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New Scientist Magazine - News Special "CORONA VIRUS" (February 2020)

About New Scientist magazine

New Scientist is the world’s most popular weekly science and technology magazine. Its website, app and print

editions cover international news from a scientific standpoint, and ask the biggest-picture questions about

life, the universe and what it means to be human. If someone in the world has a good idea, you’ll read about

it in New Scientist.

Since the magazine was founded in 1956 for “all those interested in scientific discovery and its social

consequences”, it has expanded to include events in the UK, US and Australia, including New Scientist Live,

the world’s greatest festival of science. New Scientist is based in London, UK, with offices in the US and

Australia.

SPIDER CONSCIOUSNESS
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WEEKLY February 8 –14, 2020

















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Wuhan outbreak jump species next?

































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On the 42 Spider consciousness

cover Inside the amazing mind
of an arachnid


7 Coronavirus 16 Quantum freeze
Understanding the Nanoparticle cooled to
Wuhan outbreak nearly absolute zero

Zoonosis: when viruses
jump species 38 Sanity check
The flawed experiment that Instant Expert:
What happens next?
shook psychiatry to its core Human Evolution
Join six expert speakers
34 First alphabet 12 Sinking seabed 14 Robots that in London on 29 February
Untold story of a writing sweat 28 Locust plague 46 Wiki’s for a one-day masterclass.
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Vol 245 No 3268 sun’s surface newscientist.com/events
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14 SpaceX Starlink 34 First alphabet
Astronomers want to sue Feature Meet the inventors of our ABCs
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Why concerns over e-cigarette that devastated psychiatry
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20 Nuclear winter Arachnid intelligence is more
Nuclear power was meant to sophisticated than we thought
save us from climate change,
but it is on the way out 46 Wiki’s missing women
Why Jess Wade is writing history

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23 Comment
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24 The columnist 52 Puzzles
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26 Letters 42 Spider intelligence The remarkable abilities of arachnids 53 Feedback
Ask an AI to explain how Joy of the rovers and a puzzle
an AI made a decision puzzle: the week in weird
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28 Aperture “ Sexuality could be influenced 54 Almost the last word
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through Kenya eating crops by hundreds of genes and vaccination? Readers explain
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30 Culture 56 The Q&A
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8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 3

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The leader







Deadly unknowns





We are still scrambling to understand how dangerous the Wuhan coronavirus is




FOR those of us who turn to science of the virus seems to have no connection virus may either peter out or go truly
for answers, the Wuhan coronavirus to the Wuhan food market where the global. We can’t know yet how many
outbreak is unsettling. We don’t know outbreak appears to have begun. Is every lives this would claim.
what proportion of infected people are case equally infectious, or are some If it goes global, it could one day
likely to die (see page 9); our figures people unlikely to pass it on, while resemble flu, which every year causes an
for how many other people on average others act as super-spreaders? And is the estimated 3 to 5 million cases of severe
each carrier infects are only estimates; virus only deadly for those who are older illness, and about 290,000 to 650,000
and the total number of cases is likely or who already have chronic conditions? deaths. Flu can cause mild symptoms
to be far higher than those confirmed in some people and much worse ones in
so far. These three parameters are crucial “If the virus goes global, it could others, and most deaths occur in people
for epidemiologists who use models one day resemble flu, which over the age of 65 – all of which may be
to calculate how bad an outbreak will every year causes hundreds true for the new coronavirus.
get, but we don’t yet know what values of thousands of deaths” There is another option. The race is
to punch into the models. now on to find drugs and vaccines that
As cases in China soar, the list of What we do know is that the outbreak could help bring the virus under control
unknowns gets even longer. It remains is likely to go one of three ways (see and prevent global exposure. While drug
unclear whether the virus can spread page 8). As this magazine went to press, development will take time, trials of
before symptoms show. We don’t yet the outbreak seemed on the verge existing drugs are already under way in
know how or when the virus is likely of becoming a pandemic – in which China (see page 11). If successful, we may
to have crossed over from bats (see page multiple epidemics of an infection take be able to save many lives – although we
10), or why the first known human case place across the world. From here, the can’t yet calculate the number. ❚





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A recently discharged
patient is sprayed with
disinfectant in Wuhan

she says. She adds that protective
suits and sterilisation equipment
were in extremely short supply
until 1 February, when more
donations arrived.
A doctor working in Shanghai
who asked to be identified only as
Ryan estimates that 50 staff from
his hospital have already been sent
to Wuhan to help treat patients.
The remaining medical staff at
his hospital don’t have enough
masks, he says, because most of
them have been donated to
Wuhan. They have resorted to
reusing masks after irradiating
them under UV light and have
suspended all but essential
medical services.
Wuhan hospitals have been
overwhelmed, with many patients
sent home to self-quarantine.
STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES to meet the demand, including the
Hospitals are being constructed

1000-bed Huoshenshan Hospital,
which was built in 10 days and
completed on 3 February, and
the 1300-bed Leishenshan
Hospital, which is slated to
Inside Wuhan’s lockdown open on 6 February.

People across China have
donated medical supplies, but
Hubei residents are trying to stay positive as hospitals attempt to treat there has been widespread anger
about their distribution. A report
thousands infected by the new coronavirus, reports Donna Lu from the Hubei Red Cross revealed

it had delivered only 200,000 of 2
THE streets of Wuhan in Hubei supermarkets remain open and Alex considers himself lucky million donated face masks, many
province are eerily quiet. The city well stocked. Some stores won’t because none of his relatives have to hospitals that didn’t need them.
of 11 million people, the centre allow customers in without a body been infected to date. But friends As lockdowns continue in more
of the coronavirus outbreak, temperature scan. and colleagues have been. than 15 cities in Hubei, residents
has been locked down since 23 Following the outbreak, It has been estimated that at are trying to keep their spirits up.
January, with all public transport, the Lunar New Year holiday – least 75,000 people in Wuhan have Across Wuhan, the morale-
flights and trains suspended. which was supposed to end on 30 been infected with the 2019-nCoV boosting chant Wuhan jiāyóu!
“You pretty much don’t see January – has been extended across virus (The Lancet, doi.org/ggjvr7). (which means “come on” or “stay
anybody outside,” says a man who China. In Hubei, businesses will be Thousands of medical staff from strong”) has echoed out from
lives in Wuhan and asked to be shut until at least 13 February. across China have been sent to apartment windows. People have
identified only as Alex. Private Alex doesn’t know when he will Wuhan. A nurse from Anhui coined the term yún chī fàn, which
vehicles are banned in the return to work. “Every day we’re at province, who didn’t want to be means “meal by cloud”, as they
downtown area. Highways are home, closely following the news,” identified, says the 200-bed virtually eat together via video
shut so residents aren’t able to he says. The first few days of hospital in Wuhan where she is calls. There is also yún bài nián –
leave the city. The only places isolation were boring, he says, working is at capacity. Staff are the same concept for Lunar New
full of people are pharmacies, and now supplies of items like supposed to work 4-hour shifts, Year greetings.
where queues await those trying face masks are running short. but they often last 6 to 8 hours, But the uncertainty of when the
to buy face masks, gloves and outbreak will be contained is also
alcohol disinfectant. More coronavirus online taking its toll. “It’s hard to stay
Despite concerns about For the latest science on the outbreak, visit positive,” says Alex. “We’re doing
potential food shortages, large newscientist.com/subject/health our best not to be too anxious.” ❚


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 7

Special report: Coronavirus




Understanding the outbreak

What happens next?





The novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan has exploded worldwide.
What happens if it goes pandemic? Debora MacKenzie reports


WITH more than 17,000 Case numbers Last year, Toner led a pandemic The full impact of the virus
confirmed cases – and probably management exercise in will depend on its death rate,
Confirmed cases as of
far more undiagnosed – the Baltimore, in which industry and which we don’t yet know (see
3 February – but there
2019-nCoV coronavirus that health leaders discussed options “Understanding the Wuhan virus”,
are likely many more
emerged in Wuhan, China, seems as a computer model of a right). It seems to spread more
undiagnosed cases in China
poised to go global. As New Scientist pandemic involving a fictional readily than SARS, making it
went to press, the epidemic was coronavirus played out. After harder to contain with quarantine.
still centred on the province of GLOBALLY 18 months, the spread of the virus One problem is that some cases
Hubei, but the virus had travelled started to slow down, as people of the new virus are mild. No public
to 23 countries, and further 17,391 confirmed either died or became immune. health systems are equipped to test
epidemics seemed possible. However, by then, the fictional everyone with flu-like symptoms,
Genetic analysis suggests that CHINA virus had killed 65 million people. then quarantine all those who have
the virus isn’t changing much in Toner stresses that the the virus – and everyone they have
humans, becoming neither more simulation was just that: a model been in contact with – to prevent
17,238 confirmed
nor less harmful. So where is the of a hypothetical virus slightly spread. However, this is what
outbreak likely to go from here? different to 2019-nCoV. But unless we would need to do to stop it
There are three options, says 2296 severe the new virus self-destructs or we spreading, says David Heymann at
Eric Toner at Johns Hopkins find ways to stop it, it is likely to the London School of Hygiene and
University in Baltimore. One, 361 deaths follow a similar route, circulating Tropical Medicine, who organised
viruses new to humans that until the pandemic slows. the WHO’s SARS campaign.
don’t adapt quickly can simply OUTSIDE CHINA This is especially bad news
peter out after they have spread for older people and those with Preparedness plans
to several successive people, pre-existing health conditions.
153 confirmed
as another coronavirus from Like SARS, the virus seems to kill In theory, the virus could be
animals, MERS, seems to. by triggering out-of-control largely kept out of other countries
But the rocketing number 23 countries inflammation. In China, people and burn out in China. But that
of cases in China mean 2019-nCoV with severe cases of the virus would be hard: models show that
shows no sign of doing this. 1 death are more likely to be older or have even testing all travellers at exit
Two, we could block SOURCE: WHO chronic inflammatory diseases and entry would fail to catch
transmission of the virus enough like diabetes, says Sylvie Briand 75 per cent of those incubating
for it to die out. One way would be at the World Health Organization the virus, says Pasi Penttinen
with drugs or vaccines (see “How (WHO). at the European Centre for
soon will a treatment be ready?”,
page 11), but it may take a year to
develop anything effective. Or we The coronavirus’s spread
could quarantine infected people As of 3 February, the vast majority of cases clustered around China’s Hubei province
and block the virus. That worked and surrounding regions
for the related SARS virus in 2003,
but early signs suggest that it
Finland
might not be so easy this time.
Sweden
Russia CHINA
Canada Germany
Global spread UK
South Korea
“Options one and two seem US France Italy Japan
unlikely,” says Toner. Instead, the Spain CHINA
Affected
virus may simply spread, like flu countries UAE Nepal
India Vietnam
does, until most people have been Number of cases Philippines
exposed to it and either died or 1-2 Sri Lanka Cambodia
recovered and become immune. 3-10 Thailand
Then it may burn out for lack 11-100 Singapore
101-500
of hosts, or become a disease Malaysia
501-5000
that mostly affects children who >5000 Australia
haven’t yet encountered it. SOURCE: WHO


8 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Epidemiology

Understanding


the Wuhan virus




Debora MacKenzie

Pathogens obey simple rules mild, many cases are thought
of transmission, and these can to be going undiagnosed.
be used to predict how fast the But long-distance travellers
number of infections will rise are coming under close
and fall, how hard it will be scrutiny, and assuming that
to stop a disease and how they aren’t vastly more likely
bad things are likely to get. to be infected than people who
Measuring the necessary don’t travel, this can give us an
FEATURE CHINA/BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES though. First you need the have calculated that case
parameters in a virus that is
indication of case numbers. In
new to humans can be difficult,
this way, two research groups
basic reproduction number, R0. numbers in Wuhan could be
If everyone is susceptible to
between 10 and 40 times
higher than official numbers.
an infection – and we are, as
When a virus has jumped
the Wuhan virus is new to
humans – R0 is the average
over from animals, as in the
number of other people that
question is whether it is still
any individual with the virus
jumping. So far, analysis
will infect. Research teams case of this coronavirus, one
A 2000-bed mobile hospital health emergencies”. Fewer than have calculated 12 different suggests very little genetic
is set up in an exhibition 5 per cent of countries got high estimates for the virus’s R0 variation in the virus, which
centre in Wuhan, China marks for their ability to rapidly so far. Together, these suggest implies it has only crossed
respond to an epidemic. it is between 1.8 and 3.3. into humans once.
Disease Prevention and Control. Heymann says one lucky break To stop an epidemic, the Genetic analysis also
Temperature monitoring in with SARS was that it never average number of new people suggests that the virus appears
airports had no effect on SARS. invaded a chaotic, impoverished that each case infects needs to to be stable: it doesn’t seem to
It therefore seems likely that the megacity, which would have had be changing or adapting to us.
virus will go pandemic, circulating particular trouble organising the Another crucial parameter
in multiple cities worldwide. contact tracing and quarantine is the fatality rate, which we
“Independent self-sustaining required to stop a virus this way. cannot yet know. The number
outbreaks in major cities globally That break seems unlikely of deaths so far make up about
could become inevitable because with the Wuhan virus, which has 2 per cent of all known cases.
of substantial exportation of already reached India and the But according to the China
pre-symptomatic cases,” Gabriel Philippines. The Gates Foundation National Health Commission,
Leung at Hong Kong University has earmarked $10 million to fight only 5 per cent of known cases
and colleagues wrote in a recent the virus – half for China, the rest have either died or recovered
modelling study (The Lancet, doi. to help African countries prepare. so far. Some of the rest will
org/ggjvr7). “Preparedness plans African health agencies will hold a An illustration of the die, so the real death rate
and mitigation interventions workshop in Senegal this week. structure of the new must be higher.
should be readied for quick Even if the virus remains largely coronavirus One study of hospitalised
deployment globally.” in China, there would be global people with a known outcome
consequences. According to be below one. This can happen suggests that the fatality rate
“ The virus may spread until Michael Osterholm at the as people become immune, has been 14 per cent, but these
most people have been University of Minnesota and his get a vaccine or change are only cases that were severe
exposed to it and either team, 153 crucial drugs, from blood their behaviour to prevent enough to be hospitalised – we
died or recovered” pressure pills to stroke treatment, transmission. In the case of the don’t know how many people
are mostly made in China, and Wuhan virus, people in China had milder illness and lower
Countries were supposed to there are fears the virus could are already avoiding crowds death rates from the virus.
invest in such plans under 2005 affect their production and export. CDC/ALISSA ECKERT, MS. DAN HIGGINS, MAM and public transport. To fill these gaps in our
WHO rules. But an independent Osterholm is worried about The second parameter is the understanding will take
report last year found “severe further impacts. So far, he says, number of cases. Because the massive testing of exposed
weaknesses in [countries’] abilities “people aren’t saying how bad illness looks like flu and can be populations. ❚
to prevent, detect, and respond to it can get”. ❚


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 9

Special report: Coronavirus




Zoonosis

Viruses from animals




Infections that cross over from other species are a deadly problem


Michael Le Page

THE new coronavirus is the latest year. Others, such as Ebola, can
example of a disease that jumped spread from person to person, but
from animals into humans. aren’t very good at it and so cause
When infections do this they relatively small outbreaks.
can be deadly – and 2019-nCoV The 2019 coronavirus, by
is no exception. contrast, appears quite good at
Nearly all viruses and bacteria spreading from person to person.
that infect other organisms are While we don’t know how deadly
completely harmless to people. it is yet, Coleman says “it’s not
But a tiny proportion can infect the most deadly coronavirus
us and cause so-called zoonotic we’ve ever had”.
diseases, which come from To trace the new virus’s origins,
animals rather than other people. researchers have been comparing
its genome to that of other FLETCHER & BAYLIS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
“Zoonotic diseases can coronaviruses. This showed that it
be so deadly because derives from a strain that infects
we have no pre-existing bats, possibly the intermediate
immunity to them” horseshoe bat (Nature, doi. org/
ggj5cg). “It’s highly related to bat
Such diseases are a massive coronaviruses,” says Vaithilingaraja have jumped from bats into The new virus may have come
problem. They make around Arumugaswami at the University another animal a few months from intermediate horseshoe
2.5 billion people ill every year and of California, Los Angeles. or even a few decades ago, and bats (Rhinolophus affinis)
kill 2.7 million, according to a 2012 This makes sense as bats are then from that intermediate host
estimate. Not all zoonotic diseases known to harbour many viruses, into humans. We know that the implicated mink. Samples from
cause serious illnesses, but the including coronaviruses. Viral coronavirus behind the SARS animals at the Wuhan market
Ebola virus, for example, currently infections are especially likely to outbreak of 2002 to 2003 spread where the virus appears to have
kills most of those it infects. spread among bats as they can fly from bats into palm civets before emerged are being tested, but no
One reason zoonotic viruses long distances and roost close to infecting people. results have been announced.
can be this deadly is that we lack each other. Bats also seem able to One initial study suggested the It took years to trace the origins
pre-existing immunity to them. carry infections without getting new virus could have come from of SARS, but technology has
Another is that these viruses ill, which helps spread the viruses. snakes, but some biologists are greatly improved since then.
aren’t adapted to humans. Viruses The new coronavirus might sceptical. Another early study In the meantime, some charities
that normally circulate among have called for the permanent
people can evolve to become less closure of markets in China selling
lethal, as this helps them spread. Other infections that have jumped to humans wild animals. But this could lead
“They don’t want you to drop to a more dangerous black market
dead within a day because you Biologists have been warning of as a human virus. But it jumped trade. When China shut bird
won’t pass it to anyone else,” says for decades about the risks of from chimpanzees into humans markets in 2013 and 2014 to try
Chris Coleman at the University animal viruses spreading to relatively recently, in the 1930s. to stop H7N9 bird flu spreading,
of Nottingham, UK. people, and calling for more There are already around it made things worse.
To get infected, people need to surveillance and preparation. four human coronaviruses, which Coleman thinks there is little we
come into contact with the animal There is good reason to worry. usually cause mild, cold-like can do to stop people coming into
the virus usually infects. This is The last global pandemic, symptoms. They are thought contact with animals that may
most likely with domesticated the 2009 flu that killed up to to have come from animals carry dangerous viruses. “It’s very
animals. Camels carry the MERS 400,000 people, was caused thousands of years ago. difficult to control that,” he says.
coronavirus that causes sporadic by a strain of flu that came from Flu remains one of the biggest Instead, he says we need to have
human cases, for instance. pigs. And that flu is thought to dangers, with fears that a very vaccines ready in advance. This
Many viruses that jump into be a descendant of the 1918 flu, deadly strain could emerge. could mean creating vaccines that
people, like MERS, seldom spread which came from birds and which Other zoonotic threats include are effective against a wide range
from person to person. They can killed up to 50 million people. Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, of viruses or developing vaccines
still infect thousands, though: HIV, which has infected about Marburg virus disease and that require only minor tweaks
rabies is mostly passed on by dog 75 million people, is now thought Nipah virus infection. to work against a new viral strain,
bites, but kills 60,000 people a much like annual flu vaccines. ❚


10 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Analysis Drug development

The race for treatments It will take time to develop a coronavirus

vaccine, but some existing drugs may help save lives before then,

says Michael Le Page





THE race to develop vaccines and 2003 has found one that binds enough wouldn’t be easy. There potential small-molecule drugs
treatments for the new coronavirus to the new coronavirus as well. But aren’t many antibody factories, fail, says Ball. So developing
is on. The UK announced this team leader Tianlei Ying at Fudan says Ball, and they are all already new antivirals from scratch
week that it will donate £20 million University says it could take one busy producing antibodies for could take years.
for vaccine development, while or two months to make enough treating cancer and other diseases. However, there are a few existing
Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder of the antibody to start testing it There might be a shortcut. small-molecule drugs that might
of Alibaba Group, is giving in animals and then people. Instead of making antibodies help. For instance, an experimental
$14 million to similar efforts. in a vat, a US company called antiviral called galidesivir developed
A vaccine could be essential for RenBio injects the genes coding for treating Ebola is active against
controlling the outbreak. There are Antibody search for them into leg muscles. Antibody
plans to test an existing experimental Two antibodies for treating the MERS production in the body continues Some drugs
vaccine against SARS for use with coronavirus have already been tested for weeks or even months, so these used to treat
2019-nCoV, as well as several in people. The US biotechnology injections could be given to people HIV may
efforts to develop new ones, but company that makes them, to prevent infections as well as to also target
this will take time. “A vaccine would Regeneron, says they are unlikely to treat those who are already infected. coronaviruses
take at least a year, if not more,” work against the 2019 coronavirus, “Both are possibilities,” says FRANCIS SHEEHAN/SPL
says virologist Jonathan Ball at but it will test them and others. Neal Padte, the head of RenBio.
the University of Nottingham, UK. However, this takes time. While But this has only been tested in
What can be done in the developing antibodies for Ebola, other animals, so health authorities
meantime? The good news is it took Regeneron six months to get may be reluctant to try it in people. coronaviruses, says its US maker,
that a few existing drugs might to the stage of testing in humans. The second way of treating viral BioCryst Pharmaceuticals. It has
help to save lives before then, and A Chinese company called infections is to find small molecules already passed safety tests in
it may be possible to develop other WuXi Biologics announced in a that stop viruses replicating by people. A team in China has
treatments in as little as six months. press release last week that it is interfering with their proteins. identified four existing, approved
There are two main ways of establishing a 100-strong team Antivirals like these are usually drugs that might also work:
treating viral infections: antibodies dedicated to developing antibody simple to manufacture, and can be prulifloxacin, bictegravir, nelfinavir
or small-molecule drugs. Antibodies treatments for the 2019 taken in pill form, both of which are and tegobuvir (bioRxiv, doi.org/dk2z).
are large proteins that bind to coronavirus. It says it might be big advantages. But 99 per cent of Most promisingly, doctors in
viruses and trigger their destruction. able to start mass production Wuhan, China, have already started
It can take our immune systems in a record four or five months. “Given the scale of the two randomised controlled trials.
two weeks after a new infection By that stage, the outbreak could outbreak, you’d hope to One will test two drugs called
to produce enough antibodies to be over or millions of people might quickly discover if these lopinavir and ritonavir given together.
fight it off. But this can be accelerated be infected, in which case making interventions work” These are already used to treat HIV,
by injecting people with antibodies and there is some evidence they
made by cells grown in a vat. This work against coronaviruses too.
can keep viruses in check until your The other trial is of an experimental
immune response kicks in fully. drug called remdesivir, made
Antibodies are less likely to cause by US firm Gilead Sciences.
side effects than other drugs, “Given the scale of the outbreak
because they bind more specifically in China, you would hope to get
to viruses. This means we should a reasonably quick answer to
be able to find safe and effective whether these interventions work,”
antibodies against the 2019 says Ball. “The manufacturing for
coronavirus very quickly – the these is already in place and they
problem will be mass-producing are easily available.”
them fast enough. In the meantime, most people
A team in China that tested with the new virus are being treated
antibodies against the coronavirus for their symptoms, rather than the
that caused the SARS outbreak in specific virus. Unfortunately, this
isn’t always enough for people
Medical workers TPG/ZUMA PRESS/PA IMAGES who are older or have pre-existing
in Wuhan, China, conditions, for whom the virus
on 3 February seems to be more deadly. ❚


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 11

News




Genetics

Privacy of genetic research


volunteers may be at risk




Becca Muir

THE privacy of people who add could use the information about example, some participants results of a study, the team
their DNA to research databases an individual’s traits published skip a survey question or join suggests that researchers try
may be vulnerable to hackers, in GWAS to recover that person’s one study later than the other, scrambling the data to make
who could exploit the genetic information – known which Ezer’s team describe as it noisier, or conceal some
information published in as a reconstruction attack. a “potentially common” scenario. identifiable information.
genome studies to identify “You might even be able to In these cases, attackers can Because the study involved
an individual’s genetic code. identify an individual with just use algorithms to predict the dogs, we don’t know if a similar
Genetics researchers are two studies performed on the genetic details of an individual in attack would identify people
inadvertently publishing same database, if a small number one of the studies by combining from their genetic information.
information that can theoretically of people are included in one information from both. The team But if used with the technique that
be pieced together to identify study but not another,” says showed this is possible by finding exposed a potential vulnerability
someone’s DNA held in a research Ezer. This could happen if, for the genetic information of a single in the genealogy testing website
or commercial database, say dog in the Cornell Dog Genome GEDMatch in October 2019,
Daphne Ezer at the Alan Turing Blood samples are database (bioRxiv, doi.org/dkx4). “it could potentially be used
Institute in London and her analysed to produce DNA To protect volunteers’ genetic to reveal the identities of
colleagues. Her team simulated data for genome studies privacy when publishing the individual participants”, says
how attackers could identify David Baranger, a neurogenetics
a person’s genetic code, and researcher at the University
used this method to find a of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
single dog’s genetic material The UK Biobank, which
in a DNA database. holds 500,000 genomes in
Genome-wide association its database, says researchers
studies (GWAS) identify genes are prohibited from trying to
that are associated with personal identify a participant in this way.
traits or disease. Researchers use “We are not aware of any such
large databases containing the incident where this has occurred,”
DNA of hundreds of thousands says a spokesperson.
of people to conduct these studies “Researchers treat the privacy
and detect subtle DNA differences of participants in projects such
between participants. GETTY/BLOOMBERG as the UK Biobank very seriously,”
Ezer’s team showed how, under says David Curtis at University
some circumstances, a hacker College London. ❚



Environment

The seabed is slowly ocean is pushing down the sea Sea levels Now, a warmer climate is

sinking but it won’t floor, and what this means for sea are forecast melting the ice in glaciers and
levels. They found that it will have to rise between the great ice caps, causing more
stop sea level rise only a tiny effect on future sea level 1 and 2 metres water to flow into the sea. That

rise because the oceans are rising this century is steadily increasing the mass
THE weight of water from melting about 3 millimetres per year – far PAUL SOUDERS/GETTY of the oceans and pressing the
ice caps is causing the seabed to faster than the seabed is sinking seabed downwards.
sink about 0.1 millimetres a year. (Geophysical Research Letters, Both Vishwakarma and Bamber
“Greenland and Antarctica are doi. org/dkvv). emphasise that the finding will
melting much faster [than they Sea level rise is due to climate In the 20th century, this thermal make no meaningful difference
were previously], so we can expect change, which is in turn driven expansion was the main driver of to future sea level rise. While the
much higher ocean deformation by our greenhouse gas emissions. sea level rise, says Jonathan Bamber sinking seabed will slow sea level
in the future,” says Bramha Dutt Forecasts for 21st-century sea level at the University of Bristol, who rise, the effect is too small to be
Vishwakarma at the University rise vary between 1 and 2 metres. collaborated on the work. As a meaningful because the seabed is
of Bristol in the UK. As the climate warms, so does result, the mass of the oceans sinking about 30 times more slowly
He and his colleagues calculated seawater, and when water warms stayed about the same, even as than sea levels are rising. ❚
how much the extra mass in the it expands, causing the sea to rise. their volume grew. Michael Marshall


12 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

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k Walking tour of Geneva’s old town centre glacier itself
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News




Space

Astronomers want to halt Starlink




Legal action may be pursued to stop thousands of satellites clogging up the sky


Jonathan O’Callaghan

A GROUP of astronomers has has more than 1400 signatures.
called for legal action to stop Chris Johnson, a space law
the launch of vast numbers of adviser at the Colorado-based
satellites designed to beam pressure group the Secure World
high-speed internet around the Foundation, says that the chances
world, until their impact on the of legal action being successful are
night sky can be assessed. slim, but there is an argument that
US firm SpaceX has already could be made.
launched 240 satellites as part of “It’s time for the larger space
its planned Starlink constellation community to think what means
of up to 42,000 satellites. Others, more: ground-based astronomy
such as the UK company OneWeb, and traditional views of the night
plan to launch hundreds of their sky or cheaper internet from
own. There are currently 1500 SPACEX/FLICKR space,” he says.
active satellites orbiting Earth. The FCC said in a statement it
Starlink satellites have created “strongly reject[ed]” any claims it
bright streaks in some telescope SpaceX launched more a case could be filed against has violated NEPA and its approval
images, affecting astronomical Starlink satellites on the Federal Communications of Starlink was “entirely lawful”.
observations. Some worry that the 29 January Commission (FCC) in the US for SpaceX has attempted to ease
thousands of bright points of light licensing Starlink, which the concerns by testing a Starlink
could alter the sky for the public the group says that a case could be astronomers say may have satellite coated in a darker material
and astronomers forever. brought to the International Court been in breach of the National so that it won’t reflect as much
“The ideal thing would be of Justice to argue that the night Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). light. However, launches are
to stop the deployment of these sky is a shared human right under “It would be desirable to ongoing, with SpaceX set to send
kind of satellites until the problem the World Heritage Convention. adopt contingent and limiting up 1500 Starlink satellites in 2020.
is very well studied. We have to “The harm here is damage to our resolutions to be ratified as “If it is not possible to leave
understand what the impact is cultural heritage, the night sky, shared international rules,” the a better planet for future
on the sky,” says Michele Maris at and monetary damages due to astronomers write. They also generations, we can at least try
the Astronomical Observatory of the loss of radio and other types suggest that, in the meantime, all not to make it worse,” says group
Trieste in Italy, part of the group of astronomy,” the scientists write mega constellations should be put member Stefano Gallozzi at the
calling for legal action. (arxiv.org/abs/2001.10952). on hold. An associated petition to Astronomical Observatory of
To halt mega constellations, Alternatively, the group says temporarily halt further launches Rome in Italy. ❚



Robotics

3D-printed robots By comparison, humans and horses dilating the pores and enabling below that of its environment.

can sweat to cool have a maximum cooling capacity pressurised fluid from the “When the local temperature rose
of about 35 watts per kilogram. underlayer to sweat out. The above the transition [temperature],
themselves down Each gripper consists of three material responds spontaneously the pores would simply open and

finger-like parts that bend to temperature changes without close on their own,” he says. When
ROBOTS are becoming more simultaneously to grasp small the need for external sensors blown by wind from a fan, the
human-like every day, and objects. The 3D-printed grippers (Science Robotics, doi.org/dkvd). sweating robots cooled at a rate
now they can sweat. are made from hydrogels, polymer “Sweating takes advantage of of 39.1°C per minute, about six
Thomas Wallin at Cornell materials that can store large evaporative water loss to rapidly times as fast as similar devices
University in New York and amounts of water. Each finger dissipate heat,” says Wallin. Unlike that are unable to sweat.
his colleagues have created soft has an underlayer with an internal convection or radiation, sweating However, there is currently no
robotic grippers that are capable channel to let fluid flow and lowers the temperature of a body means to replenish the robot’s fluid
of sweating to cool down. is capped with a surface layer stores after sweating. This means
The grippers can achieve a containing micropores. “ When the local “the robots would have to also be
cooling capacity of 107 watts At cold temperatures, the pores temperature rose, the able to drink”, says team member
per kilogram, making them more close. At temperatures higher than pores would simply open Robert Shepherd, also at Cornell. ❚
efficient sweaters than mammals. 30°C, the surface layer expands, and close on their own” Donna Lu


14 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Climate change Analysis E-cigarettes

World’s hottest year The teenage epidemic that wasn’t Vaping is supposedly

yet likely to happen sweeping US schools, but it is actually fairly rare among

before 2025 teenagers who have never smoked, says Clare Wilson


Adam Vaughan

A NEW world record for the hottest “How Juul hooked a generation with a wide choice of flavours. more over that period. Less
year may be set before 2025, on nicotine” was a New York Juul’s purported appeal to teens frequent use suggests “curiosity
according to the UK Met Office. Times headline from 2018 was highlighted by the US Centers and experimentation”, says
There is even an outside chance on the new addiction apparently for Disease Control and Prevention author David Abrams at the New
that temperatures will temporarily sweeping the youth of the US. when it released the 2018 York University School of Global
overshoot the toughest target of It wasn’t the only media outlet figures. The study was based on Public Health.
the Paris climate deal. to cover the rise in e-cigarette its annual survey of more than And the figures suggest that, far
The past decade was the use, after a US government survey 20,000 middle and high-school from hooking a new generation on
warmest on record, with the title of from that year showed that vaping students and triggered a rash nicotine, comparatively few teens
warmest year held by 2016 – when among teenagers was on the rise. of alarming headlines. who have never smoked take up
climate change and the El Niño The full figures from this survey vaping: less than 1 per cent of
phenomenon drove temperatures have now been newly analysed “ There has been a focus those who were vaping regularly
1.16°C above pre-industrial levels. and they suggest that the original on teens without making had never smoked tobacco before.
In a forecast that was based on coverage didn’t give the whole it clear that many would “There has been a massive focus
20 computer models, the Met Office picture. In some ways, the results be smoking anyway” on teens without making it clear
says there is a more than 66 per cent could even be seen as good news that most of these teens would be
chance that the 2016 record will be for teenagers’ health. At the time, Juul said it didn’t smoking anyway,” says Abrams.
beaten between 2020 and 2024. E-cigarettes are meant to be want young people using its But the idea of a new addiction
“It’s really a sign the planet is a safer way for people to inhale products and stopped selling epidemic among the nation’s
warming. To get another [record] nicotine without taking in the some of its flavours through youth has now taken hold.
in the next five years is consistent multiple harmful substances retail stores. It has since withdrawn The US has recently banned
with the warming trend,” says produced by smoking tobacco, all non-tobacco or menthol all flavours of vapes apart from
Doug Smith at the Met Office. like tar and carbon monoxide. flavours from the market. tobacco and menthol. Yet this
The forecast shows that any There have always been An independent analysis of the could be counterproductive in
one year between 2020 and 2024 worries that, as well as helping full set of those figures, published terms of protecting people’s
is likely to be between 1.06°C smokers quit, they might lure in this week, is more nuanced than health. Research suggests that
and 1.62°C warmer, meaning it non-smokers. In the past few years, those initial headlines (Nicotine & many adults are also keen on
could be more than 1.5°C above concerns have spiralled in the US Tobacco Research, doi.org/ sweet-flavoured vapes, including
pre-industrial levels, the target over small vaping devices branded ggjd39). While 14 per cent of the fruit, sweets and desserts, and
that world leaders have pledged Juul that deliver a big hit of nicotine teens surveyed had indeed vaped it can be part of the appeal of
to “pursue efforts” to avoid. in the past 30 days, only 4 per switching from smoking to vaping.
But one year above the threshold Have vaping rates cent of the total were regular Complicating matters is that
would be symbolic rather than in young people e-cigarette users, defined as fears over e-cigarettes have risen
a sign that the Paris target has been overblown? having done so on 20 days or after reports last year of a strange
been irrevocably breached. For lung illness linked with vaping,
the Paris goals, what matters is which has so far caused more
the consistent annual norm across than 50 deaths. Further
several years. investigation has revealed that
The chance of any year before these cases actually involved
2025 being more than 1.5°C people using black market
warmer is also low, less than 10 per cannabis vaping liquid that has
cent, in the Met Office analysis. Still, been bulked up with a harmful
if the milestone did come to pass, additive, vitamin E acetate.
says Smith, “it would be the first Many media reports have
indication that we are starting to implied that the danger comes
get close [to the Paris limit]”. from all e-cigarettes, even legal
The global average masks the ones that deliver nicotine, which
fact that some regions are already just isn’t true. Yes, we need to
seeing much hotter temperatures. make sure that teenagers don’t
In 2019, Australia had its hottest take up vaping or smoking, but
year ever, at 1.52°C above average, that shouldn’t come at the cost
and Europe had its warmest year ARTRANQ/GETTY of scaring existing adult smokers
too, at 3.2°C above average. ❚ from switching to vapes. ❚


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 15

News




Machine learning

AI attempts to pick embryos with



the best chance of IVF success



Donna Lu

ARTIFICIAL intelligence is helping embryologists have previously at,” says Tran. These might include Ivy is now routinely used as a
to select embryos for IVF that scored an AUC of around 0.74. the shape of cells or how long it tool in embryo selection by IVF
have a higher chance of resulting “The results look very takes to go from two to eight cells. Australia, which provides about
in a successful pregnancy. promising,” says Iman Ivy may also have picked up 20 per cent of the country’s IVF
The AI algorithm, called Ivy, Hajirasouliha at Cornell University on features that human specialists services. “Because we think
analyses time-lapse videos of in New York. He and his colleagues don’t look at, says Tran. While it’s a better predictor than
embryos as they are incubated have developed a similar AI, Stork. embryologists look only at video the embryologists, we are
after being fertilised, and What these AIs are identifying snippets of key events of an choosing the embryos with
identifies which ones have the in the videos as a marker of embryo’s development, Ivy Ivy most of the time,” says Peter
highest likelihood of success. success isn’t entirely clear. is able to rapidly analyse the Illingworth at IVF Australia.
It was developed by Harrison.ai, “It’s still a bit of a black box,” says entirety of five days of footage. A clinical trial will begin next
a tech firm in Sydney, and has been Aengus Tran, CEO of Harrison.ai. month to determine whether
used for several thousand women “We could speculate that it must Eggs undergoing IVF have people undergoing IVF whose
undergoing IVF in Australia. have learned very similar features different probabilities of embryos are selected by Ivy
People who undergo IVF using to what embryologists are looking developing into embryos become pregnant more quickly
Ivy are informed about the than those whose embryos are
algorithm and consent to its use. selected by human specialists.
Ivy was trained on more than In an average IVF cycle, a parent
10,000 videos of embryos growing starts with 10 eggs that result in
inside an incubator for five days, three potentially viable fertilised
in combination with data about embryos after five days, says
which embryos resulted in Illingworth. One is implanted,
pregnancy. The model is more and the rest are frozen and stored.
accurate than trained specialists “Ultimately, what you really
at predicting the likelihood that want is one IVF cycle resulting
an embryo will go on to develop in one embryo being transferred
a fetal heartbeat at or beyond and one healthy baby,” says Tran.
seven weeks of gestation. “What we’re not doing is
In a study of its predictive using Ivy to decide which
ability, Ivy scored 0.93 on a CHRISTOPH BURGSTEDT/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY embryos we will freeze and
measure known as AUC, where keep,” says Illingworth. “Ivy
a score of 1 indicates a model will never make the difference
with predictions that are 100 per between a woman having a
cent correct. Trained human baby or not having a baby.” ❚




Quantum physics

Nanoparticle of quantum mechanics mean you interacted with the particle to hold particle vibrated back and forth,

quantum chilled to can never know exactly how fast it in place. Mirrors either side of the some frequencies of light would
a particle is moving, there is a limit particle caused the light to overlap have sped it up by imparting small
near absolute zero to how cold a particle can get. When and interfere with itself. amounts of energy, while others

a particle is at that limit, we say This interfering light could would have slowed it down by
A NEW method for manipulating the it has reached its ground state. only exist in certain frequencies, removing energy.
quantum state of particles has been Markus Aspelmeyer at the according to quantum mechanics. Allowing only the frequencies
used to chill a tiny glass bead into University of Vienna in Austria and That allowed the researchers to that slowed the particle meant
its coldest possible quantum state. his colleagues used a single laser select the precise frequencies of it kept cooling until it reached its
Once you get down to extremely to cool a 150-nanometre-wide light that hit the particle. As the ground state. This occurred at a
small scales, heat and motion are glass particle into its ground state temperature of 0.000012 kelvin
The laser levitated the particle -273°C
interchangeable: the more a particle (Science, doi.org/dkvw). (about -273°C), just a fraction
is moving, the hotter it is. So to cool above absolute zero, the minimum
down a small particle, you have to through an effect called optical Temperature the nanoparticle temperature possible. ❚
stop it moving. Because the rules trapping, in which the light was cooled to Leah Crane


16 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

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News In brief




Space


Sun’s surface revealed


in all its glorious detail



THIS is the best picture we have said Rimmele. “What we previously
ever taken of the surface of the sun. thought looked like a bright point,
It was captured by the Daniel K. one structure, is now breaking down
Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) into many smaller structures.”
in Hawaii, the largest of its kind, This is just the beginning. The
on its first day observing our star. image was taken on 10 December,
The honeycomb-like pattern the first day of the telescope’s
is made up of “cells” of plasma operations. In the next six months,
that roil over the sun’s surface after new instruments are installed,
and draw heat out from the centre. DKIST will be able to measure the
The bright centres of the cells mark magnetic fields of these relatively
where plasma is rising, and the dark small features on the sun in addition
outlines where it is sinking. Each cell to taking pictures of them. Rimmele
is hundreds of kilometres across. hopes that such measurements will
This image has more than five help us figure out why the tenuous
times the resolution of pictures outer layer of the sun, the corona,
from the next-best solar telescope, is so much hotter than the surface.
said Thomas Rimmele, the director DKIST is also intended to help
of DKIST, during a press call. It us predict solar eruptions. These
shows structures that are as small are when the sun sends blasts of
NSO/AURA/NSF as 30 kilometres across. “We have plasma towards Earth that can
now seen the smallest details on the
pose a danger to our satellites
and electric grids. Leah Crane
largest object in our solar system,”

Genetics Health


Modified moths males survive and pass the lethal A tablet that could The RaniPill looks like a larger
gene on to their offspring. Because version of a normal pill. When
head into the field half the offspring of the GM males replace injections swallowed, it passes through the

die each generation, the gene stomach, only breaking open in
MALE diamondback moths should disappear after just a few A PILL that could replace the intestine. A small balloon
genetically modified to wipe generations. To continue to curb conventional injections has then inflates and pushes a small,
out pest populations of their wild populations, more GM males passed its first tests in people dissolvable needle into the wall of
own species have been released would need to be released. with flying colours, according the intestine, injecting a drug. The
in New York state as part of a field In field trials in August and to the company developing it. pill’s contents are then excreted.
trial. The female offspring of these September 2017, between 1000 “It’s completely pain-free,” says The intestine has no receptors
GM moths die soon after hatching. and 2500 males were released on Mir Imran at Rani Therapeutics for sharp pain and heals quickly.
Oxitec, the UK biotechnology six separate occasions. The team of San Jose, California. In a trial in Australia, 52 people
company behind the trial, has then recaptured some of the He says the results provide hope were given RaniPills containing
already staged field trials of this moths to confirm that they for millions of people – such as octreotide, a drug used to treat
method for mosquitoes. However, survived in the wild. It says the those with diabetes – who want an certain cancers and growth
the moth field test is the first for moths should be as competitive alternative to painful injections. disorders. They felt no pain or
a crop pest, the company says. with wild male moths in mating discomfort, and the pill was as
The larvae of the diamondback with females as they were in lab effective at delivering the drug
moth (Plutella xylostella) eat the trials. As expected, the GM as conventional injections.
leaves of brassica plants such as strain didn’t persist in the wild One hope is to use it to create
cabbage, kale and oilseed rape (Frontiers in Bioengineering and an insulin pill for people with
(canola), causing global damage Biotechnology, doi.org/dkvp). diabetes. The stomach degrades
estimated at $5 billion a year. Oxitec hopes to get approval to insulin, so at the moment it must
The GM moths were given a start selling its GM diamondback be injected conventionally. But
gene that kills larvae soon after moths to farmers in the US. It also people who hate needles often
they hatch – but it switches on plans to use the same technology delay or skip injections. “The
only in females. When male GM to tackle other crop pests, such RANI THERAPEUTICS development of oral insulin would
moths mate with wild females, all as the highly destructive fall be a breakthrough,” says Edward
the female offspring die, but the armyworm. Michael Le Page Johnston at Diabetes UK. MLP


18 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

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Ancient humans
Really brief

Lots of us are a bit interbred with Neanderthals, was correct, Joshua Akey at
leaving traces in each other’s DNA. Princeton University and his team
more Neanderthal Previous research showed that devised a new method of detecting
about 1.5 per cent of the DNA of archaic ancestry in DNA. Looking
PEOPLE of European and African people of European ancestry came at genomes of people of African
ancestry have more Neanderthal from these events, while people of ancestry in Africa and elsewhere
FRANK BIENEWALD /ALAMY previously thought. This is the than this. Because genomes of an unexpectedly high Neanderthal
east Asian ancestry had a bit more
in the world today, this revealed
DNA in their genomes than
finding of a study that identifies,
people of African ancestry showed
signature of 0.3 per cent in people
for the first time, the Neanderthal
of African ancestry, compared
little or no evidence of this genetic
genes present in modern day
people of African ancestry. exchange, Neanderthal genes with less than 0.02 per cent in
were identified in people of
earlier studies (Cell, doi.org/dkvs).
Microbiome change Neanderthals lived in Europe European ancestry by comparing By extension, that result means
counters bee virus and central Asia until their demise their genomes with people of the Neanderthal component
some 40,000 years ago. Thanks to African ancestry, assuming they of the genomes of modern-day
Honeybee gut bacteria genetic studies, we know that after were a Neanderthal-free baseline. people of European ancestry was
have been genetically modern humans left Africa, they To find out if this assumption underestimated. Alison George
modified to protect the
insects against a lethal Diet Astronomy
infection that can cause
colonies to collapse. Two stars have a
Researchers at the
University of Texas, strange jiggly orbit
Austin, engineered a bee
gut bacterium to generate A PAIR of distant stars are locked
RNA that disables the in a weird, wobbly dance, probably
deformed wing virus the result of an effect predicted
(Science, doi.org/dkvq). by the theory of general relativity.
One of the stars, PSR J1141-6545,
Cyborg jellyfish is a pulsar, a dense neutron star
swim a lot faster that emits beams of light. It orbits
a white dwarf, which formed when
Electronics embedded in a lower-mass star ran out of fuel
live jellyfish allow them and lost its outer layers.
to be remote-controlled 10’000 HOURS/GETTY Using years of observations,
by stimulating muscle Vivek Venkatraman Krishnan at
contractions so they swim the Max Planck Institute for Radio
at three times their normal Astronomy in Germany and his
pace. The hope is to use Vegetarians may have a team calculated the stars’ orbits
the animals to monitor around one another with extreme
oceans by adding sensors lower risk of getting UTIs precision and found it was wobbly.
to check oxygen content This oddity is due to an effect
and temperature (Science A VEGETARIAN diet has been linked diets of men and women separately, called frame dragging, which is
Advances, doi.org/dkvt). with a lower risk of having a urinary they found the protective effect was predicted in the theory of general
tract infection, at least for women. present in women but not men relativity and occurs when a fast-
Fatal accidents rise The infections are usually caused (Scientific Reports, doi.org/dkvm). spinning object drags space-time

after clock change by bacteria from faeces entering the Lin says vegetarians may have a around it. The researchers worked
urinary tract. Chicken and pork are a lower risk of UTIs because they have out that the white dwarf is
The risk of fatal car crashes major reservoir of E. coli, a bacteria a lower risk of exposure to E. coli. spinning faster than the pulsar,
goes up about 6 per cent that commonly causes UTIs. So It is also possible that the high fibre which is twirling fairly slowly at
in the week after summer Chin-Lon Lin at Tzu Chi University in content in their diet helps them to about 2.5 rotations per second.
time starts before returning Taiwan and his colleagues looked at avoid constipation and reduces the That indicates the system seems
to normal. Researchers say whether vegetarians would have a risk of E. coli growing in their gut. to have formed in an unexpected
about 29 deadly accidents lower risk of UTIs than meat-eaters. However, there are caveats. For order. Usually, the pulsar forms
in the US in the week after They looked at 9724 people in example, the participants were all first, and then as the white dwarf
the transition could be Taiwan over 10 years and found Buddhists based in Taiwan. And is losing its outer layers, the pulsar
avoided each year if clocks that vegetarians were 16 per cent while the study tried to adjust for sucks up that material and starts
weren’t changed (Current less likely to have a UTI than their some factors, it didn’t account for to spin faster. In this case the
Biology, doi.org/dkt5). meat-eating counterparts. But pregnancy, which is a major risk white dwarf formed first (Science,
when the researchers analysed the factor for UTIs. Adam Vaughan doi.org/dkvx). LC


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 19

News Insight




Climate change

Nuclear winter





The rise of renewable energy means nuclear power is on the decline.
Is it about to go extinct, asks Adam Vaughan


NUCLEAR power is meant to play a consultant and a lead author
key role in holding global warming of the report, the World Nuclear
below a rise of 1.5°C, but the world’s Industry Status Report 2019.
nuclear plants are quietly starting That has big ramifications
to show their age – and some for climate change. The UK’s
people are wondering if we should growth in low-carbon electricity
give up on them altogether. production stalled in 2019, after
The UK has eight nuclear a decade of progress, thanks to
plants, a cornerstone of the the nuclear plant issues, a recent
country’s energy system, but analysis by Carbon Brief found.
two – Hunterston B on the west The hiatus is likely to be a
coast of Scotland and Dungeness B foretaste of the next few years.
in south-east England – have Seven of the UK’s plants will
been silent since 2018. have been retired by 2030,
Hunterston, which started stalling the carbon savings from
generating electricity in 1976, has a rapid growth in renewables.
been offline because of concerns Theoretically, a big new nuclear
over cracks in the graphite bricks plant – Hinkley Point C – will
that control the nuclear reaction, come online in 2025, but EDF,
although one reactor could come the company behind it, has
already warned of delays. CHRISTOPHER JONES /ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
“Nuclear is effectively So should the world double
infinite, scalable. It is the down on nuclear power and do
only thing that’s going to whatever it takes to get more
work for climate change” plants built? Or is time to abandon
the idea of nuclear as an important
back online late this month. tool for fighting climate change? there’s just these inherent physical that’s going to work for climate.”
Dungeness, generating since “I would frame the question limits to renewables because In a letter sent to US president
1983, has been down for repairs differently,” says Michael of the dilute nature of sunlight Donald Trump last month,
to pipes carrying steam, and isn’t Shellenberger at Environmental and wind, and their inherent Shellenberger and other nuclear
due back until April at best. Progress, a US-based non-profit unreliability, whereas nuclear is advocates complained that the US
This picture isn’t confined organisation. “Can renewables be effectively infinite, scalable. is building only one nuclear plant
to the UK. There are 415 reactors part of the climate fight? Look, Nuclear is really the only thing at home and none abroad, and
operating around the world, that two-thirds of current US
supplying 10 per cent of the Ageing energy Shrinking share plants may retire within two
world’s electricity supply, but decades. “The US nuclear industry
Almost two-thirds of operating nuclear Nuclearʼs share of world electricity
that is down from a high of needs your leadership to grow
reactors are now over 30 years old generation is shrinking despite overall
around 17.5 per cent in 1996, nuclear at home and sell American
nuclear output climbing back towards
according to a report published 190 levels seen before the Fukushima disaster nuclear plants abroad,” they said.
last month (see graphs, right). 20 Matt Bowen at Columbia
For the first time, the average University in New York says
reactor age passed the 30-year that while Trump backs nuclear
mark. Five reactors shut down last 15 power, he has done little to help
year, while construction started it. The president’s decision to pull
on just two new reactors. The SOURCE: WORLD NUCLEAR INDUSTRY STATUS REPORT 2019 the US out of the Paris climate
82 Share of global electricity generation (per cent) 10
number being built globally stood agreement means the country
63
at 46 by mid-2019, a decadal low, 49 has no policies that would
with 10 of them in China. 31 5 improve the economics of
“To me it’s very clear now that nuclear, such as putting a price
the renewal rate of nuclear power is on carbon. “I want to believe the
too small to be sustainable. So this 0-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41+ 0 US will have some sort of climate
species will die out,” says Mycle 1985 1995 2005 2015 policy. I think that’s key to nuclear
Schneider, a Paris-based nuclear Age (years) SOURCE: WORLD NUCLEAR INDUSTRY STATUS REPORT 2019 energy’s future,” says Bowen.


20 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Overwhelmed by climate change? Working
Get Adam Vaughan’s weekly newsletter on how to fix the planet hypothesis
newscientist.com/sign-up/fix-the-planet
Sorting the week’s
supernovae from
the absolute zeros












The UK’s nuclear at the Rocky Mountain Institute for EDF, which owns all of the UK’s
facilities are starting in Colorado takes a more extreme nuclear plants, to do so is another
to show their age view that existing nuclear plants matter, given the ageing problems
are now so expensive to run that at Hunterston and Dungeness.
Competition from the falling they should be shut down early. Some are looking to other forms
cost of renewables is another “Today’s hot question is of nuclear power instead. Mini ▲ Space hotel
reason that new nuclear plants whether existing reactors should plants known as small modular NASA is working with
face an uphill challenge in some keep operating,” he says. “Most of reactors, such as those being Axiom Space to build a
countries. The cost per megawatt them cost more to run than their developed by US firm NuScale, are tourist module for the
hour of subsidising offshore output can earn, and more than one possibility, but Shellenberger International Space
wind farms in the UK is now half it would cost to provide the same Station. Could you handle
of that agreed for Hinkley Point C, services by building and operating the #flightshame?
meaning even accounting for electricity more efficiently.” 415
new renewables or by using
the costs to the grid of their ▲ New aurora
variable nature, they are still Shellenberger disagrees with Paging Philip Pullman.
much cheaper than nuclear. how Lovins counts the costs of The number of nuclear reactors A new kind of northern
Antony Froggatt at UK think nuclear, and many observers think operating around the world light has been spotted:
tank Chatham House says there nuclear plants should have their green waves of light
used to be a clear contrast on cost lives extended rather than being says going smaller won’t make known as auroral dunes.
between nuclear and renewables. retired. Catherine Mitchell at the nuclear more economical in the
“But now I think what we are University of Exeter, UK, a critic of face of the rise of renewables. ▼ Overweight owl
seeing is the cost of renewables nuclear power, says she doesn’t Then there is nuclear fusion, An owl rescued from a
is going below that of all [forms mind extensions so long as they a cleaner source of energy than ditch has been put on a
of electricity] generation.” are safe, don’t last too long and are current nuclear fission plants. diet by the Suffolk Owl
Europe has meanwhile seen a overseen by a good regulator. Unfortunately, it is still too far Sanctuary, UK. It was
political backlash against nuclear This is the approach being taken off to help us prevent the globe too fat to fly home.
power following the disaster that in Florida, where the US regulator warming by more than 1.5°C,
struck the Fukushima plant in recently approved reactors to which requires halving global ▼ Cigarette butts
Japan in 2011. Germany opted to operate for 80 years, up from emissions by 2030. Even stubbing out isn’t
close its own plants, and the last 60 years. “It’s the way to go,” says A UK government-backed enough. A study has
will be retired in 2022. As a result, Bowen. The UK’s regulator could in fusion project is trying to build a found that in one day,
Germany’s emissions grew by theory make a similar decision, but commercial fusion power station a used butt can emit
about 100 million tonnes of whether it would be economical by 2040, and two UK private up to 14 per cent of the
carbon dioxide a year, roughly firms think they could deliver a nicotine released by an
a quarter of the UK’s annual Is the sun about to set working reactor by 2030. None are actively burning cigarette.
emissions, according to Carbon on the nuclear power guaranteed to succeed, though.
Brief’s estimates. One recent industry? In the meantime, the nuclear ▼ Drug lord hippos
analysis put the increased industry will keep making its case A group of four hippos
healthcare and social cost at for being crucial to tackling climate that were once owned by
$12 billion a year because of the change by reducing emissions to Colombian drug lord Pablo
air pollution from coal plants net zero. “Net zero needs nuclear Escobar has ballooned to
filling the gap left by nuclear. NOW,” the UK nuclear trade body 80 animals, and they are
Switzerland has also voted to tweeted recently. altering local ecosystems.
phase nuclear out and Belgium Shellenberger says he is
will shut its reactors by 2025. bullish about nuclear’s long-term
Even atomic stronghold France is prospects, and China’s efforts both
planning to drop nuclear from 75 domestically and abroad will be
per cent of the country’s electricity key. But nuclear power’s prospects
to 50 per cent through installing TONY VINGERHOETS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO in the short term are chaotic and
more wind and solar power. unpredictable, he says. “In the
Such phase-outs mostly work by short-term, it’s a knife fight in NASA; IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY
letting plants come to the natural a phone booth. It’s everywhere,
end of their life. But Amory Lovins it’s difficult, it’s complicated.” ❚


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 21

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Views



The columnist Letters Aperture Culture Culture columnist
Graham Lawton on Ask an AI to explain A swarm of locusts How to fight back Sally Adee on sci-fi
why aiming for net how an AI made a flies through Kenya against everyday that turns our cities
zero could work p24 decision p26 eating crops p28 racism p30 “smart” p32







Comment

The evolution of sexuality





Same-sex attraction isn’t an evolutionary paradox – our explanations

for how it came to be are just wrong, says Andrew Barron




OW did human same-sex reduced aggression. This includes
attraction come to be? an expanded role for sex in social
H At first glance it seems to contexts that include adult social
be an evolutionary paradox. For a bonding, adult play and conflict
trait to evolve, it has to be passed resolution. That applies to both
on to children to whom it confers gay and straight sex.
some sort of advantage. But as Consider bonobos, our closest
gay sex, of itself, cannot yield primate relative. They diverged
offspring, we should expect from chimpanzees about 2 million
same-sex attraction to go extinct. years ago and as a species are
Evolutionary biologists have extremely prosocial. They are also,
long struggled with this paradox, famously, highly sexual, using sex
but my colleagues and I believe (gay and straight) for a range of
that if you come to the puzzle from social functions. We think
a different angle, the apparent something similar occurred in
contradiction disappears. recent human evolution. Selection
The trick is to recognise the for increased prosociality
complexity of human sexual increased the frequency and
activity and sexuality. diversity of expression of social
Firstly, same-sex attraction only sex and increased same-sex
looks like a paradox if we consider attractions.
human populations to be made up A recent study showed human
of two distinct groups: people who sexuality could be influenced by
are exclusively gay and people hundreds of genes and there is no
who are exclusively straight. But single gene for same-sex attraction.
human sexuality isn’t like this. Instead, many genes influence
Every study since the variation in sexuality, each acting
pioneering work of Alfred Kinsey Secondly, the majority of sex, An important aspect of recent in small and different ways, which
and his colleagues in the 1940s be it gay or straight, isn’t for human evolution has been may explain the variation we see
and 50s has backed up the idea reproduction. For humans and our selection to be proactively social: in people’s sexuality.
that sexuality varies continuously chimpanzee and bonobo relatives, prosociality. If survival and Variation is expected for
from a majority of people who sex has a range of social functions reproduction depend on being complex traits involving hundreds
identify as exclusively straight to a that include play, social bonding, part of a functional social group of genes: consider human IQ or
minority of people who identify as affiliation and even barter, conflict (as was the case for early humans height, for example. But we don’t
exclusively gay. In the middle are a resolution, dominance and and our primate ancestors), feel a need for special evolutionary
range of people, including those appeasement. Thinking about the individuals that are highly arguments to explain the
who identify as bisexual, mostly evolution of sex has to consider prosocial can rapidly integrate existence of very smart or very tall
straight or mostly gay. these social functions as well. into a group, operate better within people, they are just one end of
Acknowledging this spectrum My colleague Brian Hare at a group and have greater mobility spectra of variation. ❚
radically changes the evolutionary Duke University and I proposed a between groups. Selection for
question. It means that we should new hypothesis for the evolution prosociality has resulted in a Andrew Barron is a
JOSIE FORD be asking how variation in of same-sex attraction in a recent whole range of traits for greater neuroethologist at
social awareness and tolerance,
paper published in Frontiers in
sexuality evolved, not just how
Macquarie University
in Sydney, Australia
better social communication and
Psychology (doi.org/dk2x).
same-sex attraction has evolved.
8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 23

Views Columnist




No planet B


Time for action Net zero is the new buzzword in climate circles.

Though it has its problems, this goal could finally start to galvanise
countries into serious carbon cutting, writes Graham Lawton





ERE’S a trivia question the detail – and a good deal of right direction. Eighteen advanced
for you. What do Bhutan wiggle room. economies (including the UK)
H and Suriname have in Net zero has loopholes are currently on a downward
common? If you said that they are galore, especially aviation and net emissions trajectory, largely
the only countries that, in effect, shipping. To achieve national net as a result of their climate and
add no greenhouse gases to the zero, a country must include all energy policies.
air, a state of grace known as net emissions from planes and ships At the moment, even the best of
zero, then well done – though within its airspace and territorial them are only achieving an annual
you might want to get out more. waters. But what about emissions reduction of about 2 per cent,
Graham Lawton is a staff Even if you aren’t a climate once the craft have flown and when what is needed is more like
writer at New Scientist and obsessive, net zero is a phrase sailed into international ones? 7 or 8 per cent. To hit that target,
author of This Book Could Save you have probably heard. Greta Historically, these emissions every sector of the economy has
Your Life. You can follow him Thunberg talked about it last have been exempt from climate to put its shoulder to the wheel
@ grahamlawton month at the World Economic change talks because of the and tough policies will have to be
Forum meeting in Davos, difficulty of allocating them to implemented, such as completely
Switzerland. Last year, the UK specific countries. But without refurbishing the housing stock to
and France became the first major a mechanism to do so, net zero make it low energy and putting a
economies to legally commit to will be an illusion. price on carbon emissions.
achieving it; both chose 2050 Even that won’t be enough;
as year zero. Sweden and New “ Action by the big we will also require widespread
Zealand have also enacted similar emitters seems to be deployment of carbon capture and
net zero targets. Eleven other moving things on: storage technology (CCS), which
countries have legislation in the is unproven on a large scale, and
Graham’s week 18 nations are on
pipeline, with Finland aiming for which opens up another loophole.
What I’m reading 2035 and Norway and Uruguay a downward net Instead of pouring money into
The Overstory by Richard an even more ambitious 2030. emissions trajectory” CCS, advanced economies could
Powers, an epic novel Smaller political entities such pay to plant trees in other
involving a lot of trees. as states and cities are increasingly To its credit, the UK government countries – usually developing
declaring net zero targets, as are has committed to accounting for economies – and count this
What I’m watching big companies. Net zero doesn’t these emissions, though has yet to towards their domestic target.
It’s classic horror season change what we have to do, but specify how. But other countries While it is easy to be cynical
in my house. My son is seems to be focusing minds in a may not be so strict. about governments committing
writing a dissertation on way that vague global temperature There’s more. Countries could to something they won’t be
scary films. goals have failed to do. claim to be net zero, but consume judged on for three decades, there
On the surface, net zero seems products made abroad whose are optimistic noises emerging
What I’m working on a good idea and a straightforward manufacture creates emissions. from climate science. The UK’s
I’m back on the one. Wherever possible, stop A requirement to gauge a nation’s declaration of net zero has
biodiversity beat as we emitting greenhouse gases, and consumption globally will close “shifted the dial”, says Jim Skea,
gear up for a big meeting have enough carbon dioxide- this loophole, but in the meantime professor of sustainable energy
on the issue this month. absorbing trees to counter any nations can shift some emissions at Imperial College London,
remaining emissions, or capture off their books this way. with even North Sea oil and gas
those emissions and bury them. Even with a meaningful target, companies accepting the need for
Unlike temperature goals, net you then have the problem of net zero targets. And a national
zero sounds unequivocal. It draws actually hitting net zero, which is commitment will be useful for
on very solid science – the concept where the hard yards really start. peer shaming at the critical UN
of a carbon budget: the amount of Bhutan and Suriname succeeded climate talks due in the UK in
extra CO2 (or other greenhouse largely because they have small November, says Joeri Rogelj of
gases) we can emit without populations, lots of hydroelectric the Grantham Institute in London.
cooking Earth. It is clearly a useful power and intact forests. The rest It still won’t be easy. It
way of framing the challenge and of the world isn’t so blessed. will still take unprecedented
This column will appear aiming for solutions. But there is positive evidence transformation of every aspect
monthly. Up next week: Simple. But, as with all things that concerted action by the big of society. But the optimism is
Annalee Newitz climate-related, there is devil in emitters is moving things in the rising: we can be zeroes. ❚


24 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

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Views Your letters









Editor’s pick

More common ground
on the changes we need

Letters, 21/28 December 2019
From Iain Climie,
Whitchurch, Hampshire, UK
Roger Taylor notes that recycling is
one area where common ground
can be found with climate change
sceptics. There are many more.
Restoring fish stocks, reducing
waste, combining conservation with
careful usage, using alternatives to
fossil fuels, making less use of cash
crops, promoting tree growth and
use via silviculture and cutting the
impact per head of livestock and
their overall numbers are examples.
Maddeningly, politicians and
other policymakers could have
supported these actions in the past
30 to 40 years, since they make
sense whether climate change
develops as expected or not – and
even if temperatures fall following plant biomass. Tree planting on change while we decarbonise the experience of such people leads
a major volcanic eruption. Further, such soils can oxidise this carbon, economy. What if we plant enough me to think that many are just
trees can be good near-term carbon potentially releasing more than trees to stabilise carbon dioxide contrarians who enjoy the
sinks, are a potential source of fuel the amount taken up by the trees. levels in the air, while still burning challenge, doubtless honed in
and have other benefits. As usual, And practices such as ploughing fossil fuels? We would end up with school debating societies, of
short-termism won out over land before planting can dry out a planet that is still warming and defending the indefensible.
intelligent win-win policies. the soil, causing carbon release. At has nowhere left for new forests.
the other end of the forestry cycle, Forest restoration is essential – Just when an autonomous
modern tree extracting machines and will help with maintaining
Can planting trees combat car needs you most…
can similarly churn up the soil. biodiversity. But it must be done
climate change very much? So it isn’t clear to me whether alongside emissions reductions. Letters, 18 January
Letters, 7 December 2019 tree planting will benefit the From Anna Zee, Leicester, UK
From James Fenton, climate. There is also the issue of An obstacle to making Will motion sickness be an issue
Clachan Seil, Argyll, UK natural and semi-natural habitats for people deprived of a sense of
Recent letters, like that from being converted to woodland at deniers my friends control in autonomous cars, asks
Adam Osen, focus on planting the expense of biodiversity. 11 January, p 21 Frank Siegrist. It will. I first heard
trees to help mitigate climate I believe the best approach From Guy Cox, St Albans, of this in 2018, at a conference on
change through their storage of would be to leave the extensive New South Wales, Australia highly automated vehicles at the
carbon. It may not always work. tracts of UK upland with a shallow David Westmoreland and Connor University of Warwick, UK. Before
Planting trees on open ground humus layer unplanted, so that McCormick say the flat-Earthers we reach full vehicle autonomy,
may change the reflectivity, or over time the soil carbon store they meet are savvy about science. human drivers will need to take
albedo, of land. At higher latitudes builds up and, on level ground They also report flat-Earthers over in some circumstances. There
this can cause a warming effect, at least, goes on to form peat. measuring shadow lengths at is currently, as I understand it, no
as three-dimensional woodland various latitudes to look for way of determining whether a
absorbs more radiation than the Reforesting is a stopgap curvature of Earth and coming driver may be impaired by motion
essentially two-dimensional up with inconclusive results. sickness when required to do this.
open ground that it replaces. solution to carbon woes The African-Greek scholar
In many places new planting 11 January, p 44 Eratosthenes used this method to Reasons why Neanderthals
is likely to be targeted at upland From Martin Murray, calculate Earth’s circumference
areas, which generally possess Telford, Shropshire, UK before 200 BC. He was correct to may not have died out
stratified soils with a high organic I appreciate Tom Crowther’s within 10 per cent. So much for 7 December 2019, p 19
carbon content. In the UK there research on reforestation, which is the flat-Earthers’ experimental From Roger Williams,
is an order of magnitude more vital and urgent. But reforestation competence. There may be Lucerne, Switzerland
carbon stored in soil carbon than is a stopgap solution to climate another explanation. My limited You report philosopher Krist


26 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Vaesen arguing that Neanderthals reasoning. Although we should lead to personal trips by skilled be a Boojum… you will softly and
were such a small population that be aware that someone can make builders or those who can offer suddenly vanish away”. I believe
they may have been intrinsically decisions without being able to training in medical matters. the big bang theory is in fact the
at risk of extinction through a give their full reasoning, or may This sort of thing doesn’t come big bang boojum.
combination of unfortunate even answer differently each time from a scientific effectiveness
circumstances, rather than being asked, I do think there may be a measure alone. Aid agencies Did we hum a happy tune
actively exterminated or out- better way to evaluate AI decisions. surely need to be held to account
competed by Homo sapiens. We could train another AI to by some recognised methodology. while we munched leaves?
Researchers could also, given interrogate it, using the same set But don’t ignore the personal. A 11 January, p 34
the small size of the Neanderthal of variables the original AI was purely scientific approach is rarely From Steve Wain,
population relative to H. sapiens given and varying them slightly an adequate description of the Horkstow, Lincolnshire, UK
incomers, consider a further on each iteration to infer what realities of human community. A serendipitous concurrence of
possibility: that Neanderthals “mattered” to the decision maker. events has set me thinking. In
never went extinct as such. Since computers can repeat the I still can’t ride this your article on breathing and
Eurasian populations today have same process over and over again better memory and sleep you say
1 to 4 per cent of Neanderthal DNA. very quickly, this process should big bang bandwagon that humming sets up swirls of air
It is possible that Neanderthals be able to ascertain the detail that 4 January, p 20 in the sinuses, which boost the
interbred with H. sapiens until, was important in the decision. It From Paul Leek, production of nitric oxide 15-fold.
after a few thousand years, there seems to me eminently superior Willimantic, Connecticut, US And recently there was coverage
were no “pure” Neanderthals left. to interrogating humans, who Chandra Prescod-Weinstein asks: of the finding that gorillas “sing”
This process would have been may fear blame. are dark matter and dark energy while they eat (5 March 2016, p 18).
accelerated if “mixed” offspring related? Yes: both are imaginary The humming-like sounds
were infertile, except for female Don’t ignore the personal constructs required to paper they make certainly seem to be
children of H. sapiens mothers over the cracks in the “big bang” generated in the sinuses. Bearing
and Neanderthal fathers. This idea in evaluating altruism concept. I find it difficult, as an in mind nitric oxide has an effect
is supported by reports that in 7 December 2019, p 42 old physicist, to understand how on smooth muscle tissue, such as
modern H. sapiens neither the From Frank Lukey, far this illusion has gone within that in the gut, could this be an aid
mitochondria – passed from Penistone, South Yorkshire, UK the physics community. to effective digestion?
mothers to all children – nor the I read with great interest Joshua I remember the astrophysicist It is tempting to think that we,
Y chromosomes – passed from Howgego’s discussion of using Fred Hoyle pouring scorn on the too, may have evolved, as social
father to son – show Neanderthal evidence and reason to maximise “big bang theory” in 1949. It is a arboreal primates, a musical
traces (bit.ly/NS-neanderthal). the impact of kindness. It reminds shame that the word “theory” is mechanism that also offered
The topic is interesting and me of utility theory in economics. used in the term, as it was always such digestive benefits as well as
requires further research. Vaesen The usefulness, or utility, of a used to denote an idea which had effective social communication,
is right not to fall into the easy trap given outcome depends markedly some definite proof. The “theory”, pre-language. This may even add
of seeing the Homo species or on the person involved and on as it stands, looks to me more like weight to the argument that music
subspecies as necessarily in a state their situation. Worse, utility can a creation by satirical novelist predated language.
of life-or-death competition. At change significantly over time. Terry Pratchett than a product If nothing else, it could also
this remove, it is wrong to make We should surely recognise that of modern physics. explain the way music can so
assumptions about how the two personal perception lies at the Is no one in the physics or easily elicit visceral responses. Is
populations would have seen each very heart of decisions to donate. cosmology communities working there any research into how such
other at the time. Connecting giver to receiver is on alternative scenarios? It seems a link, forged in our evolutionary
important – it often means that that every other issue of New past, may have then become
The editor writes: much more than money is shared. Scientist has an article outlining adapted subsequently?  ❚
We have discussed the idea that Human sympathy and interest the failings of the big bang idea.
Neanderthals may have become matter greatly. How can any serious physicist For the record
absorbed into modern human For example, building a consider that a large percentage
populations (25 August 2018, p 7). / specific school or clinic for of the material in the universe ❚  Our comment on George
And for more on Neanderthal DNA specific recipients not only leads is something about which we Monbiot’s statement that the “land
in people today, see page 19. to effective application of funds, haven’t a clue? We now have a efficiency” of Solar Foods protein
it also leads to greater giving. big bang bandwagon. production from hydrogen and
Donors who are personally This all reminds me of Lewis oxygen is roughly 20,000 times
Ask an AI to explain how
interested gain an appreciation Carroll’s poem The Hunting of the that of conventional agriculture,
an AI made its decision
of the local problems. This can Snark, which warns: “If your Snark based on the area occupied by the
Letters, 14 December 2019 factory, is only that it isn’t relevant:
From Tim Flanders, he also uses Solar Foods’ figure that
New Longton, Lancashire, UK Want to get in touch? the area of the factory, plus solar
Paul Bowden is among the many Send letters to New Scientist, 25 Bedford Street, London panels to power it, is 10 times
people who are concerned that WC2E 9ES or [email protected]; see terms at smaller than equivalent fields,
AI will not be able to reveal its newscientist.com/letters which is relevant (18 January, p 10).


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 27

Views Aperture





















































































































28 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Swarm of death






Photographer Ben Curtis
Agency AP Photo

THIS farmer can only watch in
dismay as locusts in swarms of
biblical proportions devour her
crops outside Katitika village
in Kenya. It is the worst invasion
by desert locusts (Schistocerca
gregaria) in decades to hit Kenya,
Ethiopia and Somalia, destroying
crops in an area already facing
food insecurity. Somalia has
declared a national emergency.
Hundreds of millions of locusts
are forming swarms bigger than
cities. Stopping them will require
the aerial spraying of pesticides,
which could cost $70 million,
says the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO).
It fears locust numbers could
grow some 500-fold when rains
arrive in March, bringing new
vegetation. An adult can eat its
body weight in food daily, and a
Paris-sized swarm can eat as much
in a day as half the population
of France, according to the FAO.
Desert locusts are usually
solitary, but rain after drought
can cause a surge in vegetation,
and locust breeding. As the
wingless nymphs, known as
hoppers, get crowded together,
the stimulus of frequent physical
contact triggers changes to
their colour and behaviour.
Hoppers change colour as they
become gregarious. Flying
adults also change colour, turning
pink if immature or yellow if
mature. The locusts here look
immature, so can’t yet produce
a new generation. ❚


Chris Simms
















8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 29

Views Culture







Play the realism card on race





Let’s welcome a new book that takes apart the persistent race myths plaguing
society and helps us fight back against “everyday racism”, says Layal Liverpool






Book
How to Argue with a
Racist: History, science,
race and reality
Adam Rutherford
Weidenfeld & Nicolson


I AM black and mixed-race, but
it remains unclear to me whether
these are social identities or
biological classifications. Luckily,
I can turn to Adam Rutherford’s
latest book, How to Argue with
a Racist, to reveal the current
scientific understanding of race,
ancestry and genetics. It also tells GUY SMALLMAN/GETTY IMAGES
us how to argue effectively against
the idea that certain populations
of people are biologically inferior.
From the beginning, Rutherford
is clear that although he uses the to people of European descent. test to establish an African Fighting racism means
term “race” frequently, he does so They also exist today in Kazakhs, country of origin for the tackling the most
only because the word is widely Ethiopians, Tutsi, Khoisan and in descendants of slaves. entrenched stereotypes
used: it isn’t scientifically valid, many places where dairy farming Instead of arguing against
yet it exists so must be addressed. took off as part of agriculture. the logic of marrying identity another than we think is a pretty
“Race is a social construct. This Chugging milk is a theatrical to ancestry, Rutherford elegantly strong argument against racism.
does not mean it is invalid or gesture, but as Rutherford points uses a bit of mathematics to Is any of this enough to
unimportant,” writes Rutherford. out, we increasingly turn to show how our whole way of convince hard-liners? Maybe
How to Argue with a Racist’s ancestry and genetic testing thinking about ancestry is wrong. not. As Rutherford writes:
strongest suit is to encourage a to reaffirm our human tendency He assumes generational time “The commercial genetic
general conversation about race, to seek meaning and identity. is 25 years and that the number tests remain scientifically
informed by the latest science on of ancestors for each person in unconvincing. Regardless, the
the reality and origins of racism. “ The field of human every generation has doubled. utility of consumer genetic testing
Researching ethnicity has often genetics has a dark So we each have two parents, is now a major and significant part
been career death, but Rutherford four grandparents, eight great- of white supremacy discourse.”
says scientists shouldn’t shy away history, but it has grandparents, and so on. In But in many ways How to Argue
from the field. Nor should writers, also demonstrated 500 years, or 20 generations, that is with a Racist isn’t really about
to judge by his mission. the falsity of race” 1,048,576 ancestors. Go back 1000 arguing with hard-liners. Its target
For many, race is a cry for years, and each of us has more is the surprisingly prevalent set of
identity and belonging. In 2018, I can relate to this. My surname, than a trillion ancestors: 10 times racist beliefs, from men of certain
when groups of neo-Nazis in the Liverpool, comes from an ancestor more people than ever existed. groups having larger or smaller
US “chugged” milk to supposedly on my father’s side, forcibly The notion of a family tree isn’t penises than average to people
demonstrate their superior, shipped from West Africa to the the most scientifically accurate from different racial groups being
genetically encoded ability Caribbean via Liverpool, UK, metaphor, he writes, because trees more or less intelligent than
to process lactose, they were during the transatlantic slave only ever branch, but family trees average. “The way we generally
trying to assert their white trade. But as Rutherford points contain loops, with the same speak about races does not align
identity, writes Rutherford. out, the number of children person appearing at multiple with what we know about those
He rather undermines such produced by sex between enslaved positions in the tree, for example, innate differences between people
an assertion by revealing that peoples, and between the enslaved as a result of first cousins having and populations,” says Rutherford.
the gene mutations that enable and their owners, makes it children. Understanding that we For example, the largest study
lactose processing aren’t unique virtually impossible for a genetic are all more closely related to one of penis size, including more than


30 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Don’t miss





Robots going rogue




Star Trek’s new spin-off explores what happens

when tech backfires, finds Simon Ings


15,000 men, found no evidence abandoned its utopian remit, Last chance
that the organ’s length or girth and is now just one more faction Maternality, the second
correlates with any particular TV in a fast-moving, galaxy-wide instalment of a two-part
population, racial category Star Trek: Picard power arena (echoes of Trump art exhibition about
or ethnicity, while intelligence Amazon Prime Video are entirely intentional). Can the politics of mothering,
is a complex trait influenced Picard, the last torchbearer of focuses on the
by a score of genes and their STAR TREK first appeared on the old guard, bring it back to childbearing body.
interaction with our environment. television on 8 September virtue? One jolly well hopes Ends on 15 February
Rutherford hunts widely to 1966. It has been fighting so – and not too quickly since at Richard Saltoun
account for the persistence of the gravitational pull of its Picard is a great deal of fun. Gallery in London.
such racist ideas. But in the end, own nostalgia ever since – or There are already exciting
he faces down the biggest issue at least since Star Trek: The Next novelties, although the one
at the core of many of these Generation began 21 years later. I found most intriguing may
racist stereotypes: is race truly The Next Generation was the just be an artefact of getting
a biological classification? series that gave us shipboard the show off the ground.
We are constantly told that it is counselling (a questionable Picard’s world – troubled by bad
a social construct, but scientists idea), a crew that liked each dreams as much as it is enabled
muddy the waters by appearing other (a catastrophic idea) and by world-shrinking technology –
to contradict this as they perhaps Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc is oddly surreal, discontinuous
carelessly mention both race and Picard, who held it all together, in ways that aren’t particularly
ethnicity in their research papers. pretty much single-handedly. confusing but can jar. Visit
Rutherford is clear that the Now Picard is back, retired, Is the Star Trek franchise Orchids, the 25th
majority of geneticists think written off, an embarrassment, finally getting to grips with the annual orchid festival at
genetic differences between a blowhard. And Star Trek: Picard psychological consequences of London’s Kew Gardens,
ethnic groups are meaningless is a triumph, praise be. But its mastery of time and space? opens on 8 February.
in terms of behaviour or something bad has happened Or did the producers shove as It highlights the
innate abilities. But he also to the “synthetics” (read: robots) much into the first episode to wildlife and culture of
acknowledges the contradiction who, in the person of Lieutenant get things rolling? The latter some of Indonesia’s
because scientific papers are still Commander Data (Brent Spiner, seems likely, but I can hope. 17,504 islands, and
published in which genes for returning briefly), promised so The new show bears its includes a whimsical
complex traits like intelligence much. Any machine that can do burden of twaddle. The first volcano made of flowers.
seem stratified along racial lines. what these robots are expected episode features a po-faced
Race science is pseudoscience, to do will be able to down tools – analysis of Data’s essence.
but genetics and evolutionary or worse. Picard’s take isn’t yet No, really. His essence.
research are inextricably tied up clear, but the consequences of How twaddle became a key
with race, and are often used by all the Federation’s synthetics part of The Next Generation is
racists to justify themselves. going haywire is painfully felt. a mystery: the first series never
Rutherford accepts that the field The Federation has all but felt the need for it. Yet, like a
of human genetics has a dark hold full of tribbles, twaddle
history, “founded by racists in a now seems impossible to shake.
time of racism”, but also argues But why cavil? Stewart brings TOP:KIRSTEN JUSTESEN; COURTESY OF RICHARD SALTOUN GALLERY, LONDON. PHOTO BY BEN WESTOBY. JEFF EDEN/RBG KEW.
that genetics “has demonstrated a new vulnerability and even Read
the scientific falsity of race”. a hint of bitterness to grit his Mathematics for
He writes that scientists’ seemlessly fluid recreation of Human Flourishing
reluctance “to express views Picard, and the story promises (Yale University Press)
concerning the politics that an exciting and devastating by Francis Su weaves
might emerge from human twist to the show’s old political parables, puzzles and
genetics is a position perhaps landscape. Picard, growing old personal reflections to
worth reconsidering”. After all, he disgracefully? Oh, make it so! ❚ show how mathematics
argues, those who misuse science meets basic human
for ideological ends show no such 2019 CBS INTERACTIVE, INC. Patrick Stewart reprises desires and builds virtues
restraint, and embrace modern Jean-Luc Picard, now retired that help us all flourish.
tech to spread their messages. ❚ and distinctly written-off


8 February 2020| New Scientist | 31

Views Culture




The science fiction column

Swipe left or right for everything Turning our cities into the corporate machines

envisioned by two new works of speculative fiction offers unexpected horror and

humour. Sally Adee explores some fraught urban futures





Turning a city “smart”
is an alluring prospect,
for some

Tinder City, you swipe left or right
for everyone and everything, from
sex to teachers and civil servants.
Some pieces are derivative, but
among the predictable notes of
Sally Adee is a technology Black Mirror and Inception lurk
and science writer based strange poetry and unexpected
in London. Follow her on horror: in the city run by Acxiom
Twitter @sally_adee (one of the world’s biggest data
brokers), you get the treatment you
deserve – according to your data.
What kind of humans would
QI YANG/GETTY IMAGES be able to survive there? Marc-Uwe

Kling’s satirical novel QualityLand
nurtures that question into full
bloom. In QualityLand, every
citizen is named after parental
IN STARBUCKS CITY, you can apply co-editors, Mark Graham, an careers. Also, everyone rates
to have a pothole filled, just like in internet geographer at the everyone on every interaction,
Books any other city. Just specify the size University of Oxford, asked some from work to sex. Enter Melissa
How to Run a City of your hole (Maltesa, Sharpe or academics to write speculative Sex-Worker, icily determined to
Like Amazon, and Labradoro) and be sure to check stories or essays about living improve her lot. She is aggressively
Other Fables whether your neighbourhood according to corporate leadership pursuing a higher score because
Edited by Mark Graham, requires your asphalt to be principles espoused by companies a higher social credit, as in China,
Rob Kitchin, Shannon ethically sourced. from Apple to Pornhub. creates a more frictionless life.
Mattern and Joe Shaw In recent years, it has become a The underlying question here We are already in the pupal state
Meatspace Press truism among policy-makers that is what could possibly go wrong? of such a world. Some people on
cities should be optimised in the It is posed, one imagines, with a Instagram get real-life fillers and
QualityLand way corporations are. Turning a certain degree of glee. surgery to replicate the most
Marc-Uwe Kling city into a “smart city” is an alluring engaged-with facial contours,
Orion prospect. It pushes inefficient “ Imagine life if a whole conferred by the app’s Facetune
government bureaucracy out city were run by one filter. The denizens of LinkedIn
Sally also of the way and replaces it with (a network of muscular, joyless
recommends... streamlined corporate of the megacorps even efficiency) publicise morning
governance. But to what end? now insinuating their routines meant to turn them into
Two new works of speculative way into our lives” perfect entrepreneurs: “4.30: get
Podcast fiction take that question very up. Bulletproof coffee. 5 am: gym
Personal Best literally, and their vision of the “We are beyond the point where while I learn a new language”.
Andrew Norton efficiency endgame shares more we can use human frailty as an Meanwhile, in QualityLand,
and Rob Norman DNA with horror than with science excuse,” writes Sarah Barns in robots with bugs get scrapped
CBC fiction, albeit cut with farce. one stand-out story, “So You because fixing them is against the
This is a self-improvement Because what do we mean by Want to Live in a Pivot City?”. law. But one guy keeps old robots:
show for people who optimising? Whose priorities are She examines a takeover of a left to their own devices, the bugs
don’t like self-improvement. reflected in that word? How to city’s carbon economy in the style evolve into distinct personalities.
As Norman says: “These Run a City Like Amazon, and Other of Alphabet’s urban innovation You just watch: in our lifetime,
little things that we want to Fables imagines life if a whole city arm, Sidewalk Labs. robots will be the only ones smart
change, and that annoy us, were run by one of 38 megacorps The way you spend your day is enough to help us rise above the
actually make us interesting, even now insinuating their no longer your business, and every drive to automate, optimise and
nuanced creatures.” way into our lives. One of the choice is measured. Meanwhile, in homogenise us into robots. ❚


32 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

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Who Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. “He
would be ashamed to do so.”
By 3800 years ago, when Amenemhat III
ruled, writing had already been around for
more than 1000 years. Two systems had
invented become particularly influential: cuneiform,
originating in Mesopotamia in south-west
Asia, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was the
latter that inspired the inventors of the
the ABCs? alphabet, which still carries faint echoes of
its hieroglyphic heritage. Our letter M, for
instance, has the crests and trough of a water
wave, the hieroglyphic sign from which it
emerged. Although most of the letters of the
It has long been assumed that Egyptian alphabet weren’t exactly new, the way they
were repurposed certainly was.
scribes created the first alphabet. That’s Egyptian hieroglyphs generally represented

not the whole story, finds Colin Barras syllables or full words. The alphabet uses a
different approach. All letters represent
phonemes, the indivisible elementary
particles from which spoken languages are
built. The word “pen”, for example, is just one
syllable but contains three distinct phonemes,
MENEMHAT III is one of Egypt’s each represented by one letter. There were
lesser-known pharaohs. He made some phonemic elements in earlier writing
Apyramids, but not on the scale of systems, but the alphabet was entirely
Khufu’s at Giza. He commissioned many phoneme based. That was revolutionary.
artworks, but none that survive match the It may seem like a small distinction, but
opulence of Tutankhamun’s gold mask. He it makes a huge difference to the way the
mounted military expeditions, but not with alphabet worked compared with hieroglyphics.
the success of Thutmose III, who built a vast The Egyptians needed hundreds of distinct
empire. Still, Amenemhat has one claim to hieroglyphs to represent individual words.
fame. Under his rule, a technology emerged Most languages comprise just a few dozen
that is more impressive, valuable and pervasive phonemes, however. As a consequence, all
than any of these legacies: the alphabet. of the 40 or so known proto-alphabetic texts
The alphabet was a revolutionary way of use the same 20 or so symbols, or letters (see
recording information. But it is more than just “The first alphabet”, page 36).
a writing system. In a recent book, Philippa As far as we know, this original alphabet
Steele and Philip Boyes at the University of wasn’t used to write Egyptian words, but the
Cambridge describe it as an “icon of culture”. words of one or more Semitic languages, a
Today it is so central to education in most group of languages spoken, at that time, by
countries that children can often recite it various populations living in the Middle East
long before they have learned to read or write. and Turkey. This suggests the alphabet was a
Beyond the familiar ABC, a variety of alphabets cross-cultural invention. “It makes sense to
are used to write in many languages, from see this coming out of a close association of
Russian to Arabic. But all trace back to one Egyptian and Semitic speakers,” says John
common ancestor. Darnell at Yale University. But in what context
The story of that first alphabet has long been the two groups came together to invent the
a mystery, but over the past 25 years we have alphabet – and exactly when – wasn’t clear for
made enormous progress towards pinpointing most of the 20th century. Archaeologists first
when and where it was invented. Most unearthed examples of the early alphabet
astonishing, the consensus today is that the in 1905, but so little else was found in the
alphabet didn’t emerge from a state-sponsored following decades that people lost interest in
initiative as was long believed. Instead, its the alphabet’s origins. Then, in 1995, Darnell
originators were probably far removed from made a discovery that rekindled the flame.
the ancient world’s elites. Paradoxically, they While working at the desert site of Wadi
BACKHANDING/GETTY IMAGES may even have been illiterate. “No trained el-Hôl, a few tens of kilometres north-west of
MARTIN RUEGNER/GETTY IMAGES
FLORIAN MOSER/PLAINPICTURE Egyptian scribe would write in the way these Luxor (the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes),
DARWIN RAMOS/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES
CHOI LAI YEE JOEY/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES geniuses wrote,” says Orly Goldwasser at the Darnell’s team analysed two alphabetic >

8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 35

HOW WE
WRITE TODAY


The alphabet was born about 3800 “ Good inventions has to come out of some interaction,” he says.
years ago. After a slow start, it has “And whoever came up with those signs was
produced dozens of offspring. Arguably tend to take root probably literate in Egyptian hieratic.”
the most important divisions happened Darnell and his colleagues published their
between 3000 and 2000 years ago. fast, so why did findings in 2006. Although widely accepted as
Near the beginning of this period, the alphabet landmark work, it wasn’t the end of the story.
the Phoenician alphabet – a direct For a start, it highlighted a real puzzle. As far as
descendant of the first one – gave rise seem to languish we can tell, the alphabet wasn’t embraced for
to the Greek and Aramaic alphabets. state business until 3200 years ago. Brilliant
The Greek alphabet then led to a huge for 600 years?” inventions tend to take root fast, so why did the
variety of forms, from the Cyrillic family alphabet seem to languish for 600 years?
used in south-east Europe and northern One surprising suggestion is that the
Asia to the Latin/Roman family that literati didn’t consider it to be superior to
includes English, German and French. their traditional scripts. “We’re conditioned to
The Aramaic alphabet, meanwhile, inscriptions carved into rock. Although still thinking about writing in terms of efficiency,”
blossomed into a group that includes indecipherable, the style of the letters suggests says Boyes. From this perspective, cuneiform
the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets. It many emerged from a very particular type of and hieroglyphics must be poor systems
probably also gave rise to the Brahmi Egyptian hieroglyphics called hieratic. This was because they employed hundreds of signs,
script, another distinct type of alphabet a significant discovery. Formal hieroglyphics each potentially having multiple meanings.
that is itself the parent of dozens more altered little as time passed, but hieratic did But scribes valued this complexity, in part
used across south and South-East Asia. change. And the inscriptions looked like a style because it left room for creativity – enabling
Aside from the alphabet, there are of hieratic used 3800 years ago. “It’s pretty them to make visual puns, for instance. “You
two other modern writing systems. In incontrovertible that the inscriptions date to can switch things around to show how clever
the first – of which Chinese text is the the end of the 12th dynasty, during the reign of you are,” he says. At the same time, ancient
only real example still in use – signs Amenemhat III,” says Darnell. That makes them writing systems were crystal clear in their
represent full words. In the other, signs among the oldest alphabetic inscriptions found. meaning. The earliest versions of the alphabet
represent syllables. Japanese uses Most scholars agree that this is currently were less so. For instance, most didn’t fully
many Chinese “word” characters, but our best guess for when the alphabet was represent the vowels of the spoken language.
has two other writing systems based on invented. The Wadi el-Hôl carvings also hint at
syllable signs. The few other syllable- how it was invented. The site was frequented Hidden history
based systems include the Cherokee by the Egyptian army, and military recruits
one used in the south-east US. were a cosmopolitan bunch. “You’d have had However, another possibility is emerging: the
The variety and global dominance of all sorts of people: Nubians, Egyptians, people alphabet didn’t fail to take off, its early history
the alphabet isn’t necessarily a sign of from what we’d refer to as Libya, people from has simply been hidden, until now. In 2015, Ben
its superiority to other writing systems, south-west Asia – it was a real melting pot of Haring at Leiden University in the Netherlands
says Amalia Gnanadesikan, recently people and languages,” says Darnell. Military described a 3450-year-old chunk of pottery
retired from the University of Maryland. expeditions also required scribes to read and unearthed a few decades ago in a tomb near
In some parts of the world, alphabets write dispatches, so he imagines a scenario in Thebes. He soon realised the text was unusual.
have been foisted on people by empire which those professional scribes sat down with The Egyptian hieratic and hieroglyphic writing
builders, she says. For instance, they are their military colleagues from south-west Asia looked like one, or possibly two, mnemonics –
used across north Asia, Africa and the and helped them invent the alphabet. “I’d say it or memory aids – spelling out the first few
Americas because of Russian and
western European expansionism.
The fact that alphabets use a smaller The first alphabet
set of characters than other writing
Alphabetic texts first appeared around 3800 years ago. The oldest share dozens of symbols but the record
systems isn’t entirely beneficial either, is incomplete. However, by around 3200 years ago, something resembling todayʼs ABC was emerging
says Gnanadesikan. It means words
must be written using combinations of / A H P
several symbols. Take the phrase “dog
bites man”. Someone learning Chinese / B I Q
has to understand just three signs – / R
rather than 11 letters – to read and / C K
write the sentence. “So you get a very D L S
rapid ability to translate what you’re
learning into use,” she says. Moreover, E / M T
children in Japan learn the hiragana
syllable-based writing system so easily F / N
that they can often start reading aged 3.
G / O SOURCE: JOSEPH NAVEH


36 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Texts engraved turquoise mining, employing Semitic-
at Serabit speaking Canaanites from the Middle East to
el-Khadim in extract the gemstone. Goldwasser’s idea is that
Egypt (left) these illiterate miners saw Egyptians writing
could be the dedications to the gods and wanted in on the
root of the action. Given their lowly status, they were
Phoenician never going to persuade Egyptian scribes to
alphabet, teach them hieroglyphics. So they improvised.
shown on a They assigned new meanings to signs in the
2700-year-old hieroglyphic texts so they could record their
tablet (below) Semitic language phonetically – and created
the alphabet. The Serabit el-Khadim alphabetic
inscriptions are crudely executed, with letters
of different sizes, Goldwasser notes, suggesting
HEMIS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO they were written by people with no formal

training. Egyptian scribes would never be so
clumsy in their work, she says.
Koller concedes that the writing is crude,
but still thinks it makes more sense to see
the alphabet as an invention from within
cuneiform tablets on shelves in rows, like Egypt’s literate elite. However, he also notes
books in a modern library, says Koller. That that early alphabetic texts are presented in
makes text on the edges important because an unbroken stream, whereas hieroglyphic
it is all that is visible to anyone navigating the writing incorporated signs to indicate where
archive. Like their counterparts in Egypt, he words end. “So, if the inventors of the alphabet
TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM by tradition to use the ancient writing systems something that’s clearly useful,” he says.
knew Egyptian, they consciously omitted
thinks, Mesopotamian scribes were compelled
Rollston thinks it possible that Canaanitic
to document official business. But for
unofficial, private work – like writing these
miners played a key role in the alphabet’s
“spine notes” – they chose to use the alphabet
invention. But he questions whether they were
because they found it quicker to write and read.
Dalley is sceptical about Koller’s idea,
found evidence that some Canaanites used
Egyptian hieroglyphics in the traditional way,
however. “I do not think the evidence bears completely illiterate. Goldwasser herself has
the weight of his deductions,” she says. although their writing is littered with basic
letters of the alphabet in alphabetical order. Christopher Rollston at George Washington errors. However, she argues that these literate
A modern version might read “Albert Bought University in Washington DC also advocates Canaanites were tribal leaders who wouldn’t
Custard Doughnuts”. Aaron Koller at Yeshiva caution because the tablets lack provenance, so have mingled with the illiterate miners.
University, New York, argues that this is a key it is unclear whether they were archived with Whoever invented the alphabet, they never
discovery. Thebes was Egypt’s capital at that the alphabetic inscriptions exposed. In fact, lived to realise the importance of their creation
time, he says. And this fragment of pottery he doubts that scribes used the alphabet widely (see “How we write today”, left). Indeed, it is
suggests that scribes in the metropolis in its first 600 years. Professional writers still a mystery exactly why the alphabet
wanted to learn the writing system typically standardise their writing systems, he ultimately replaced other writing systems.
apparently invented by their provincial says, but there is nothing standard about the It is tempting to link it with a region-wide
military colleagues 350 years earlier. That way alphabetic texts were written before 3200 collapse of civilisations 3200 years ago, the
might seem like quite a lag, but although Wadi years ago. Some read right to left, others left to cause of which is still unknown. But the
el-Hôl was close to Thebes, in cultural terms it right, and yet others top to bottom. Even the alphabet was beginning to rise to dominance
was a world away, visited rarely by Egypt’s elites. orientation of letters within words wasn’t along parts of the eastern Mediterranean coast
Even if the alphabet was catching on, the fixed. “If scribes were using this fairly widely before that. “To be honest, I think that it’s more
Egyptian state didn’t abandon hieroglyphics. for their own purposes, we would expect a of an accident than anything,” says Steele.
Koller thinks he knows why. The clue, he modicum more standardisation,” he says. Whatever the reason, the alphabet did
believes, lies in a collection of 3500-year- Goldwasser goes even further. She thinks become more common as the Bronze Age
old clay tablets documenting formal state one reason scribes failed to adopt the alphabet ended around 3200 years ago. In a very literal
business in southern Mesopotamia, more is that they played no part in creating it. In fact, sense, written history had changed forever. ❚
than 1000 kilometres east of Egypt. The text she believes it originated not at Wadi el-Hôl,
is in cuneiform, but when Stephanie Dalley at but at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai peninsula
the University of Oxford examined the tablets, of north-east Egypt, where alphabetic Colin Barras is a writer based
she discovered something intriguing. On the inscriptions found a century ago have in Ann Arbor, Michigan
edge of four of them were short alphabetic now been dated at about 3800 years old.
inscriptions. Mesopotamian scribes stored Serabit el-Khadim was once a centre of


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 37

Features











“ ”





Insane places

An iconic experiment devastated the field of

psychiatry – and has lingering effects today. But

it wasn’t all it seemed, says Susannah Cahalan
















N 6 February 1969, David Lurie told The credibility of
a psychiatrist at Haverford State psychiatry was in
OHospital in Pennsylvania that he tatters after David
had been hearing voices. “Hollow”, “empty” Rosenhan’s paper
and “thud”, they said. came out in 1973
The voices were the only symptom
experienced by the otherwise healthy BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES ZODEBALA/GETTY IMAGES
39-year-old copywriter. After an in-depth
interview, in which Lurie was asked about his
family life and two children, he was diagnosed
with schizophrenia and hospitalised.
Yet all was not as it seemed. David Lurie didn’t out a second deception, the effects of which normally as being in hospital allowed. Yet in
exist. This was, in fact, an alias for psychologist are still being felt in psychiatry today. each case, clinicians viewed their behaviours
David Rosenhan of Stanford University in Rosenhan wasn’t the first person to infiltrate through the prism of their presumed
California, who went undercover with seven a psychiatric hospital and expose its horrors. condition. When one took research notes on
other “pretenders” to test whether psychiatric Journalists, writers and other psychiatrists the activities of the ward, for example, nurses
staff could distinguish sanity from insanity. had previously done the same – but none reported that the “patient engages in writing
Published in 1973, his study contributed to an with such rigour, in such numbers and in behavior”, according to Rosenhan’s paper.
erosion of public faith in psychiatry, a mistrust such an attention-grabbing way. Published “How many patients might be ‘sane’ outside
memorably portrayed in the 1975 film One Flew by the journal Science, Rosenhan’s paper the psychiatric hospital but seem insane in it –
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Jack Nicholson. “On Being Sane in Insane Places” exploded not because craziness resides in them, as it
Rosenhan’s work held up for scrutiny the often onto the scene “like a sword plunged into were, but because they are responding to a
harmful nature of psychiatric hospitals and the heart of psychiatry”, as one article written bizarre setting?” Rosenhan wrote in his paper.
galvanised a growing movement to shut the three decades after its publication observed. During these hospitalisations, which
large ones and replace them with smaller, The experiment, as Rosenhan described it, lasted between seven and 52 days, some
community-based mental health centres. In went as follows: eight men and women with 2100 psychoactive drugs were administered
its wake, “psychiatrists looked like unreliable no history or symptoms of mental health to the participants. All were eventually
and antiquated quacks unfit to join in the problems, including himself, presented at released, although against medical advice and
research revolution”, says psychiatrist Allen 12 psychiatric hospitals across the US, claiming with their diagnoses labelled as “in remission”.
Frances, formerly at Duke University School to hear voices that said “thud, empty, hollow”. “We now know that we cannot distinguish
of Medicine in North Carolina. The rest of their personal histories (save for insanity from sanity,” Rosenhan concluded.
Rosenhan’s paper was “one of the most a few biographical adjustments for privacy The experiment was published at the height
influential pieces of social science published reasons) remained intact. of the anti-psychiatry movement, at a time
in the 20th century”, says sociologist and All of the participants were diagnosed when psychiatrist Thomas Szasz wrote that
historian Andrew Scull at the University with a mental health condition, seven with mental illness was a “myth” and psychiatrist
of California, San Diego. schizophrenia and one with what is now R. D. Laing claimed that people with
But it wasn’t all it seemed. After spending known as bipolar disorder. Once admitted into schizophrenia were the sane ones in an insane
six years investigating Rosenhan and his hospital, they dropped their hallucinations world. Sociologist Erving Goffman exposed
famous work, I believe he may have carried and behaved as they normally did, or as how similar psychiatric hospitals were to


38 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Many psychiatric presented an entirely different portrait to that
hospitals were in his paper. One of the foundational principles
closed as mental of “On Being Sane in Insane Places” was that
health care shifted all of the pseudopatients presented with just
to communities one symptom: voices that said “thud, empty,
hollow”. Rosenhan didn’t follow his own script.
The admitting psychiatrist Frank “Lewis”
Bartlett wrote that David Lurie was so
disturbed by the voices that he had put copper
over his ears – an almost cliched example of
the “tinfoil hat delusion” commonly reported
by people experiencing serious mental health
problems. “He has felt that he is ‘sensitive
to radio signals and hear[s] what people
are thinking’,” Bartlett wrote. Hallucinations
and disturbances in thought patterns,
particularly believing you can hear or control
other people’s thoughts, are considered key
symptoms of schizophrenia, so would have
contributed to his misdiagnosis.


Suspicious symptoms

Rosenhan also claimed that his wife “did not
know how disturbed and helpless and useless”
he was, that he had “thought of suicide” and
believed that “everyone would be better off if
he was not around”. Such ideation and threats
of self-harm would provide strong grounds
for immediate and necessary hospitalisation.
“To not hospitalise such a patient would be
prisons in his book Asylums, while pop culture professionally unethical, and, in almost every
spread fear and distrust. Meanwhile, the field circumstance, malpractice,” says Michael
faced an internal reckoning as it moved away Meade, chairman of psychiatry at Santa Clara
from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. Valley Health and Hospital System in San Jose,
By the late 1980s, nearly 80 per cent of California. Intentionally or not, Rosenhan
all introduction-to-psychology textbooks had served up a realistic characterisation of
included Rosenhan’s study. Despite virulent a man experiencing something more serious
criticism from psychiatrists, who claimed than the one-symptom portrait of illness his
when the study was first published that it was “ He concluded pseudopatients were supposed to describe.
misleading and unscientific, it is still presented The discovery of such inconsistencies
uncritically in many textbooks today. that it was prompted me to try to track down the other
Beyond the original nine-page paper in pseudopatients who participated in the study.
Science, which largely focuses on Rosenhan’s impossible I found the first with relative ease, thanks
experience – the bad food, boredom, pacing, to a stray handwritten note on an outline
the neglect and even abuse of fellow patients to distinguish for Rosenhan’s unpublished book, which
he witnessed – scant public information exists mentioned the last name Underwood.
about the study. The eight participants never insanity This led me to Bill Underwood, a retired
revealed themselves, and Rosenhan wrote software engineer living in Austin, Texas, who
nothing further on the topic before his death from sanity” had volunteered to be a pseudopatient while
in 2012. But in the course of my research, I taking Rosenhan’s psychopathology seminar
gained access to a trove of documents he left during his graduate studies at Stanford.
behind – decades of correspondence, diary Underwood described the seven days he spent
entries and even an unpublished book on at what was then Agnews State Mental Hospital
the experiment – and interviewed his family in Santa Clara, California, as harrowing – he
and hundreds of friends and colleagues. was medicated, misdiagnosed and mistreated.
It quickly became clear that some things He says he was hardly prepped for his
didn’t match up. In Rosenhan’s files, I found undercover role, and that Rosenhan told him
his Haverford Hospital medical records, which nothing about data collection or how >


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 39

to interact with the patients or staff. In fact, One Flew Over
Underwood didn’t recall collecting much the Cuckoo’s Nest
if any data. This made me wonder, how did brought mistrust
Rosenhan get such specific figures for things of psychiatry to
like the total number of minutes psychiatrists the silver screen
spent on the ward, numbers so precise they
came down to a decimal point?
Underwood led me to another of Rosenhan’s
former students, Harry Lando, now a public
health psychologist at the University of COLLECTON CHRISTOPHEL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Minnesota. Although his misdiagnosis with
schizophrenia and 19-day hospitalisation
match the account in Rosenhan’s paper,
little else does. Indeed, Lando wrote about
his hospitalisation in an overlooked paper
called “On Being Sane in Insane Places: A
supplemental report” in 1976. The takeaway?
Lando had a positive experience. He described “ Despite years beds available, compared with nearly 70,000
the ward he was on as a healing, comforting in the 1980s. The UK now has 1000 fewer beds
environment, where the staff truly cared for of hunting, I than it needs to meet mental health demand,
the patients and they recovered. while the US is a staggering 95,000 beds short.
In further handwritten notes he made found no proof Many psychiatric hospitals were neglectful,
while in hospital, Lando described touching even harmful places. Rosenhan raised valid
moments of compassion and connection. that the other points about their disturbing limitations,
However, none of this made it into the Science the view of psychiatric illness as less worthy
paper. Rosenhan instead dropped Lando pseudopatients of our sympathy and support than physical
from his study, making him only a footnote: illness, the lack of validity of psychiatric
“Data from a ninth pseudopatient are not ever existed” labels and the role of priming in diagnosis.
incorporated in this report because, although Yet by excluding and exaggerating data, he
his sanity went undetected, he falsified aspects presented a sensationalised and oversimplified
of his personal history, including his marital take on these complex issues. We are worse
status and parental relationships,” Rosenhan off because of it.
wrote. Yet some details from Lando’s 19-day Today, many people with untreated mental
hospitalisation, including his flirtation with health problems are living on the streets or
a nurse, did make it into the paper. This isn’t the first time a classic study of are in prison. When Rosenhan conducted
What’s more, an earlier draft of the paper, mental health has come under fire. In October, his study, 5 per cent of prisoners in the US
which I found in Rosenhan’s files, featured nine researchers at King’s College London identified met the criteria for serious mental illness;
pseudopatients and no footnote, leading me to 26 papers written by world-renowned British today, it is at least 20 per cent. According to
believe that Lando hadn’t yet been removed. psychologist Hans Eysenck, who died in 1997, a Harvard Medical School report, more than
Yet the draft listed the same number of pills as “unsafe”. Among other things, Eysenck had 100,000 people with serious mental health
taken, the same average length of stay and the claimed that personality had a bigger impact problems in the US are homeless.
same number of minutes psychiatrists spent on someone’s cancer risk than smoking. People with mental illness are still often
on the ward as the published version. Not one Even the conclusions of Stanley Milgram’s stigmatised and poorly treated. Most of the
number changed after he was taken out. famous 1960s experiments on obedience world contends with lack of beds, improper
“Rosenhan was interested in diagnosis, and to authority, in which participants subjected funding and shortages of mental health care
that’s fine, but you’ve got to respect and accept unseen people to increasingly painful shocks professionals. By 2025, the US could be more
the data,” Lando told me. “Clearly, he had his when told to do so by experimenters, have than 15,000 psychiatrists short.
idea, his hypothesis and he was going to recently been cast into doubt, following the It is time to reassess the paths that took us
confirm that hypothesis.” identification of serious methodological issues. here, and, in so doing, begin to set things right.
If Rosenhan had merely exaggerated the Rosenhan may not have created these issues,
findings of a small, anecdotal study, I wouldn’t but by only pretending to expose their true
Adding it all up
be writing about him. But the effects of his nature, he contributed to a culture that has
What about the other participants? I spent paper can still be felt today. Within 10 years of caused harm to the people in greatest need. ❚
years trying to find them and even hired a its publication, the resident population in state
private investigator. Lando and Underwood and county psychiatric hospitals in the US had
only knew of each other, and even Rosenhan’s nearly halved, from 255,000 to 132,000. In the Susannah Cahalan is the
long-time research assistant could only recall UK, there has been a similar drop in places for author of The Great Pretender.
their two names. I could find no proof that the people in need of in-patient mental health Her previous book was Brain on
other pseudopatients existed. treatment: today there are fewer than 20,000 Fire. She is based in New York


40 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

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Features





































































Spider







smarts




























NHPA/PHOTOSHOT







42 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Arachnid intelligence is challenging our ideas about

brains and consciousness – and their minds may even

stretch into their webs, finds David Robson
































HERE is an alien intelligence living The earliest fossil evidence of silk-producing “ Webs are like
among us. These creatures possess an arachnids dates from almost 400 million years
Textraordinary kind of consciousness, ago, shortly after the first definitive evidence instruments that
including minds that extend beyond their of insects. “Insects are the most successful
bodies. Yet, thanks to our ignorance and lineage on Earth, but spiders pretty much spiders carefully
arrogance, our immediate impulse is to follow them,” says evolutionary biologist ‘tune’ according to
kill them. Miquel Arnedo at the University of Barcelona,
This is no fantasy. These alien minds really Spain. Today, there are more than 48,000 their experiences”
are lurking in the shadows of our houses and known species, with every square metre
gardens: spiders. We have long assumed that, of land home to around 130 individuals on
like many invertebrates, they are little more average. That may terrify arachnophobes,
than automata, lacking an inner life. But we are but without them, agriculture would be
now discovering that some arachnids possess impossible. “You couldn’t have any crops – spiders, says Arnedo. But their intelligence will
hidden cognitive abilities rivalling those of insects would eat them all,” says Arnedo. have been critical, too. The best evidence of
mammals and birds, including foresight and Spiders are defined by their eight legs and spider smarts is found in the everyday activity
planning, complex learning and even the intricate spinnerets, which extrude silk. This of web building. Around a third of all species
capacity to be surprised. Stranger still, the is a protein made up of chains of amino acids, make orb webs, those beautifully geometrical
delicate silk threads they spin out behind primarily glycine and alanine, that spiders deathtraps hanging in our houses and gardens.
them, so easily swept up by a feather duster, extract and comb with their back legs to They hold more secrets than Charlotte’s Web,
help them to sense and remember their world. strengthen it. Some species can produce because each is a record of the decisions taken
Indeed, spiders’ silk is so important to their fibres with different chemical compositions during its construction.
cognitive abilities that some scientists believe depending on their particular need. Consider the basic question of where to
it should be considered part of their mind. Spider silk – the envy of human engineers – is build the web. Every species of orb web spider
Now that we are starting to appreciate put to a huge range of uses, including building has a preferred size and shape of web to suit its
spiders’ intellectual capabilities, we must cocoons, windsurfing and as a rope for body type and prey, but individuals tailor their
surely change how we see one of the most climbing and abseiling. Many spiders also use constructions to fit into restricted spaces or
ubiquitous, important and vilified groups it for a sort of “flight” known as ballooning, around obstacles. This suggests that before
of animals that has ever evolved. What’s in which a few threads, lifted by electrostatic building begins, some kind of planning takes
more, these incredible creatures could also forces in the atmosphere, carry them far and place. That is particularly impressive when
challenge our understanding of our own wide on nothing more than a light breeze. you consider that most spiders are almost
intelligence and minds. These species detect these forces with hairs completely blind. How do they do it?
Spiders have deep evolutionary roots. on their legs, allowing them to decide when One possibility, according to Thomas
to put up their “sails”. “They can feel the change Hesselberg at the University of Oxford, is
To construct an orb in the air,” says Erica Morley at the University that they use their silk as a kind of plumb
web, a spider must be of Bristol, UK, who made this discovery. line to scout out a potential web site. When
capable of foresight The sheer versatility of their silk helps exploring, some spiders first cast a horizontal
and planning explain the enormous evolutionary success of line between two surfaces and then traverse >


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 43

it, descending and ascending at various of the web according to the size of prey found
points along the way. This could allow them locally. They can even learn from near misses:
to estimate the dimensions of the space. if their prey hits the web but then escapes, Social
“Maybe they’re somehow able to tell how spiders will lay down more sticky silk to ensure
much silk there is and how much time they this doesn’t happen in future. You could almost webs
spent exploring. That could potentially think of webs as instruments spiders carefully
give an indication of how many times they “tune” according to their experiences. “There
passed through an area and how big it is,” is no doubt that they are much more flexible We tend to think of spiders
says Hesselberg. than we once believed,” says Hesselberg. as solitary creatures, but
The ability to form a mental representation Spiders are a varied group, of course, around 20 species live in
of space has been documented in many but species with very different lifestyles are colonies of thousands where
mammals and birds, but is almost completely proving equally smart. Take jumping spiders they share tasks such as
unheard of among invertebrates. Until now, belonging to the genus Portia. Their preferred foraging, web building and
the best evidence was in bees, which are prey is other spiders, and these can be up to maintenance and care of the
thought to use mental maps to help them twice their own size. They catch them by young. This lifestyle mostly
navigate – but even that has been contested. stealthily roaming their environment, and occurs in the tropics and, in
Hesselberg’s preliminary experiments have evolved astonishing eyesight to do this. some species, may have
suggest that the cognitive maps of orb web “They hunt like tiny cats,” says Fiona Cross at evolved to cope with
spiders aren’t very detailed: they seem to the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. damage to webs caused by
include big obstacles but not little ones, for This often involves premeditation and careful heavy rainfall. Protection
instance. Yet the ability to generate even a crude route planning, as her research reveals. against raiding ants is
representation of their environment would another possible benefit.
help to explain other behaviours that appear Mental maps Colonial spiders are also
to demand a certain level of foresight and better equipped to catch
planning. For instance, orb web spiders alter Working with her colleague Robert Jackson, the larger prey insects that
the size and structure of their webs according Cross placed individual Portia on a tower in are found in these regions.
to the remaining silk reserves in their glands, a water tank – like cats, they hate getting Consider Stegodyphus
ensuring that they don’t run out midway. They wet. From this viewpoint, they could see two dumicola, which lives in
are also sensitive to the weather: in low floating pathways, one of which led to prey on colonies of up to 2000
temperatures, they make simpler structures another tower. Although the prey was out of members in southwestern
with bigger gaps between the spirals to avoid sight once the spiders had descended, they Africa. The colonies consist
spending too much time exposed to the cold. invariably chose the correct route, suggesting of two silk structures: the
Cognitive sophistication is evident in the they held a map in their working memory. small and ball-like “retreat”,
ways that spiders maintain and adapt a web In another experiment, Cross and Jackson where the spiders live, and
after construction, too. They tweak the tension provided two routes: both led to the prey, the “capture web”, which is
of silk strands in the areas most likely to trap but one was shorter. Most spiders chose the large and flat and intended
unsuspecting insects, based on their previous quickest path. “For us, that suggests that Portia to catch prey. When the
catches. Increased tension boosts the are making a plan of where to go,” says Cross. spiders sense the vibrations
transmission of vibrations from a struggling In the wild, the spiders use this kind of of an insect that has ventured
insect, allowing the waiting spider to respond premeditation to ambush dangerous prey into this trap, a few will
more quickly. They also alter the dimensions from behind. come out of the retreat to
inject it with venom. “When it
stops moving, more spiders
come in, start eating it and
drag it back to the retreat,”
says Noa Pinter-Wollman at
the University of California,
Los Angeles.










WV PICS/GETTY IMAGES Jumping spiders
have evolved
astonishing
eyesight to help
catch prey


44 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

Portia even seem capable of being surprised. A dandy jumping
In experiments similar to the previous one, spider (far right)
Cross and Jackson changed the type of prey lures its spider
while it was out of sight of the spiders. This prey by pretending
led them to pause – a sign of confusion, often to be caught in
used by psychologists to test what babies are its web
thinking. Portia also pause for longer if they
find more or fewer prey awaiting them at the
end of the path, compared with what they had
seen from their tower. That suggests these
spiders have a basic number sense.
Despite Portia’s catlike stalking style, silk is
still essential to their survival, and they often EMANUELE BIGGI/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY
employ it when hunting. They sometimes
build a web as a vantage point from which
to abseil onto prey, or as a means of catching
insects to use as bait for tasty spiders. Portia
also invade other spiders’ webs and pluck
the silk to mimic a trapped insect, drawing
occupants from their hiding places so they “ Given spiders’ This is exciting because it means that spiders
can pounce and kill them. They seem to learn could provide valuable information about
the correct vibrations through trial and error. smarts, might we which neural structures are necessary for
Such findings, combined with new evidence conscious experience, as well as how these
of spider sociability (see “Social webs”, left), even consider them evolved. In a vertebrate, the midbrain gathers
indicate advanced cognition across many to be conscious?” sensory information and bodily signals, then
spider species. Yet the brains of these creatures integrates these to create a mental simulation
are often minute: most orb weavers, for of the world and the creature’s place in it. This,
instance, weigh between 50 and 80 milligrams, in turn, directs its attention and movement
with some less than 1 milligram, and their determine the structure of its web, which, in according to its needs, creating an “experiential
brains are just a fraction of that. Spiders’ turn, alters what it senses in its environment, consciousness” on which to build other types
ancient origins also raise some profound directly influencing its future decisions. As a of awareness, such as self-reflection. “It
philosophical questions about the evolution result, part of a spider’s memory and decision- basically underpins everything,” says Andrew
of the brain. Previously, we have tended to making is outsourced beyond its body. Barron at Macquarie University, Australia.
look for intelligence in our closer relatives, Much as tool use has aided human success, Invertebrate brains take a different form,
but broadening the web to animals like spiders spiders might have evolved extended but a structure called the central complex
has proved profitable. “The success of this line cognition to help them survive and thrive shows the same connectivity in insects,
of research shows that we should be careful in varied environments. “Spiders have extra argues Barron. In spiders, a region known as
not to restrict our research questions or selective pressure for evolving extended the arcuate body may have the same purpose.
study species,” says Caroline Strang at the cognition because of their relatively tiny Detailed studies of spider brains have been low
University of Texas at Austin, who investigates brains and their high cognitive requirements on neuroscientists’ lists of priorities. However,
insect cognition. as generalist predators,” says Japyassú. if further evidence supports the idea that these
These findings have even caused us to Given the new discoveries, might we even regions create an inner representation of the
reconsider the definition of the animal “mind”. attribute consciousness to spiders? Most world, this could help us pinpoint a date for
Take the concept of extended cognition, an researchers see consciousness as a spectrum, the emergence of conscious experiences –
idea that has been of particular excitement to ranging from a basic mental representation potentially more than half a billion years ago,
psychologists of late. Philosophers coined this of the surrounding environment and the when the Cambrian explosion gave rise to
term to describe the way our tools become capacity to shift attention between elements, almost all the animal groups around today.
incorporated in our thinking. We turn to a to imagination, advanced self-awareness and In the meantime, a greater appreciation
notebook or smartphone, for instance, as an metacognition, the capacity to reflect on your of spider smarts might give us all pause for
external memory source that can be accessed own judgements. Most invertebrates are thought the next time we are confronted with
at will. In this view of cognition, our minds considered incapable of even the most basic eight-legged squatters hiding in our hallways.
extend beyond our brains to all the objects level of conscious experience, responding to Written on their silken webs, we may one day
that contribute to our perception, memory situations automatically instead. But spiders’ find clues to the origins of thought itself.  ❚
and reasoning. Hilton Japyassú at the Federal mental representation of space and their
University of Bahia in Brazil and Kevin Laland capacity for foresight and planning appear
at the University of St Andrews, UK, have made to reflect more complex inner experiences. David Robson is the author
a strong case that a spider’s use of silk qualifies “We’ve seen that Portia are able to ‘think’ of The Intelligence Trap:
as a natural example of extended cognition. about what they are doing before actually Revolutionise your thinking
After all, a spider’s past experiences can doing it,” says Cross. and make wiser decisions


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 45

Features Interview




















Making history




The most widely used encyclopedia on the planet has huge gaps

when it comes to influential women or people of colour in science.

Physicist Jess Wade is trying to fill them, she tells Joshua Howgego











HEN Jess Wade isn’t working in by people all over the world, in all walks of prevalent on the site than other scientists:
the physics laboratories of Imperial life, which makes it a super, super important achievements like holding named chairs at
WCollege London, she is fighting to platform. But only about 18 per cent of the an institution, having contributed widely to
make science more accessible for all. Her English-language biographies are about scientific literature and holding prestigious
flagship project is to create and edit articles women and, while it’s harder to get data on awards and fellowships. Things we know are
on Wikipedia, humanity’s largest ever other under-represented groups, there is no biased towards white men from Western
encyclopedia, to ensure that the scientific doubt that scientists with disabilities and from countries. The hardest one is finding some
contributions made by women and other the LGBTQ community, for example, are less independent, reputable source that has already
under-represented communities aren’t lost likely to have a Wikipedia page. So since the written about these scientists. As a result, my
to posterity. It is thanks to her that the website beginning of 2018, I’ve been trying to improve biographies sometimes get flagged as being
has pages on Magdalena Skipper, the first the representation of women scientists and not notable enough for inclusion. One
woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the people of colour on it, and particularly people weekend in late 2019 I tweeted about this issue,
journal Nature, Jo Dunkley, the astrophysicist from the global south. and it got a lot of attention because people
and science communicator at Princeton thought that it was Wikipedia that was
University, and almost 900 other pioneering Have you faced any challenges getting these responsible rather than other editors.
women in science. profiles on Wikipedia?
Anybody with an internet connection Wikipedia has strict eligibility criteria for Why do you think those editors flag your
can edit Wikipedia, but most of its tens of notability. Fair enough – not every single pages in this way?
thousands of editors remain in the shadows. person you meet should be on there. The It really surprises me that this happens.
Wade has made headlines, however, winning problem is that the criteria are written in a way Wikipedia really is a global project, and we’re
the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2019 award for that ensures white male academics are more all working together on this free knowledge.
UK Wikimedian of the year. But not all the Why then, when some other editor reads a
attention has been positive. Late last year, a page that they think could do with an extra
string of her articles were flagged for deletion citation, do they not look for one themselves?
by fellow editors, ostensibly because their I think there are some weird power dynamics
subjects were insufficiently noteworthy for going on, with a few individual editors at the
a global audience. She publicly called those top of Wikipedia’s hierarchy who think that
editors out for systematic bias and the they can control what information is valued
controversy made it into the UK press, by the site.
highlighting the shadowy power plays that
dictate what information ends up on Wikipedia. What was it that got you started as a campaigner
We spoke to her about what drove her to outside your day job?
undertake this project and why it sometimes It was when I read Angela Saini’s book Inferior.
isn’t so well received. THOMAS ANGUS/IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON I think Angela is the most important writer
and broadcaster that we have in the UK right
Joshua Howgego: What makes Wikipedia now. Inferior looks at the way women have
worth your time? been misinterpreted in and misreported by
Jess Wade: Wikipedia is visited millions of science. When I read that book, it completely
times a day – that’s just the English version – transformed the way I think about inequality.


46 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020

get these molecules to absorb and emit light in
far more sophisticated ways than present-day
materials so that when you put them in your
TV or mobile phone, the screen is much
brighter and uses much less power.

Does chirality matter beyond the lab bench?
Lots of things are chiral, including snail shells,
screws and fusilli pasta. Actually, it turns out
that about 95 per cent of fusilli is a right-
handed helix. But the most efficient way to
pack the pieces of pasta together would be if
we had equal quantities of the left and right-
handed sort. Because we disproportionately
make right-handed pasta, the packets have to
be about 10 per cent bigger than needed.

What do you think we should do to encourage
more girls to study physics?
We’ve got to a state in the UK where people
are doing an awful lot of outreach at the
school level. But for physics, the gender
balance of both A level and undergraduate
courses hasn’t shifted in 50 years. We still have
this misconception that if scientists go and
stand in front of 40 kids for a lunchtime, we’ll
inspire them all to study A level physics. That’s
naive. Instead, we should try to think about
using evidence a bit more, using things that
THOMAS ANGUS/IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON PhD, this would probably result in more pupils
have worked. For example, if a scientist worked
with one schoolteacher for the whole of their


having chosen to study physics than if they
went to a different school every week.

If you could have a long conversation with
any of the people you’ve written about,
who would it be?
A mathematician called Gladys West. Hers
was one of the first Wikipedia pages I made.
Have you had to overcome any obstacles “ There are some She was born in 1930 in Virginia, and studied
yourself? maths in a completely different environment
One episode in particular really frustrated weird power to today. She went on to work for the US
me. I had just been invited to speak at a government and did early computing that
nanomaterials conference in Paris. I looked at dynamics on was the basis for GPS technology. Since the
the website and it was sadly typical: a wall of 32 Wikipedia page went up, she’s been in the
photographs of white men. Instantly when you Wikipedia” BBC’s 100 Women list, an annual line-up of
see that kind of thing, it makes you think: they influential and inspirational women chosen
didn’t invite me for my research, but because from around the world. She’s been inducted
someone had criticised their lack of diversity. into the US Air Force Space and Missile
I wrote back and raised some concerns, and, Pioneers Hall of Fame, and she finished her
to cut a long story short, I ended up recruiting PhD by distance learning in 2018. This woman
a group of fantastic women to come and speak Tell us more about your work on nanomaterials. is approaching 90 and is still a rock star. ❚
at this meeting. But then we were sidelined I’m trying to make new materials for use in TV
into a parallel session for about 12 people screens and mobile phone displays. I work in
called “Women in nanomaterials”. It was just particular with semiconductors that have Joshua Howgego is the education
us women talking to each other about our chiral properties, which means that their editor at New Scientist
work. I have never felt so patronised and structures are non-superimposable mirror
humiliated in my life. images, like your left and right hand. We can


8 February 2020 | New Scientist | 47

Recruitment









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48 | New Scientist | 8 February 2020 newscientistjobs.com


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