those qualities. Two decades ago he thought he had the story, too. A palaeontologistat the University of California, Los Angeles, he was investigating the Apex cherts of Western Australia, 3-S-billion-year old rocks that are among the oldest on Earth. In 1993, he announced that they contained 11 different types of " microfossil" that looked for all the world like modern photosynthesising cyanobacteria (Science, vol 260, p 640). The finding fitted a global pattern. Other 3.S-billion-year-old Australian rocks contained rippling structures that looked like fossil stromatolites. A few examples of these structures, domed edifices up to a metre high built by cyanobacteria, still eek out a marginal existence in salty lagoons on the coast of Western Australia and elsewhere. Meanwhile, 3.8-billion-year-old rocks from Greenland had reduced levels of one of the two stable carbon isotopes, carbon-13, compared with the other, carbon-12 - a chemical signature of photosynthesis. It seemed that life had come early to Earth: astonishingly soon after our planet formed some 4.6 billion years ago, photosynthesising bacteria were widespread. This emerging consensus lasted only until 2002, when palaeontologist Martin Brasierof the University of Oxford unleashed a barrage of criticisms. The Apex cherts, he claimed, were far from being the tranquil sedimentary basin evoked by Schopf. In fact, they were shot through with hydrothermal veins that were no setting for cyanobacteria. Other evidence that the rocks had undergone convulsions in the past made the rippling stromatolites no more biological in origin than ri pples on a sandy beach. As for the microfossils Schopf had identified, they ranged from the "almost plausible to the completely ridiculous". >
6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 37
IIWith a l l of oxygen's ups a n d d owns, l ife on E a rth was even l u ckier th a n we tho u g ht to g et as far as it hasll
Mind the gap If, as seems increasingly likely, photosynthesising cyanobacteria first made an appearance in Earth's oceans around 2.7 billion years ago, why did they take so long to make a difference to Earth's air? One possibil ity is that the oxygen's first chemical mission was to oxidise all the iron and compounds l i ke hydrogen sulphide in the oceans. Only after it had done that was it free to escape into the atmosphere. Perhaps the most persuasive answer, though. is purely geologicaL It comes from veteran geologist Heinrich Holland of Harvard University. He points the finger at gases such as methane and hydrogen sulphide that are constantly spouted out by volcanoes. They
This very public spat produced no clear outcome, but since then new evidence has been emerging. In 2006, Thomas McCollom ofthe University of Colorado in Boulder and Jeffrey Seewald of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts found that reactions known as Fischer Tropsch syntheses can occur in hydrothermal vents, leaving a carbon isotope signature that mimics photosynthesis with no need for a biological explanation. The mere possibility that hot water might have massaged the evidence in Australia and elsewhere was damning enough for the duo. "The possibility must be entertained that complex life was not present on Earth, or at least not widespread, until a much later date," they wrote (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol 243, p 74). That conclusion was supported by a reanalysis of " biomarkers" found in 2.7-billion-year-old Australian shales. These organic molecules had been thought to indicate the presence of cyanobacteria, but in 2008 an Australian team concluded that the shales had been contaminated by ancient oil that had filtered down into the sediments some time after the rocks first formed (Nature, vol 455, p 1101). Even more damningly, in September 2009 a French team discovered living bacteria buried deep down in ancient rocks of a similar age (PLoS One, vol 4, p e5298).
would have reacted with the first free oxygen to form carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxides. effectively removing the oxygen from circulation (Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. vol 73. p 5241).
Holland proposed that two processes took place over geological time. First. the supply of radioactive fuels in Earth's interior gradually dwindled. reducing its internal temperature. That in turn damped down the rate of volcanic emissions. and the rate at which oxygen consuming gases entered the atmosphere gradually fell too. Second. the volcanic gases themselves contained more oxygen. Oxygen produced by the first cyanobacteria would have steadily oxidised surface rocks. As those rocks cycle through the Earth's mantle through the standard processes of subduction and convection. rocks with an extra load of oxygen gradually fed through to the gases emitted by volcanoes. As cyanobacteria continued to pump out oxygen. there came a point where the balance tipped inexorably towards oxygen. and the excess finally accumulated in the air. Perhaps it took the 300 million years leading up to the great oxygenation eventto getto that tipping point.
38 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
C ru mbling edifice Perhaps the decisive blow came in August last year, when Daniele Pinti ofthe University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, and his colleagues announced results from a survey of the Apex cherts using advanced microscopy techniques. They concluded that the rocks had formed ina hydrothermal vent at a searing 250 'c or more -way too hot for cyanobacteria. The "microfossils", they said, were mostly deposits of iron oxides and clay minerals (Nature Geoscience, vol 2, p 640). These new lines of evidence mean that the oldest undisputed signs of cyanobacteria are now fossils found in rocks from the Belcher Islands in northern Canada dating from just 2.1 billion years ago. So where does that leave our ideas about how life evolved, and the part oxygen played in that evolution? In one sense it is no bad thing: it removes an embarrassing billion-plus year delay between cyanobacteria arising and oxygen levels in the air first taking a significant upwards turn. In this "great oxygenation event" of around 2.4 billion years ago, levels rose from around 1 per cent of today's levels to perhaps 10 per cent.
Our best guess is still that cyanobacteria were around some time before this event. Persuasive evidence is converging on a date around 2.7 billion years ago (see diagram, right). Research from Linda Godfrey and Paul Falkowski of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, indicates that the modern nitrogen cycle kicked off around this time. This requires free oxygen to form nitrogen oxides, suggesting that a first whiff of oxygen not even 1 per cent oftoday's levels - had just appeared (Nature Geoscience, vol 2, p 725). That squares with evidence from Robert Frei of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues that the oxidative weathering of rocks kicked off around this time too. They measured levels of chromium in ancient marine rock layers known as banded iron formations. Exposed to oxygen in the air, the metal is weathered from rocks and washed out to sea, where it reacts immediately with iron, settles to the ocean bottom and forms these layers. The chromium signature in them suggests there was essentially no oxidative weathering before 2.7 billion years ago, after which chromium became significantly more mobile (Nature, vol 461, p 250). If these coordinated changes are the calling cards ofthe first photosynthesising bacteria, there is still a mysterious hiatus of 300 million years before the great surge in oxygen 2-4 billion years ago. The gap is less embarrassing than a billion years, but still needs explaining (see "Mind the gap", left). Yet this puzzle masks a more fundamental new twist to the tale. It is that the great oxygenation event was perhaps not as decisive an event as we thought. It certainly happened -a suite of geochemical evidence leaves little room for doubt on that score - and it was traumatic, too. Evidence of a sudden drop in ultraviolet radiation penetrating to Earth's surface 2-4 billion years ago indicates it was enough to create the ozone layer- a pivotal event that ensured our planet's history diverged from that of Mars. It also seems to have been the forerunner to a "snowball Earth". IfJoe Kirschvink ofthe California Institute ofTechnology in Pasadena and many others are correct, the oxygen produced by cyanobacteria oxidised the potent greenhouse gas methane, precipitating a global freeze. "That raises the spectre of one mutant organism being able to destroy an entire planetary ecosystem - the first biogenic climate disaster," says Kirschvink. And yet the great oxygenation was impermanent. The same chromium record that provides evidence for a first whiff of oxygen 300 million years before this event
Did l i chens help oxygen to finally break free?
shows that, by 1. 9 billion years ago, levels of breathable oxygen in Earth's atmosphere were back down to the merest trace. We don't know why. It might have been a knock-on effect from a big freeze: if Earth did indeed enter a snowball phase, glaciers would have scoured huge amounts of nutrients from the underlying rock. When the ice eventually retreated, melted by the build-up of volcanic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, those nutrients would have found their way into the oceans. One idea is that they nourished a huge transient bloom of cyanobacteria that quickly died and rotted, in the process consuming all the oxygen they had once produced. Sti n king oceans Oxygen levels in the atmosphere soon recovered again as rates of photosynthesis and weathering established a new equilibrium, at about 10 per cent of present-day levels. But this was no fresh dawn of a high-octane world: quite the reverse. This time, the oxidative weathering of sulphides on land filled the oceans with sulphate. That in turn fuelled a hardy group of bacteria that filled the oceans with sewer gas - hydrogen suiphide - turning them into stinking, stagnant waters almost entirely devoid of oxygen, rather like the deeper levels ofthe Black Sea today. It was the herald of an extraordinary stasis in Earth's environment lasting nearly a quarter of its history - a period dubbed the "boring billion". But hang on: what happened to the oxygenic utopia in which life supposedly grew and prospered, evolving the complex cells that went on to make up animal and plant life? The answer is that it probably never existed. If
cyanobacteria did produce the first oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, all the evidence is they lacked the oomph to push levels much above 10 per cent of present levels in the long term. That has led William Martin, an expert in cell evolution at the University of Dusseldorf in Germany, and others, to come up with a controversial theory: that the boring billion was anything but boring. In fact, the stinking oceans were the true cradle oflife. Evidence behind this idea includes the fact that mitochondria, the powerhouses of all complex, oxygen-respiring "eukaryotic" cells today, were once far more varied, sometimes "breathing" sulphur or nitrogen instead of oxygen, or even emitting hydrogen gas. It seems that these mitochondria originated in the stinking oceans of the boring billion, which were full of the chemical imbalances that power life today in places, like deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
O2 o n t h e u p The rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere has experienced many setbacks since the fi rst ph otosynthesising cyanobacteria a p p eared, probably 2.7 b i l l i on years ago
Oxygen level down
Volcanic hydrogen sulphide and methane keep oxygen down
to almost zero again
1.9 bya
2.7·2.4 bya SNOWBALL
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EARTH
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STINKING, SEWER LIKE SEAS
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Earth's anoxic stasis was broken in the end by a dramatic series of snowball Earths, indicating bursts of oxygen, beginning about 750 million years ago and recurring over the following 100 million years. They broke the eternal loop : soon afterwards, oxygen levels shot up and never looked back. Animal life soon exploded onto the scene. What made the difference this time? One intriguing possibility is that it was down to the organisms that had evolved in a leisurely way during the boring billion: terrestrial red and green algae and the first lichens. "I suspect the final big rise in oxygen was caused by the greening of the continents from around 800 million years ago," says Shields. Terrestrial algae and lichens get their nourishment in part by breaking down the rocks on which they live. These nutrients flooded into the oceans, stimulating more and more photosynthesis by both cyanobacteria and the more advanced algae that had evolved in the meantime. It did not all end in a " bloom and a bust" this time because lichens kept right on eating away at the rocks. They sustained a higher rate of erosion, and constant flow of nutrients into the ocean, even after the scouring glaciers of various snowball Earth phases had melted. Life's story on Earth is a complex one, perhaps more complex that we ever imagined. After many false starts, a singular combination of chemistry, biology and geology finally came together to unleash the oxygen we breathe. Even then, many ups and downs were to come. To get as far as it has, life on Earth was even luckier than we thought. • Nick La ne is the first Provost's Venture Research
4 BILLION YEARS AGO (bya)
2
0
Fellow at U n iversity College London, and auth or of Life Ascending: The ten great inventions of
evolution (Profile, 2009)
6 Febru a ry 2010 1 NewScientist 1 39
T
The death toll exacted by historical whal i n g could have bee n staggering
As eager wha l ers reach once more for the i r harpoons, reve lations on the forme r abundance of wha les may yet stay the i r hands, says Fred Pearce
40 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
HEY
are enigmatic sea monsters - rare, magnificent beasts patrolling the ocean depths. Yet old chronicles tell of populations of whales hundreds oftimes greater than today. Such tales have long been dismissed as exaggerations, but could they be true? Have humans killed such a staggering number of whales? New genetic techniques for analysing whale populations, alongside a growing archive of fresh historical analysis, suggest so. Taken together, they indicate that we have got our ideas about marine ecology completely upside down: whales may once have been the dominant species in the world's oceans. This is not simply an academic question.
. .. �
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It matters now more than ever before. Whale numbers have been recovering slowly since the end oflarge-scale hunting in 1986, but this global moratorium is only temporary. The International Whaling Commission, the club of mostly former whaling nations which maintains the ban, has rules that say it can reconsider hunting a given whale species if its population climbs back to more than 54 per cent of its pre-hunting levels. Right now, according to IWC estimates, Atlantic humpbacks and Pacific minkes may have recovered sufficiently to put them back in whalers' Sights. But, crucially, such decisions rest on the veracity ofthe IWC's estimates of historical whale populations - 54 per cent of
what, exactly? If the old salts' tales of whale abundance are true, it is way too early to be dusting off those harpoons. Human pressure on whale stocks "was much earlier, much larger and much more significant than previously thought", environmental historian Poul Holm ofthe University of Dublin, Ireland, told a meeting of the Census on Marine Life (CML) project in 2009. Most estimates of how many whales were present in the oceans before hunting began come from population modellers, many of them working for the IWe. These estimates are mostly based on combining the size of current populations with numbers caught in the past, as recorded in the logbooks of whalers. There are other ways to calculate historical whale numbers, though. So far, genetic evidence has received the most attention, in particular the publication of a controversial study in 2003 by Stephen Palumbi and Joe Roman of Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. This study's high numbers appeared to blow IWC historical estimates out of the water, particularly for humpback whales (Science, vol 301, p 508). The pair had investigated whales for signs of genetic variation. Geneticists claim to be able to use this to estimate the size of the population in the past since large populations tend to accumulate diversity through random DNA mutations and breeding, while small populations lose it through inbreeding. The results were dramatic. The IWC believed that before large-scale whaling began, the North Atlantic was home to about 20,OOO humpback whales. With a current population of about 10,000 and rising, this meant that under the 54-per-cent rule hunting could soon resume. But Roman and Palumbi estimated the pre-exploitation population was more than 20 times as great, at 240.000. Globally, they suggested, there may have once been 1.5 million humpbacks, rather than the 100,000 estimated by the IWC. Hostile reception Unsurprisingly, Palumbi got a hostile reception when he presented these figures to the IWC in 2004, and the numbers remain controversial. One leading expert, on condition of anonymity, told New Scientist that the estimates were "ridiculous" and privately accused Palumbi of being " more interested in getting papers into Nature and Science than in getting it right". There are problems with the analysis. It assumes that the particular whale population under scrutiny never bred with others. Critics point out that the now-distinct humpback populations of the North and South Atlantic may well have once done just that. It could be that Roman and Palumbi have inadvertently
estimated the entire Atlantic humpback population, or even the global population rather than that in just the North Atlantic. Palumbi and Roman are not alone, however. Charles Scott Baker, a conservation geneticist at Oregon State University in Newport, has used DNA analysis to investigate minke whales. IWC estimates put their number today near their historical levels of around 600,000 globally. But Scott Baker reckons that as recently as 300 years ago there were probably close to 1.5 million ofthem. That suggests its recovery is still at an early stage. Can these conflicting numbers be reconciled? Historical abundance is estimated using a combination of the current population and the total historical catch. The problem is that nobody can be sure how many whales were taken in the past. Some estimate that the total catch for the 20th century was about 4 million. But official whaling records are incomplete, especially post-war logs. The most dramatic revelations have come from the archives of the former Soviet Union,
itA l a rge n u m be r of
wha l es esca ped the h u nte rs to die l ate r fro m h a rpoon i nj u rieslt which carried out massive illegal harvesting of whales - especially in the 1950S and 1960s while sending false logbook records to the IWe. Memoirs of Russian whaling inspectors published in the past two years reveal that from 1959 to 1961, Soviet whaling fleets killed 25,000 humpback whales in the Southern Ocean, while reporting a catch of just 2710. This continued well into the 1970S according to new revelations at an IWC conference in 2009 by one of the original whistle-blowers, Yuri Mikhalev of the South Ukrainian Pedagogical University in Odessa, Ukraine. Earlier records, where they exist, may be more reliable. Tim Smith, who heads the World Whaling History project, says that "the keepers oflogbooks [in the 19th century] had no incentive and little latitude to under-report catches". Even so, there may still be huge gaps in the data used by today's modellers. British whaling records were often dramatically incomplete, for example. Jennifer Jackson of Oregon State University in Newport has studied right whales off New Zealand, which were heavily hunted in both the 19th and 20th centuries. She discovered that British whalers took an estimated 10,000 whales in the South Pacific that had simply not been included in previous catch estimates. But even after such data gaps are accounted for, the numbers still cannot be reconciled. So what else may have been going on? > 6 Feb ruary 2010 1 NewScientist 1 41
Roman points out that whalers' logbooks, even if scrupulously kept, only report some of the killings. For one thing, manywhales are killed but never landed. Population modellers have traditionally added a few percentage points to allow for this, but many believe that only a minority of the whales attacked by vessels were killed, landed and logged - a large number escaped their hunters to die later from harpoon injuries. Others died in fishing nets, were struck by ships or used as target practice by naval vessels, says Roman. An cient h unters There is also growing evidence of massive damage to whale populations inflicted by humans long before the industrial era of explosive harpoons and factory ships. Some 70,000 records of whale catches and sightings assembled by the History of Marine Animal Populations project, part of the CML, suggest the impact of pre-industrialised hunting on whale stocks was much greater than previously assumed. Basque and japanese fishermen were catching right whales 1000 years ago. And for centuries, many other island and coastal communities have harvested the creatures. Whaling was the first global industry, says marine biologist Callum Roberts of York University in the UK. Whalers were hunting deep in Arctic waters long before explorers
If W h a les we re 'floati n g o i l we l l s', p rovi d i n g o i l fo r ca nd les, street l a m ps a n d m a c h i n e rylf showed up. When Darwin reached the Galapagos Islands in 1835, they were already overrun with American vessels pursuing sperm whales. According to Robert Allen of the University of Oxford, it now appears that many whale populations in the northern hemisphere were ravaged in the 17th and 18th centuries by whalers employing hand-held harpoons and sheer manpower. Back then, whales were essentially "floating oil wells", providing oil for candles, street lamps and machinery, as well as ingredients for perfumes, plus bones for everything from corsets to fishing rods. The downfall of the Arctic bowhead whale is the best documented. Thousands of Dutch whaling ships headed into the Arctic in the 17th and 18th centuries to catch bowheads off Spitsbergen, until the population collapsed. Whaling then moved to the waters off Greenland where a frenzied hunt soon wiped out what had been the biggest whaling ground in the world. Today there are only about 1000 bowheads swimming west of Greenland - and none at all between
Lost gia nts The analysis of genetic diversity suggests that the popu lations of some whales were once far largerthan models suggest
NORTH ATLANTIC H U M PBACK W HALE
Megaptera novaeangfiae
CURRENT POPU LATION
POPU LATION BE FO R E H U NTING, BAS ED ON H ISTORICAL CATCH RECORDS
N O RTH AT LANTIC FIN W HALE
Bafaenoptera physafus
11.000
20.000 40.000
Calculated using current population plus (known and estimated) catches from whaling records
POPU LATION BE FO R E H U NTING, BAS ED ON GENETIC DIVERSITY
240,000
Large populations accumulate diversity through mutation and breeding. Small populations lose it through inbreeding
42 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
3 5 0,000
EASTERN PACI FIC GRAY W HALE
Eschrichtius robustus
Greenland and Spitsbergen, says Allen. The emerging history of pre-industrial whaling, and what it suggests about past whale numbers, raises some important questions. Not just about the wisdom of a return to commercial whaling, but also about ocean life in general. jeremy jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego says the hunting ofwhales has fundamentally reorganised ocean ecosystems. Today, ocean biomass is dominated by small creatures. But he says this "trophic pyramid", with only a tiny tip of large creatures, may not be natural. Before we intervened, he says, the pyramid was probably the other way up, with large beasts dominating the biomass. Keeping these big beasts fed would be possible if the turnover of their smaller prey species was fast enough to ensure that fresh food was constantly being produced. And rather than devouring an ecosystem, a greater number of whales might help feed it : when a whale dies, its carcass sinks to the seabed where it could feed a local population of scavenging species for up to 80 years. Peter Karieva, chief scientist at conservation charity The Nature Conservancy in Seattle, Washington, says there is evidence that the decline of sperm whales in the tropical Pacific has moved the entire ecosystem towards domination by species like squid. We don't know what was lost with the whales - or what else might reappear if their numbers soared. All this new research is putting the scientific credibility of the !WC under increasingly scrutiny. Some hope that the issues might be resolved at the IWC's annual meeting in Agadir, Morocco, in june this year. Don't hold your breath: "The discrepancies are unlikely to be resolved in the scientific committee of the IWC," says !WC scientist Sidney Holt. Until now, says jeremy jackson, the widespread anecdotal evidence of huge numbers of whales and other large animals on the planet has been systematically downgraded by scientists simply because it cannot be proved. He calls the process " scary, unbridled anti-historical determinism". The result, he says, is that "we deny the once-great existence of anything we killed more than a century ago". The new ecological perspective on the past abundance ofwhales is, like Palumbi's work, controversial. Nevertheless, the ever-growing body of historical evidence is siding with the DNA. It suggests that even the most "recovered" oftoday's whale populations are mere ghostly reminders oftheir former dominance. The whale's past may be shrouded in mist, but one thing's for sure- their future is in our hands . • Fred Pearce is environmental consultant for
New Scientist
W i l l beamed power fi n a l ly u nshackle our electron ics from those u g ly power ca bles, asks David Robson
e w res
L
ET'S face it: power cables are unsightly dust-traps. pes, TVs and music players are becoming slicker every year, but the nest ofvipers in the corner of every room remains an ugly impediment to true minimalism. Then there is the inconvenience of charging phones, MP3 players and PDAs. A minor hassle, admittedly, but it is easy to forget to top up the batteries and before you know it you have left the house with a dead gadget. Wouldn't life be simpler if power was invisibly beamed to your devices whenever you walked into a building with an electricity supply? Wireless communication is ubiquitous, after all, so why can't we permanently unshackle our electronics from power cables too? Poor transmission efficiencies and safety concerns have plagued attempts at wireless power transfer, but a handful of start-ups and some big names, like Sony and Intel - are having another go at making it work. The last few years have seen promising demonstrations of cellphones, laptops and TVs being powered wirelessly. Are we on our way to waving goodbye to wires once and for all? The idea of wireless power transfer is almost as old as electricity generation itself. At the beginning ofthe 20th century, Nikola Tesla proposed using huge coils to transmit
electricity through the troposphere to power homes. He even started building Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island, New York, an enormous telecommunications tower that would also test his idea for wireless power transmission. The story goes that his backers pulled the funding when they realised there would be no feasible way to ensure people paid for the electricity they were using, and the wired power grid sprang up instead. Wireless transmission emerged again in the 1960s, with a demonstration of a miniature helicopter powered using microwaves beamed
from the ground. Some have even suggested that one day we might power spaceships by beaming power to them with lasers (New Scientist, 17 February 1996, p 28). As well as this, much theoretical work has gone into exploring the possibility of beaming power down to Earth from satellites that harvest solar energy (New Scientist, 24 November 2007, p 42). Long-distance ground-to-ground wireless power transmission would require expensive infrastructure, however, and with concerns over the safety of transmitting it via high-power microwaves, the > 6 Feb ruary 2010 1 NewScientist 1 43
idea has been met with trepidation. While we won't be seeing a wireless power grid any time soon, the idea of beaming power on a smaller scale is rapidly gaining momentum. That is largely because, with wireless communication, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and ever-shrinking circuits, power cables are now the only limit to becoming truly portable. "The move was inevitable once wireless communication became popular," says David Graham, a co-founder of Powerbeam in San Jose, California. With this new impetus, engineers and start-up companies have jumped at the challenge, and while beamed power is still in its infancy, three viable options seem to be emerging. The use of radio waves to transmit electricity is perhaps the most obvious solution, since you can in principle use the same kinds of transmitters and receivers used in Wi-Fi communication. Powercast, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has recently used this technology to transmit microwatts and milliwatts of power over at least 15 metres to industrial sensors. They believe a similar approach could one day be used to recharge small devices like remote controls, alarm clocks and even cell phones. A second possibility, for more power-
"With such p romising demonstrations it seems l i kely w i reless powe r will e nter our homes in a big way "
44 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
hungry devices, is to fire a finely focused infrared laser beam at a photovoltaic cell, which converts the beam back to electrical energy. It's an approach PowerBeam has adopted, but so far its efficiency is only between 15 and 30 per cent. While that could serve more power-hungry appliances, it would in practice be too wasteful. The technology has been used to power wireless lamps, speakers and electronic photo frames that require less than 10 watts to function. Over time, as both the lasers and photovoltaic cells improve, the company hopes efficiencies of up to SO per cent will be possible. "There's no reason we couldn't power a laptop eventually," says Graham. Unlike some other possible techniques, a sharply focused beam loses minimal energy over large distances, preserving its efficiency: "A hundred metres is no big deal."
"So ny has tested a wi reless TV a nd I ntel is i nvestigating the techno logy fo r a ra nge of devices"
The team's set-up consisted of an inducting coil connected to a capacitor. The energy within this circuit oscillates rapidly between an electric field in the capacitor and a magnetic field in the coil. The frequency of this oscillation is controlled by the capacitor's ability to store charge and the coil's ability to produce a magnetic field. If the frequency in the energy-transmitter's circuit is different from that of the receiver's circuit, they are non-resonant. The result is that the magnetic field coming from the transmitter interferes destructively with the field building up in the Inconven ient bea ms receiver, constraining energy transfer. But if Others are sceptical that this technique would the transmitter and receiver are resonant, the be practical for truly portable devices, which team reasoned, the oscillating fields of their are constantly moving around and between two coils would always be in sync, meaning the rooms. "An infrared beam would not be interference is constructive and the amount of convenient to charge a mobile phone - it's too energy transferred is boosted. directional," says Menno Treffers, chairman They tested their theory in 2007 with great of the Wireless Power Consortium in the success, transmitting 60 watts across 2 metres, Netherlands. Powerbeam's solution is to fit a with 40 per cent efficiency (Science, vol 317, p 83). The team has since founded a company small fluorescent bulb to the receiving device so that a camera on the transmitter can track called WiTricity to develop the idea. Last year, the light and steer the laser beam accordingly. the firm used two square coils 30 centimetres Another problem is that a separate beam is across, one in the receiver and one in the needed for each device you want to power, transmitter, to power a so-watt TV 0.5 metres which would be tricky to engineer, says from the power supply, with an impressive Aristeidis Karalis at the Massachusetts Institute 70 per cent efficiency. "In some cases, the ofTechnology, who is developing an alternative improvement in the effiCiency due to resonance can be more than 100,000 times wireless power transmission system. The third possibility for wireless power is that of non-resonant induction," says Karalis. magnetic induction - the most attractive Unlike laser-based line-of-sight energy option for beefy domestic applications. A transmission, a magnetic field is not focused fluctuating magnetic field emanating from one and so can pass around or through obstacles coil can induce an electric current in another between the transmitter and receiver. coil close by, which is how many devices, The big consumer electronics companies like electric toothbrushes and even some have also been keen to investigate " resonant cellphones, recharge drained batteries. The transfer". Sony, for example, has snag, however, has been that while efficiency demonstrated a wireless TV, and Intel is is good at close contact, it can drop to zero at investigating the technology for a range of even a few millimetres from the transmitter. devices. "Power transfer efficiency scales Enter Karalis and his colleagues. It has independently of power, so the same long been known that such mechanical energy efficiency can be achieved for laptops, transfer is improved enormously if two consumer electronics such as TVs, and smaller objects resonate at the same frequency - it's portable devices such as cellphones," says how an opera singer can smash a glass if she Emily Cooper, a research engineer at Intel's hits the right pitch. Karalis wondered whether labs in Seattle. In other words, the same the same idea could improve the efficiency of proportion of the total energy will be lost for a power-hungry plasma TV as for a tiny PDA. magnetic induction at greater distances.
An e l ectri c atm o s p h ere New technologies to beam powerto gadgets could e n d the days of ugly cables
H I G H POW ERED LASER EFFICIENCY: 15 30% DISTANCE: Less than lOW over distances of
100+ metres
USES: Lamps, s p eakers, e l ectro n i c ph otoframes, laptops
MUST HAVE DIRECT LlNE·OF·SIGHT AND SAFETY CUT-OFF
EFFICIENCY: 70% DISTANCE: SW with close contact
RESONANT I N DUCTION
to charging pad USES : P h o n es, PDAs
EFF ICIEN CY: 70% DISTANCE: SOW over SOcm U S ES : TVs, laptops DOESN'T REQUIRE DIRECTLlNE·OF·SIGHT
With such promising demonstrations, it seems likely that wireless power will one day enter our homes in a big way. A technical standard, dubbed Qi, is already being established for the non-resonant magnetic induction technique and compatible charging mats will soon be available. It is early days for the other techniques, but similar standards are likely to emerge. Damage to the person The technology is likely to meet some objections along the way, however. For one thing, you would be forgiven for being a little worried about zapping relatively high power energy beams through the atmos phere. Take laser transmission, for example. "High powers concentrated in a narrow laser beam could cause serious damage to a person," says Karalis. That shouldn't be a danger with PowerBeam's products: if the small camera on the transmitter fails to see the small light bulb ofthe receiver, it shuts down the laser within milliseconds. And as a failsafe, the receiver also sends a message to the transmitter via radio if it notices an unexplained interruption in power reception. Exposure to radio waves and fluctuating
magnetic fields also have their potential dangers. If they transmit heat to our cells, they can damage tissue over a long period of time. "All the technologies pose a potential risk for thermal interaction with the body, in the same way that radiation from cell phones does," says Riidiger Matthes, vice-chairman of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection in OberschleiBheim, Germany. But, provided the exposure is below the thresholds put forward in guidelines from ICNIRP, which companies like WiTricity are following closely, it should not be a problem. The fear remains that electromagnetic fields could damage tissue through some other, non-thermal mechanism, a concern raised by many biophysicists about cellphone signals. Without any available cohort studies to test exposure over a long period oftime, though, they have had to rely on lab studies, which failed to find any clear or reproducible biological effects. "The matter is still open to debate," says David de Pomerai at the University of Nottingham in the UK, who studies the effect of microwaves on nematode worms. Ifthe wireless power transmission methods all fall within the ICNIRP's criteria, he says that the exposure should be no more risky than that from cellphones.
Perhaps more pressing, though, are environmental concerns. With global warming an ever increasing issue, most people are looking forways to improve efficiency and save energy - and therefore reduce power-station emissions of greenhouse gases. To some people, wireless power transmission will seem like a distinctly profligate and retrograde step. "The fact that these appliances are only 10 to 60 per cent efficient means that go to 40 per cent of the electricity the householder is paying for is wasted," says Paula Owen, who heads the statistics group at the Energy Saving Trust, based in London. "Consider these products next to other typical household a ppliances. Boilers, for example, are now over go per cent efficient. It seems we are going back to the days of incandescent bulbs, which were only 5 per cent efficient at creating light and are now being phased out." Taking individual gadgets, the energy losses might seem small, but scaling up to a truly wireless home would be a much bigger deal. The question is, would you be prepared to throw away your green credentials for wire free, minimalist beauty? • David Robson is a New Scientistfeatures editor 6 February 2010 I NewScientist 1 45
BOOKS & ARTS
Experi m ents i n freedom The i d ea that l i beral d e m o cracy owes i ts existe nce to scie n ce is worth exp l o ring, says A C. Gray l i n g Benjamin Franklin drawing electricity
The Science of Liberty: Democracy,
from the sky. E n l i g hte nment i n action
reason and the laws of nature by
Tim othy Ferris, HarperCoili ns, $26.99
HISTORIANS date T I l\IO T H Y the beginning of FER R I S T H E S C I E N C E modern times to O F LUERTY the period ofthe late Renaissance, the Reformation and the scientific revolution. These tectonic shifts in the western mind resulted in the 18th-century Enlightenment and the liberal democracies of the 19th and 20th centuries. This broad-brush picture is a familiar one, and it is, equally broadly, right; but interesting questions remain about the relationship between the strands involved. In this lucid and captivating study, Timothy Ferris argues that the growth of science and the growth of liberal democracy were not merely contemporaneous, but causally connected. The growth of science, he says, caused the growth of democracy - and science continues to underwrite the political freedoms enjoyed by developed societies today. His argument is not simply that the technological applications of science have promoted wealth creation, military prowess and security in those nations that have, as a result, become both dominant and free. This is undeniably part of the story. But the more important point for Ferris is that scientific enquiry demands the freedom to enquire and debate, and that liberal democracy - meaning a pluralistic political system in which individual rights, free speech, privacy and autonomy are 46 1 NewScientist 1 6 February 2010
promoted and defended - is itself an experimental system requiring the same conditions offreedom and openness as science itself. As he surveys how science influenced the social and political developments ofthe countries where it flourished, Ferris makes full and (as he acknowledges himself) potentially tendentious use of hindsight. But he keeps the risks in view, and is able to show how matters developed as expected given the influence of scientific styles of thought on social and political questions.
Inevitably, Ferris also addresses the conflict between scientific and non-scientific thought today, and the social and political urgencies many feel in light of the revival of dogma, faith and non-rational influences. Ferris's clear and educative account of these matters makes for an enjoyable read. More importantly, there is a lot to be said for the thesis he offers. Science could neither have arisen nor flourished in circumstances of oppression of thought. Indeed the churches made strenuous
efforts - persecuting and even executing people - in the early phases of the scientific revolution in an effort to quell it. The science-freedom link is an intimate one, and the task undertaken by Ferris of specifying its details and describing the causal relations at work is deeply important. That is not merely a rhetorical remark: an understanding of the link could have major utility to societies eager to develop and progress, and wishing to know what conditions would best serve their aims. I would suggest to Ferris that ratherthan taking the rise of science to be the literal cause of the growth of political liberty, they might be regarded as the joint outcome of an antecedent cause. I argued this in Towards The Light (Bloomsbury, 2007): aspirations to liberty of religious conscience in the 16th century rapidly evolved into demands for liberty of enquiry in all fields, including science; and once people had asserted the right to think for themselves without conforming to an orthodoxy on pain of death, they were able to ask questions both about nature and sociopolitical arrangements. On this view, science and democracy grew together from a fundamental impulse towards liberty; they are its joint fruits . • A.C. G rayl i ng is professor of philosophy at Bi rkbeck, U niversity of London, and author of Ideas That Matter(Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
2009), wh ich will be published in the US by Basic Books in March
For more reviews and to add your comments, visit www.NewScientist.com/books·art
Rog u esl d ispensa ry New Yo rl<s poiso n e rs esca ped d etection u ntil two forensic p i o neers stepped in huckleberry pies with arsenic and kindly grannies who by D eb ora h Blum, Penguin, $25.95 poisoned figs. Incompetent Reviewed by Paul Collins medical examiners ensured that "NICE woman," these murderers all too often got away with their crimes. But Norris toxicologist and Gettler belonged to a new Alexander Gettler generation offorensic scientists commented to who recognised the signs of reporters at the trial of Ruth poison - the cherry-red arterial Snyder, New York's blood of carbon monoxide, the infamous "Double blue mottled skin of cyanide, and the green "evil dazzle" thallium Indemnity" murderer. In 1927 made under the spectroscope. Snyder (pictured) and her lover killed Snyder's husband with Pick your poison: divided by alcohol, chloroform, garrote wire dastardly substance, Blum's and a bash to the skull with an iron Handbook is a fascinating rogues' sash weight. It was bloody overkill dispensary that also includes but, as Gettler testified, it was the arsenic, radium and mercury. chloroform that killed him. Blum fleshes out the toxicology and method of detection for In Deborah Blum's The Poisoner's Handbook, we see each with stories from Norris and Gettler's files. !t was through Gettler and his colleague, chief medical examiner Charles Norris, their work, for instance, that millionaire industrialist Eben wield Bunsen burners and flasks against the "nice" denizens of Myers's skeletal disintegration jazz-age Manhattan. Here are the was traced to his fondness for the radium tonic Radithor. They ladies who spiked cocoa with didn't always catch their killers: thallium, cooks who dosed The Poisoner's Handbook
one arsenic poisoner Gettler missed went on to serve her neighbour eggnog laced with Rough On Rats powder. Blum, a Pulitzer prizewinning reporter and journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison is especially compelling when she traces how Gettler and Norris found their most galling foe in wood alcohol (methanol), a cheap but dangerous high during the years of Prohibition. Norris had split the sternums of too many party goers to support enforced temperance: "Prohibition is a joke," he declared. He was appalled that the government backed the addition of methanol to household products to deter tippling, a move he labelled " Our Experiment in Extermination". For all the seductive horror of coldly deliberate killing "homicidal poisoning shows us at our amoral worst," maintains Blum - many dangers also lay in plain sight. Gettler and Norris traced deaths to a baby bottle washed with Lysol and a tureen buffed to a shine with arsenic metal polish. And it remains sobering that one com plication the duo faced in carbon monoxide poisonings was that many victims already had it in their blood from smoking. Alas, sometimes the poisoners we seek are ourselves.
Small is beautiful March of the Microbes: Sighting the unseen by John L. lngraham, Harvard
Un iversity Press, $28.95/£21.95
Reviewed by Jo Marchant
WE MAY not be able to see them with the naked eye, but we can see - and hear, smell, feel and touch - the effects of micro organisms all around us. That's the premise oOohn Ingraham, who has written this introduction to bacteria, fungi and other microscopic life forms as a field
guide for " microbe watchers". From the mundane (a smelly fish, a child with earache) to the exotic (hydrothermal vents), Ingraham presents the microbes behind so much of the world around us. He drives home the point that without these overlooked life forms we wouldn't be here at all. The bacterium Psychromonas ingrahamii, current record-holder for growing at the lowest temperature, is testament to the author's academic credentials. March of the Microbes does feel at times like a thinly disguised textbook, but Ingraham's fresh perspective makes it an engaging read nonetheless.
Brave new physics Lake Views: This world and the universe by Steven Wei nberg, Ha rvard
U n iversity Press, $25.95/£19.95
Reviewed by Dan F al k
NOBEL laureate Steven Weinberg has been writing eloquently on modern science ever since The First Three Min utes was published in 1977But unless you are a regular reader of The New York Review of Books, you may have missed some of his best recent work. This collection of essays proves once again that Weinberg is more than just a top-tier physicist. He is also one of the few scientists brave enough - and knowledgeable enough - to successfully take on the role of public intellectual. There is, of course, plenty of physics here. Weinberg examines the pros and cons of string theory, suggests that our universe may be just one of many, and warns that even if we can discover nature's ultimate laws, we will still have no idea why those laws are true. He also weighs in on social and political issues, from terrorism to the politics of the Middle East. It's essential reading. 6 February 2010 1 NewScientist 1 47
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Staff Scientist - Associate Director of Purification, Bethesda, MD National Institute of A l l e rg y &. I nfect i ous Diseases (NIAID), National Institute of Health (NIH) MD - Ma ry l and The associate director of
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