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CAN YOU STOP YOUR CAT
FROM KILLING?

SAILING ON THE
SOLAR WIND

HOW CORONAVIRUS
WRECKED THE WORLD’S
BEST HEALTH AGENCIES
THE WATER ON THE MOON

WEEKLY 31 October 2020 No3306 Australia $9.50 (Inc.GST) New Zealand NZ$9.50 (Inc.GST) Print Post Approved 100007877

CORONAV IRUS

LONG COVID

Millions of us will be left with ongoing symptoms.
Here’s what we now know about the long-term effects

MORE VENUS DOUBTS

Is there really any phosphine in its atmosphere?
PLUS DINOSAUR GENITALS /CARLO ROVELLI ON WHITE HOLES/
CRISPR V THE SUPERBUGS / POST-PANDEMIC ECONOMICS

News, ideas and innovation www.newscientist.com

Signal Boost

Welcome to our Signal Boost project – a weekly page for charitable
organisations to get their message out to a global audience, free of charge.
Today, a message from Elephants Alive

For 25 years, Elephants Alive has been studying corridors linking them, are at risk of crop-raiding dislike in conflict areas can provide valuable
African elephants, to ensure their survival and by the elephants. Where income is limited, income to impoverished communities that have
to promote harmony with humans. We work in poverty may drive some locals into illegal killing to share their land with elephants as these crops
the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Area, of elephants for both their meat and ivory. Our (garlic, onions, lemon grass, chilli, sunflowers
monitoring elephant population dynamics and research is showing that where elephants feel and ginger) can be sold for income. Elephants
movements across South Africa, Zimbabwe and persecuted, they become nocturnal and may are known to be scared of bees, so bees can also
Mozambique. crop-raid or run through corridors under the cover be used to protect crops, increase pollination
of darkness to try and avoid conflict with humans. services and produce honey.
We have deployed over 180 satellite collars
to understand elephant movements and Elephants Alive is working hard to create safe These women are being empowered to
developed an individual elephant identification corridors, linking these Protected Areas to provide more effectively for their families and
database of over 2000 elephants. increase elephant habitat. We believe that to will be incentivised to co-exist with elephants.
ensure the safety of these free-ranging By recruiting “bee-lievers” living adjacent to
Our long-term research is providing vital elephants, it is critical to empower, inform and Protected Areas, and uplifting women as social
information for conservation management, involve the local impoverished communities. role models and community leaders, peaceful
helping to secure the future of these trans- Therefore, Elephants Alive is developing coexistence with elephants can be realised.
frontier, free-roaming elephants. bee-keeping and horticultural programmes with
local women in South Africa as a proof of Please help support this urgent work to
We are now urgently prioritising the small, concept to be implemented in Mozambique. protect the elephants in Southern Mozambique
fragmented populations of elephants remaining Growing crops that elephants are known to and uplift the rural communities in these crucial
in southern Mozambique. There are three wildlife corridor areas.
National Parks here, Zinave, Banhine and the
Limpopo National Park (which borders South Want to help?
Africa’s Kruger National Park) – with wildlife
corridors linking these reserves. However, To make a donation see elephantsalive.org/support-us
subsistence farmers living in the reserves or the and follow us on Facebook for updates

This week’s issue

On the 42 Can you stop your 42 Features
cover cat from killing?
46 Sailing on the solar wind “Free-ranging
10 Long covid 8 How coronavirus pet cats kill
Millions of us will be left with wrecked the world’s almost twice
best health agencies as many
ongoing symptoms. Here’s 14 The water on the moon animals as
what we now know about feral cats”
17 Dinosaur genitals
the long-term effects 30 Carlo Rovelli on white holes
16 CRISPR v the superbugs
18 More Venus doubts 36 Post-pandemic economics
Is there really any phosphine

in its atmosphere?

Vol 248 No 3306
Cover image: Vanessa Branchi

News News THE ASAHI SHIMBUN VIA GETTY IMAGES Features

14 Opioid crisis 17 Fukishima disaster Should its radioactive water be put in the ocean? 36 Post-covid economics
Massive payouts won’t fix Six leading thinkers explore
the US’s drug problem how we might rebuild the
economy after the pandemic
16 Galactic route planning
Mathematicians plot the best 42 Here kitty kitty
way to visit 2 million stars To stop domestic cats killing
wildlife, we need to better
18 Healthier fat understand their owners
Conditions linked to obesity
could be treated by gene- 46 Solar sailing
editing fat cells A new form of space travel can
take us further than ever before
Views
The back pages
23 Comment
You probably aren’t 51 Science of gardening
as moral as you think, How to hack your hydrangeas
says Sylvia Terbeck to change their colour

24 The columnist 52 Puzzles
James Wong asks if tomatoes An albatross puzzle, a cryptic
worsen rheumatoid arthritis crossword and the quiz

26 Aperture 54 Almost the last word
Silver plant portraits The reason why birds
don’t hiccup like humans
28 Letters
Beware automation’s ability 54 Tom Gauld for New Scientist
to divide us: readers respond A cartoonist’s take on the world

30 Culture 56 Feedback
An extract from physicist Recumbent cows and the
Carlo Rovelli’s latest book frequency of roundabouts

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 1

Elsewhere A note from
on New Scientist the editor

Virtual events Virtual event SIMON SKAFAR/ISTOCK You may have seen adverts for this
in the magazine, but if not, this is just
The future of food Drones on the farm How science is changing what is on your plate to let you know about the launch of
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hear from a farmer developing As of next month, we will offer online
robots to plant, cultivate and courses for people who want to deepen
harvest crops; a researcher making their understanding of science and
lab-grown meat; a microbiome technology. They are aimed at adults
expert overturning everything and older teens, but younger science
we know about diets; and a enthusiasts may also get a great deal
psychologist making food taste from them. The first two courses on offer
better by hacking your senses – will be about the biggest mysteries in the
and much more. Saturday cosmos and the workings of the human
28 November from 10am GMT. brain. We have plans for many more
newscientist.com/events across all our most popular subject areas.

Podcasts So what will they involve and who will
they be for? I’ll use our cosmic mysteries
Weekly course as an illustration. This programme
is for people who want to understand
The surprising social lives of viruses; more about the universe – such as what
gene editing vs antibiotic resistance; happened at the big bang or the nature
risk in the time of covid-19; the of dark matter and dark energy – but feel
diabolical ironclad beetle. they don’t know enough to properly get
newscientist.com/podcasts to grips with the subject. They will be led
through a mixture of specially created
Newsletter STOCKTREK IMAGES,INC./ALAMY video lessons from top physicists,
carefully curated reading and interactive
Launchpad Viral chatter The social lives of viruses could help us fight them segments that will allow them to check
on their progress. By the end, we hope
Our free newsletter sends you on a Newsletter participants will feel more secure in their
weekly voyage across the universe. understanding and be ready to hold
This week: our ever-worsening their own in discussions with others!
space junk problem.
This is an entirely new venture at
newscientist.com/sign-up/ New Scientist, and it is one we are very
launchpad excited about. A group of readers has
been working with us to ensure that
Online DOTTED ZEBRA/ALAMY the courses we design are right for you:
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Covid-19 daily briefing helped so far. To register your interest
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newscientist.com/
coronavirus-latest New Scientist editor

Space junk A near miss and the danger of debris in near-Earth orbit

2 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

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international agreements on climate change and biodiversity, and nations continuing

to vie for supremacy in space.

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Hundreds of new studies about our physical and mental
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The leader

The facts of life

Signs that phosphine may not exist on Venus show science is working as it should

LAST month, the world of planetary of phosphine (see page 18). According means possible. For now, with many
science blew up after the news that to the scientists behind the second observatories closed due to covid-19,
phosphine gas had been observed study, the original analysis may have that means combing through
in Venus’s atmosphere, which could introduced false signals into the data. information that scientists have
potentially be a sign of life. already collected on Venus in order
While this may seem like a to look for clues.
The team that spotted the phosphine, disappointment – the idea of life
led by Jane Greaves at Cardiff University on Venus is tantalising, but if there So far, none of the observations
in the UK, couldn’t find any mechanism are conclusive either way. There will
for forming enough phosphine on “The idea of life on Venus is surely be more studies in the coming
Venus to account for these observations. tantalising, but if there is no weeks and months, and while they
On Earth, the gas is made by living phosphine, there is no reason may continue to conflict with one
organisms and industrial processes. to suspect life exists there” another, they will eventually converge
on an explanation. That is simply
Now, though, that detection has is no phosphine, there is no reason to how science works: we can make
been called into question. First, a look suspect life exists there – it is actually predictions, but we must continue to
at old data by a group that included an indication that science is examine all possible evidence until 
researchers who worked on the latest progressing just as it ought to. there is an answer.
phosphine study found no hints of
the gas. Then a re-analysis of Greaves An explosive claim – like that Perhaps that answer will come when
and her team’s observations by an of a possible sign of life on a planet the observatories reopen – or maybe
independent group concluded that that seems crushingly inhospitable – we will have to wait to send a spacecraft
the measurements showed no signs must be evaluated through every to Venus and and take a closer look.  ❚

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News

Federation Square
in Melbourne
during lockdown

high public compliance, says
Stephen Duckett at the Grattan
Institute, a public policy think
tank based in Melbourne. “There
was high-level observance of
mask wearing, a high level of
observance of not going outside.
The streets were dead.”

The lockdown has taken a toll
on mental health, employment
rates and businesses. “There was

“There was acceptance
that despite the costs, this
was the right thing to do.
We were in it together”

CHRIS PUTNAM/SHUTTERSTOCK general community acceptance
that despite those costs, this
Australia was the right thing to do,” says
Duckett. “It’s been tough. We
Melbourne lockdown lifts were all in it together.”

Residents in the Australian city are celebrating after their Public health policy is set by the
strict lockdown quashed the coronavirus, reports Donna Lu state governments of Australia,
most of which have pursued an
CAR horns honked in the streets no new daily cases was on 9 June. from this success story? elimination strategy in handling
and declarations echoed that A second wave of covid-19 in the What is clear is that the results covid-19, even though this was
people could “get back on the state began in July, originating generally viewed as an unrealistic
beers”, as residents of Melbourne from Australians who had were hard won. A second state- goal at the outset of the pandemic.
in the Australian state of Victoria returned from abroad and were wide lockdown was imposed
celebrated a double milestone being held in hotel quarantine in when new cases exceeded 100 per Through a combination of
on 26 October. Melbourne. Breaches caused the day, and Victorians were legally border closures, lockdowns and
spread of the virus. required to wear face masks at all extensive testing and contact
After 111 days of lockdown – one times outside the home, except tracing, a handful of jurisdictions
of the longest and most stringent The state’s seven-day average while exercising. have largely eliminated covid-19,
in the world – Daniel Andrews, the for new daily cases reached a high including New Zealand and the
premier of Victoria, announced of 533 on 5 August – a similar Melbourne residents faced Australian states of Tasmania
an easing of restrictions in the figure at the time to that of particularly stringent measures, and Western Australia.
city as well as what some called many European countries. including home confinement,
a “double-doughnut day”: one a strictly enforced night-time The Australian borders were
with 0 new coronavirus cases With the exception of Singapore, curfew and a ban on travelling closed early in the pandemic, with
and 0 deaths in the state. few other regions have managed more than 5 kilometres away entry banned to non-residents
to successfully suppress a second from their places of residence, and non-citizens. Since the end
“Now is the time to open wave of the scale seen in Victoria. except for essential work. of March, all returning citizens
up,” said Andrews at a press As case numbers soar in the UK, and residents have been required
conference. From 11.59 pm on US and many European nations, Victoria’s success has to quarantine for two weeks in
27 October, bars, restaurants are there any lessons to be learned resulted from both clear hotels. Internal borders between
and retail shops in Melbourne government direction and certain Australian states have also
reopened for the first time in been closed, with some interstate
more than three months. Daily coronavirus news round-up travellers also being required to
complete hotel quarantine.
The last time Victoria recorded Online every weekday at 6pm GMT
newscientist.com/coronavirus-latest Andrews has warned of the
risks of transmission indoors,
and many restrictions still remain.
Melbournians will probably
support a cautious reopening,
says Duckett. “We don’t want to
go through this again. We know
there’s been pain.”  ❚

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 7

News Coronavirus

Insight

US health agencies in disarray

The CDC and the FDA have lost public trust and the respect of scientists due to bad
decisions and political meddling during the pandemic, reports Chelsea Whyte

AS THE US enters a third surge of

coronavirus cases, the two agencies

charged with shepherding it

through the public health crisis

have lost their biggest asset: trust.

The impact could be catastrophic,

with one expert warning that the

country may be heading for a

national security crisis.

“Both the FDA and the CDC rely

on one common element, which is

public trust and confidence,” says

J. Stephen Morrison at the Center BILL CLARK/CQ-ROLL CALL, INC VIA GETTY IMAGES

for Strategic and International

Studies in Washington DC. “That is

their essential asset that they have

to treat as precious, and they have

to guard it and sustain it through

all sorts of twists and turns. As

we’ve seen, that’s not very easy.”

The Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) and the

Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) are two arms Protesters in the with false positives in the control appropriate. But politics got in
portion of the test. This was later the way. “The FDA bent to political
of the US government focused US call for safe and found to be due to contamination pressure, and it created false hope
that occurred at the CDC. and false understanding in the
on public health, both part of the affordable vaccines public of potential treatments,”
By early February, the CDC had says Morrison.
Department of Health and Human sent 200 functioning test kits,
which can each analyse 700 to 800 In a briefing on 19 March,
Services (see “Vital roles”, right). and actually not doing what they samples, to about 100 labs around President Donald Trump made
the country, distributing them the first of many mentions 
Over the course of the coronavirus are charged with doing,” says Peter evenly even though some areas of the antimalarial drug
had seen no cases and others, such hydroxychloroquine, suggesting
pandemic, a series of missteps by Hotez, co-director of the Texas as New York City, were already that it should be tested as a
seeing spikes in hospitalisations. treatment for covid-19. Days later,
both agencies has resulted in a Children’s Hospital Center for he tweeted that a combination
Testing capabilities were also of hydroxychloroquine and an
fractured approach to tackling the Vaccine Development in Houston. hampered by early FDA rules that antibiotic could be “one of the
prevented labs from producing biggest game changers in the
crisis. These missteps have come “They missed the entry of the test kits, so they had to rely on history of medicine. The FDA has
those from the CDC. The FDA moved mountains – Thank You!”
from within and have also been virus from Europe into New York, eventually reversed this. Still, He also said the pair of drugs
testing couldn’t keep up with the should be put into use
a result of political pressure and so transmission went on spread of covid-19. The disease had immediately.
taken hold, and the FDA and CDC
interference from the Trump undetected there for weeks.” had lost valuable weeks. Alarm bells rang among the
scientific community, as there was
administration. “The FDA created false As hospitals filled up, the search no robust clinical evidence that
A poll conducted in early for treatments that could lessen this drug cocktail would limit the
the severity of the disease was severity of covid-19 or help with
September by the Kaiser Family hope and understanding on. This is the area where the FDA symptoms. On 23 March, a man
should work to limit the use of died after ingesting chloroquine
Foundation, a non-profit in the public of potential drugs and treatments that haven’t phosphate – a parasite treatment
organisation, found that since treatments for covid-19” been proven as safe, effective or

April, trust in the CDC among

adults in the US has fallen by Both agencies then made crucial

16 percentage points, and about mistakes with coronavirus test

40 per cent feel that the CDC kits, which delayed mass testing.

and FDA are paying too much Rather than manufacture tests

attention to politics when issuing according to guidelines set by the

guidelines and recommendations World Health Organization (WHO)

for coronavirus policy. that other countries used, the

The problems started in CDC opted to devise its own test.

the chaotic early weeks of In January, the CDC sent its test

the pandemic. “The CDC has kits to 26 labs for initial evaluation.

alternated between being invisible Nearly all of them found problems

8 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

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for fish – that he and his wife up vaccines for approval before subsequently nor did the CDC, and given for free, 54 per cent of
took thinking it could protect Election Day.” leading instead to a patchwork people wouldn’t get vaccinated.
them from the coronavirus. of public health policies cobbled
An FDA spokesperson said in a together by state governors. “The question I get is, ‘Which
But on 28 March, the FDA written statement: “The agency vaccine are you going to wait for?’,”
authorised hydroxychloroquine will not authorise or approve Elsewhere, political pressure says Hotez. “No one should wait.
for emergency use to treat any COVID-19 vaccine before it has led to a flip-flopping of CDC There should be a scientist from
covid-19. “That emergency has met the Agency’s rigorous policies on whether asymptomatic the CDC or FDA out there weekly
use authorisation was the FDA’s expectations for safety and people should be tested. explaining this to people.”
biggest mistake,” says Hotez. The effectiveness. Decisions to
agency revoked the authorisation authorize or approve any COVID-19 Before this year, the CDC was Efforts to rebuild trust cannot
in June after trials showed it had widely recognised as the gold start soon enough, says Morrison.
no benefit for treating covid-19. 54% standard of a high-quality public “The loss of trust is not just
health agency. It was a repository dangerous, it’s catastrophic.”
Political pressure on the FDA of people polled in the US would of up-to-date information and He has participated in pandemic
has mounted further as the not get a coronavirus vaccine statistics relied upon by doctors, preparedness exercises in the past
presidential election draws closer. researchers and public health and says even experts who play
On 15 September, Trump said in vaccine or therapeutic will be officials, but that has changed. out various scenarios don’t know
an interview with Fox and Friends made by the dedicated career how to account for the CDC and
that a vaccine could be ready in staff at FDA through our thorough “We couldn’t rely on CDC for our FDA losing public trust. “Pandemic
four or eight weeks, which would review processes, and science modelling,” says Hotez. “I basically war games don’t take that into
coincide with the election. will guide any and all decisions.” gave up on CDC data about five account,” says Morrison. “We’re
or six weeks into the epidemic.” facing an uncontrolled pandemic,
However, the FDA has been The CDC hasn’t held as firm. In The CDC and White House didn’t social instability, economic
holding its ground on this front. May, the agency drafted guidelines respond to requests for comment. consequences and uncertainty
“They have learned from some for reopening schools, churches, around whether a large segment
rookie mistakes and are now public transport, restaurants Where does this leave things? of the public will reject a vaccine.
doing a really good job at holding and bars that included social Most urgently, the FDA and CDC This is a national security matter.”
the line and preventing the White distancing measures such as will need to rebuild trust in order
House from exploiting the FDA for encouraging face coverings in to effectively distribute a future Digging out of this could simply
political expediency,” says Hotez. churches, closing rows of seats on vaccine. The pandemic has mean increasing the transparency
buses and trains, and separating crashed headlong into a US anti- of these agencies’ work. The FDA
In a webinar on 8 October, FDA schoolchildren into groups that vaccine movement that has is working to win back public
commissioner Stephen Hahn don’t mix. The White House didn’t been gaining strength for years. trust over the approval process
spoke about the timeline and release those guidelines, and for coronavirus vaccines. For
criteria for approving a vaccine. The Kaiser Family Foundation example, it opened up a meeting
“Science will guide our decision, poll found that if a vaccine were of the Vaccines and Related
and I will not, and the FDA will approved before the US election Biological Products Advisory
not, allow pressure from anybody Committee on 22 October to
to change that,” he said. Vital roles the public, instead of the usual
closed-door policy.
Hahn has been backed up The US Centers for Disease including accurate disease burden
by the drug industry. Nine Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics, and give suggestions Or it could require a full rewrite
pharmaceutical companies that and Food and Drug Administration for public health policy to stop of these health agencies’ missions.
are developing potential vaccines (FDA) are both arms of the US the spread of disease. That may depend, in part, on the
recently signed a safety pledge government. outcome of the presidential
that said they wouldn’t submit The FDA plays a pivotal role election in November. If Trump
a vaccine for FDA approval until The CDC plays many roles, in public health preparedness, isn’t re-elected, the heads of both
it has been shown to be safe and including helping to detect, trace by acting as a regulator for the CDC and FDA may change,
effective in large clinical trials. and monitor disease outbreaks. drugs, therapies, diagnostic as they are appointed by the
Scientists within the CDC, or tests and vaccines, as well as president. But if Trump stays in
The FDA has also brought funded by its grants, research regulating food, cosmetics and the White House, things could go
in new rules for forthcoming infectious diseases, such as tobacco products. on as they have. Such an outcome
vaccines, which require two influenza, and non-infectious could have a devastating impact
months of data to ensure a vaccine diseases, such as cancer and These two agencies are on a country that has already seen
is safe and effective. Trump has obesity. Public health experts at designed to work in concert to more than a quarter of a million
criticised the agency, tweeting on the CDC gather and share data, protect the health and well-being deaths from covid-19. ❚
6 October: “New FDA Rules make of people in the US.
it more difficult for them to speed

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 9

News Coronavirus

Long covid HINTERHAUS PRODUCTIONS/GETTY IMAGES

Symptoms that won’t stop

We are finally getting a picture of how many people will have covid-19
symptoms for months, and why this happens, reports Jessica Hamzelou

THE argument for naturally
obtained herd immunity as
a solution to the coronavirus
pandemic has made a return
in recent weeks. But letting the
virus spread among younger
people, who are less likely to
die from covid-19, could lead
to devastating consequences.
Estimates suggest that there
could already be millions of
people around the world living
with “long covid” – what appears
to be a debilitating syndrome that
follows a coronavirus infection.

As personal stories of long-term
problems accumulate, researchers
and health bodies are learning
more about what might cause
these long-lasting symptoms,
and how best to treat them.

Dismissed by doctors

“I’m not sure how I caught the

virus,” says Heather-Elizabeth

Brown, a 36-year-old corporate

trainer in Michigan who has

severe symptoms six months

after her initial diagnosis. “I was

social distancing, staying out

of crowds and wearing a mask.”

Still, Brown became unwell

at the start of April. After initially

being dismissed by doctors,

and testing negative for the growing number of people are He has been analysing the Shortness of breath
symptoms reported through is one of the common
coronavirus twice, Brown was reporting symptoms that can the Covid Symptom Study app, symptoms of long covid
which has more than 4 million
admitted to hospital in mid-April, last for months. Prolonged chest users – including people who Brown still gets debilitating
are healthy and have yet to test fatigue and shortness of breath,
when she finally tested positive. pains, shortness of breath and positive for covid-19 – based in struggling to talk for more
the UK, US and Sweden. than 20 minutes or walk up
By then, she was feverish fatigue are often mentioned. a flight of stairs. She has also
Shortness of breath and started to experience “brain fog”.
and struggling to breathe, and Some people experience lasting loss of smell and taste are also “I’ve always had a phenomenal
among the most commonly seen memory, but sometimes I forget
chest X-rays revealed signs of damage to their heart and lungs, long-term symptoms among the things… there’s a certain word that
app users, although many others I just can’t seem to find,” she says.
pneumonia. Within a couple of and blood clots that can cause have been reported. “People are “It’s really frustrating.”
getting rashes, fevers, hair loss,
days of her hospitalisation, Brown painful swelling or strokes. pins and needles, muscle pains, She has been hospitalised twice
diarrhoea… everything on our for complications related to her
was put on a ventilator and placed “Everyone has fatigue and list,” says Spector. blood clots. She has had physical

in a medically induced coma for headache – that’s virtually

a month, she says. During that universal,” says Tim Spector

time, she developed blood clots at King’s College London.

in her legs and her brain. “It’s

a miracle I survived,” she says. “People are getting

She isn’t out of the woods yet. rashes, fevers, hair loss,

There isn’t yet an official clinical pins and needles, muscle

definition of long covid, but a pains, diarrhoea”

10 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

and speech therapy and mental- breathlessness was a feature for 88% hospitalised with covid-19, largely
health support, and says she is 64 per cent of people, and 55 per because these individuals would
taking 15 different medications cent had significant fatigue Proportion of people hospitalised have had a test result confirming
to manage her covid-19 symptoms (medRxiv, doi.org/ffjz). with covid-19 in an Italian study they had the virus, and would
and their complications. who still had symptoms after be easier to recruit for research.
Millions of cases two months As a result, we still don’t know
The symptoms can temporarily much about how long covid might
resolve before making a return, Although we don’t yet know how 55% develop after a milder infection.
and can develop in people whose many people are affected by long
initial disease was mild, as well as covid, a handful of studies suggest Proportion of people in a A July report by the CDC found
in people recovering from more that it could be common among French study who reported that about one-fifth of those who
severe cases of covid-19. Because those who contract covid-19. fatigue 110 days after being test positive for the coronavirus
there is such a wide range of hospitalised with covid-19 still have symptoms two to
symptoms, it isn’t yet clear if One study in Italy found that, three weeks later. Spector and
long covid is a single syndrome of 143 people who had been 5% his colleagues running the Covid
or many conditions (see hospitalised with covid-19, Symptom Study app have been
“Could long covid be several only 12 per cent reported no Estimated amount of people who looking at longer-term outcomes.
syndromes?”, page 12). symptoms 60 days after the will have symptoms two months
onset of the disease. More than after the onset of covid-19 They have found about
A couple of recent reports by half of the participants were still 4000 people who have logged
the US Centers for Disease Control experiencing fatigue at that point, A woman receiving symptoms for more than a
and Prevention (CDC) suggest and many reported shortness of treatment at the Covid month – some of whom have
that some adults develop a breath and chest and muscle pains Recovery Ward at Royal had symptoms for two or three
multisystem inflammatory (JAMA, doi.org/gg4hvp). Papworth Hospital, UK months so far. These individuals
syndrome, for example. This rare were healthy when they first
outcome of covid-19 has already A similar study in France also NEIL HALL/POOL VIA REUTERS started using the app, and all
been observed in children. Not found that most people who had went on to develop symptoms
all of the adults who develop been hospitalised with covid-19 and get a positive test result
this syndrome had pre-existing still felt effects months later. for the coronavirus, says
health conditions, and many go Some 110 days after the onset of Spector. Not all of them
on to test negative for covid-19 their first symptoms, 55 per cent received hospital treatment.
before they develop symptoms. of a group of 120 individuals had
fatigue. Around a third were also “That has given us these rough
“There are the symptoms of reporting memory loss (Journal estimates that 1 in 10 [still have
not feeling well and not being of Infection, doi.org/ghdhzf). symptoms] at one month,” says
able to do things, and then there’s Spector. Information collected
the organ damage… a scan shows These figures align with other from app users also suggests that
cardiac inflammation or lung post-viral syndromes. About 1 in 20 people will have symptoms
damage, for example,” says 80 per cent of people who recover two months after the onset of
Nisreen Alwan at the University from Ebola are left with problems illness, and 1 in 50 will have
of Southampton, UK, who still has a year later, for example, says symptoms three months later.
symptoms herself months after Janet Scott at the University
the onset of covid-19. “Sometimes of Glasgow, UK. “They have The UK government reports
these are happening in the same muscle aches and pains, ocular that, as of 25 October, 873,800 had
people, and sometimes they’re problems, headaches and a long tested positive for the coronavirus,
not. There’s a wide range.” list of other symptoms.” and 58,164 had died. It is possible
that at least 75,000 people who
Betty Raman at the University One long-term study of contracted covid-19 will still have
of Oxford and her colleagues people who were hospitalised symptoms a month later, and
have examined 58 people with with SARS following the 2003 more than 14,000 will have
moderate or severe covid-19. outbreak found that about 40 per symptoms three months
MRI scans revealed tissue cent said they still experienced after their initial infection in
abnormalities in the lungs of chronic fatigue almost four years the UK alone. Of the 37.8 million
60 per cent of these people, in after hospital discharge (JAMA confirmed global cases, we
the kidneys of 29 per cent, in the Internal Medicine, doi.org/c7xcvp). might expect at least 3.8 million
hearts of 26 per cent and in the people to have experienced
livers of 10 per cent. Persistent Most studies conducted so far long covid symptoms already. >
have focused on people who were
31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 11

News Coronavirus

It is impossible to know for 20 symptoms. Spector says most 100 people who had recently
sure, because the Covid Symptom users don’t do this daily. Some recovered from acute covid-19,
Study app data comes from people with long covid say they get bored they found that 78 individuals
in countries that weren’t testing of listing the same symptoms showed signs of heart
all those with symptoms during for weeks or months. Others say inflammation and damage,
the first wave of infections in they don’t bother typing in their including those who had
March. There is no way of symptoms if they aren’t already only mild symptoms (JAMA
knowing how many people included on the app’s list. Cardiology, doi.org/gg8n87).
who weren’t hospitalised had Spector’s team is currently
the virus. And people were working to extend the list. An MRI scan of one man’s
reporting their symptoms heart, for example, showed
through lockdown and furlough, We don’t know whether people “severe abnormalities” 67 days
both of which can exacerbate who originally had asymptomatic after his official diagnosis,
health issues, says Louise Sigfrid infections might later develop despite the fact that he had only
at the University of Oxford. lasting symptoms, but at least experienced a loss of smell and
one report suggests that this taste and a mild fever for two days.
There are other issues with the might happen.
app data, too. Users are asked to Who is at risk?
enter information every day about When Valentina Puntmann
how they are feeling, and select at University Hospital Frankfurt “We’re not sure what the
items from a drop-down menu of in Germany and her colleagues longer-term implications of
assessed heart inflammation in that inflammation will be,” says
Jennifer Ross at the University
Could long covid be several syndromes? of Washington in Seattle.

Breathlessness, pain, fatigue, that result from prolonged We also don’t yet know who is REUTERS/NACHO DOCE
“brain fog”, blood clots, organ bed rest and invasive medical at risk of developing long covid.
damage – the list of symptoms procedures. Symptoms include The studies that have focused be related to the treatment they
and complications ascribed to muscle weakness, cognitive on people who were hospitalised had, or it could be related to their
“long covid” is lengthy, varied dysfunction that might resemble with covid-19 suggest that lasting genetics,” she says.
and growing. Could the condition, “brain fog” and signs of anxiety, symptoms are more common
which seems to develop after depression and post-traumatic in those who had a more severe Information from the Covid
a case of covid-19, actually stress disorder. initial illness, particularly those Symptom Study app suggests
be many different syndromes? who required treatment in an that long covid can occur in
Others might develop a intensive care unit. anyone over the age of 18, says
That is the suggestion raised syndrome closer to post-viral Spector. His team has noticed
by researchers at the UK National fatigue, which has also been But there are many anecdotal that lasting symptoms seem
Institute for Health Research observed in people recovering reports of people who recovered to be more likely to affect older
(NIHR). After reviewing published from many other viral infections, well from severe disease, and individuals, but long covid can
evidence, and interviewing such as Epstein-Barr virus, others who developed lasting also affect young, healthy people.
14 people with long covid, the which is responsible for glandular illness after much milder cases.
team found that “the symptoms fever or mononucleosis. “We see a lot of reports of people
described may be due to a number “Whether you get long covid who used to be very physically
of different syndromes”. People who show signs of may be due to pre-existing active reporting it,” says Alwan. We
organ damage could still be conditions, lifestyle don’t yet know if there is a reason
Some of those who become recovering from their initial influences or genetics” for this, or whether young people
hospitalised with covid-19 covid-19 infection. who are less likely to develop
end up requiring treatment “There’s a lot of individual severe cases of acute covid-19 are
in intensive care units (ICU). And long covid might represent variation,” says Louise Wain at more prone to long covid. “It could
These individuals may need another, separate syndrome. It is the University of Leicester, UK, be that older people are more
ventilation to help them also possible that some people who is co-leading a study into the likely to have died,” says Scott.
breathe, for example. A stay in might have more than one long-term health outcomes of
ICU for any condition can lead to syndrome at the same time. Until people hospitalised with covid-19. It is also possible that younger,
post-intensive care syndrome, we know more about long covid, “It could be due to pre-existing
which is a collection of symptoms it is difficult to say for sure, say conditions they had or the
the authors of the NIHR study. influence of their lifestyle, it could

12 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

Coronavirus Essential Guide

All you need to know about coronavirus and covid-19
Available now in the New Scientist app

It is possible that the virus could The definition shouldn’t be

hide away in some body tissues, based on having had a positive

causing a “grumbling” immune covid-19 test result, says Alwan.

reaction that continually Many people who have long covid

reactivates, says Spector. won’t have been tested during

“Some parts of the body are their acute coronavirus infection,

protected from most of our or may have received an incorrect

immune system,” says Scott. result. And antibody tests don’t

The central nervous system, definitively clarify whether a

eyes and prostate could all provide person has had the coronavirus

a safe haven for the virus to in the past.

survive in the body, for example. The National Health Service

Scott, Sigfrid and their in England has also launched a

colleagues are one of several website offering advice on how

teams that are starting to look for to manage various symptoms,

signs of this immune response in

blood samples taken from people “There’s potential for

who are recovering from covid-19. harm even in folks who

So far, their ISARIC study has don’t have an initially

recruited more than 100,000 severe infection”

participants from 42 countries.

The team will look for immune and plans to set up treatment

cells, antibodies and other markers centres that address the multiple

of inflammation, and see how symptoms of long covid.

their levels change over time. At the same time, employers

Sigfrid hopes that blood tests need to be made aware of the

for such things might eventually impact of long covid, says

help identify people who are at Sigfrid. Brown feels lucky that

risk of developing long covid. her employer was understanding

In the meantime, there is plenty  and supportive. As a corporate

healthier people notice their A man who recovered that can be done to support people trainer, much of her work involves
symptoms more because “they from covid-19 in physical
really can’t do any of the stuff therapy in Spain who already have long covid. talking, which she still finds
they used to be able to do”, says
Alwan. “But we still really don’t For a start, doctors and health difficult to do for an extended
know at all who’s vulnerable.”
professionals need to recognise period of time. Her employer

that the condition is real, and not has enabled her to adapt her

just “in a person’s head”, which is training to make it easier to

a common complaint from people carry on doing, and understands

Inadvertent damage who have long covid, says Alwan. when she needs time to rest.

The causes of long covid remain To that end, England’s Alwan has found that getting
a mystery, but several hypotheses
are being put to the test. “I think National Institute of Health and enough rest has helped her.
of it in two ways,” says Wain.
“There’s the direct damage that Care Excellence, along with a “I’ve learned not to push myself
the virus can do, and then there’s
the inadvertent damage that the 1 in 3 Scottish health body and a group as hard as I used to,” she says.
body can do when it responds to
the virus,” she says. “It’s possibly Proportion of people hospitalised that represents family doctors, Ross hopes that our growing
a combination of those two.” with covid-19 in one study who
reported memory loss 110 days is working on a definition of understanding of long covid will
Prolonged shortness of after first onset of symptoms
breath and chest pains could long covid and guidelines on put another nail in the coffin of
be the result of lung or heart 3.8m
damage, for example. how to identify and treat the the idea that infection-induced
People who may already have
had symptoms of long covid various symptoms. “I hope they herd immunity is the way out of

come up with something broad,” this pandemic. “There’s potential

says Alwan. “You need a case for harm even in folks who don’t

definition for it to be measured have an initially severe infection,”

and for it to be recognised, but she says. “It’s a cautionary

it needs to be able to evolve with message to all of us to do what

time. It’s really tricky.” we can to prevent infection.” ❚

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 13

News Analysis Purdue Pharma

Space Record payout won’t fix the US opioid crisis Millions of
people in the US are addicted to opioids and an $8.3 billion
NASA confirms legal settlement can’t turn back the clock, says Clare Wilson
there is usable
water on the moon Lawyers and protesters
outside a court hearing
Layal Liverpool for Purdue Pharma

WATER may be more abundant on CHARLES KRUPA/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK who died of overdoses as well
the moon than previously thought, as by state and national agencies
which could be excellent news for A LONG-RUNNING lawsuit against for severe short-lasting pain like seeking to recoup the public health
future astronauts. a pharmaceutical company that from surgery, or for people costs of the epidemic, such as
accused of fuelling the US opioid with terminal cancer. funding for addiction treatment
Paul Hayne at the University addiction crisis was settled last and overdose response teams.
of Colorado, Boulder, and his team week when Purdue Pharma agreed In the 1990s, US doctors
used images and temperature to pay out $8.3 billion, the largest started prescribing them more But this latest record-breaking
readings from NASA’s Lunar ever such settlement. The firm liberally, spurred in part by settlement may never be paid in
Reconnaissance Orbiter to map admitted to violating anti-kickback Purdue’s marketing of a new opioid full, as Purdue filed for bankruptcy
cold, permanently shadowed laws, conspiring to defraud the US OxyContin, which the firm claimed last year. The US Centers for
regions on the moon. These are and facilitating the dispensing of rarely caused dependence. The Disease Control and Prevention
thought to be the places most medication without a legitimate firm promoted the product heavily has estimated that opioid misuse
likely to contain ice due to their medical purpose. to some doctors with free trips costs the country nearly $80 billion
lack of exposure to sunlight. and paid speaking engagements. a year. “That $8.3 billion doesn’t
While the size of the payout really make a dent in the problem,”
While there is lots of evidence may sound like a big win, it But OxyContin can lead to says Joseph D’Orazio at Temple
for the presence of water on the won’t reverse the US’s opioid addiction, and some users sought University in Pennsylvania.
moon, such “cold traps” were dependency problems, nor is it increasing doses. Over time, some
previously thought to be restricted likely to be a sufficient deterrent Opioid prescriptions in the US
to large, deep craters. However, to similar behaviour by drug firms “Criminal charges have been declining since about
the team found that there are in future, say critics. No individuals don’t work. Companies 2012, when their addiction
also micro cold traps: areas at from the company and none of the see them as the cost potential became more recognised,
the metre and millimetre scale Sackler family owners have been of doing business” although they still haven’t returned
that are permanently shadowed convicted as part of the settlement, to the lower levels of the 1990s.
and so could contain more but a criminal investigation into people switched to using illegally Social distancing due to the
individuals is ongoing. bought pills or injecting heroin. coronavirus pandemic may make
40,000 matters worse, as many areas
“Criminal charges against Deaths caused by opioid have loosened rules that say
Total area of lunar surface in square corporations don’t work. They’re overdoses climbed from about doctors must see patients face to
kilometres where water might exist seen by companies as the cost 9000 a year in 2000 to 47,000 face before prescribing opioids.
of doing business,” says Andrew a year in 2017, although such
accessible ice. Altogether, the Kolodny at Brandeis University fatalities may now be plateauing. While clampdowns on
researchers estimate that cold in Massachusetts. The astonishing number of fatal prescribing can lower the number
traps occupy about 40,000 square drug overdoses may have even of new people who become
kilometres, or roughly 0.1 per cent Doctors used to be wary of lowered life expectancy in the US. dependent, some are already
of the moon’s surface (Nature giving opioids, the most potent stuck on prescription opioids
Astronomy, doi.org/ffw8). class of painkillers, reserving them Purdue has been pursued in to manage their chronic pain.
the courts by families of those
A separate study has confirmed “We have millions of patients
the presence of water ice (H2O) who were put on opioids for
rather than hydroxyl (OH). conditions where we would
never use them today, like back
Casey Honniball at NASA’s pain and headache,” says Kolodny.
Goddard Space Flight Center in “Many of these patients may now
Maryland and her colleagues used never be able to come off.”
the agency’s SOFIA telescope –
which is mounted on a plane to There are also people who have
get a clearer view through Earth’s moved on to illegal opioids. “We are
atmosphere – to spot a spectral now typically seeing people dying
signature that is unique to water from fentanyl overdoses in their
(Nature Astronomy, doi.org/ffw9). 40s and 50s who first started
[on prescription opioids] in their late
“Water is central to human life, teens and 20s,” says D’Orazio. ❚
but is expensive to launch into
space,” says Honniball. “Finding
water on the moon may mean we
can utilise the water that is there.” ❚

14 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

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News

CRISPR

GM bacteria vs superbugs

Bacteria armed with gene-edited weapons could kill antibiotic-resistant microbes

Michael Le Page

BACTERIA engineered to carry leaving bacteria that lack these treat them. “It could serve as a beneficial ways, he says, such as
a weapon that infects other sequences unharmed. preventive means to reduce the by eliminating species associated
microbes during the bacterial amount of resistant bacteria in with acne.
equivalent of sex could help us kill The biggest challenge is getting the gut, for example,” says Matti
off dangerous, antibiotic-resistant DNA coding for the necessary Jalasvuori at the University of However, it is possible that
superbugs – if regulators approve CRISPR machinery inside bacterial Jyväskylä in Finland. regulators may not approve such
their use. While the approach cells. One way to do this is to treatments unless the bacteria
has huge promise, its reliance on exploit the bacterial equivalent of Edgell’s team has used a similar carrying the CRISPR plasmids,
genetically engineered bacteria sex, a process called conjugation approach to kill the salmonella or the plasmids themselves, can
is likely to be controversial. during which two bacteria link up bacterium that causes food be prevented from spreading in
via a narrow tube and transfer poisoning. It could also enable the wider environment.
“We would be releasing circular pieces of DNA known as the microbiomes in our guts
genetically modified killing plasmids. Antibiotic resistance and on our skin to be tweaked in The bacteria initially equipped
machines into the environment. often spreads on plasmids. with CRISPR plasmids are unlikely
What could go wrong?” says David A depiction of Mycoplasma to become a permanent part of
Edgell at Western University in Guillaume Launay at the genitalium, a microbe with microbiomes, says Edgell. But
Ontario, Canada. University of Lyon, France, and growing antibiotic resistance the plasmids they carry will be
his colleagues created a plasmid passed to non-target bacteria
There are two main problems coding for the CRISPR machinery KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY as well as target ones and could
with conventional antibiotic needed to target the genes for persist indefinitely. That could be
drugs. First, they often kill resistance to carbapenem, an regarded as a good thing because
beneficial bacteria along with antibiotic. They then added this they will continue to kill the target
dangerous ones and disrupt targeted antibacterial plasmid bacteria as long as they are present.
microbiomes. This is why a to a strain of E. coli bacteria.
dose of antibiotics can lead to Nevertheless, Edgell’s team is
diarrhoea. Second, many bacteria Finally, they mixed the working on various containment
are becoming resistant to the engineered E. coli with other methods, such as creating
drugs, including those considered bacteria, including some that plasmids that self-destruct if
one of the last lines of defence. were resistant to carbapenem. they are in an environment
As they hoped, the drug-resistant below human body temperature.
In theory, the CRISPR gene- bacteria were eliminated from “Public and regulatory approval
editing technique can solve both the mix (bioRxiv, doi.org/ffwg). will be critical,” he says. “I think
problems. It can be adapted to kill it is inevitable that modified
dangerous bacteria by targeting This approach could be used to bacteria will be used in clinical
specific DNA sequences, while prevent infections by antibiotic- or therapeutic settings.” ❚
resistant superbugs, as well as to

Mathematics

The quickest route William Cook at the University to visit every measured star in the world,” says Cook. Gaia has now
has been found to of Waterloo in Canada and Keld galaxy, but you’d need your warp released data on the locations of
visit 2 million stars Helsgaun at Roskilde University engine,” says Cook. At the speed more than 1 billion stars, and the
in Denmark analysed data from of light, it would take nearly 100 researchers are working on finding
THE travelling salesman problem, the Gaia space telescope, which million years to make this journey. the fastest route between them.
an infamous mathematical puzzle measured the locations of
that seeks the shortest route 2,079,471 stars in our galaxy The methods Cook and Helsgaun This solution took about
between many locations by visiting in its first data release. used can also be applied to other 200 years of computing time over
each only once and returning to the data, such as flight scheduling two years, says Cook. In the future,
first, has been solved on the largest The most efficient route and genome mapping. quantum computers could speed
scale yet: the galaxy. that visits each of them is about up that optimisation process.
94,208,157.5 light years long, the “The larger a problem you can
The problem seems simple, but pair found. They plotted this path on solve, the closer you can come to For now, though, quantum
it is notoriously difficult. It can be a 3D map. If there is a shorter route, reality, to modelling the actual computers aren’t capable of such
solved for certain data sets, but an they calculated it cannot be off by a large problem, so Cook is offering
algorithm to solve any instance of more than a factor of 0.0000074 – “It is the fastest way to visit a monetary reward for anyone who
the problem hasn’t yet been found. about 700 light years. every measured star in the can improve on his route between
galaxy, but you’d need the stars. ❚
“This would be the fastest way your warp engine” Leah Crane

16 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

Palaeontology Analysis Fukushima

Dinosaur’s fossil Japan’s least-worst option Dumping radioactive water into
cloaca hints at the ocean might sound like a terrible idea, but the alternatives
mating habits are probably much worse, says Adam Vaughan

Michael Le Page The Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant in Japan,
A FOSSIL dinosaur originally by the Pacific Ocean
discovered in north-west China is so
exquisitely preserved that the shape RICHARD ATRERO DE GUZMAN/AFLO/PA IMAGES two years, says Ken Buesseler
of its cloaca – the opening used for at Woods Hole Oceanographic
excretion and mating – is visible for AROUND 1.2 million tonnes of effects of releasing such a large Institution in Falmouth,
the first time. water contaminated by radioactive amount of contaminated water? Massachusetts. Fortunately,
substances from the 2011 tritium is relatively harmless for
The evidence has actually been Fukushima nuclear disaster will Much of the existing water has marine life as the low-energy
in plain sight. The psittacosaurus – be dumped in the Pacific Ocean, already been filtered by a process particles it emits do little damage
a kind of early ceratopsian related as part of a plan expected to designed to remove more than to living cells, he says.
to triceratops that lived around be approved by the Japanese 62 radioactive contaminants.
120 million years ago – has been government within weeks. The Japanese government and Of greater concern are other,
on public display at the Senckenberg Tokyo Electric Power Company potentially more dangerous
Museum of Natural History in The water is sitting in around (TEPCO), the firm that runs the radionuclides in the water, including
Frankfurt, Germany, for over a 1000 tanks at the former nuclear site, have emphasised that the strontium-90 and iodine-129.
decade and several scientific papers power station, but the amount main radionuclide remaining TEPCO first published a list of
have already been written about its is growing daily as rainfall and is tritium. Francis Livens at the contaminants in 2018. While
primitive feathers and colouring. groundwater entering the site University of Manchester, UK, filtering has reduced their
continue to be contaminated. says this is very hard to separate concentrations, around 70 per cent
Only now, though, has a team With an average of 160 tonnes of the water has yet to go through
led by Phil Bell at the University of a day being added last year, 1.2m a secondary filtering process.
New England in Australia formally the International Atomic Energy “There are major questions as to
described the cloaca. Bell declined Agency expects existing capacity tonnes of contaminated water whether it will work as planned,”
to discuss the finding until it will be full by mid-2022. due to be dumped in the ocean says Shaun Burnie at Greenpeace.
appears in a peer-reviewed journal.
That is why the Japanese because it is a radioactive isotope Livens says filtering reduces the
Birds and reptiles have a cloaca – government is reportedly going to of hydrogen, and so part of the concentrations of non-tritium
a single orifice used for excretion, approve a strategy of discharging water molecules themselves. isotopes, but not to zero. Still, we
urination, mating and laying eggs – the water to the ocean, as shouldn’t be too worried about
so it has always been assumed that recommended by scientific TEPCO has looked at the levels that will be discharged,
dinosaurs had them too. The cloaca advisers. The release would start technology to remove the tritium, says Pascal Bailly du Bois at the
of the psittacosaurus confirms this. in around 2022 and continue but a presentation by the firm Cherbourg-Octeville Radioecology
for decades. The news sparked shows most methods wouldn’t Laboratory in France. “The
Only the external part of the immediate complaints from work for the low concentrations radiological impact on fisheries and
cloaca has been preserved. The Japanese fishing groups and veiled in the tanks. Livens points out marine life will be very small, similar
vent is around 2 centimetres long, warnings that China would ban that most operating nuclear to when the Fukushima reactors
is flush with the surrounding area Japanese seafood imports. But are sites release this isotope. were operating under normal
rather than protruding as some people right to be worried about conditions.” Buesseler says the
cloacas do, and is surrounded by the environmental and health Tritium is light, so could reach effect on marine life – and humans
darkly pigmented tissue. as far as the US west coast within who eat it – can’t be known until
we have a “better accounting”
Most birds lack penises and mate of the radionuclides in the tanks.
cloaca to cloaca, so many biologists
assume dinosaurs mated this way Simon Boxall at the University
too. The fossil doesn’t definitively of Southampton, UK, says any
resolve the question, but the cloaca potential risk would be from
has a longitudinal opening like those radionuclides building up in
of crocodiles, which do have penises. shellfish in coastal waters, but
It isn’t possible to tell the sex of this he thinks the chances of this are
particular animal, but the cloaca’s probably low. Further out in the
resemblance to those of crocodiles ocean, the risk is extremely low,
suggests that this type of dinosaur but close monitoring and
had a penis (bioRxiv, doi.org/ffjf). adherence to scientific advice
will be key, he says.  ❚
“It is a triumph of discovery
to have such a delicate region so
perfectly preserved in a fossil so
old,” says John Long at Flinders
University in Australia. ❚

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 17

News

Alien life

More doubts cast on potential signs
of life in Venus’s atmosphere

Abigail Beall

THE recent signal of phosphine then has to be pieced together. “It demonstrates the findings. Some believe another
gas in Venus’s atmosphere, which “[This] is probably one of the most fundamental challenge of working independent analysis is required.
could potentially be a sign of life, complex types of astronomical on important and exciting science Others argue we need more data.
has been called into question data to analyse,” says Conselice. when one is simultaneously “Only new observations will be
again. A new study of the data in working very near the limits of the able to confirm the detection of
the original paper suggests there Because of that, there are data quality,” says Brad Gibson at this potentially biogenic gas,” says
are no signs of the gas after all. many ways to process the data. the University of Hull in the UK. Abel Méndez at the University of
Disturbances or noise must be Puerto Rico at Arecibo.
The original work, led by Jane reduced, and Snellan and his team Snellan and his team’s study
Greaves at Cardiff University in say the original methods used to is yet to be peer reviewed, and The study comes after another
the UK, examined how light is do this introduced errors, such as some astronomers have said it analysis led by Clara Sousa-Silva at
absorbed as it passes through the the phosphine signal. When they is too early to speculate about its the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
Venusian atmosphere, leaving tried to replicate it, they found that for Astrophysics in Massachusetts,
dark absorption lines in the light’s five more absorption or emission The phosphine seen who was involved in the original
spectrum. Greaves’s team found signals had been spuriously added in Venus’s clouds may phosphine observations, found no
an absorption line and identified (arxiv.org/abs/2010.09761). not be there after all hint of phosphine on Venus when
it as phosphine. examining an older set of infrared
NASA data (arxiv.org/abs/2010.07817).
Ignas Snellen at Leiden
University in the Netherlands The original data set used by
and his colleagues re-examined both Greaves’s and Snellan’s teams
the data and found no such has been removed from the public
absorption line. The researchers archive where all results from
say their new method of data the Atacama Large Millimetre/
analysis introduces fewer flaws. submillimetre Array (ALMA)
observatory are published because
This is common in astronomy, of a potential problem in the early
with detections seen in objects stages of data processing.
that vanish when other people
reduce the data, says Christopher Researchers from Greaves’s
Conselice at the University of team declined to comment until
Manchester in the UK, who the new processing had been
wasn’t involved in either study. applied. “Until this process is
completed, we cannot say whether
The original research was done the issue affected the detection
using interferometry, in which of phosphine reported,” says
information is collected by an an ALMA spokesperson.  ❚
array of separate telescopes that

Obesity

CRISPR gene editing Massachusetts Medical School. into what appears to be beige fat by implanted with the human beige fat
turns normal fat into put on almost half as much weight
energy-burning fat While most fat merely stores switching off a gene called NRIP1. as those implanted with unedited
human fat. Those given beige fat
METABOLIC conditions linked energy, some types – known as Now the two teams have joined also continued to regulate blood
to obesity could be treated by sugar normally, whereas those
removing fat from a person, turning brown and beige fat – burn glucose forces. The researchers used CRISPR with normal fat became glucose
it into energy-burning “beige fat” intolerant (bioRxiv, doi.org/ffkf).
using CRISPR gene editing and then to produce heat. People have small genome editing to deactivate the
implanting the altered fat back into Around a gram of fat from a
the body, animal studies suggest. patches of brown fat but it only NRIP1 gene in human fat precursor person would provide enough fat
precursor cells for the treatment,
“It would be a personalised becomes active after repeated cells, which then gave rise to beige says Corvera. The method will need
therapy for metabolic disease,” says to be tested in non-human primates
Silvia Corvera at the University of exposure to the cold. fat cells. They then implanted these before being tried in humans. ❚
Michael Le Page
Corvera’s team previously showed cells into mice. When the animals

that implanting extra beige fat were put on a high-fat diet, those

into mice fed a high-fat diet makes

them better at regulating blood “This would be a

sugar levels. Another team led by personalised therapy for

her colleague Michael Czech has metabolic conditions, such

shown that normal fat can be turned as those linked to obesity”

18 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

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News In brief

Environment

Ocean warming can predict
drought on Colorado river

IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY FORECASTING drought in the surface temperatures between
Colorado river, one of the most 1960 and 2015, and relies on
important rivers in the arid western “ocean memory”, or the ocean’s
US, could come down to ocean ability to retain heat and release
temperatures thousands of it slowly. While atmospheric
kilometres away. heat is released and transferred
relatively quickly, the ocean can
The Colorado river runs for store large amounts of heat and
around 2300 kilometres, providing release it over the span of years.
water to vast farmlands and
30 million people in seven US states According to the researchers’
and Mexico. “If we can predict the results, water shortages in the
shortage of Colorado river water Colorado river were preceded by
supply one year before, the water cooling in the tropical Pacific Ocean
resource managers can develop a one to two years earlier, warming in
mitigation plan,” says Yoshimitsu the north Pacific Ocean two to three
Chikamoto at Utah State University. years earlier and warming in the
southern tropical Atlantic Ocean
Most models that forecast water three to four years earlier. They
supply in the Colorado river rely on found that more distant oceans
recent atmospheric and weather affected the river more strongly
data, but preparing for a drought (Communications Earth and
requires a longer lead time. Environment, doi.org/ffm6).
Ian Morse
Chikamoto and his colleagues’
model uses data on global sea

Disease Engineering

Cats cost Australia amount that can be sold. The Beetle could hold key exoskeleton, while analysing it
A$6 billion a year researchers estimate that these to stronger planes under a microscope and by CT scan.
two parasitic diseases result in
DISEASES transmitted by cats annual costs to farming of about THE diabolical ironclad beetle is so The researchers discovered
cost the Australian economy $11.7 million (Wildlife Research, tough that engineers are hoping to ellipsoidal beam-like structures
more than A$6 billion (£3.3 billion) doi.org/ffnc). copy features of its exoskeleton to surrounding the beetle’s
annually through their impact on design more robust structures. exoskeleton, which combine with
human health and livestock. Toxoplasmosis is caused by the tiny interlocking blades that form
parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which “You can run these things over joints between the two segments
Sarah Legge at Australian cats catch when they prey on with a car and they don’t die,” says of the beetle’s exoskeletal
National University in Canberra infected birds or animals. Infected David Kisailus at the University of forewings, enabling the beetle
and her colleagues analysed the cats release T. gondii oocysts – an California, Irvine. To investigate to endure extreme compression.
economic impact of diseases such egg-like form of the parasite – in what makes these creatures
as cat scratch disease, in which a their faeces, which people can (pictured) virtually uncrushable, Kisailus hopes that
scratch or bite can cause an accidentally ingest, for example Kisailus and his team performed understanding the diabolical
infection of the bacterium while gardening. The parasite compression tests on the beetle’s ironclad beetle’s uniquely tough
Bartonella henselae, and enters the body, often the brain, structure will help us design
toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease. and remains there indefinitely. DAVID KISAILUS stronger components for use in
building lighter aircraft, resulting
The researchers estimate that “The biggest single contributing in planes that consume less fuel
such diseases cost the Australian cost is from the effects of this and emit less carbon dioxide.
economy A$6.06 billion annually parasite on behaviour and mental
in medical care, insurance, social health,” says Legge. As a test, he and his team joined
support and lost productivity. together a carbon-based material
To break the cycle of T. gondii with a piece of metal, mimicking
Toxoplasmosis also affects transmission, efforts should be the joint structure of the beetle’s
animals, causing miscarriages in targeted at reducing feral cat exoskeleton. They found it was
sheep and goats. Another parasitic populations and at keeping pets about twice as tough as a standard
disease that spreads through cats, indoors, she says. Donna Lu joint commonly used to connect
sarcocystosis, causes cysts to form similar parts when building
in sheep meat, which reduces the For more on the impact of domestic aircraft (Nature, doi.org/ghf99p).
cats, turn to page 42 Layal Liverpool

20 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

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Really brief Palaeontology

LEE ET AL.,SCI.ROBOT.5,EABC5986(2020) Learning to walk First flying dinosaurs Paleontology in Beijing reported bats, and wings more like those of
in a simulation were a flop the discovery of a fossil dubbed birds. It was most likely something
Yi qi, meaning “strange wing” in in-between, the team thinks.
A neural network algorithm THE first dinosaurs to take to the Mandarin, with wings made of a
designed to control a air had wings similar to bats, but bat-like membrane rather than The findings suggest that Yi
four-legged robot has they were bad at flying and were feathers. In 2019, a team including and Ambopteryx were incapable of
been trained in a simulated outcompeted by birds. Xu unveiled a fossil of another powered flight, and were worse at
environment similar to a membrane-winged species called gliding than some modern animals
video game that was full of “They were badly designed Ambopteryx longibrachium. like flying squirrels. They were
hills, steps and stairs. This gliders,” says Alex Dececchi at almost certainly tree-dwellers that
allowed it to learn the best Mount Marty University in South Now, a team including Dececchi glided short distances, the team
way to move about without Dakota. “They got squeezed out.” and Xu have investigated the says (iScience, doi.org/ffnd).
damaging the real robot, flying abilities of these animals,
pictured (Science Robotics, Birds evolved from dinosaurs, based partly on laser scans of the There were no birds when Yi
doi.org/ffjk). and it was thought they were the Yi fossil. It isn’t clear exactly what and Ambopteryx evolved. But
only evolutionary branch to gain shape their wings were, so the team once birds appeared, membrane-
Swish of a fish’s tail the ability to fly. But in 2015, Xing looked at a few options, including winged dinosaurs couldn’t
clears rival semen Xu at the Institute of Vertebrate wings connected to the legs, like in compete as birds were better fliers,
says Dececchi. Michael Le Page
A study of dusky frillgoby
fish (Bathygobius fuscus) Pollution Archaeology
found that sneaker males,
which are smaller than The Incas may have
nest-holding males but buried llamas alive
have larger testicles, sneak
into nests to ejaculate REUTERS/JASON LEE THE remains of five llamas that
over just-laid eggs. may have been ritually sacrificed
Nest-holding males chase China’s air pollution cuts may by Incas have been found in Peru.
them away and then fan save 150,000 lives each year
their tails to sweep out the “I have no way to prove it, but I
rival semen (Proceedings LEVELS of air pollution in China have To rule out the effect of weather think they were buried alive,” says
of the Royal Society B, fallen since 2015 due to stricter on the decline, which can influence Lidio Valdez at the University of
doi.org/ffjm). controls on emissions. China’s air is where pollutants build up, the team Calgary in Canada. He says the
still polluted, but the reduction may modelled wind patterns over China llamas don’t have injuries like
Superwhite paint have prevented 150,000 and the chemistry of the pollution. knife wounds to their throats,
could cool buildings premature deaths per year. “We showed the weather was a which would point to different
relatively small effect, compared to methods of killing.
A superwhite paint is “It’s probably the fastest any emissions reductions,” says Silver.
so reflective that it can country has improved their air The Inca Empire dominated
cool a surface to below quality ever,” says Ben Silver at It is difficult to determine how western regions of South America
the surrounding air the University of Leeds in the UK. many people are killed by air for several hundred years, until
temperature, even under “But it’s still really bad.” pollution. The researchers estimate Spain invaded in the 1500s.
sunlight. It could help that China’s PM2.5 reductions have Llamas were central to its success,
reduce the use of energy- Silver and his colleagues tracked cut annual premature deaths by providing transport, skin, fibre,
intensive air conditioning levels of tiny particles, called PM2.5, 150,000. But they estimate there fertiliser and meat. “In addition
(Cell Reports Physical using data from more than 1600 were still 2.65 million deaths linked to that, the Incas believed llamas
Science, doi.org/ffjn). monitoring stations dotted around to PM2.5 in 2017 (Atmospheric were sacred,” says Valdez.
China. In line with previous studies, Chemistry and Physics, doi.org/ffnj).
they found that levels of PM2.5 Michael Marshall Spanish people who came into
declined from 2015 to 2017. contact with the Inca reported that
they regularly killed hundreds of
llamas, either for feasts or ritual
sacrifices to deities.

Archaeologists hadn’t found
evidence of llama ritual sacrifice.
Now, Valdez and his colleagues
have found five such llamas buried
in an Inca settlement called Tambo
Viejo near the coast of Peru. The
llamas had no injuries, but their
legs were tied together. Valdez
thinks this was to keep them under
control while they were buried
alive (Antiquity, doi.org/ffnk). MM

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 21

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Views Aperture Letters Culture Culture columnist
Silver plant portraits Beware automation’s An extract from Jacob Aron on flying
The columnist inspired by Victorian ability to divide us: Carlo Rovelli’s X-wings in Star Wars:
Do tomatoes worsen botany p26 readers respond p28 latest book p30 Squadrons p34
rheumatoid arthritis,
asks James Wong p24

Comment

How moral are you? No, really?

When experimenting in virtual reality, we often find people act
differently to what they say is morally acceptable, says Sylvia Terbeck

MICHELLE D’URBANO Y OU probably aren’t Some researchers have suggested pushed him even though they doing things they say they regard
as moral as you think. that people might be unwilling to reported that they were very as morally unacceptable when
Philosophers have often push the man because of empathic affected by the situation, and far placed in that situation.
asked people how they would act concern about his situation. more engaged in it than when
in a given situation when lives are merely reading about it. We also For example, Philip Zimbardo
on the line, but it is hard to test My colleagues and I have found that the majority of people found in 1971 that, under certain
what they would do in practice. studied people’s behaviour in regretted their choice afterwards. circumstances, ordinary student
Now, thanks to virtual reality, we this dilemma by immersing volunteers behave in an aggressive
are starting to find out – and what them in virtual reality. In one We have also developed other and denigrating manner towards
people say doesn’t match up with such experiment, we put 100 scenarios investigating similar their fellow student colleagues
what they do. people into a simulated version moral situations, such as a when they were given the role of
of the trolley problem. confrontation with a stranger prison guards in an experiment.
There are many thought and a self-driving car steering Stanley Milgram found in 1963
experiments and dilemmas for Consider your own response. out of control. In many of them, that some people would be willing
breaking down ethical decisions, The trolley is approaching, it is people act against what they say to inflict lethal electric shocks
and perhaps none is more famous getting out of control, there is a is morally acceptable. towards another person if told to
than the trolley problem. The horn beeping, five railway workers do so by a determined authority.
scenario begins with a runaway screaming, and a man right in Looking back to classical social- None of the participants reported
trolley that is on course to kill five front of you. Do you push him? psychological studies, we often that they would behave in this way
railway workers who are stuck find that people act hypocritically, when asked on a questionnaire.
on the tracks. You can divert it Most people did. Indeed, they And while doubts have been raised
by flipping a switch, which would about the validity of all these
kill one railway worker on an experiments’ conclusions, there
alternative track but save the other seems little doubt they reflect
five. Is it morally acceptable to flip human nature. So why?
the switch? Most people say yes.
The answer to this question
Now imagine the same isn’t yet known. We are still
situation, but this time you are working on what the real nature
standing on a footbridge over of human morality could be. Is
the tracks. To save the five workers, it what we say that we would do,
you would need to push a stranger or is it what we actually do?
off the bridge to stop the trolley,
killing them but saving the five. We need to develop an
Is that morally acceptable? In empirical understanding of what
this case, most people say no, makes our moral intuition, and
even though one person is killed we are working on experiments
to save five in both scenarios. that could get us closer. In the
meantime, we may need to look
The trolley problem was at people’s moral behaviour
developed by Philippa Foot, more before believing what
a philosopher and fellow of the they are saying.  ❚
British Academy born 100 years
ago this month. Many studies Sylvia Terbeck is a senior
have looked into why we find such lecturer in psychology at
a difference in moral intuitions Liverpool John Moores
between the two cases it describes. University, UK

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 23

Views Columnist

#FactsMatter

You say potato… and some say “killer plant”. A toxic compound in
potatoes, tomatoes and the like is rumoured to make rheumatoid
arthritis worse. Is there anything in it, asks James Wong

AS A botanist fascinated by blood markers associated with irritant poison ivy. They are not.
the properties of plants, rheumatoid arthritis in these rats. When I dug back through
I am always curious when But humans aren’t rats and we
the studies, the one that I kept
I uncover new claims about them. don’t eat diets based on rotting coming back to as the apparent
original source of this claim is
So when a colleague lamented to potatoes. Even if these results were one from the late 1970s, when a
horticultural researcher noticed
me about having to give up eating transferable to humans, how do his arthritis was alleviated when
he quit smoking and stopped
tomatoes (her very favourite we know it was the spuds that had eating all other related plants.

food) over lunch the other day, the effect, and not the pathogen? Yes, tobacco is in the nightshade
family too. Encouraged by this
fearful they would exacerbate her The authors’ conclusion, that personal anecdote, the researcher
conducted a postal questionnaire
James Wong is a botanist and crippling rheumatoid arthritis, everyone with arthritis should run through magazine adverts,
science writer, with a particular collated the resulting anecdotes
interest in food crops, I could barely clear my plate before eliminate every plant in the and wrote a book based on his
conservation and the idea. Over the years, supported
environment. Trained at the reaching to dig out the studies. nightshade family from their only by this shaky evidence, the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he claim seems to have cycled and
shares his tiny London flat with The first thing I discovered diets, isn’t really a conclusion been recycled so many times
more than 500 houseplants. that it is now regularly cited
You can follow him on Twitter was that a link between tomato that can be made from testing as scientific fact.
and Instagram @botanygeek
consumption and this painful, one crop in a family of some What we do know, by the way,
James’s week is that evidence does suggest a link
poorly understood degenerative 3000 species. between smoking and rheumatoid
What I’m reading arthritis. These anecdotes may
A lot of scripts for a new condition wasn’t a new idea This highlights a central have been more to do with giving
BBC series I am making up smoking one toxic nightshade
on how developments at all, just new to me that day. problem with any rationale plant than no longer eating a
in agriculture can bunch of safe ones. Go figure.
help feed our growing It has been a staple for health
population sustainably. Given this lack of any solid
writers in newspapers, books “Over the years, the scientific evidence for this belief,
What I’m watching the advice from both the US-based
Every single history and blogs for decades. claim seems to have Arthritis Foundation and the
documentary that Simon It isn’t just tomatoes either. cycled and been British Nutrition Foundation is
Schama has ever made. recycled so many that tomatoes, potatoes and the
I’m absolutely his new Everything in the botanical family times it is now cited like aren’t just healthy additions to
greatest fan! to which they belong, called the our diets, but contain potentially
nightshades, including potatoes, anti-inflammatory compounds
What I’m working on like carotenes and vitamin C that
I’m simultaneously aubergines, peppers, chillies as scientific fact” can help protect our tissues,
filming a BBC farming possibly benefiting those who
documentary series and and crops such as goji berries, have rheumatoid arthritis.
an online houseplant
course. Busy times. is claimed to exacerbate the behind the claim: solanine isn’t In the face of really no good
studies, here is my take: if lived
This column appears symptoms of arthritis. really found in many plants in experience has shown that eating
monthly. Up next week: these plants is a problem for you,
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein The alleged culprit is a the nightshade family, at least not of course, don’t eat them. But if
you have been frightened off
24 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020 toxic alkaloid compound they at the same levels as in rotting your favourite foods because
of a tabloid headline, take it,
apparently contain called potatoes. It crops up mainly in the as it were, with a pinch of salt. ❚

solanine. So what does solanine green tissues of growing potato

do in this context? To my surprise, plants. In tomatoes, it is found at

I couldn’t find a single scientific far lower concentrations, down to

paper that addressed the question. barely measurable traces in some

In fact, to date there appear to have varieties. In goji berries, it doesn’t

been no peer-reviewed clinical seem to be present at all.

trials investigating if solanine These plants may contain

even has any plausible connection other related alkaloids, such

with rheumatoid arthritis to begin as tomatine, which may be the

with. The only reference I could source of some confusion.

find was an animal study in the But picking out solanine as a clear

Arab Journal of Nuclear Sciences culprit is a tough ask based on the

and Applications, which involved evidence. Solanine is also found

feeding rats a special diet based in plants outside the nightshade

largely on diseased potatoes. family, from apples to artichokes,

Potato plants produce solanine none of which seems to be in the

to defend themselves against cross hairs of proponents of this

pathogens, so rotting potatoes claim. Meanwhile, some wellness

are likely to have particularly high writers say that nightshade plants

levels of it. This study did indeed promote inflammation because

find increased levels of some they are in the same family as the

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26 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

Silvered flowers

Photographer William Arnold
Agency Panos Pictures

THESE exquisite and intricate
plant portraits by photographer
William Arnold are a nod to the
Victorian era of botany, as well as
to the rural beauty tucked away in
English hedgerows and kerbsides.

Arnold gathered an assortment
of plants during walks in Truro,
Cornwall, before printing
photos of them in monochrome
using a technique called silver
gelatin printing.

Developed in 1871, the process
involves printing photographs
onto paper coated in a gelatin
layer that contains silver halides,
chemical compounds sensitive
to light. After exposure to a
negative image (where the
lightest areas appear dark and
vice versa) and development with
chemicals, small silver particles
are tethered to the gelatin to form
the final image.

This form of printing not only
preserves plants in all their natural
splendour, it also exposes the
delicate details of petals, leaves,
flowers and stems.

These images come from the
100 prints in Arnold’s recent book,
Suburban Herbarium. Clockwise
from far left, they are lords and
ladies (Arum maculatum),
common honeysuckle (Lonicera
periclymenum), cut-leaved
cranesbill (Geranium dissectum),
scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis
arvensis) and California poppy
(Eschscholzia californica).

Arnold’s images are on show
at Newlyn Art Gallery in Cornwall
until 2 January 2021. He is also
working with the Eden Project
to involve the public in collecting
local specimens across the UK. ❚

Gege Li

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 27

Views Your letters

Editor’s pick intensive agriculture and the climate views are correct, such but surely the universe is analogue,
green revolution: that to feed as producing less waste, would without discrete values. When
Beware automation’s people, we need to increase yield. make perfect sense even if climate Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton
ability to divide us change were a damp squib or invented calculus to square the
After 70 years of intensive temperatures fell. Predictably, circle, they did so because every
10 October, p 44 agriculture, we still have nearly such win-win options were curve – and, indeed, everything in
a billion people that don’t have rejected in favour of arguing about the universe – is analogue. By
From Alan Taman, Birmingham, UK enough food, even though we who was right. Urgent action is putting a curve through an
Sandy Ong’s excellent piece on have grown enough to feed every needed to avoid complete disaster. infinitesimal digital grinder, we
automation and its effects on person on the planet for decades. One target is economic reform – can make it appear digital,
employment misses one cardinal If that is success, I would hate to conventional ideas on economic sufficient for most supposed laws
point. New technology tends to see what failure looks like. growth will end in disaster. of physics, but who are we fooling?
increase inequality, and the bigger
the effects of the new tech, the Ecological science is clear: we From Ronald Gibson, From a digital point of view,
greater the inequality that follows. must manage population to levels Irvine, California, US it may be frustrating not to be
Unemployment can easily come where consumption of food and Your article continues the head- able to know the location and
with more deprivation for many other resources is compatible with in-the-sand approach of virtually momentum of a particle at the
and extreme wealth for the few – the capacity of the planet. This all publications. The pandemic same time. Yet from an analogue
which is exactly what we are seeing. ventures into the ugly politics of and global warming are just perspective, not knowing is
Malthus, but it is also clear that it two manifestations of the real natural and obvious. Is quantum
It isn’t just the kinds of job that isn’t those in low-income countries problem: overpopulation. As our indeterminacy therefore a
matter, it is the share of resources, that we have too many of, but numbers continue their out-of- genuine feature of the universe
power and opportunity created that those consuming far more than control growth and the attendant or a mental category error that has
are key to the kind of future we will their share of the planet’s outputs. problems get ever worse, I ponder: resulted from the imposition of a
have. That is largely a matter of are people really this stupid? supposed digital reality onto the
political, not technological, choice. Earth just can’t sustain universe’s actual analogue reality?
The wise option is rarely easy, but ever more consumption The editor writes:
if we let free-market thinking make ❚ See page 36 for economists’ If this is so, will mathematicians
our decisions for us without greater 17 October, p 34 take on the post covid-19 future. continue to pull their digital hairs
control of inequality, it is all too easy We plan to look at population out, or will they refocus their
to see where AI could lead. From Iain Climie, in the coming weeks. attention on their analogue heads
Whitchurch, Hampshire, UK and consciousness from which
Intensive farming has The accelerating climate change Time mathematicians put their digits emerged?
failed to solve hunger mentioned in your special report their analogue heads on
is a surprise to some, but why? Another source of genetic
Leader, 10 October Melting ice sheets reflect less 5 September, p 36 diversity for women?
From Charles Merfield, solar energy, darker surfaces From Guy Dauncey,
Lincoln, New Zealand absorb more heat, previously Ladysmith, British 1 August, p 42
There are a number of issues frozen gases escape while fires Columbia, Canada
raised by your discussion of and dying vegetation worsen Eddy Keming Chen has me From Ralf Dahm, Mainz, Germany
using gene editing to address matters. Temperature changes fascinated with his thoughts Thank you for the interview
agriculture’s climate impact. also lag behind changes in total about vagueness in fundamental with Sharon Moalem, in which
greenhouse gas levels, so we physical laws, and the possibility he expounds why women live,
The first is the assertion that are in deep trouble even if our that we may never be able to on average, longer than men. He
better breeds are the best way emissions fall rapidly. completely capture the objective says this is thanks to having two
to address climate effects. This order of the universe through X chromosomes, giving genetic
is highly debatable. What is clearer Many ideas to address this can mathematics. diversity in the immune system.
is that well-proven agroecological also fail. More food from less space
techniques, such as agroforestry, seems obvious, but some years Clearly, the laws of the universe Interestingly, it has been shown
have substantial climate heating ago, environmentalists reckoned existed long before we started that cells from the developing
adaptation and mitigation three or four planets would be measuring them. The universe fetus cross into a pregnant woman
abilities, as well as a plethora needed to give us all Western we measure using mathematics and can persist in her body for life.
of other benefits and very few lifestyles and jobs to afford them. may seem to be digital, and hence Since the fetal cells comprise half
downsides. The problem is they A more recent estimate is 11 planets could be pinned down by maths, a genome from the father, they
are low-tech and widely known, for all to have well-off US lifestyles. are genetically different from the
so aren’t amenable to high-tech mother’s cells, again increasing
science and therefore prestigious Maddeningly, many changes her genetic diversity.
publications and patents. that are essential if mainstream
Compared with the other
Next, the many sophisticated Want to get in touch? cells in the mother’s body, there
solutions offered to solve are very few fetus-derived cells,
farming’s problems are doomed Send letters to [email protected]; but immune cells can replicate
to fail as they are based on the see terms at newscientist.com/letters significantly and make a major
false assumption that underpins Letters sent to New Scientist, 25 Bedford Street, difference. It would be interesting
London WC2E 9ES will be delayed to see if this also boosts longevity.  ❚

28 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

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Views Culture

When black holes turn white

In this extract from his latest book, Carlo Rovelli suggests that black holes
sucking in all matter that strays too close may be only half the story

THERE is something paradoxical the centre, and then we have no and matter no longer mean
anything? Or perhaps black holes
in what we know about black knowledge of what happens next. irradiate heat because the matter
that enters them is mysteriously
holes. They have now become We know what black holes consist transformed, over zillions of
years, into heat.
“normal” objects for astronomers. of, both outside and inside, but
In the research group I work
Astronomers observe them, count a crucial detail is missing: the with in Marseille, together with
colleagues at Grenoble and at
them and measure them. They centre. But this is hardly an Nijmegen in the Netherlands, we
are exploring a possibility that
behave exactly as Einstein’s theory insignificant detail, because seems to us both simpler and
more plausible: matter slows
predicted a century ago, when no everything that falls in (and into down and stops before it reaches
the centre. When it is most
one dreamed that such peculiar the black holes that we observe extremely concentrated,a
tremendous pressure develops
objects could actually exist. So, in the sky, things continue to fall) that prevents its ultimate collapse.
This is similar to the “pressure”
they are under control. And still, finishes up at the centre. The sky that prevents electrons from
falling into atoms: it is a quantum
they remain utterly mysterious. is full of black holes into which phenomenon. Matter stops falling
and forms a kind of extremely
On the one hand we have a we can see things disappear… small and extremely dense star:
a “Planck star”. Then something
beautiful theory, general relativity, happens that always happens to
matter in such cases: it rebounds.
confirmed in spectacular manner “What happens to the
by astronomical observations, It rebounds like a ball dropped
which accounts perfectly well for matter that falls into on the floor. Like the ball, it
rebounds along the trajectory of
what the astronomers see: these the centre of the hole? the fall, in temporal reverse, and in
this way the black hole transforms
monsters that swallow stars We don’t know” itself (by “tunnel effect”, as we say
in the jargon) into its opposite:
revolve in vortices and produce JAMIE STOKER a white hole.
MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
immensely powerful rays and but we don’t know what A white hole? What is a white
hole? It is another solution to the
other devilry. The universe is becomes of them. equations of Einstein (like black
holes are) about which my
surprising, variegated, full of The roads taken to explore university textbook says that
“there is nothing like it in the
things that we had never foreseen answers to this question have so real world”… It is a region of space
into which nothing can enter, but
or imagined the existence of, but far been hazardous. Perhaps, for from which things emerge. It is
the time reversal of a black hole.
comprehensible. On the other instance, the matter emerges in A hole that explodes.

hand, there is still a small question another universe? Perhaps even But then why do we see matter
fall into black holes but do not see
of the kind that children specialize our own universe began this way, it immediately bouncing back out
again? The answer – and this is the
in when adults are overly emerging though a black hole crucial point about what we are same speed everywhere. All
dealing with – lies in the relativity physical phenomena are slower at
enthusiastic: “But where does all opened in a preceding one? of time. Time does not pass at the sea level than in the mountains.
Time slows down if I am lower
the material that we see falling Perhaps at the centre of a black down, where gravity is at its most
intense. Inside black holes the
into a black hole go?” hole everything melts into a cloud force of gravity is extremely
strong, and as a result there is a
And this is where things of probability where spacetime fierce slowing of time. The
rebounding of falling matter
become difficult. Einstein’s theory happens rapidly if seen by
someone nearby, if we can
provides a precise and elegant imagine someone venturing into
a black hole to see what it’s like on
mathematical description even the inside. But seen from outside,
everything appears to be slowed
of the inside of black holes: it down. Enormously slowed down.
We see things disappear and
indicates the path that material vanish from view for an extremely
long time. Seen from outside,
falling into a black hole must everything looks frozen for
millions of years – exactly how
follow. The matter falls ever faster we perceive the black holes we
can see in the sky.
until it reaches the central point.
But an extremely long time is
And then… then the equations of

Einstein lose all meaning. They no

longer tell us anything. They seem

to melt like snow in sunshine.

The variables become infinite

and nothing makes sense. Ouch.

What happens to matter that

falls into the centre of the hole?

We don’t know.

Through our telescopes we see Carlo Rovelli is a physicist

it falling, and we mentally follow at Aix-Marseille University

its trajectory until it nearly reaches in France

30 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

Carlo Rovelli on the nature of time

See him speak at newscientist.com/video/2186684-
carlo-rovelli-the-nature-of-time/

not an infinite time, and, if we The universe is full of itself, and if it is sufficiently station that had become the voice
heavy it produces a black hole of the student revolt.
waited for long enough, we would things we had never and falls into it. A star of the
dimensions of the sun, that is to In the houses we were sharing,
see the matter come out. A black foreseen or imagined, say thousands of times bigger we nourished the adolescent
than Earth, would generate a dream of starting from zero, of
hole is ultimately perhaps no none more so than black hole with a diameter of remaking the world from scratch,
one and a half kilometres. of reshaping it into something
more than a star that collapses and black holes different and more just. A naive
Imagine it: the whole of the sun enough dream, no doubt, always
then rebounds – in extreme slow contained within the volume of a destined to encounter the inertia
foothill. These are the black holes of the quotidian; always likely to
motion when seen from outside. that we can observe in the sky. The suffer great disappointment.
matter of the star continues on its But it was the same dream that
This is not possible in Einstein’s course inside, going ever deeper Copernicus had encountered
until it reaches the monstrous in Italy at the beginning of the
theory, but then Einstein’s theory level of compression that causes it Renaissance. The dream not only
to rebound. The entire mass of the of Leonardo and of Einstein but
does not take quantum effects star is concentrated into the space also of Robespierre, Gandhi and
of a molecule. Here the repulsive Washington: absolute dreams
into account. Quantum mechanics quantum force kicks in, and the that often catapult us against
star immediately rebounds and a wall, that are frequently
permits matter to escape from its begins to explode. For the star, misdirected – but without which
only a few hundredths of a second we would have none of what is
dark trap. have elapsed. But the dilation of best in our world today.
time caused by the enormous
After how long? After a very gravitational field is so extremely What can the university offer
strong that when the matter us now? It can offer the same
short time for the matter that has begins to re-emerge, in the rest of riches that Copernicus found:
the universe, tens of billions of the accumulated knowledge
fallen into the black hole, but after years have passed. of the past, together with the
liberating idea that knowledge
an extremely long one for those of Is this really the case? I don’t can be transformed and become
know for sure. I think it might well transformative.
us observing it from outside. be. The alternatives seem less
plausible to me. But I could be This, I believe, is the true
So here is the whole story: when wrong. Trying to figure it out, still, significance of a university. It
is such a joy. is the treasure-house in which
a star such as the sun, or a little human knowledge is devotedly
In a further extract, “Copernicus and protected, it provides the lifeblood
bigger, stops burning because it “A black hole is perhaps Bologna”, Rovelli writes about the on which everything that we
has consumed all its hydrogen, the value of a university education know in the world depends, and
heat no longer generates enough no more than a star that everything that we want to do.
...I also found something else in But it is also the place where
pressure to counterbalance its collapses and rebounds Bologna, when I studied there in dreams are nurtured: where we
the seventies: an encounter with have the youthful courage to
weight. The star collapses in on in extreme slow motion” that spirit of my generation, a question that very knowledge,
generation that was intent on in order to go forward, in order
changing everything, that to change the world. ❚
dreamed of inventing new ways
of thinking, of living together These excerpts are taken from the
and of loving. The university was book There Are Places In The World
occupied for several months by Where Rules Are Less Important
politically engaged students. I Than Kindness, published by Allen
got involved with the friends of Lane on 5 November in the UK.
Radio Alice, the independent radio A review follows overleaf

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 31

Views Culture

A mind for all times

Physicist Carlo Rovelli’s bestsellers show a mind seeking knowledge for its own
sake. His new book reminds us why we need more Rovellis, says Richard Webb

Book Revolutions such as the sun-
centred solar system built
There Are Places in the on what came before
World Where Rules Are Less
Important Than Kindness their minds rove and broaden
their world view, as he clearly has.
Carlo Rovelli
Knowledge for knowledge’s
Allen Lane sake has gone out of fashion,
replaced by a utilitarian notion
I APPROACHED Carlo Rovelli’s of education. The sort of liberal-
universalist perspective that
latest book with trepidation, Rovelli stands for, rooted in
the intellectual traditions of
bordering on dread. The Italian ancient Greece and the Italian
Renaissance, is increasingly
quantum gravity researcher’s excoriated by those on the right
who see it as a plot to undermine
previous bestsellers – Seven Brief a curiously modern conception
of the cultural primacy of nations,
Lessons on Physics, Reality Is Not as well as those on the left who see
it as an exclusionary, Eurocentric
What It Seems, The Order of Time – and patriarchal front.

have seen him playing on home But if we are to make progress
in anything, from exploring
territory, where his lucid, lyrical the interior of a black hole to
understanding how to best
touch won him a reputation as combat covid-19, we need to
be able to contexualise new
“the poet of physics”. knowledge, to understand where
it lies in relation to that already
But his new book’s title, There acquired and to synthesise from
the broadest range of sources,
Are Places in the World Where Rules not just rely on what we find in
our silo or echo chamber.
Are Less Important Than Kindness,
It is a point that Rovelli himself
suggested it might have gone to makes in a different way and
context in the book’s first essay.
his head a bit. It is a collection of DETLEV VAN RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY He describes how Galileo built a
new physics not by regarding the
Rovelli’s journalism, mainly for Aristotelian ideas it superseded as
a dogma to be overturned, but by
Italian outlets such as the daily understanding where that earlier
intellect came from and what
newspaper Corriere della Sera, with motivated it – that is to say, by
constructing a dialogue between
musings not just on physics, but spheres of knowledge.

politics, philosophy, anthropology “What interests us most is…
to compare, to exchange ideas,
and the history of ideas. When to learn and to build from
difference. To mix, not to keep
physicists play public intellectual, things separate,” he writes.
At the very least, this book
it often doesn’t end well. Best to succeeds in doing that.  ❚

stick to the stuff you know.

I needn’t have worried, though.

Rovelli does stick to the stuff he

knows, but that turns out to be “Rovelli is as comfortable one vignette in a story that
quite a lot. It makes for a joy of discussing black holes showcases the light and shade of
a book – enriching, illuminating, as he is considering Rovelli’s writing, and the passion
eclectic and far from a novelist Vladimir for knowledge and curiosity that
conventional science read. make him such an engaging writer
(even if he might raise hackles
Rovelli is as comfortable Nabokov’s butterflies” by making sweeping statements
about “Africa” or “the real Africa”,
discussing his own work on as if they were definable things).

black holes (see the extract on besetting the publishing industry) In some ways, though, the
book makes me a little sad. At the
page 30) as he is considering comes from the longest essay in risk of straying from my own safe
territory, the Rovellis of the world
novelist Vladimir Nabokov’s the book, describing a day he are a dying breed. A diminishing
number of people, whatever their
passion for butterflies, or spent in the rural environs of walk of life, have the freedom or
receive the encouragement to let
reflecting on his own involvement Mbour, Senegal.

in the Italian student protests of Rovelli describes how a man

1977 – in which, he intriguingly lets insists on carrying his sandals

slip, he was accused of seditious into a mosque for him when he

association and forced into hiding. has committed the faux pas of

The mouthful of a title (a trend forgetting to remove them. It is

32 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

Don’t miss

All skin and bone

Why did a dying 19th-century robber want his skin to be a book
cover? Chris Stokel-Walker finds spooky tales for Halloween

Books Gray’s Anatomy, Vesalius’s images why did we flay people as leather? Visit
are playful and artistic. They are in The answers aren’t definitive, but The National Museum
Anatomica: The exquisite beautiful landscapes, not laid out on of Computing in the UK
& unsettling art of human slabs, says Ebenstein. That physical again show a changing attitude to is running a virtual tour
anatomy detachment didn’t happen until the the sanctity of human bodies. Most on 2 November. Quiz
19th century, by which time we had of those who owned books covered experts on wartime
Joanna Ebenstein come to see the body as mechanical, in skin were doctors. “It tells us a codebreaking machines
Laurence King Publishing rather than spiritual – and started complicated story about the way and browse the largest
to avoid taboo subjects like death. doctors viewed patients in the past,” collection of working
Dark Archives: A librarian’s she says. “If it’s going to end up in historic computers in
investigation into the That was also when skin the bucket, why not take a piece the world.
science and history of books covers started to spook us. In Dark of skin and save it anyway?”
bound in human skin Archives, Megan Rosenbloom, Read
a librarian at the University of Rosenbloom tries to return The Pattern Seekers:
Megan Rosenbloom California, Los Angeles, probes humanity to the books, identifying A new theory of
Farrar, Straus & Giroux what was once a normal practice. the people who gave their skin human invention by
when she can. Most were unwitting Simon Baron-Cohen
THE human body can fascinate and Like Ebenstein, her interest in or unwilling donors, but she found asks why the genes for
enthral – but it can also appal. Two the corporeal was born among the George Walton, whose skin covers finding and identifying
new books highlight our complex 19th-century pillars of the Mütter a book in the Boston Athenaeum. causal patterns, an ability
relationship with the body and, Museum. A former journalist, her that has driven human
interestingly for the queasy 21st eye was drawn to a case of small Walton, a highway robber in progress, overlap so
century, don’t blink at the facts. books, their covers closed. There 19th-century Massachusetts, was neatly with those we
was little to indicate that these were dying of tuberculosis in prison. associate with autism.
Joanna Ebenstein co-founded the books’ most important feature. Telling tales of his past, he lobbied
the now closed Morbid Anatomy Then she read the caption: they to become a book cover. That wish Listen
Museum in New York. She spent were made from human skin. was granted, his skin wrapping his Russia’s Young Climate
years studying how we think about own slim memoir. As Rosenbloom Activists, a podcast from
the body, sparked by receiving a After that, whenever she visited says: “To hear from someone who Pushkin House in the UK,
calendar from the Mütter Museum a library, she asked if they had books wanted this, in his own words, features Ada Wordsworth
of the College of Physicians of bound in human skin. She recalls: adds this amazing element.” ❚ speaking to three activists
Philadelphia, a Pennsylvanian “I was surprised more and more in Russia about the
institution that contains human places said they had one.” Her book Chris Stokel-Walker is a technology action that is at last
specimens preserved in alcohol. tries to answer a simple question: writer based in Newcastle, UK challenging their nation’s
prevailing culture of
She is interested in why LEONELLO CALVETTI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY climate scepticism.
once-commonplace images T&B: THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COMPUTING; VALERY SHARIFULIN/TASS VIA GETTY IMAGES
of death and the body are now 31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 33
considered bizarre. “The human
body is something we can all relate
to, as opposed to images of botany
or astronomy,” she says about her
new book, Anatomica.

Ebenstein charts the history
of the body’s portrayal in art and
society, homing in on 1543, when
Andreas Vesalius’s De Humani
Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem
became the first book to look at
mammal bodies based on factual
dissection, rather than hypotheses.

Unlike today’s body bible,

Art and anatomy were
closely linked before the
body became medicalised

Views Culture

The games column

The Force is still with you Set after the original trilogy, Star Wars: Squadrons puts
you inside the cockpits of the iconic X-wing and TIE fighter spacecraft. Piloting
them is fun, but this is a good game rather than a great one, says Jacob Aron

In Star Wars: Squadrons,
you move from escorting
shuttles to bombing runs

Jacob Aron is New Scientist’s EA GAMES and the TIE Reaper support ship –
deputy news editor. He has but if that means much to you,
been playing video games WHILE the early 2000s were a trilogy, the single-player mode you are probably pretty far down
for 25 years, but still isn’t the Star Wars wormhole already.
very good at them. Follow dark time for Star Wars superfans, sees you swapping between the The ships all felt much the same to
him on Twitter @jjaron me, despite options to customise
wounded by the disaster that good-guy New Republic as it tries their weapons, shields and so on.
Game
was the prequel trilogy, they to build a new battleship and Squadrons is broken up
Star Wars: Squadrons into missions in which you
were actually a high point for the evil Galactic Empire, which do everything from escorting
Motive Studios shuttles to going on bombing
PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One me thanks to video games. is trying to destroy it. runs against a space station. For
the most part, though, you whirl
Jacob also I was never that into Star Wars Piloting the spacecraft is great around trying to get a bead on
recommends... enemy fighters to take them
when I was younger, having fun. There are light simulation out before they take you out.
Games
missed the theatrical release of elements, allowing you to divert As reflected in the films, this
Star Wars Rogue isn’t really space combat, but
Squadron II: the original films by a good decade power to your engine, weapons aerial dogfighting transplanted
Rogue Leader into the cold vacuum. With no
or so. Yet it is hard to resist the air resistance, there should be
Factor 5 no need to bank into turns, but
Nintendo GameCube lure of the Force, and somehow “Boosting power to I guess it would be too difficult
This is probably my I absorbed Obi-Wan Kenobi, the engines to escape to ask players to control thrusters
favourite Star Wars flight Darth Vader and the rest through a tractor beam makes along three axes, as real spacecraft
game – you get to help take cultural osmosis. me feel like a whizzy operate. Given that I find myself
down the second Death Star. regularly smacking into an
As such, my friends and asteroid or a capital ship, making
Star Wars: Knights the controls less complicated was
of the Old Republic I spent many hours duelling space fighter pilot” probably the better option.

Bioware with lightsabers in Star Wars Jedi For those who want a real
PC, Xbox, iOS, Android challenge, the multiplayer mode
You play as a Jedi working Knight II: Jedi Outcast (don’t get or shields, the last of which can lets you face off against others in
to tackle an evil Sith lord five-on-five dogfights, or take part
4000 years before the films. me started on how stupid these be further refined to protect the in massive fleet battles in which
One of your team, sarcastic teams must take down larger,
android HK-47, is possibly names are), while the role-playing front or back of your craft. computer-controlled ships to
the best character in any win. Sadly, my attempts to be
Star Wars story. game Star Wars: Knights of the Old In practice, this generally doesn’t Luke Skywalker have mostly ended
in failure because I have been
34 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020 Republic showed the franchise’s involve much strategy as you just outmanoeuvered and outgunned
by players far better than me.
creator George Lucas how route energy to whatever you
All in all, Squadrons is a good
prequels should really be done. happen to be using at the time, Star Wars game, rather than a great
one – think The Force Awakens
So a new Star Wars game will but boosting the engines to escape rather than The Empire Strikes
Back. You will enjoy flying around
always get my attention, and I a tractor beam does make me feel in famous spacecraft, but I’m not
sure it has much staying power.  ❚
was eager to get my hands on like a whizzy space fighter pilot.

Star Wars: Squadrons, which puts Along with an X-wing and a

you inside the cockpits of the TIE fighter, you also get a chance

iconic X-wing and TIE fighter to pilot other ships from the

spacecraft. Set after the original franchise like the Y-wing bomber

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ROBERTO CIGNAFeatures

Will covid-19 rewire

The pandemic has made
the world’s economic
system feel more broken
than ever. New Scientist
asked six leading economic
thinkers how we might
want to rebuild it

THE coronavirus has unleashed
an economic crisis of a kind never
seen before. In just one month, from
March to April, the US unemployment rate
tripled to almost 15 per cent, and remains
uncomfortably high. Elsewhere, only state
intervention on a scale virtually unknown
outside wartime has staved off the direst
consequences. In the UK, gross domestic
product (GDP), a measure of economic
activity, fell by 20 per cent in the three
months to June. To find another fall of that
order, you must go back about 300 years.

The events of the past six months have
brought to the boil arguments about the
economy that have simmered since at least
the 2008-09 financial crisis. While the size
of the world’s economy has quadrupled since
1970, improving the material well-being
of billions, the past decade has seen many
people’s income stagnate and inequality rise
(see “Failing system?”, page 39). During the
covid-19 pandemic, it has become clear some
of the most crucial jobs are being done by
some of the lowest paid – people who are also
among the most likely to die from the virus.

Meanwhile, the focus of conventional
economics on growth at all costs is blamed
for the ravaging of ecosystems that both
made the pandemic more likely and its
impact worse. All of this raises two questions:
are our economic systems fit for the post-
covid-19 era, and, if not, how must they
change? New Scientist asked six leading
economic thinkers for their take on how
we got to where we are now, and how we
might choose to do things differently.

36 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

economics? New Scientist: Does the impact of covid-19
on societies show that economics is broken?
PROFILES Andy Haldane: Like all disciplines,
economics evolves by trial and error. At
Diane Coyle is an times of crisis, when both trial and error are
economist at the in plentiful supply, this tends to accelerate.
University of Cambridge The covid crisis, like the global financial crisis
before it, is rightly causing us to rethink
Andy Haldane is the things. As one example, we have seen a raft
chief economist at the of new economic data being developed and
Bank of England used in the light of the covid crisis to improve
our monitoring of the economy in close to
Cameron Hepburn real time and at greater levels of granularity,
is the director of the from payments data to Google searches,
University of Oxford’s from road traffic data to energy usage.
Smith School of
Enterprise and Tim Jackson: Economics is broken, but it
the Environment wasn’t covid-19 that broke it. Long before the
pandemic, there was a growing recognition
Sandile Hlatshwayo that the economy had run into difficulties.
is an economist at Capitalism has left too many people behind.
the International Its impacts on the planet have gone
Monetary Fund unaccounted for. The causes of the malaise
have been variously attributed to debt
Tim Jackson is an overhangs, the 2008 financial crisis, political
economist at the populism. But the truth is that capitalism
University of Surrey, UK itself is responsible for its deficiencies.

Keston Perry is an Sandile Hlatshwayo: Economics is very
economist at the much alive. As the crisis emerged, many
University of the of us immediately put projects on hold and
West of England began seeing what contribution we could
make. We’ve seen researchers looking at the
economic effects of containment efforts,
quantifying the impact of lockdowns on
voting behaviour and measuring the increase
in mental health concerns. It is also inspiring
to see economists like Lisa Cook at Michigan
State University, Valerie Wilson at the
Economic Policy Institute think tank and
Damon Jones at the University of Chicago
draw attention to how covid-19 has amplified
racial, gender and class inequities.

The goal of economic policies is often thought

of as increasing GDP. What should the objective

be as we recover from the pandemic?

Andy Haldane: In a word, jobs. The risk

I fear most is a return to the high and

long-duration unemployment of the >

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 37

Exotic Last year’s fires
economics in the Amazon
destroyed
Negative interest precious
rates natural capital

When a bank lends money to people, REUTERS/UESLEI MARCELINO
it charges them and when it stores their
savings it pays them. That’s the familiar 1980s. This blighted the careers and lives of Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission set up by
concept of interest. The amount of millions of people and their families. The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
interest paid varies according to market economic policy response to the covid crisis But these haven’t yet had the impact needed.
conditions, but it is usually a small has in part been about seeking to avoid that.
percentage of the amount lent or Keston Perry: The objective has to be
saved – and, historically at least, is Diane Coyle: It should be to make people multifaceted. It’s about enhancing the
always a positive figure. better off, where that is broadly understood well-being of workers, especially women
not only as income, but anything that and black and ethnic minority people. It’s
Since the aftermath of the 2009 contributes to people’s sense of how well about improving the life chances of more
financial crash, however, several things are going for them. When policies unemployed people, especially in the global
countries, including Denmark, Japan are geared toward increasing GDP growth as south. It’s about addressing extreme wealth
and Sweden, have used negative the only measure of success, they will deliver and income inequality, improving welfare
interest rates, which means storing distorted outcomes. We need to add a true systems, ensuring that women have a fair
money incurs a cost. The way it works balance sheet for the economy by measuring stake in the future. And doing all this in a way
is that central banks charge commercial the assets we use to produce and consume, that doesn’t threaten our planet’s habitability
banks for storing their financial particularly natural resources. or create disproportionate suffering for
reserves. In theory, this prods those some groups – as we have seen in the past few
banks to lend as much money as Tim Jackson: Pursuing GDP growth for the months. We cannot simply have unimpeded
they can, and so stimulate the wider past 50 years has justified policies that lionise growth as the end goal; we need to reimagine
economy. Exactly how this plays out short-term productivity goals and prioritise the global economic architecture.
in different contexts isn’t clear though, the interests of capital over those of workers,
which makes some economists creating huge social inequalities and Another measure economists like to see rise
nervous about the strategy. preventing long-term investment in people is productivity, often described as output per
and planet. The last financial crisis exposed worker. But that has flatlined lately. Must we
Universal basic the financial and monetary flaws in this keep getting more efficient?
income system. The global pandemic has exposed Diane Coyle: Getting more benefit while
the social and human flaws. There have using the same or fewer resources is how
Proponents argue that this idea – been some attempts to shift to more holistic humanity escaped the Malthusian trap,
essentially that states should pay all measures of economic success, such as the the idea that population growth would
their citizens a no-strings-attached UN’s Human Development Index and the inevitably hit the limit of available resources.
basic amount to live on – would have
all sorts of benefits. It might, for
instance, improve societies by giving
people more of an incentive to do
useful, but poorly paid, activities such
as community work or caring for elderly
relatives away from care homes.
Detractors, meanwhile, argue that it
is too expensive and disincentivises
normal paid work.

As yet, there is no agreement about
how universal basic income should
best be implemented or how much
people should get. But recent rigorous
trials in Finland saw 2000 unemployed
people have their welfare payments
replaced with a guaranteed basic
income. The results showed that
people were happier – and they didn’t
work any less than a control group.

continued on page 40

38 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

Productivity drives up living standards “Economics is London, from a favourable regulatory
and means longer lives, better health, broken, but it environment to building the train lines
lower infant mortality, more leisure. So wasn’t covid-19 and airports to service it. The challenge is
it’s fundamental. Productivity increases, that broke it” to make sure the state’s role is strategic
delivered through innovation, will be and avoids obvious traps, such as political
essential to sustaining current living lobbying by big businesses to get subsidies.
standards and increasing them without Assistance to companies after the pandemic
bursting planetary boundaries or causing should go to those most likely to survive
catastrophic environmental crises. However, long term, not those best able to get access
the way we define and measure productivity to cabinet ministers now.
needs a complete rethink. There are no
“products” for 80 per cent of the economy. Many are calling for a Green New Deal, where
What is the productivity of a management states create jobs that would help us transition
consultant or an accountant? to net-zero carbon. Should this happen?
Tim Jackson: We need a Green and Social
Andy Haldane: Productivity improvement is Failing system?GDP per capita (US$) New Deal, a systematic programme of
one of the key determinants of income, living 1970 large-scale social investment to: deliver
standards and well-being over the medium The wealth of many developed nations1980 a “just transition” towards a resilient, fair
term. So it would be a grave mistake to has climbed steadily over the past four1990 and sustainable economy; create the social
abandon that as an objective of public policy. decades... 2000 infrastructure of net-zero-carbon lifestyles;
That isn’t the same, however, as having 2010 and invest in the ecological assets on which
productivity as a singular objective. There are US Australia UK 2017 tomorrow’s prosperity depends.
a range of other factors relevant to our future 50,000
livelihoods which need also to be weighed. Share of country’s40,000 Andy Haldane: The UK has set itself an
As the covid crisis has revealed, that includes income (%)30,000 ambitious target of reaching net-zero carbon
improving the resilience of our economies 20,000 emissions by 2050. This has provided a
when providing the goods and services 10,000 kick-start to various initiatives to reshape
critical to its citizens, including health and our energy, transport and housing systems.
social care. It also includes purposeful work, 0 Through reduced travel and energy use, the
an inclusive society and a clean environment. covid crisis has provided a down payment
... but at the same time inequality has on meeting the net-zero objective. But this
Some people say we need an entirely new risen, with the richest 1 per cent accruing a is only the start. Looking ahead, it will be
economic system. What sort has the best greater share of income important to embed the net-zero objective
chance of delivering sustainable prosperity? in every policy measure taken.
Should the state be more involved? 20
Keston Perry: We have lots of evidence Cameron Hepburn: The world has a unique
that the market-led paradigm has terribly 15 opportunity to “build back better” after
failed our societies. What we need is an this pandemic has passed. Together with
alternative that is based on equality and 10 several colleagues, I recently surveyed
sustainability and one that affords 231 economists working in central banks or
populations in the global south the ability to 5 finance ministries and asked which policies
determine their own futures. The fragments 0 would offer a green route out of the crisis
left behind by neoliberalism are of no use for and be workable and highly economically
this purpose. But we don’t yet know what the SOURCES: OUR WORLD IN DATA; FEENSTRA ET AL. (2015) PENN WORLD TABLE effective. We identified five key policies.
replacement may be, what might emerge 9.1; WORLD WEALTH AND INCOME DATABASE (2018) For example, investing in clean energy
from the ruins of the past 40 years. It really 1970 infrastructure construction will create
depends on how different groups organise 1980 more jobs in the short term than investing
to challenge the status quo. 1990 in fossil fuels. Other good options would
2000 include retrofitting buildings for better heat
Diane Coyle: The state has always had a role 2010 efficiency and restoring natural capital such
in the economy – this is widely recognised 2017 as forests. Decisions made in the coming
by economists. In the UK, for instance, we months about how to guide the economic
have had a long-standing, but unspoken, recovery may determine whether we can
industrial policy in support of the City of avoid the worst impacts of climate change. >

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 39

continued from page 38 Our world is highly interconnected and this “Globalisation
helped the virus spread quickly. Do we need should not look
Modern monetary to curb globalisation? the way it did
theory Tim Jackson: The pandemic was a creature in prior eras –
of exchange. It probably emerged from it must look
Thanks to the general economic an exchange between bats, or possibly far better”
malaise and backing from the likes pangolins, and humans. It passed from
of US congresswoman Alexandria person to person in the ordinary everyday
Ocasio-Cortez, this once-niche idea social exchange that creates society. It spread
is getting a wider hearing. so rapidly because of highly globalised
economic exchange. And its immediate
Governments get their money effect was to stop much of that exchange
by taxing citizens and issuing bonds. in its tracks. It’s hard to conceive how
Government bonds are generally fundamental that is. Exchange is supposed
bought by big banks, and are to be an irreducible virtue; the foundation
effectively a way for the state to for markets. We must now ask ourselves
borrow. For a given government, the searching questions about the kinds of
more bonds it wants to sell, the higher exchange that matter most. Globalisation
the cost of that debt will be. This as an unequivocal good is over. More
increases interest rates for everyone. sophisticated models of global connectivity
If governments carry on borrowing, are still possible, but will require greater
their currency will eventually be attention to these dangers.
worthless – not a good look.
Sandile Hlatshwayo: This is a truly navigated, it could reignite global
Modern monetary theory says global crisis and so now is exactly the cooperation in other important spheres,
that conventional view is just wrong. moment for enhanced global cooperation. such as climate change and trade.
Governments can issue their own Take vaccines – we have scores of them Globalisation should not look the way it
sovereign currency and there is no under development, but only a select did in prior eras – it must look far better.
straightforward relationship between group of countries have the resources to
how much they do this and interest mass-produce them. This means we’ll need There are unorthodox economic ideas around
rates. In this view, high levels of a Herculean collective effort to manufacture at the moment, including negative interest
government debt are unproblematic – and distribute vaccines around the world. rates, universal basic income and modern
an attractive prospect for those who There is much to be gained for everyone monetary theory (see “Exotic economics”, page
would like to see nations spend their from this kind of cooperation because many 38). Should any of these be rolled out now?
way out of the covid-19 crisis. countries will depend on the removal of Andy Haldane: It is important that nothing is
travel restrictions and a rebound in global ruled out. That has certainly been our stance
Well-being economy demand to get their economies going again.
Plus, if collaboration on vaccines is carefully
Maybe the goal of economics shouldn’t
be to make us richer, but happier? It is GLOSSARY
an idea several countries have toyed
with over the years. Now it is gaining GLOBALISATION sectors that would help in the a country. This figure is
greater renown after New Zealand’s is the process of the world’s fight against climate change, often quoted for a specific
government pledged to make its increasing interconnection. such as renewable energy. time period.
spending decisions on the basis of International travel and trade It takes its name from a set
what has the most potential to boost have risen hugely in the past of financial reforms called the INFLATION
citizens’ well-being. 50 years and this has changed New Deal that were introduced refers to the increase in
the sorts of work people do in the US in 1933. the price of goods and
Doing this depends on being able in different countries. services – anything from
to define and measure well-being. How GROSS DOMESTIC a house to a back massage.
to do this isn’t universally agreed, but THE GREEN NEW DEAL PRODUCT (GDP) Gradually rising prices aren’t
it inevitably involves a range of factors is a proposed scheme in which is the value of all the goods a problem, unless earnings
including people’s mental and physical governments create jobs in and services produced in fail to keep up.
health, the environment and equality.
Policies can then be judged against
their potential to improve these
measures. There is now a network of
governments, including the Scottish
government, working to normalise
these practices. Joshua Howgego

40 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

Relatives hug in I am not quite convinced about the merits
Brazil using kit to of modern monetary theory, especially in
prevent covid-19 developing countries. This idea has a particular
infection. Can intellectual and empirical context and may
post-pandemic be useful in one situation and not others.
economics take
more account for Tim Jackson: As we emerge from the
such intangibles pandemic, the protection of people’s
of life? livelihoods is paramount. Mechanisms such
as a universal basic income and a reduction
MADS NISSEN/POLITIKEN/PANOS in working hours are legitimate instruments
in this task. But we should also have job
at the Bank of England. We continue to review of destabilising inflation, as has been found guarantee schemes in vital sectors such as
the costs and benefits of all our potential at times in the past. care, education, renovation and the arts.
tools, including quantitative easing, credit The inevitable pushback against such
easing and interest rates. All of these are Keston Perry: Negative interest rates have proposals will be the question: who pays for
different means of achieving the same end: already helped some advanced economies them? This is where the insights of modern
monetary and financial conditions sufficient in the wake of the 2009 crash. But we must monetary theory become crucial. It argues
to return inflation to its target, while acknowledge that less-developed economies that governments that issue sovereign
supporting jobs and the economy. don’t have the same capacity to use them. We currency can spend directly into the
need to allow central banks and institutions economy without raising taxes or issuing
But I am sceptical of the case for so-called in the global south leeway to manage their debt. The ability to finance interventions
modern monetary theory – permanent own recovery. The challenge is that we are such as furlough schemes at the height of
expansions of the central bank balance relying on ideas that are past their sell-by the pandemic effectively proves this point.
sheet to finance government deficits. date, such as quantitative easing.
If pursued at scale, they run a serious risk Cameron Hepburn: We already have
negative real interest rates in many countries.
MONETARY AND FISCAL NEOLIBERALISM and money required to When this is the case, governments are being
POLICIES is the term for the economic produce a given product paid to borrow and it is a complete no-brainer
both help to shape a country’s world view that has been or service. for them to invest in natural capital.
economy but they are dominant in developed
controlled differently. nations for the past 50 years. QUANTITATIVE EASING There is a saying about modern monetary
Monetary policy means It broadly means a is when a central bank theory: the bit that is modern doesn’t work
the actions taken by central deregulation of markets, creates money and effectively and the bit that does work isn’t modern.
banks, such as setting base limited state spending loans it to the government, Part of the theory is about central banks
interest rates. Fiscal policy and global free trade. increasing the amount it has printing money for the government to
is about taxes and spending to spend. This also tends to spend. There is nothing unusual about
on public services, which is PRODUCTIVITY encourage spending in the this. But if too much money is printed
a government’s purview. refers to the amount of effort wider economy. too  quickly, the result will be inflation.

What future developments do you envisage
upending prevailing economic models?
Diane Coyle: Much more data. Our current
statistical models were developed before
enough fine-grained economic data became
available. They are improving, but we are
still like weather forecasters a century ago.

Andy Haldane: Now, if I knew the answer
to that… One thing that can be said with
confidence is that some of the pre-covid
megatrends, including climate and
biodiversity issues and AI and automation,
are likely to be accelerated by covid. These
will reshape economies fundamentally. ❚

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 41

Features SHUTTERSTOCK/EVAGAI

Here kitty kitty

To stop cats killing wildlife,
we should enlist the help
of people who love them,

finds Aisling Irwin

42 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

ARIE TROUWBORST wasn’t expecting way. “I get quite sick of the conflict focus of cat owners to curb their furry companions’
death threats when he published some conservation biologists,” says Wayne pursuit of prey.
his paper on cats last November. Linklater at California State University,
An environmental law specialist at Tilburg Sacramento. “The solutions lie with the The chasm between cat owners and
University in the Netherlands, Trouwborst people who care most about cats, not with conservationists becomes apparent when
and Han Somsen, also at Tilburg University, the people who don’t care about them.” To you ask for their views on measures to reduce
had argued that cat owners across the that end, he and a few other social scientists hunting by cats. That is exactly what Linklater
European Union could be prosecuted under are studying cat owners themselves to find did in New Zealand, working with Edith
existing law for allowing their pets to hunt. out what would motivate them to change MacDonald at the country’s Department of
“I routinely address controversial topics like their – and their cats’ – behaviour. Conservation among others. They first asked
wolf management and trophy hunting, but conservationists to rank the effectiveness
they all pale when compared to the vicious Nobody doubts that cats kill wildlife: it of nine interventions. Top of their list was
reactions this received,” he says. is in their nature to hunt (see “Are cats really keeping cats indoors 24/7, followed by other
domesticated?”, page 44). Yet even experts restrictions such as fencing in the garden.
It is the latest episode in the ongoing can’t agree on how significant the problem is. At the bottom was neutering, registration
“cat wars”. From New Zealand and Australia The UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of and, finally, microchipping. They then
to the US and Europe, cat owners and Birds, for instance, says there is evidence that asked vets and owners to rank the same
conservationists are pitted against each cats probably prioritise weak or sickly birds interventions based on cat welfare and
other as a growing body of research finds that would have died anyway. What is clear acceptability, respectively. They placed
cats guilty of killing wildlife and squeezing is the scale of the issue: cats are humanity’s them in almost the opposite order.
out native rivals. One headline-grabbing second most popular pet, with 373 million
report, for example, estimated that free- kept worldwide. If their hunting is to be These polarised views lie at the heart of the
ranging domestic cats kill at least 1.3 billion reduced, wildlife advocates need to persuade cat wars. For the researchers, exposing them
birds and 6.3 billion small mammals was the first step in finding a solution. Social
each year in the US alone. Another study “Free-ranging pet cats scientists know that if you want to change
found that pet cats in the Netherlands kill almost twice as people’s behaviour, you need to understand
kill almost twice as many animals as many animals as their your audience and the things they care about.
their feral counterparts. feral counterparts” Evidence from interventions in areas such
as public health shows that people are more
Emotions are running high, and the likely to change if they like the new idea,
angrier conservationists become, the more think it is feasible and think others already do
cat owners dig in. But there could be a better it or should be doing it. With this in mind, >

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 43

“Cat owners love MacDonald, Linklater and their colleagues relatives but not MacDonald’s government
their animals and decided to use a technique called behaviour department or even New Zealand’s Society
nature. But if you prioritisation to identify the intervention for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
make them choose, most likely to be considered acceptable by
they will probably cat owners and effective by conservationists. Armed with these findings, the researchers
choose the cat” designed two pamphlets. From one beams
Their calculations, based on the weighting a pig-tailed girl clutching a luxurious cat.
that both groups assigned to each of the nine “I love it when Fluffy sleeps on my bed,” she
alternatives, revealed a nightly cat curfew to be says. “Bring your cat in at night.” There is no
the best compromise. However, in interviews mention of macerated geckos or dwindling
with other cat owners, the team found that kiwi populations. A vet gazes out from the
only 14 per cent of people who implement second pamphlet. “Keep Fluffy safe from cars.
a nightly curfew do so to safeguard wildlife. Bring your cat in at night,” he says. The team
The vast majority cited reasons such as handed out the pamphlets at vet surgeries
keeping their pets safe or comfortable or in four cities, including Wellington and
increasing family happiness. They also said Auckland, as part of a survey and gave a
they respected the opinions of vets and control group an unrelated brochure.

Are cats really Six weeks later, the researchers spoke to
domesticated? the participants again. Spring had arrived and
those in the control group were letting their
The cat family evolved from other African cats from Egypt made their cats out 10 per cent more at night than before.
carnivores about 11 million years way to Europe. By the 8th century, But the group that received the pamphlet
ago and, apart from size and coat their reach extended to the Baltic featuring a vet hadn’t increased nightly forays,
patterns, cats haven’t altered much Sea in the north and Iran in the east. and those that received the one featuring a
since then. In 2017, Claudio Ottoni little girl had reduced night-time cat releases
and his team at KU Leuven in But that wasn’t domestication – by 10 per cent. MacDonald is delighted by the
Belgium and the Institute Jacques it was a sort of symbiosis, in which findings, which haven’t yet been published,
Monod in France analysed the cats and humans came to live pointing out that behaviour is notoriously
mitochondrial DNA of some together for their mutual benefit. difficult to change. What’s more, the team’s
200 cats that lived from 9000 Ottoni’s team found no genetic insights have been used by several city
years ago to today. This revealed evidence of humans breeding cats councils in New Zealand and incorporated
two major genetic lineages. They until the Middle Ages, less than a into the country’s National Cat Management
first emerged about 11,000 years millennium ago. In fact, the average Strategy. “Never demonise cat owners,” says
ago in the Fertile Crescent in the house cat (Felis silvestris catus) Macdonald. “They love their animals and
Middle East, when wildcats started is almost indistinguishable, they love nature. But if you make them
to frequent human settlements genetically, from the European choose, they will most likely choose their cat.”
to hunt for rodents feeding on the wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris).
surplus grain produced by early Cats may have close associations Natural order
farmers. These spread to Europe at with humans, but they can survive
least 6500 years ago. Then, during on their own. They are still Another way to coax people to change
the Greek and Roman periods, hunters – which is increasingly their behaviour is to better understand what
problematic today (see main story). motivates it in the first place. In Australia,
Lynette McLeod at the University of New
England and her colleagues successfully
used behavioural science to help implement
campaigns to curtail or remove domestic
cats from islands. They found that a variety
of attitudes, perceived norms and practical
constraints led people to let their cats out of
the house. Solutions, therefore, needed to be
tailored. For example, if cat owners believed

44 | New Scientist | 31 October 2020

BENJAMIN TORODE/GETTY IMAGES puzzle balls and owners playing indoors
with their cats to relieve domestic tedium.
their pets must roam to be happy – as many Keeping cats indoors or Crucially, it isn’t just the cats being studied –
did – they were shown videos of happy cats walking them on a leash the owners’ views on the workability of
thriving indoors. Those who “just didn’t (below) are humane different options will influence what the
know how to do it”, meanwhile, were given measures to reduce scientists finally recommend.
the know-how and kit to contain their cats their impact on wildlife
and to enrich their home. It is a question Linklater acknowledges that these sorts
of finding the right button to push, says GETTY IMAGES/IMAGE SOURCE of approaches are slow and only achieve a
McLeod. “Just giving people information is modest intervention for a small percentage
not going to make them change their mind.” of owners. The power lies in incrementalism,
he says. “Once you have cat owners engaged,
Researchers in the UK are also trying to get then they are more likely to want to do the
inside the brains of cat owners, in an attempt next thing, and then the next thing.” In parts
to head off cat wars before they become of Australia, he points out, night curfews are
acrimonious. Working with the UK charity increasingly accepted and the conversation
SongBird Survival, social scientist Sarah has moved on to 24-hour confinement.
Crowley at the University of Exeter and
her colleagues have carried out numerous Another believer in incrementalism
consultations with cat owners. The same is Grant Sizemore, who runs the Cats
beliefs keep coming to the fore: hunting Indoors programme for the American Bird
is natural, preventing it is wrong and not Conservancy. The campaign aims to “create
much can be done to stop it anyhow. Yet the a social norm that can be reinforced over
ambiguity in these ideas can be highlighted the years”, he says. The main tool is asking
with deeper discussion, says Crowley. Even owners to sign a pledge that they will keep
the word “natural” can have two different their pets “safely and responsibly indoors,
meanings when applied to cats . As innate on a leash or in an enclosure”. Sizemore
behaviour, hunting is natural – but as part admits that he doesn’t know whether the
of the local ecosystem, domestic cats can be 5000 owners who have signed up so far are
seen as an unnatural introduction, whose complying. However, MacDonald’s research
large numbers distort the “natural” balance. shows that owners who make a public
commitment are more likely to carry it out.
Crowley’s team is also exploring potential
ways to decrease hunting with cat owners. Sizemore encourages pledgers with
These include the use of brightly coloured regular emails and interviews with cat
ruffs, meatier cat food, prey-mimicking influencers, such as Atlas the Adventure
Cat. The American Bird Conservancy also
promotes kit such as cat enclosures for the
garden, called catios, backpacks and leashes.

Cat owners are starting to change their
behaviour, but Trouwborst worries that
change is too slow. Governments are legally
obliged to achieve results, he says, not just
demonstrate effort, so they may need
to take a different route. “Ultimately, all
interventions [to change behaviour] involve
national legislation at some stage,” he says.  ❚

Aisling Irwin is a science
journalist specialising
in environmental issues.
She tweets @Aisling_Irwin

31 October 2020 | New Scientist | 45