Majalah New Scientist

HOW TO BECOME
MORE MOTIVATED

Why some people have so
much get-up-and-go – and

what to do if you don’t

REVERSING BLINDNESS

Gene therapy restores vision
in first successful trial

WEEKLY May 29 – June 4, 2021

Inside the race to
build a completely
unhackable
online world

VACCINATING THE PLANET No3336 US$6.99 CAN$9.99

Push to reach 30% of every nation by the year’s end
PLUS JAPAN BETS BIG ON HYDROGEN / ROBOT THUMB /
SUN STORM DANGER IN SPACE / LARGEST DRAWING EVER

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This week’s issue

On the 41 How to become 41 Features
cover more motivated
Why some people have “Could it be
36 The quantum so much get-up-and-go – that all the
internet is coming and what to do if you don’t chocolatey
Inside the race to build a cereal and
completely unhackable 14 Reversing blindness crisps are
Neuron manipulation restores depriving
online world vision in first successful trial my brain
of drive?”
7 Vaccinating the planet 18 Japan bets big on hydrogen
Push to reach 30% of every 20 Robot thumb
21 Sun storm danger in space
nation by the year’s end 15 Largest drawing ever

Vol 250 No 3336
Cover image: Carl de Torres

News News SASA KADRIJEVIC/ALAMY Features

10 Breast milk and vaccines 16 A new world Space tourism is taking off again, but who gets to go? 36 The quantum internet
Should people who The race is on to create a super
are breastfeeding get secure online world powered
a covid-19 vaccine? by the quantum realm

13 Ransomware on the rise 41 Why can’t I be bothered?
Shutting down the hackers Finding out what separates
may be a difficult task those with unlimited motivation
from chronic slackers
15 AI mathematician
Computer disproves five 46 Companion coronaviruses
mathematical conjectures Learning about viral infections in
pets can help us fight covid-19
Views
The back pages
23 Comment
Fusing archaeology and 51 Science of gardening
genetics is providing incredible The best alternatives to
new insights, says Alice Roberts peat-based compost

24 The columnist 52 Puzzles
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Try our crossword, quick
grapples with supernovae quiz and logic puzzle

26 Letters 54 Almost the last word
Cheering on superdeterministic Why are we stronger when angry
quantum theory yet can’t stand if laughing?

28 Aperture 55 Tom Gauld for New Scientist
The beauty of fruit and seeds A cartoonist’s take on the world

32 Culture 56 Feedback
A new book on the menopause A self-portrait by a self-less
proves long overdue portraitist: the week in weird

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 1

Elsewhere
on New Scientist

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How time works Tingle time Sam Wong explains how ASMR works “Methane
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“Time” is the most used noun Newsletter in 2020
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it is real. Sean Carroll thinks it Its warming
is – even if it remains deeply potential 
mysterious. In this talk, he is 28 times
explains that time seems to that of CO2”
move forwards because of
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This week, the team talk of butterflies – and gets some has spawned countless videos
methane. Levels of this pro tips on how to spot them. on YouTube, but what exactly
powerful greenhouse gas is it? Sam Wong finds out.
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2 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

WE’RE LOOKING FOR THE

best ideas in the world
ON BEHALF OF OLDER PEOPLE

The Ryman Prize is an international The Ryman Prize is awarded each year by
award aimed at encouraging the best the Prime Minister of New Zealand. It was
and brightest thinkers in the world first awarded in 2015 to Gabi Hollows,
to focus on ways to improve co-founder of the Hollows Foundation, for
the health of older people. her tireless work to restore sight for millions
of older people in the developing world.
The world’s ageing population
means that in some parts of the Since then world-leading researchers
globe – including much of the Western Professor Henry Brodaty, Professor Peter
world – the population aged 75+ is set St George-Hyslop, Professor Takanori
to almost triple in the next 30 years. Shibata and Dr Michael Fehlings have all
won the prize for their outstanding work.
Older people face not only the acute threat
of COVID-19, but also the burden of chronic In 2020 Professor Miia Kivipelto, a Finnish
diseases including Alzheimers and diabetes. researcher whose research
into the causes of
At the same time the health of older Alzheimers and
people is one of the most underfunded dementia has had a
and poorly resourced areas of research. worldwide impact,
was awarded the
So, to stimulate fresh efforts to tackle prize by the Right
the problems of old age, we’re offering a Honourable,
NZ$250,000 (£130,000) annual prize for Jacinda Ardern,
the world’s best discovery, development, Prime Minister
advance or achievement that enhances of New Zealand.
quality of life for older people.

If you have a great idea or have achieved something
remarkable like Miia and our five other prize
winners, we would love to hear from you.

Entries for the 2021 Ryman Prize close at 5pm
on Friday, July 16, 2021 (New Zealand time).

Go to rymanprize.com for more information.



The leader

A quantum dilemma

An unhackable quantum internet comes with tough privacy questions

WHEN a powerful new technology comes with the internet as we know it. might think – as we report on page 36, we
are already surprisingly good at making
around, people often split into two camps: Alas, not so. Quantum computers the infrastructure we will need to build it.

those captivated by its benefits and those will eventually crack the encryption But as so often happens with tech
advances, the unhackable privacy will
worried by the trouble it could unleash. protocols that keep our web traffic cut both ways. The quantum internet
will keep our credit card details secure,
This has happened with everything from secure, from bank transactions to but it also means that people who
want to talk in secret for nefarious
knitting machines in the 16th century private messages. This “cryptocalypse” purposes – whether it is terrorism
or cybercrime – will have that option.
to artificial intelligence today. could be only a few years away.
Democratic leaders have an abysmal
It is, of course, a false dichotomy. record on policing our digital privacy. That
needs to change, pronto. The quantum
As physicist and artificial intelligence “It might seem like there is internet is coming, and when it arrives,
it will make the privacy debate doubly
researcher Max Tegmark put it in this nothing wrong with the internet tricky and unavoidable. As Tegmark put
it: “The interesting question isn’t to argue
magazine: “Are you the kind of person as we know it. Alas, not so” for or against fire, it is to figure out how
you can manage fire wisely.” ❚
who thinks fire can kill people or the sort

of person who thinks that fire can keep Quantum communications offer an

people warm in the winter? Both things unhackable alternative. One of their key

are true, obviously.” (18 July 2020, p 34.) features is that their fundamental units

We are about to see this play out once of information, quantum bits (or qubits),

again in the context of a technology that are very delicate. If anyone tries to read an

may come to define how we communicate encoded message, they will inevitably

in the 21st century: the quantum internet. leave signs of having done so. This

It might seem like there is nothing wrong unhackable world isn’t as far away as you

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News

Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus speaks at the
World Health Assembly

LAURENT GILLIERON/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK a report by the Duke-Margolis
Center for Health Policy
in Washington DC.

The US has said it will share
60 million doses of the Oxford/
AstraZeneca vaccine, which is also
manufactured in the US, but isn’t
approved for use there. Last week,
President Joe Biden announced
that the US would also share
“at least an additional 20 million
doses” of US-authorised vaccines
by the end of June.

“We must vaccinate
250 million more people
in low and middle-income
countries in four months”

Immunisation “I think we will see the US
government do far more in
Call for joint vaccine push terms of donations in the coming
months,” says Andrea Taylor at
The World Health Organization is urging countries to support a drive to Duke University in North Carolina.
vaccinate 30 per cent of the world this year, reports Michael Le Page “However, it is not at all clear
that the US will redistribute these
THE head of the World Health That is only enough for about That has left COVAX scrambling donated doses through COVAX,
Organization (WHO) has called 1 per cent of the people in those for alternatives. Ghebreyesus as the WHO is requesting.”
on member countries to support countries. “The number of doses called on manufacturers to give
a massive drive to vaccinate at available to COVAX remains COVAX first refusal on any The US has backed COVAX with
least 10 per cent of each country vastly inadequate,” he said. additional vaccine doses, or to funding, pledging $4 billion last
in the world by September and commit to supplying half of all December, but much more is
at least 30 per cent by December. COVAX had hoped to ship about they make to COVAX this year. needed – from everyone. The
three times as many doses by this initiative of which COVAX is part
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, point. It had been relying on doses On 21 May, COVAX announced faces an $18.5 billion shortfall this
director-general of the WHO, of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine a deal to buy 200 million doses year alone, said Ghebreyesus, and
announced the drive – dubbed made by the Serum Institute of of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, up to another $45 billion will be
“the sprint to September” – at the India for the bulk of its supply. which would go a long way to needed to fully vaccinate all adults
World Health Assembly meeting As the second wave of coronavirus meeting the September target. worldwide by the end of 2022.
on 24 May. “Sprinting to our cases in India worsened, the However, it isn’t clear when
September goal means we must country stopped exporting the these doses will be delivered. Ali Mokdad at the University
vaccinate 250 million more vaccine doses and diverted them of Washington in Seattle says the
people in low and middle-income for its own use. In a statement Meanwhile, the US is building WHO’s 10 per cent goal is doable,
countries in just four months, issued on 18 May, the Serum up a vast stockpile of doses that but won’t be easy, especially in
including all health workers Institute of India said it hoped to aren’t being used and may not be large countries like Pakistan,
and the most at-risk groups resume deliveries to COVAX and needed. The US could have more Nigeria and Indonesia. Taylor,
as the first priority,” he said. others “by the end of the year”. than 300 million excess doses who has been monitoring vaccine
by the end of July, according to supplies, is less optimistic. Most
The global initiative for sharing vaccine deliveries are meant to
vaccines equitably, COVAX, Daily coronavirus news round-up begin by September, she says, so
has shipped 72 million doses to unless something changes, it is
125 countries, said Ghebreyesus. Online every weekday at 6pm BST unlikely COVAX will get enough
newscientist.com/coronavirus-latest doses in the next three months.

But the WHO sees the 30 per
cent goal as essential. “This is
crucial to stop severe disease and
death, keep our health workers
safe and reopen our societies and
economies,” said Ghebreyesus. ❚

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 7

News Coronavirus

Virus resistance

Vaccines vs variants

New research on vaccine efficacy suggests it might be harder than we
thought to stop the coronavirus’s spread, reports Michael Le Page

IT SEEMS that every time we think REUTERS/BRUNO KELLY
we are turning the tide in the
coronavirus pandemic, another A health worker gives dose. Control measures must Africa halted the vaccine’s roll-out
new variant emerges. The latest a dose of the CoronaVac therefore be maintained to keep after the trial suggested it doesn’t
threat is the B.1.617.2 variant that vaccine in Anamã, Brazil infections down, says Gupta. “To prevent most mild or moderate
is playing a large role in the open up with a partially vaccinated illnesses caused by B.1.351.
terrible outbreak in India and is 88% population is worrisome.”
spreading in many other nations. Similarly, trials showed that
The big question is, will existing Effectiveness of Pfizer/BioNTech In fact, says Gurdasani, the Novavax vaccine is about
vaccines work well enough to vaccine against Indian variant modelling studies suggest that a 96 per cent effective at preventing
prevent major new outbreaks? more transmissible variant with symptomatic infections caused
60% some ability to evade vaccines by older variants in the UK, about
We already know that could cause a bigger wave of 86 per effective against the B.1.1.7
several vaccines are somewhat Effectiveness of Oxford/ hospitalisations and deaths in variant and about 51 per cent
less effective at preventing AstraZeneca vaccine the UK than the one in January. effective in South Africa, where
symptomatic infections by new against Indian variant B.1.351 was causing almost all cases.
variants. For B.1.617.2, the drop in Establishing how well vaccines
efficacy appears to be small, but 100% work against particular variants Once a vaccine has been rolled
even a small drop matters when can be hard. Where new variants out, its efficacy can be estimated in
most people are only partially Effectiveness of most vaccines became dominant in countries the “real world” by monitoring the
vaccinated or unvaccinated, says against death from older variants as trials were carried out, we do vaccination status of people who
Deepti Gurdasani at Queen Mary have good data (see table, right). test positive for a certain variant,
University of London. “Any degree or by looking at the proportion
of escape at this point in time For instance, a small trial of the of cases with the variant relative
is concerning,” she says. Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was to the main circulating virus
under way in South Africa as the and vaccination status.
A drop in efficacy not only B.1.351 variant evolved and spread
means vaccinated people have in that country. In February, South On 22 May, Public Health
a higher risk of being infected,
it also makes it harder to reach
the herd immunity threshold –
beyond which the virus cannot
spread widely – via vaccination.
What’s more, variants that are
more transmissible raise this
threshold, making it even harder
to reach. There is growing
evidence that B.1.617.2 is more
transmissible than the B.1.1.7
variant first identified in the UK.

On the plus side, existing
vaccines still appear to provide
substantial protection against
serious illness or death for all
variants. “All these vaccines tend
to be able to limit severe infection
and hospitalisation against those
different variants,” says Jamie
Triccas at the University of Sydney.

But there is still a risk. Ravi
Gupta at the University of
Cambridge says he has heard many
reports from India of people dying
despite being vaccinated, though
mainly after having had just one

8 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

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England (PHE) published this address. In a paper published last the model predicts. So if a vaccine decreasing efficacy against
information for B.1.617.2. It found symptomatic infections doesn’t
small, “non-significant” drops week, they analysed data from were, say, 95 per cent effective, a necessarily mean people will get
in efficacy against symptomatic severely ill. Even a low level of
infections for people who were several studies and identified a fivefold drop in the effectiveness neutralising antibodies can still
fully vaccinated. provide protection, says Landau.
strong correlation between the of neutralising antibodies would “I think people will maintain
For the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, antibodies for some time that
the study found 93 per cent level of neutralising antibodies that reduce that to 77 per cent. A 70 per will stop them getting very sick.”
efficacy against B.1.1.7 and 88 per
cent against B.1.617.2 after both vaccines elicit and the amount of cent effective vaccine, however, And in addition to antibodies,
doses had been given. For the so-called T-cells also help protect
AstraZeneca vaccine, it was 66 per protection those vaccines provide would decline to 32 per cent. us against severe disease. It is
cent against B.1.1.7 and 60 per cent harder for viruses to escape
against B.1.617.2, after both doses. against symptomatic infections. This could be why there was the T-cell response than it is
for them to evade antibodies.
But there was a bigger fall after This could give us a way to work such a big fall in the AstraZeneca
just one dose. For both vaccines, But if the efficacy of certain
one-dose efficacy was just 34 per out the efficacy of booster shots vaccine’s effectiveness against vaccines rapidly wanes or is much
cent against B.1.617.2, compared lower against variants, it is going
with 51 per cent against B.1.1.7. and new vaccines, and of existing B.1.351 in the South African trial. to be even harder than we thought
to halt the virus’s spread. We don’t
A better way vaccines against new variants, know what proportion of people
must be immune to reach the herd
These post roll-out studies can without carrying out expensive “Our prediction is that immunity threshold, yet estimates
only be done when a variant is range from 70 to 90 per cent.
already widespread. Ideally, we and time-consuming trials. these vaccines will remain
would want to know sooner if Achieving this threshold
new variants can escape vaccines. However, the model that Triccas protective against variants requires very effective vaccines
and very high vaccine uptake,
One way to do this is to carry and his colleagues have developed for the vast majority” especially if children aren’t
out neutralisation assays. These eligible, says Gurdasani. “It may
involve taking antibodies from based on their findings has not even be possible to achieve
vaccinated people, mixing herd immunity with these new
increasing amounts with the virus some worrying implications. For The PHE study shows signs of this variants,” she says. ❚
and pouring it on cells to see what
antibody level prevents infection, starters, we know that the level too: “The reduction in vaccine
or “neutralises” the virus.
of neutralising antibodies wanes effectiveness appeared to be
Nathaniel Landau’s team at New
York University recently showed over time, which suggests that the greater with [AstraZeneca],” it says.
that antibodies from people
who had received the Pfizer efficacy of vaccines will wane too. However, Landau isn’t convinced
or Moderna vaccines are two
to threefold less effective at According to the model, the less Triccas’s model is correct. The level
neutralising the B.1.617.2 variant.
That is a relatively small decrease, effective a vaccine is, the faster its of neutralising antibodies reflects
says Landau. “Our prediction is
that [these] vaccines are going efficacy will wane. For example, how many B-cells you have
to remain protective, certainly
for the vast majority of people,” a vaccine with an efficacy of 95 per churning out antibodies, says
he told New Scientist last week,
before the PHE study came out. cent would fall to 77 per cent after Landau. These factories stop

But neutralisation studies don’t 250 days, but one with an initial producing antibodies over time,
tell us exactly how protective a
vaccine will be. This is what Triccas efficacy of 70 per cent would drop but they don’t necessarily go away,
and his colleagues are trying to
to 33 per cent over the same time. meaning antibodies might be

A similar effect would be seen ramped up again very quickly.

with antibody-evading variants, Even if Triccas’s team is right,

Covid-19 vaccines offer varying protection against variants after all doses given

* Clinical trials ** Post roll-out data – no data

Variant

Older variants and B.1.1.7 (UK) B.1.351 (South Africa) P.1 (Brazil) B.1.617.2 (India)

Vaccine Symptomatic Hospitalisation Symptomatic Hospitalisation Symptomatic Symptomatic
infection and death infection and death infection infection

Pfizer/ 95%* 100%* – – – –
BioNTech 87% to 95%** 100%** – 88%**
94% to 99.99%** 72% to 75%**
–
Moderna 94%* 100%* – – – –
– – –
Oxford/ 90%**(all infections) 94%** –
AstraZeneca 10%* – – 60%**
Johnson & 74%* 100%* – – –
Johnson 66% to 70%** – –
64%* – 51%* –
72%* 100%* – – –
77%** – –
–
Novavax 86% to 96%* 100%* 51%* – –
– – – – – –
–
CoronaVac 65% to 91%* – – – 50%*
–
– –––– –

Sputnik V 92%* 100%* – – –

– ––––

SOURCES: THE INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION, WWW.HEALTHDATA.ORG/NODE/8584; PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 9

News Coronavirus

Analysis Breastfeeding

Is it safe to breastfeed my baby after a coronavirus vaccine? A lack
of information about the impact of covid-19 vaccines on breastfed babies
leaves new parents wondering what to do, says Penny Sarchet

FOLLOWING a change in official REUTERS/HANNAH BEIER who had received both doses
guidance in April, people who are of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
breastfeeding in the UK have been A woman waits for her Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna They found that antibodies
given the green light to receive a vaccines, detected vaccine- from all of the women seemed
covid-19 vaccination. But in the covid-19 vaccine while generated antibodies against to be able to neutralise the
absence of any clinical trials covid-19 in all breast milk samples. SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
proving that it is safe to have such holding her young baby
a vaccine while breastfeeding, the A second study, published Youngster thinks that any
onus appears to be on new parents Then Screwed that the UK’s yellow in April, analysed milk samples antibody protection from breast
to decide for themselves whether card system (which enables the from 84 women who had received milk would probably only last for
to go ahead and get jabbed. What public to report adverse events two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech as long as a baby is breastfeeding.
research do they have to go on? to a drug) hasn’t detected any vaccine, 21 days apart. It found Once they are fully weaned, these
significant spikes in side effects high levels of a type of antibody antibodies decay. Any protection
When it comes to safety among those breastfeeding. called IgA in the milk, two weeks to the baby would also only last
for breastfed babies, “the vast after the first dose. for as long as these antibodies
majority of vaccinations are After giving birth, people are continue to transfer into milk.
overwhelmingly safe”, says temporarily at higher risk than Ilan Youngster at the Shamir Wine says that previous studies
Natalie Shenker at Imperial normal of blood clots, so should Medical Centre in Israel, who of vaccines for other diseases
College London. they be wary of clotting problems worked on the second study, says have found that vaccine-specific
associated with vaccination? that we already know from other antibodies can persist in breast
Shenker says there have only Speaking at the same event, Jo respiratory diseases like influenza milk for at least one year.
ever been two case reports of harm Mountfield, vice-president of the that IgA antibodies in breast milk
to an infant after a breastfeeding Royal College of Obstetricians can help protect babies from So far, this research has mostly
parent has been vaccinated, both and Gynaecologists, said that the infection, and that the team thinks been carried out in countries
from the live yellow fever vaccine. clotting issue associated with the covid-19 is unlikely to be different. that use the Pfizer/BioNTech or
This vaccine, and the live smallpox Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is an Moderna vaccines, so we don’t
vaccine, aren’t usually offered to immune response unrelated to There were three covid-19 know if other vaccines also lead
those breastfeeding, but previous the increased risk of clotting outbreaks in families in the to antibodies in breast milk.
research shows that all the experienced postnatally. study in which an older sibling
standard, non-live types of vaccine became ill but the breastfed The growing body of research
don’t get into breast milk, and we However, everyone under baby didn’t. “This is obviously around covid-19 vaccine-induced
can probably expect this to be true the age of 40 in the UK should not empirical proof, but is still antibodies in breast milk hasn’t
for the more traditional covid-19 now be able to opt for the a nice anecdote,” he says. gone unnoticed, and some
vaccines, such as the Oxford/ Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna jabs vaccinated parents are wondering
AstraZeneca and Johnson & instead of the Oxford/AstraZeneca There is some research to whether they should give breast
Johnson jabs. If no components vaccine, if they prefer. support this. In a non-peer
make it into the milk, there is no reviewed study, Yariv Wine at Tel “Antibodies against
way a vaccine could harm a baby. There are even signs that a Aviv University in Israel and his covid-19 were found in
vaccine might protect babies, too. colleagues tested the antibodies breast milk samples from
New technology A study published in March, of 31 found in the milk of 10 women the vaccinated women”
lactating women who received the
What about mRNA vaccines, like milk to their older children too. It
Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, is an interesting idea, but there are
which use new vaccine technology? no studies looking into this as yet.
There are no worrying signs so far.
One small, unpublished study If you choose to have the
showed that, between 4 and vaccine while breastfeeding, one
48 hours after vaccination, no suggestion from several experts
mRNA associated with the vaccine at the online event was to try to
could be detected in the breast milk schedule your jab at least a week
of five Pfizer/BioNTech recipients before or after any scheduled
and one Moderna recipient. immunisations for your baby.
This, they predict, will allow you to
As for side effects, Shenker told both get maximum benefit from
a recent online event hosted by each jab. As always, if you have any
the campaign group Pregnant medical concerns, you should
consult a medical practitioner. ❚

10 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

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News

Biology

How evolution makes new organs

The gene activity that formed a beetle’s toxic cocktail may reveal how organs arise

Claire Ainsworth

A BEETLE’S poisonous punch is composed of only two cell types – RNA sequencing to analyse the of ants, fewer survived compared
helping to uncover how new types that secrete a solid toxin dissolved
of cells can arise and co-evolve in an oily fluid. If attacked by gene activity in the two cell types. with beetles with intact secretions
to create organs – and these a predator such as an ant, the
mechanisms may apply to more beetle whips its flexible abdomen This showed that one cell type (bioRxiv, doi.org/gdhb). The loss of
complex organs in animals, around and smacks a dab of this
including humans. cocktail in the ant’s face. The toxin produces the solvent, while access to their full toxin cocktail
triggers the ant’s pain receptors,
A fundamental challenge that forcing it to retreat. the other makes the toxin. reduced the beetles’ survival rate
multicellular animals face is how
to get different cell types to work To uncover the evolutionary Comparisons with gene activity by up to 30 per cent.
together so that a higher-level roots of this defence mechanism,
function, such as that of an organ, Parker and his team used a in other body cells revealed that
emerges from their interactions, technique called single-cell
says Joe Parker at the California the solvent cells had adapted “Cells create niches for each
Institute of Technology. Yet An adult greenhouse
biologists know relatively little rove beetle feeding existing suites of genes that other and allow for the
about how this happens. on the larva of a fly
govern cells elsewhere in the evolution of functions that
Many organs that are common
across animal groups are complex beetle’s body: those that make otherwise wouldn’t arise”
and evolutionarily ancient,
making it hard to unpick their up tissues in its equivalent of the
origins. But the defence glands
of a family of insects known as liver and fat, as well as those that Parker suggests the solvent cells
rove beetles are simpler and
only about 100 million years make chemical signals called evolved first, perhaps providing
old, much younger than ancient
cell types, such as those for body pheromones. This remodelling oily lubricant for the beetle’s
fat or compound eyes, that all
insects possess. allowed the new cell type to make segments. This created a niche

One species, the greenhouse oily solvent components. for toxin cells to evolve, enabling
rove beetle (Dalotia coriaria), has
a pair of glands in its abdomen – The toxin cells, meanwhile, had a new function to emerge. Natural

repurposed existing metabolic selection then began acting on

genes along with those involved the two cell types as a unit, further

in colouring and hardening the refining the contributions of each

beetle’s external skin, its cuticle. to optimise the new organ, he says.

“There are these pre-existing “I think this is a nice way to

logics that the beetle has reused,” phrase how organs evolve: by cells

says Parker. creating niches for each other, and

In experiments, the researchers in this way allow for the evolution

found that either cell type alone of functions that otherwise

NIGEL CATTLIN/ALAMY is insufficient to provide a survival wouldn’t arise because they only

advantage. When they blocked the make sense in a certain context,”

activity of genes that govern either says Detlev Arendt at the

solvent or toxin production, and European Molecular Biology

then placed beetles in an arena full Laboratory in Germany. ❚

Robots

Tiny self-propelled at the University of Chemistry and and generate a small amount the microsubmarine to clean
submarines could Technology in the Czech Republic of thrust. This pushes the tube up polluted water.
help clean up waste and his colleagues, does have forward at speeds of up to about
the ability to dive deeper or rise 15 micrometres per second. A group of microrobots were
SUBMARINES are going to the surface. It achieves this tested in water polluted with picric
microscopic. Tiny tubes about using a mechanism that loosely The middle layer is made of acid, which is an explosive, and
10 micrometres long can propel mimics the internal workings of iron nanoparticles, which make it a type of dye that can be harmful
themselves using only sunlight and a microorganism, says Pumera. possible to steer the microrobot to the environment. Over 2 hours,
can be steered by magnetic fields. using magnetic fields. they broke down more than
These microrobots could be useful The tubular microrobots, which 70 per cent of the pollutants
for cleaning up toxic waste. Pumera and his team have dubbed Finally, comes an outer layer of (Small, doi.org/gjvxm7).
microsubmarines, are built with titanium dioxide. When exposed to
Most swimming microrobots three main layers. light, this catalyses reactions that In practice, you would
can’t change depth easily: they degrade many chemicals, allowing probably require large quantities
float near the surface of a liquid On the inside of the tube is a of microsubmarines to clean up
or sink to the bottom. layer of cadmium sulphide, which “The microrobots broke any significant amount of polluted
takes in light and releases electrons. down more than 70 per water, says Pumera. These could
The robot, built by Martin Pumera Those then react with water to cent of two pollutants then be retrieved with a magnet. ❚
split it into its constituent parts in water over 2 hours” Leah Crane

12 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

Analysis Cybercrime

How do we solve the problem of ransomware? The US oil
pipeline that shut down after a cyberattack is just the latest
victim in a growing wave, reports Matthew Sparkes

ON 7 May, hackers forced a major FRANCOIS PICARD/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Part of an oil pipeline
oil pipeline in the US to shut and
prompted US president Joe Biden Business consultancy Accenture everything,” he says. “All our that was targeted by
to declare a state of emergency. says there was a 160 per cent customers are running their
Within hours of the hack, which increase in ransomware attacks in businesses from the software, hacker group DarkSide
started the previous day, Colonial 2020 compared with the previous so all their customer details are
Pipeline Company paid a ransom year. Some ransomware gangs are in the database.“ to police via Action Fraud – a
of 75 bitcoin – worth $4.4 million thought to have made hundreds centralised reporting service run
at the time – to recover lost data. of millions of dollars, and more The attacker provided a bitcoin by the City of London Police – but
than half of businesses pay up, address for a ransom payment. was told in an email that “on this
According to the US Federal says security firm Kaspersky. Rose simply restored the servers occasion the matter you reported
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), from recent backups and to us cannot be classified as a
the hackers behind it were It is so widespread that a refused to pay, but New Scientist police recorded crime”. After
DarkSide, a criminal group that recent cyberattack on Ireland’s investigations showed that at further enquiries from New
rents software to third parties to Department of Health was least one other victim did make Scientist, the City of London
carry out cyberattacks in return described by a minister as a a payment of the same amount Police said that the matter
for a share of ransoms. Retaliatory “commonplace” event. Yet these requested to the same wallet. had been “misclassified” and
action from a US government hacks can have huge consequences. would now be investigated.
agency has reportedly shut The WannaCry ransomware Rose tried to report the matter
down DarkSide’s systems. attack in 2017 reportedly cost UK home secretary Priti Patel
the National Health Service 160% said earlier this month that
Ransomware isn’t limited to in England £92 million. companies should stop paying
one bad actor. There are a host The increase in ransomware ransoms. The same approach has
of competing, interlinked outfits The groups target a range attacks from 2019 to 2020 long been advocated by the FBI.
that are large and difficult to of weaknesses, both technical Insurance giant AXA has already
prosecute. And as long as people and human. Updating software $4.4m said that it will no longer be
keep paying the ransoms, the and educating staff will help, reimbursing those who pay
problem isn’t going away. but in truth there is a game The amount of ransom Colonial ransoms in France – a week
of cat and mouse between Pipeline Company paid out before it was itself victim of a
Ransomware is an insidious ransomware groups, software ransomware attack. It isn’t known
type of malware that seizes data developers and law enforcement 50% if that was direct retaliation or
and threatens to release it publicly agencies – and no end in sight. coincidence, or whether AXA
or destroy it if a ransom isn’t paid. The minimum percentage of chose to take its own advice.
Regular backups can solve half David Rose runs a small UK- hacked firms that pay ransoms
that problem, but huge data leaks based software company and was Martin Lee at tech company
of customer or citizen information recently hit by just such an attack. Cisco agrees that companies
can still spell disaster. In a 2018 “We had to take all the servers should refuse to pay. “Anyone
case, hackers released patients’ down. It just spread through paying the ransom should be
private details and sensitive under no illusion that they are
session notes from a chain of not contributing to the problem.
Finnish psychotherapy clinics, and They should also be aware that
then directly extorted the patients. they are highlighting themselves
as a profitable prospect for future
Many ransomware gangs are attacks,” he says. A payment is also
based in countries beyond the no guarantee that an attacker will
reach of Western law enforcement, do what they promise, or that they
which makes stopping them won’t come back for more cash.
tricky. Nigel Leary at the UK’s
National Crime Agency says that One solution would be increasing
perpetrators are often found to the amount of resources available
be Russian speaking, although to investigate and prosecute
their exact location can be hard to these crimes, says Leary.
determine. But he says one thing
is certain: groups like DarkSide The takedown of DarkSide
have lowered the barriers to entry shows that states can take offensive
for ransomware attacks. Technical action, but as long as attackers
savvy is no longer a prerequisite. can hide behind borders free from
prosecution or extradition, the
problem is unlikely to disappear. ❚

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 13

News

Gene therapy Space

Lost vision partially Neutron star
restored by optogenetics surfaces are
incredibly smooth
Clare Wilson
Jonathan O’Callaghan
A MAN who is blind has had GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
glimmers of vision restored NEUTRON stars are so dense that
thanks to a high-tech treatment to wear goggles with cameras People who are blind their surfaces may only vary in
using optogenetics, which and processors that turn height by up to 0.1 millimetres,
involves genetically altering ordinary light into amber were injected with a thanks to their extreme gravity.
nerve cells to respond to light. wavelengths, and boost the
signal so it can be detected gene found in algae The remnant cores of stars that
French firm GenSight by the altered cells. have gone supernova, neutron
Biologics has published people have also recently stars are among the densest known
results showing that the first The first person to get this received higher doses, which objects in the universe. They can
recipient of its treatment can treatment, a 58-year-old man in the team hopes will have contain up to twice the mass of our
recognise different objects France, found that, after about greater benefits, says Sahel. sun packed into an incredibly small
in lab tests. “It’s exciting to a year, he could see the black space just two dozen kilometres
see the first publication on and white stripes of pedestrian In its current form, the across, the size of a city.
human optogenetics,” says crossings on the road. Since approach may not give good
Ed Boyden at the Massachusetts then, he has become able to enough vision to allow reading The intense gravitational pull
Institute of Technology, a perceive objects like a phone, or recognising faces, says team of neutron stars means that their
co-inventor of optogenetics. furniture or a door in a corridor. member Botond Roska at the surfaces, a thin crust of hydrogen
In lab tests, he was able to count Institute of Molecular and and helium, are flattened to an
This field allows precision and locate objects in front of Clinical Ophthalmology in extreme degree, but there can be
control over brain cells by him – but he can’t recognise Basel, Switzerland. “For that small bump-like deformations
altering them so they fire off a faces (Nature Medicine, DOI: you need very high resolution.” resulting from the star’s activity.
signal in response to light. It has 10.1038/s41591-021-01351-4). Now, new modelling has shown
led to many discoveries about A US firm, Bionic Sight, that these deformations are
the brain when used in other The man’s vision may improve reported in March that four probably at least 100 times
animals, but is thought to have further because it takes time people who had been blind or smaller than previously thought.
limited medical potential for for the brain to learn to process nearly blind could now perceive
treating brain disorders in the unusual signals from the light and motion of objects “Neutron stars are just
people, because getting light eyes, says José-Alain Sahel at the in front of them thanks to its incredibly spherical objects,”
inside the head requires Vision Institute in Paris, who optogenetic treatment, but says Fabian Gittins at the
implanting a fibre-optic cable. is working with the GenSight hasn’t yet published a scientific University of Southampton, UK.
team. “What’s probably paper on these findings. “It’s really quite remarkable.”
Several groups are trying to occurring is remodelling
develop it as a treatment for of the connectivity in the Bionic Sight’s treatment Gittins and his colleagues
blindness, though, because retina and the brain,” he says. delivers a different gene to modelled different forces acting
GenSight’s, and also requires on neutron stars and found that
“What’s probably Two people in the UK have goggles. In a press release, any deviations in the surface
occurring is remodelling received the same gene therapy, Bionic Sight said that could reach only 0.1 millimetres
of the connectivity in but haven’t had any training or two people who received a high before the crust fractured
the retina and the brain” vision improvement yet. Four higher dose of gene therapy (arxiv.org/abs/2105.06493).
had more of a rise in light
nerve cells in the eye are sensitivity than the other two. ❚ “We found a number of
exposed to outside light. One assumptions were made that were
targeted condition is retinitis incorrect,” says Gittins. “Previous
pigmentosa, an inherited work forced the stars into a shape
disease in which the retina, a that isn’t physically possible.” The
disc of tissue at the back of the causes of the deformations could
eye, gradually deteriorates and include the cooling of the star, its
the light-detecting cells die. spin rate changing or the accretion
of material from another star,
With GenSight’s therapy, the team found.
the nerve cells underneath the
light-detecting layer are injected Astronomers had thought
with a gene originally found in that variations in a neutron
algae, which makes them fire in star’s surface might deform
response to amber light. To be space-time enough to produce
able to see, the recipients need gravitational waves that we
could detect, but this latest
work suggests that they might
be harder to spot than hoped. ❚

14 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

Mathematics

AI shoots down mathematical ideas

Humans now have help in searching for examples that disprove conjectures

Matthew Sparkes

AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence has with four steps would serve as a conjectures disproved by the AI. The first theorem to be proved
disproved five mathematical with the help of a computer was
conjectures despite not being counterexample to the conjecture. “What we’re seeing here is a huge the four colour theorem, which
equipped with any information states that any map can be
about the problems. Wagner programmed a neural benefit of artificial intelligence coloured using only four colours
so that there are no two countries
Adam Zsolt Wagner at Tel Aviv network to come up with random with no downside, from a of the same colour touching.
University in Israel used an AI The proof, found in 1976,
approach to search for examples examples and use the measures mathematical perspective. It’s involved using a computer
that would disprove a range of to check an exhaustive list of
long-standing conjectures, which he created to assess each one’s simply finding stuff for us, the examples. Although considered
are unproven theorems. Wagner inelegant by some at the time,
focused on graph theory, an area suitability as a counterexample. way someone with great insight the use of computers to solve
of maths that involves studying mathematical problems has since
objects made of nodes and links. The AI got rid of the worst scoring could. The counterexamples are become much more prevalent.
Mathematicians thought these
conjectures were true, but hadn’t ones and replaced them with needles in haystacks.” Still, Hogben says it is important
been able to prove them. that human mathematicians
more random examples before should always be able to follow
For each conjecture, Wagner the work of such AIs. “I personally
created a measure of how close an starting again. In five cases, it “This is a huge benefit would never have a problem with
example was to disproving it. For a disproof that can be verified.
instance, if a conjecture proposed landed on a solution which of artificial intelligence A computer proof that is not
that a certain problem couldn’t verifiable by hand, I would
be solved in fewer than five steps, showed that the conjecture must with no downside, from a personally have some concerns
an example with six steps would about. To me, that breaks the gold
be closer to a disproof than be false (arxiv.org/abs/2104.14516). mathematical perspective” standard of mathematics.” ❚
one with seven, and a solution
Wagner ran the AI on his 5-year-

old laptop, which took anything While the AI has succeeded in

from a couple of hours to a couple disproving conjectures, proving

of days to disprove each of the five them is much harder. To disprove

conjectures. The results were often an idea requires creating and

counter-intuitive, he says. “I would testing a vast number of potential

never have come up with these solutions to see if any contradict

constructions by myself even if the conjecture, a mechanistic task

you gave me hundreds of years.” that can be automated, but a proof

“It’s completely impressive,” is a creative work that requires

says Leslie Hogben at Iowa State insightful leaps and stringing

University, who had one of her together many logical steps.

Archaeology

The biggest drawing A section of the recently
ever made may be a discovered geoglyphs
spiral found in India near Boha in India

A HUGE spiral carved into the YOHANN OETHEIMER Research in Asia, doi.org/gjztrs).
ground in India covers almost “The report is convincing,” says
100,000 square metres, dwarfing symbols, which they then visited. single 12-kilometre line. To the
other individual geoglyphs like Each line in the geoglyphs is 20 to immediate south-west, there is a Daniela Valenzuela at the University
those in the Nazca desert in Peru. 50 centimetres wide and was made second line that repeatedly bends of Tarapacá in Arica, Chile. The spiral
by scraping away sand and silt. back on itself, forming a grid of dwarfs all other known geoglyphs.
The spiral is in a small cluster of parallel lines. Two smaller geoglyphs Peru’s Nazca Lines cover a much
geoglyphs discovered by researchers The central symbol is a roughly to the north and south-west are wider area, but none of that site’s
Carlo and Yohann Oetheimer, based oval spiral that is 724 metres long heavily eroded (Archaeological figures are especially large: one bird
in Luriecq, France. Carlo searched and 201 metres wide, made of a figure is 300 metres long and a
Google Earth images of the Thar shape thought to be a labyrinth is
desert in India and identified eight made up of one 4.4-kilometre line.
sites with possible geoglyphs. In
2016, they flew a drone over them The Oetheimers suspect the Boha
and found that three were furrows geoglyphs are at least 150 years
dug for failed tree plantations. old because they have been eroded
by wind, and plants have grown
One site was near the village of on them in places. But they have
Boha. Using the drone there, the no further evidence to shed light
Oetheimers identified four distinct on their age, meaning or purpose.  ❚
Michael Marshall

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 15

News Analysis Space exploration

Animal behaviour More people are going to space, but who will get to fly?
Civilians in orbit will generally have to be rich,
Birds know to hide young and physically fit, says Leah Crane
from predators
before they hatch Blue Origin is
auctioning off a seat
Jake Buehler on its first crewed flight

THE world is a dangerous place for FELIX KUNZE/BLUE ORIGIN one. With more ways to get to
young birds, and it seems that even space comes the possibility to
as embryos, some take measures SPACE isn’t just for the his production assistant. launch a larger variety of people –
to hide from predators. professionals now several He has already announced plans but who, exactly?
high-profile rocket-makers are to fly around the moon on one
Late in embryonic development, gearing up to send civilians above of SpaceX’s next-generation While the costs of most of these
many bird species will communicate the atmosphere. But with price rockets in a flight currently set flights haven’t been released, the
with their parents through the tags in the millions, we are still for 2023 and is running a contest going rate is around $50 million,
eggshell by chirping. Kristal far from the long-awaited for eight artists to join him. so the majority of us will still only
Kostoglou at Deakin University in democratisation of space flight. be able to experience space flight
Melbourne, Australia, wanted to This kind of space tourism through a screen, unless we
know if these talkative embryos Many of these civilian space isn’t new: in the early 2000s, get very lucky in a competition.
have the predator-avoiding instincts flight opportunities are being run seven individuals who weren’t
of hatched chicks, which hide and as contests, auctions or raffles. professional astronauts flew to And money isn’t the only barrier
fall silent when threatened. Blue Origin is auctioning off a seat the ISS aboard Soyuz spacecraft. to orbit. When the Russian space
aboard its very first crewed flight This ceased when the US Space agency was looking for a female
Kostoglou and her team exposed on the New Shepard suborbital Shuttle programme ended in actor to be in Challenge, it sought
the eggs of two Australian shorebird rocket – as of 24 May, the price 2011 because at that point Soyuz someone between the ages of
species – 56 eggs of the red-capped had reached $2.8 million. became the only way to get to 25 and 40, weighing 50 to
plover (Charadrius ruficapillus) the ISS. Now SpaceX has a craft 70 kilograms and physically fit.
and 299 of the masked lapwing SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission, that can bring humans to the ISS, She will have to undergo some
(Vanellus miles) – to different planned to launch into orbit on and Boeing is working on another of the training that government-
signals of a predator approaching. 15 September, has an all-civilian employed astronauts go through,
These included predator calls, crew, with one member selected by Japanese billionaire Yusaku including centrifuge testing and
increased parent heart rate sounds raffle and another by a competition. Maezawa has booked training on parabolic flights.
or changes in light levels resulting Meanwhile, the Discovery TV multiple trips to space
channel has announced a The same is true of all the other
“Many bird species will programme called Who Wants REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOON non-government folk heading to
communicate with their to Be an Astronaut? in which the space, even if they aren’t going
parents through the winning contestant will go to the all the way into orbit. The Blue
eggshell by chirping” International Space Station (ISS), Origin suborbital flight carries
and there are plans for scenes requirements for height, weight,
from a parent bird moving off the from two films to be shot there physical fitness and dexterity,
nest. The team then recorded how in September, one starring Tom along with the ability to speak
often the embryos called Cruise and another titled Challenge and listen to instructions in English.
under these conditions. with Russian actor Yulia Peresild.
There are programmes looking
The researchers didn’t find any Then, in December, Japanese to broaden the range of people
effects from a change in light or billionaire Yusaku Maezawa plans who can go to space. For example,
heart rate, but the embryos of to take a Russian Soyuz rocket the European Space Agency is
lapwings went from calling just to the ISS for 12 days, along with running a “parastronaut feasibility
over once per minute under white project” studying adaptations to
noise, to once over 3 minutes when send individuals with physical
exposed to the sounds of egg- disabilities to space. The project
eating little ravens (Corvus mellori), website says: “Right now we are
suggesting they were trying to avoid at step zero. The door is closed
predators. The plovers’ call rate was to persons living with disabilities.”
about four times per minute under Getting to a point where any
white noise, but dropped to twice member of the public can go
per minute with the predator noises to space will take work – and it
(International Journal of Avian remains to be seen whether
Science, doi.org/gjw792). private space flight companies
are willing to put in the effort. ❚
Jose Noguera at the University
of Vigo in Spain says these findings
“clearly show that embryos are not
passive agents to external cues”. ❚

16 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

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News Insight

Energy

The hydrogen games

Japan plans to use the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games to
tout the benefits of a hydrogen society. Alice Klein reports

DESPITE a surge in covid-19 cases, The biggest drawback of
Japan is doggedly pushing ahead hydrogen is its high cost. To
with its preparations for the Tokyo make the fuel cleanly – so-called
Olympic and Paralympic games. green hydrogen – water must be
In January, Prime Minister split using expensive electrolysers
Yoshihide Suga said they should powered by solar or wind energy.
continue as “proof of human Then there is the cost of the
victory against the coronavirus”. associated infrastructure,
But there is another reason too: including specially designed
Japan wants to use the events to trucks, ships and trains to
showcase its efforts to become a transport hydrogen safely at
“hydrogen society” and to inspire the right temperature and
other countries to join it. pressure, along with facilities
to store and distribute it.
To do so, Japan is making
heavy use of Olympic symbols. “The advantages
The Olympic torch is being partly of hydrogen are
fuelled by hydrogen as it makes its applicable to all the
way through Japan, even as some world, not just Japan”
parts of the relay are cancelled due
to coronavirus concerns. When REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOON Hydrogen can be made cheaply
the games begin in July – unless from natural gas, but this cancels
they are derailed again – the The start of the Olympic 2 trillion yen ($18 billion) Green out its green credentials. A report
Olympic cauldron will also be torch relay in Naraha, Innovation Fund that will help published by the International
powered by hydrogen. And a Japan, on 25 March to support this expansion. Renewable Energy Agency last
hydrogen station has been built In December 2020, more than year predicted that green
near the athletes’ village for 5million 80 Japanese companies, including hydrogen could compete with
refuelling the hydrogen-powered giants like Toyota and Kawasaki fossil fuel-derived hydrogen
buses and cars that will ferry The number of homes that Heavy Industries, agreed to by 2030, but noted this would
competitors to and from venues. Japan wants to power with work together to help the nation require “global collaboration”.
hydrogen by 2030 achieve its hydrogen goals.
Japan is one of the growing Enter the Olympics and
number of countries that aim Hydrogen has several big Paralympics. Japan hopes the
to achieve net-zero greenhouse pluses. It can be used in fuel cells games will generate enough hype
gas emissions by 2050. But its to generate electricity with zero around hydrogen to galvanise this
transition to renewable energy is emissions. It can be stored for long collaboration, says Arias. If the rest
trickier than it is for others, since it periods and transported great of the world embraces hydrogen
has limited free space for building distances. It can power everything energy, it will drive down the
vast solar and wind farms to from homes and vehicles to heavy cost through competition and
replace fossil fuels. It has installed industry. And it has the highest economies of scale, he says.
floating solar plants on many energy content of any common “If there’s mass-scale production,
of its lakes and is planning large fuel by weight – almost three it will help to reduce prices.”
offshore wind farms, but these times that of petrol. “The
alone cannot supply enough advantages of hydrogen are The hydrogen for the games
energy for its 126 million people. applicable to all the world, not will be made at the world’s largest
just Japan,” says Jonathan Arias at solar-powered electrolyser for
To fill this gap, Japan has juwi Shizen Energy, a renewable hydrogen production, which
decided to bet big on hydrogen energy company in Japan. opened in 2020 in Fukushima
energy. It wants to power at least prefecture, the area devastated by
5 million homes and 800,000 the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
vehicles, including 1200 buses, It will be transported by truck
using hydrogen by 2030, and to a refuelling station near the
is also researching its potential athletes’ village. There it will be
use in powering trucks, ships, used to fill up the cars and buses
trains, aircraft and industries like that will drive competitors
steel-making. It has established a

18 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

More Insight online

Your guide to a rapidly changing world
newscientist.com/insight

around. The vehicles’ fuel cells will Hydrogen-powered AFLO/SHUTTERSTOCK
power electric motors. buses will ferry
competitors to venues Huang. The Hindenburg disaster, can withstand gunshots without
After the games, the athletes’
village will be converted into the hydrogen on a large scale, says in which a hydrogen-filled airship exploding, he says. “Even if they
world’s biggest hydrogen-powered Zhenguo Huang at the University
neighbourhood. Hydrogen will be of Technology Sydney in Australia. exploded in 1937, has given the did crack, because hydrogen is so
piped to fuel cells in public areas to One of the best things about
power lights and air conditioning. hydrogen is that it can be used fuel a bad rap, he says. “But it’s light, it would just shoot into the
Each of the 4100 apartments will to store energy, he says. Solar and
also have a hydrogen fuel cell to wind energy can be stored using actually safer than gasoline air.” Hydrogen did leak out of a
heat water systems and provide batteries, but these are made from
a small amount of electricity – materials – like nickel and cobalt – when properly managed.” refuelling station in Norway in
enough to power low-energy that are in limited supply, and they
devices like smartphones – gradually lose energy over time. Modern hydrogen tanks are 2019 and catch fire in the open air,
alongside regular grid power. If solar or wind power is converted
via electrolysers to hydrogen made from tough carbon fibre and but no one was hurt. In contrast,
“It will be the first town in instead, it can be stored
Japan that puts into practical indefinitely and used any cracked oil and petrol tanks leak
use hydrogen stations, hydrogen time, says Huang.
pipelines and hydrogen fuel cells liquid fuel that can burn for a long
at full scale,” says Katsuhiko The final hurdle to widespread
Nagata at Panasonic, the company hydrogen adoption is convincing time or spill into the ocean.
providing the neighbourhood’s the public that it is safe, says
fuel cells. However, until green Certainly, it seems that
hydrogen becomes more The main competitors
affordable, the hydrogen used having up to 700,000 cars, excitement around hydrogen is
will be made from natural gas In 2017, Japan became the first
at an on-site station, he says. country to publish a national 90,000 trucks, 2400 buses building. One silver lining of the
hydrogen strategy, which set
To reduce the cost of green out an action plan for becoming and 180 trains powered by pandemic is that several countries
hydrogen, Japan’s government a “hydrogen-based society”
has promised to invest in by 2050. Since then, several hydrogen in operation by have announced big investments
technological innovations and to other countries have followed
seek to import it from countries suit, including: 2030, along with 1100 in hydrogen to help rebuild their
that can make it more cheaply.
In particular, it has set its sights Australia hydrogen-refuelling stations. economies (see “The main
on Australia, which has ample Aims to make cheap green
sunshine, wind and empty hydrogen on a massive scale Hydrogen energy will also be
space that make it perfect to export and use domestically.
for producing this fuel. used in homes and industry. “If solar or wind power is
Canada
Australia recently approved a Wants to be one of the world’s converted to hydrogen, it
6500-square-kilometre hydrogen biggest suppliers of green
production facility in which hydrogen, use hydrogen for Germany can be stored indefinitely
10 million solar panels, 1500 wind 30 per cent of its energy needs
turbines and an electrolyser and have over 5 million hydrogen Has earmarked €9 billion for and used any time”
should create green hydrogen for vehicles on the road by 2050.
less than $2 per kilogram, making producing green hydrogen. It also
it competitive with hydrogen France
derived from fossil fuels. Kawasaki Has committed €7.2 billion to aims to build the world’s largest competitors”, left). Germany,
has built the world’s first liquefied producing green hydrogen and
hydrogen carrier ship, the Suiso hydrogen grid and to use hydrogen for example, has committed
Frontier, for transporting
Australian hydrogen to Japan. in industries like steel-making. €9 billion, while South Korea’s

At this price, more countries Korean New Deal lays out a plan
may start considering using
South Korea to produce 200,000 hydrogen

Wants to have 6.2 million vehicles by 2025. And in March,

hydrogen cars and 1200 John Kerry, the US special

hydrogen-refuelling stations presidential envoy for climate,

operating by 2040. The country called hydrogen a “jump ball”

also aims to make hydrogen- with “huge opportunities”.

powered buses, trucks, trains and Even if hydrogen can’t show off

ships, and to use hydrogen energy its tricks at the Olympics due to

for industry and in homes. last-minute cancellation, it still

looks set to become a winner. ❚

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 19

News In brief

Animal behaviour

Ants may hold the key to an
eco-friendly spider repellent

RICHARD BECKER/ALAMY HOUSE-DWELLING spiders avoid found in North America. They let
surfaces that certain aggressive ants of a particular species run on
ants have walked on, suggesting filter paper in part of a glass cage for
some sort of chemical the ants leave 12 hours. Then they removed the
in their wake could form the basis of ants and put young, female spiders,
an ecologically sound way to keep one at a time, into the cage and
spiders out of people’s houses. watched to see where they chose
to settle after 24 hours.
Andreas Fischer at Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver, Canada, Most black widows (Latrodectus
has been seeking practical ways to hesperus), false widows (Steatoda
maintain ecosystems while keeping grossa) and hobo spiders (Eratigena
arachnophobic people comfortable agrestis) avoided the paper walked
in their homes. He says commercial on by European fire ants (Myrmica
pesticides “kill everything”, while rubra), says Fischer. A fourth
“natural” spider repellents like species, the cross spider (Araneus
lemon zest have little to no effect. diadematus), showed a similar
trend, but not as strong (Royal
Recently, Fischer realised other Society Open Science, doi.org/gddr).
scientists were noting that where
they found more ants, they found The team doesn’t know what the
fewer spiders. To investigate, spiders are detecting – it could be
Fischer and his team gathered three an ant pheromone – but it aims
different species of ant and females to find out and make versions for
from four spider species commonly home use. Christa Lesté-Lasserre

Nature Bionics

World misses ocean numbers should be welcomed, Robotic extra thumb device on their dominant hand.
says Neville Ash at UNEP. “It’s good is controlled by toes The extra thumb was controlled
conservation target news. There has been tremendous
progress both on land and at sea PEOPLE equipped with an extra, by sensors attached to the user’s
NATIONS have hit a global target in the last decade.” robotic thumb learned to control big toes, with communications
for creating protected areas on it with their toes – but prolonged sent using wireless technology. By
land, but failed to do so for oceans, The reason ocean protection is use may come at a cost of their wiggling each toe, the augmented
the United Nations Environment lagging appears to be due in part brains being less certain about humans could move the thumb in
Programme (UNEP) has found. to the sheer size of seas relative to how their hands work. different directions and make it
terrestrial areas and the challenge grip. For five days, participants
In 2010, world leaders agreed of getting international waters Danielle Clode at University were encouraged to use the thumb.
to tackle species extinctions and designated as protected, says Ash. College London and her team gave
biodiversity decline by expanding 36 people a prosthetic thumb that The extra digit could cradle
protections, such as national parks Despite the growth in reserves, wrapped around their wrist and sat a cup of coffee while the same
and marine reserves, to 17 per cent we still have a rate of biodiversity underneath their little finger. All hand’s forefingers held a spoon
of land and 10 per cent of coastal loss unseen for millions of years. were right-handed, and wore the to stir in milk, for instance. Some
and marine areas by 2020. “Protected areas are a core part participants used the thumb to
of stopping biodiversity loss, but DANI CLODE flick through pages of a book they
UNEP found that while only in themselves are insufficient,” were holding in the same hand.
16.64 per cent of land had been says Ash. He believes we also need The average user wore the thumb
officially reported as protected more fundamental changes, such for just under 3 hours a day.
by 2020, it was clear from other as redirecting subsidies for fishing
data that the 17 per cent goal was and fossil fuels to nature. To see how the thumb affected
exceeded. However, just 7.74 per people’s brains, they were given an
cent of oceans were protected, Countries have also failed to MRI scan before and after the trial.
including the Mayotte Marine focus on the quality of protected The brain perceived each finger on
Natural Park in the Comoros areas as well as the quantity, he the hand with the thumb as more
Islands. Even several large adds. It is hard to even know what similar to each other than before.
pending marine protected the quality is like in many places – A third scan, a week after the test
areas won’t close the gap. UNEP found less than a fifth of ended, showed these changes
the protected areas have been wearing off (Science Robotics, doi.
Despite that shortfall, the assessed. Adam Vaughan org/gdd3). Chris Stokel-Walker

20 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

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Really brief Technology

MARTIN ZWICK/REDA&CO/UNIVERSAL IG/GETTY IMAGES Greenland ice sheet AI uses body cam to pictures that showed food were better than humans at estimating
is releasing mercury assess calorie intake annotated by dieticians and the the calories being consumed – it
meals were weighed. The images had an error rate of 37.6 per cent
As glaciers grind over AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence that and data were then used to train compared with the human error
the ground, they free up interprets images from wearable an AI known as a neural network rate of 48.8 per cent (arxiv.org/
mercury in rocks. A study cameras can identify food and to identify food types and estimate abs/2105.03142).
suggests that each year, accurately estimate its weight to volume and nutritional content.
42 tonnes of the toxic determine how many calories and Nutritional research has often
metal may be released nutrients a person is consuming. The system continuously relied on people self-reporting
from the south-west of the This could prove useful for monitors subjects, so it can also what they eat, but this can yield
Greenland ice sheet. This automating dietary research. determine how much of a meal poor data because of bias and
can build up in fish eaten was eaten rather than just the memory slip. It is also labour
by local people (Nature Benny Lo at Imperial College size of the meal served. intensive. Much research has been
Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ London and his colleagues asked done on automatically estimating
s41561-021-00753-w). 13 people to wear cameras around Lo’s team then got the AI to calories in a meal from a photo
their chests or on their glasses to analyse new images from the taken before eating, but this
Growth in number capture images at mealtimes. The wearable cameras, and weighed doesn’t take into account any
of ‘zombie’ fires? the meals to compare them with leftovers. Matthew Sparkes
the estimates. The computer did
Forest fires that smoulder
over winter and reignite in Space Ecosystems
spring may be becoming
more common in Alaska. True devastation
A model based on satellite of Amazon blaze
data collected between
2002 and 2018 links the NASA/JPL/USGS WILDFIRES that swept the central
so-called “zombie” fires Amazon in 2015 caused a loss of
with warm summers, Dangerous sun activity could around 27 per cent of vegetation
which occur more often hamper return to the moon there over the next three years.
now due to climate change
(Nature, doi.org/gj4b3k). SOLAR storms that can injure or kill Then they sampled data from The fires were caused by severe
astronauts are more likely at certain each model many times and looked drought after the potent 2015 El
Swifts can fly vast times in the sun’s 11-year cycle, to see how often this correlated Niño, a climate pattern that sees
distance each day a finding that should inform plans with the small amount of real data the central and eastern Pacific
for a crewed return to the moon. we have. The team was able to work Ocean surface warm, leading to
During migration, common out with 99 per cent confidence extreme weather across the world.
swifts (Apus apus) can fly It was thought these big storms that these big storms were more
570 kilometres per day on occur randomly, says Mathew likely at the peak of the solar cycle. Wildfires during this period
average – and the fastest Owens at the University of Reading, burned an estimated 9246 square
ones covered 832 km a UK. One problem is only six major The work also suggests that kilometres of the Amazon in total,
day. The discovery comes storms have occurred in the past extreme space weather is more even affecting the central region,
from a tracking survey of 150 years, so there is a lack of data. likely late in odd-numbered sun which is historically wet and fire-
the birds. Previous work cycles, such as cycle 25, which resistant. Aline Pontes-Lopes at
had predicted that this To address this, Owens and his began in December 2019 (Solar the National Institute for Space
species only covered team used Monte Carlo statistical Physics, doi.org/gdbv). This means Research in São Paulo, Brazil,
about 500 km each day techniques. They first created one that space weather is likely to and her team have measured how
(iScience, doi.org/gddv). simulation of the sun in which be better in the first half of this plants in the central Amazon fared
extreme storms occurred randomly decade for any return of humans in the three years after the fires.
and another where they were more to the moon, says Owens. MS
likely at the peak of the sun cycle. They created 18 study areas,
each 250 metres by 10 metres,
across the central Amazon in
the northern Purus-Madeira of
Brazil in December 2015. Every
subsequent November until 2018,
they measured the impact of fire
damage on each plant.

Over the three years after the
fires, 27 per cent of the plants died
(Proceedings of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences, doi.org/gdd8).
The results suggest the strongest
fire events are still felt in the wetter
parts of the forest. Karina Shah

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 21

Events HSEAAVLTEH20S%EROIENSATICKET

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HELEN THOMSON

Views Letters Aperture Culture Culture columnist
Raising a cheer for The captivating A new book on the Bethan Ackerley
The columnist superdeterministic beauty of seeds menopause proves finds charm in TV’s
Chanda Prescod- quantum theory p26 and fruits p28 long overdue p32 Intergalactic p34
Weinstein grapples
with supernovae p24

Comment

The power of fusion

Archaeology and genetics may seem worlds apart, but they are
combining to produce astonishing insights, says Alice Roberts

MICHELLE D’URBANO T WO seemingly disparate revelations become even more has been the changes that came relocation or a planned invasion.
scientific disciplines have fascinating when we start to with the appearance of the Beaker However, to geneticists, it simply
been drawn into each compare genomes from different culture in Britain and Ireland, with means people moving and having
other’s orbits, set on a collision individuals, casting light on genomic data showing a 90 per children somewhere different.
course. On one side is archaeology patterns of relatedness. cent population turnover in the Such a migration could happen
with its grimy earthiness, heavy third millennium BC. over many generations.
with history and tradition; on the Recent analyses of individuals Differences in concepts and
other is genetics, with its clinical from Neolithic tombs in the This information was met definitions can lead to
brightness, brave and brash in its UK and Ireland have revealed a with consternation by some misunderstanding.
newness. Fusion can be difficult, daughter buried in the same tomb archaeologists. Did a mass of
but it can also create astonishing as her father, two brothers buried invaders sweep in and take over? The lesson is that both fields
energy when it happens. together, and a man whose parents Some headlines stoked that idea, must also heed their differences.
were either siblings or parent and suggesting that “Dutch hordes” “There has to be continuing
At the forefront of this merging child. These findings help us to had killed off the “Britons who dialogue,” says Tom Booth,
is a new sequencing project called understand what society was like started Stonehenge”. who works on the 1000 Ancient
1000 Ancient Genomes. Led by in these places 5000 years ago. Genomes project. “We may never
Pontus Skoglund at the Francis The language we use is crucial. agree on what terms to use, but
Crick Institute in London, it is the Wider studies can also shed Archaeologists take “migration” to we might at least understand each
most ambitious ancient genomics light on population movements mean a very deliberate, large-scale other’s perspective.”
project to date. The DNA it looks in the past. One recent revelation movement of people: a forced
at will be completely sequenced, If the potential of the fusion
leaving no stone unturned, no between archaeology and genetics
stretch unread. is to be realised, both sides need to
work on dismantling the language
It is two decades since the barrier between them – and to
human genome was first work out how to communicate
sequenced, and the pace of these new ideas more publicly,
change in genetic technology without sparking inflammatory
in the intervening years has (and meaningless) headlines.
been breathtaking. Sequencing Perhaps it will take a new
is now faster by several orders of generation of archaeogeneticists
magnitude – a human genome can to successfully fuse the disciplines.
now be deciphered in a day. And
with DNA extracted from ancient As Pooja Swali, who is also
bones, we are able to uncover the involved with the 1000 Ancient
genetic secrets of our ancestors. Genomes project, says: “I think
you’d be struggling to find an
An ancient genome can reveal archaeology course now that
the sex of an individual and didn’t cover ancient DNA.”
provide clues to their appearance.
For example, the DNA of Cheddar Archaeogenetics is coming of
Man, a 10,000-year-old skeleton age, and we can expect many more
found in Somerset, England, revelations in the years to come. ❚
revealed that he was likely to have
had quite dark skin and blue eyes – Alice Roberts’s new
a combination that is rare today.
book, Ancestors: The
But the archaeogenetic
pre-history of Britain in

seven burials, is out now

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 23

Views Columnist

Field notes from space-time

Big bangs in the universe The explosions of supernovae are so
powerful they can be seen with the naked eye. The physics behind
them is harder to uncover, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

F OR all the talk about a a binary relationship. The white of particles that comprise them.
mysterious big bang at the dwarf’s gravitational pull can Reading all of this, you might
start of the universe, we begin to rip gas away from its
have the impression that we
actually don’t have to go back too companion, ultimately grabbing have a pretty good grasp of
the physics that underpins
far in history to see big bangs. Some on to more than it can handle, supernovae. But actually, many
mysteries remain, for example
stars, like our sun, will end their leading to an explosion. This is the abundances of atomic
elements that we expect to
lives rather quietly, slowly blowing another kind of supernova – be fused in the explosions.

off layers, possibly destroying a type Ia supernova – to be When it comes to neutron
stars, we are still confused about
solar systems in their wake, and distinguished from the collapse of fundamental properties like the
state of matter inside them and
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein leaving behind beautiful structures supergiant stars described above, what the properties of the star are
is an assistant professor of when it exists on the boundary
physics and astronomy, and that garnered the name “planetary which are type II supernovae. between becoming a neutron
a core faculty member in star and being massive enough
women’s studies at the nebulae” before we understood As these explosions occur, to collapse into a black hole.
University of New Hampshire.
Her research in theoretical what they were. But other, more multiple transitions are Observations of neutron star
physics focuses on cosmology, PSR J0740+6620 over the past
neutron stars and particles massive, stars will go out in a happening: the gases and plasma few years are challenging our
beyond the standard model understanding. Using radio
fabulous phenomenon called in the explosion are being blown telescopes at Green Bank
Chanda’s week Observatory in West Virginia
a supernova, where the outer off at high speeds and also at such and Arecibo in Puerto Rico,
What I’m reading astronomers have found that this
I’m working my layers of the star collapse onto particular neutron star has a mass
way through Moya more than twice the sun’s but it is
Bailey’s Misogynoir its core, igniting an explosion. “Supernovae are only some 20 or 25 kilometres in
Transformed: Black diameter. This is so dense that it is
women’s digital Supernovae are quite sudden so powerful that close to the boundary of where we
resistance. and have at points in history been they can produce might expect a black hole to form,
observed with the naked eye. elements that yet there it is, a stable neutron star.
What I’m watching The most famous example can’t be made
I recently saw and was is Supernova 1006, so named in stars” Follow-up work with the
not impressed by Tenet. because it occurred in the year Neutron Star Interior Composition
Explorer X-ray (NICER), an X-ray
What I’m working on AD 1006. Records from across telescope on the International
Next steps with our Space Station, is affirming that
neutron star research: Asia and North America indicate high energy that they can engage this star is quite dense. Two recent
understanding what preprints from the NICER team,
is inside, including that communities around the in forms of nuclear fusion that including one for which I am a
maybe dark matter! co-author, give estimates for the
world noted its occurrence. can’t happen in their progenitor mass and radius of the star. But
This column appears our papers disagree slightly on
monthly. Up next week: These explosions are so powerful (ancestor) stars. some of these values.
Graham Lawton
that they can produce elements One of two things is thought It isn’t clear why this is,
24 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021 although it is probably due to
that can’t be made in stars, to happen. In one scenario, differences in the data analysis
techniques. Some might view
which can only make atomic a black hole forms at the centre of this as upsetting, but I think it
is exciting. With neutron stars,
elements as heavy as iron. the supernova, a phenomenon in we are just getting started. ❚

Supernovae can also occur which there is such an enormous

when a white dwarf ends up in concentration of mass that the

a binary orbit with what we call a structure of space-time is radically

companion star. White dwarfs are different from what we consider

themselves the remnants of long- to be normal. These black holes

gone stars – our sun is expected to can consume all forms of matter

leave behind a white dwarf one and energy without restriction,

day. A typical white dwarf will have even light.

about 70 per cent of the mass of The alternative possibility is the

the sun, squeezed into at most formation of a neutron star. These

2 per cent of the sun’s radius. They are the most compact and dense

are held together by gravity, but non-space-time phenomena in

don’t collapse into a black hole the universe, even more so than

because of quantum pressure black holes. Think fitting the mass

between their many electrons. of the sun into London’s city

As these little ghosts wander centre. A very tight squeeze!

through their home galaxies, Like white dwarfs, they are held

they sometimes cross paths together by gravity, but don’t

with regular stars and become collapse under their own mass

gravitationally entangled, forming thanks to the quantum properties

Discovery
Tours

8 days | 21 May 2022

Portugal: Marine
ecosystems of the Azores

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- Increased sanitisation of all accommodation
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- Mandatory use of PPE where appropriate.

For more information visit newscientist.com/tours

Views Your letters

Editor’s pick geological epoch, dubbed the odds with those cited in your necessarily have our kind of
Anthropocene, seems not to be article, for example, it sees an intelligence and consciousness,
Free to question the doubted by anyone, but Adam increase of around 5˚C by 2100. they therefore don’t have it.
very idea of free will Vaughan tells us that pinning Creatures as disparate as the day
down its defining feature appears The problem with trying octopus, manta rays, corvids and
15 May, p 36 to be troublesome. to tackle big tech firms great apes all have the necessary
From Nigel Tuersley, neural substrates to support
Wardour, Wiltshire, UK The problem is that, whereas 1 May, p 34 cognitive processes and all
You looked at superdeterminism, all the other recognised epochs From Robert Cailliau, display cognitive behaviours.
a take on quantum theory that does were defined with the benefit of Prévessin, France
away with randomness. Objections millions or hundreds of millions In your look at efforts to address The case to be answered is that
were raised to it on the grounds that of years of strata to examine, those the dominance of some tech the many similarities between
it would deny humans free will. trying to define the Anthropocene companies, John Bergmayer is cognitive creatures in fact do
must struggle with living in it. quoted as saying: “You don’t just demonstrate common sentience.
As far as we are aware, nothing have one big, global telephone
in the universe is independent of Fast-forward 10 million years company for Earth, but that’s kind Best way to help pigs isn’t
the cosmos, and what we refer to and occupy the shoes of the of where we are with Facebook.” an AI, but a change of diet
as free will is, in fact, no more or less geologists of whatever species
than the sum of our prior genetic is then dominant, and they will That is a poor comparison. 1 May, p 14
and environmental influences. have no problem defining the Telephone, the post and email From Greg Billington,
Anthropocene. As has been don’t need a single company Picton, New Zealand
More fundamentally, by what pointed out on previous because there is no persistent, So AI can read emotional states
convoluted logic can it be argued occasions, it will begin with a shared content. But a group of in the facial expressions of cattle
that an element of randomness at microscopic layer of compressed people need a single database and pigs. It is suggested that this
the quantum level renders the case polythene found in every cliff face to distribute common stuff over technology will enable farmers
for independent thought more they examine. multiple locations, hence single to improve animal well-being by
compelling? A so-called free will companies dominate. This won’t reducing stressful husbandry.
rooted in random processes is no Let’s not be too optimistic be solved by anti-monopoly
more independent than if it is about the climate decrees from governments. Despite coming from a farming
determined by non-random factors. I doubt it can be solved at all. family and having been a hunter
24 April, p 34 for many years, the best possible
What cost a sedentary White roofs will be good way to improve animal well-being
life during lockdowns? From Bruce Denness, in winter months too is to simply not eat them.
Niton, Isle of Wight, UK
8 May, p 10 Michael Le Page reports that the Letters, 15 May Spotted in broad daylight:
From Nigel Langley, world is “on track to pass the Paris From Tim Stevenson, a playful platypus
Totnes, Devon, UK aspirational limit of 1.5˚C between Prestwood, Buckinghamshire, UK
You report on a survey that found 2026 and 2042… [and] to exceed The discussion of an ultra white 8 May, p 41
29 per cent of people in England 2˚C above its pre-industrial level paint to cool buildings in summer From Tony Fist,
decreased their physical activity between the 2040s and 2070s”. sparked a reader to worry it might Norwood, Tasmania, Australia
between March and August 2020 He adds: “We aren’t heading for do this in winter too, meaning Far from being strictly nocturnal,
amid pandemic lockdowns. the worst-case scenario… [which] we have to turn up the heating. I have seen many platypuses
could have led to around 5˚C of Physics says otherwise. In winter, a active during the day in Tasmania,
I assume there is a correlation warming by 2100.” I admire his white surface will radiate less heat, including a memorable encounter
between physical activity and life confidence, but advocate caution. helping to keep the warmth in. with one splashing in the melting
expectancy. So the survey could snow near Cradle Mountain.
mean that up to 29 per cent of the At a conference organised by Yes, animals probably
population may have reduced the Institution of Civil Engineers are sentient like us Beware offending
their healthy life expectancy. in 2009, I detailed a deterministic the mighty palm
climate model, first published Letters, 1 May
Perhaps the decision to have a in 1984, that can distinguish From Guy Inchbald, Upton on Letters, 15 May
lockdown reflects the bias towards between human-made and Severn, Worcestershire, UK From Gary Warburton,
valuing more highly what is natural climate change. This has It is a mistake to suggest that, Dublin, Ireland
immediate, measurable and in had an encouraging track record just because animals may not Amid talk of tree sentience, Steve
the headlines, while ignoring of accuracy, including forecasting Tunnicliff suggests apologising
hard-to-estimate distant impacts. the 1990s’ global temperature rise. to an elder tree before cutting it
down to avoid its vengeance.
The Anthropocene debate Some of its predictions are at I have heard of doing the same for
will be settled… eventually a rowan tree. However, it seems to
Want to get in touch? me that it is palm trees we should
8 May, p 12 really worry about, as they are the
From Bryn Glover, Kirkby Send letters to [email protected]; ones with fronds in high places. ❚
Malzeard, North Yorkshire, UK see terms at newscientist.com/letters
That we have begun a new Letters sent to New Scientist, 25 Bedford Street,
London WC2E 9ES will be delayed

26 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

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28 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

Seed shots

Photographer Levon Biss

RARELY have seeds and fruits so
closely resembled a work of art.
These strikingly intricate images
capture the fertilisation and
reproduction of plants.

The photos are taken from the
book The Hidden Beauty of Seeds
and Fruits: The botanical
photography of Levon Biss, which
showcases a branch of botany
dedicated to the study of seeds
and fruits called carpology.

Carpology places a focus on the
shape and structure of different
fruits and seeds. Biss chose the
most interesting specimens he
could find in the carpological
collection at the Royal Botanic
Garden Edinburgh, UK, to
photograph, all of which have
been dried or preserved.

The top row shows, from left to
right: a coco de mer fruit (Lodoicea
maldivica), split in half to reveal
the germinating seedling within;
a partially dissected Medang Pajal
fruit (Ternstroemia sp.) with its
seed exposed; the fruit head of
a giant banksia (Banksia grandis);
and a yangua fruit (Cybistax
antisyphilitica), known for its
unusual green-coloured flowers.

The bottom row shows,
from left to right: a nut from
the buckeye tree (Aesculus glabra);
a red-fleshed durian fruit (Durio
graveolens); the seed pod from
a field manioc shrub (Zeyheria
montana); and the seed pod of a
thorn apple (Datura stramonium).

Images from the book, published
by Abrams & Chronicle, are on
display at the Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh until September. ❚

Gege Li

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 29

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Views Culture

All about the menopause

There is a menopause information vacuum. A new book by gynaecologist
Jen Gunter is a terrific place to start, says Helen Thomson

Book

The Menopause Manifesto:
Own your health with facts
and feminism

Jen Gunter

Piatkus

I AM only 37 and I have

experienced the menopause

multiple times. Drugs for IVF

and endometriosis paused my

hormonal cycles on five separate

occasions, placing me in what

doctors call “artificial menopause”.

But there was nothing artificial

about the symptoms – the hot GUIDO MIETH/GETTY IMAGES

flushes that burned deep inside

my core at 2 am were a particular

shock. So when I came across

The Menopause Manifesto, written

by gynaecologist Jen Gunter,

I jumped at the chance to learn

more about what was in store “hot blooms” (as I find they that it is misogynistic to tie Gunter’s book provides
a description for a third of a
when the real thing hits. would have been called in the woman’s life to the function of plenty of information
her uterus and ovaries. We don’t
Despite the universal nature 18th century) are the least of it. define men as they age by an about treatments
obvious physical change in their
of menopause for half the planet’s Women can also expect abnormal reproductive function, she points remedies, and by “compound”
out. Yes, the menopause is a therapies – treatments that
population, few of us are fully bleeding, temporary cognitive marker for increased risk of heart resemble traditional HRT, but
disease for women, but so, too, which remain largely unregulated
informed about the symptoms, changes, vaginal dryness, pain she says, is erectile dysfunction for and untested, she says.
men. Imagine a world with men
physical changes, medical during sex, decreased libido and in what she calls the “erectopause”. There is information on drugs
like fezolinetant, too, which look
concerns or treatment options. joint pain. Not to mention the Running throughout the book promising for hot flushes. My
is a wealth of information on the copy has many page corners
According to Gunter, this increased risk of osteoporosis, physiological processes at play turned over – things I plan to
during a woman’s life. While it ask my doctor, now and later.
information vacuum is largely could do with a little pruning,
it can’t fail to leave you feeling “I am here to scare you about
down to medical misogyny. “We don’t define men completely wised up, without osteoporosis,” Gunter says in
Indeed, medicine’s long history as they age by an veering into a biology lesson. one chapter. It isn’t the only
of neglecting women means obvious physical scary thing she reveals about this
that menopause concerns are change in their As a gynaecologist, Gunter also future time in my life, but at least
still too often dismissed as reproductive function” has the authority to provide vital I am now better prepared, have
fabricated, unimportant or information on treatments, from the confidence to know what to
traditional hormone replacement ask, and feel able to have a more
just “part of being a woman”. therapies (HRT) to alternative grown-up conversation.
medicines. She also shows us
Gunter’s ambition is to change dementia, metabolic syndrome where we may be led astray by Gunter promises to give women
celebrity endorsements of natural strength, value, agency and
this conversation, which is worthy (a combination of diabetes, high knowledge to help them through
this transition in their life. She has
in all the right ways. Menopause blood pressure and obesity), unquestionably achieved that. ❚

shouldn’t be a fringe part of type 2 diabetes and urinary tract

women’s healthcare: aside from infections. Sound like something

quality of life issues, social impact you should know about?

and physical symptoms, there is Gunter’s teaching of the history

its link to cardiovascular disease. and biology around menopause

This is responsible for 1 in 3 female is second to none. Her opinions

deaths each year – more than die on the societal lens through which

from breast cancer. we view the menopause are just as

So it turns out that my 2 am interesting. She highlights the fact

32 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

Save our sun! Don’t miss

In the new sci-fi novel from The Martian author Andy Weir, an Listen
unlikely duo battle the decline of our star, says Clare Wilson The Wild introduces
us to colourful characters
early in the tale, so look away now But in Project Hail Mary, Grace as the podcast’s third
has no such luck; Rocky turns out to series sees ecologist
if knowing it would annoy you. be from a species of roughly similar Chris Morgan travel
intelligence and technological the US in search of
Book Grace encounters an alien life ability as humans. Cut off from amazing animals and
their home worlds, Grace and Rocky their larger-than-life
Project Hail Mary form. What’s more, in order to save have to use their ingenuity to learn human champions.
how to communicate, in laborious
Andy Weir our star, and therefore Earth, he trial-and-error fashion, at the same Read
time as working out how to save Reimagining Time by
Del Rey needs to be able to talk to this alien, the sun from impending doom. means of sketches and
Their relationship lends this book doodles (as indeed Albert
which he names Rocky because of much of its charm. Einstein did in his own
notebooks), artist and
I HAVE been a fan of apocalyptic its mineral-like outer covering. For me, there is perhaps a little sculptor Tanya Bub and
too much Martian-style detail her physicist father
sci-fi since I was hooked as a The “first contact” moment when about how Grace solves the many Jeffrey present an
engineering problems on his illustrated guide to
teenager by John Wyndham’s humans meet an alien species has, mission, but that didn’t stop all things relativistic.
me enjoying the tale.
1951 classic The Day of the Triffids. like world-ending events, long been Visit
Director Ridley Scott turned The Design in an Age of
From plagues to asteroids, I thought fertile ground for sci-fi. How the two Martian into a feel-good movie in Crisis is an online gallery
which a rational approach triumphs of design thinking,
I had heard all the different ways over adversity. It features Matt presented at this year’s
Damon as an astronaut marooned London Design Biennale.
civilisation could be doomed, but “I thought I’d heard all on Mars who has the immortal line: More than 50 countries
Andy Weir, author of The Martian, “I’m going to have to science the show 500 projects by
has come up with a new one. the ways to doom us, shit out of this.” That outlook could their designers, all aiming
but Andy Weir has equally apply to Grace and Rocky. to improve health, society,
In his latest work, Project Hail come up with a new environment and work.
Mary, an anomaly is discovered in Who knows, perhaps a few
coronavirus vaccine developers 29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 33
the sun’s radiation. Our star’s output end-of-the-world twist” took inspiration from it, too. ❚

has started to dim and the rate

of decline is exponential. Within would communicate if they don’t

20 years, there will be ice ages, share anatomy or biochemistry is

crop failures and mass starvation. not only an interesting philosophical

The explanation for the problem problem, but is being studied for

and how to solve it is almost too real, just in case.

far-fetched, yet Weir makes the Some sci-fi stories solve the

science seem just about credible. communication problem by gifting

In line with all good end-of- the aliens such superior intelligence

the-world tales, Project Hail Mary that they learn English from

explores such issues as how people terrestrial broadcasts that leak into

can adjust to societal changes space, arriving ready to talk turkey.

and whether authorities may ride

roughshod over civil liberties if it

saves lives overall. In a lesser way,

we have been forced to wrestle with

such questions in real life over the

past year thanks to the pandemic.

There’s also an unlikely

hero, astrobiologist-turned-

schoolteacher Ryland Grace, who

turns out to be uniquely qualified for

the space mission to save the sun. NASA/SDO
MILO BURCHAM/DESIGN PICS INC/ALAMY; MAD(E) IN MUMBAI
In an unusual twist, the story opens

as Grace wakes up on a ship with

dead crewmates and little to no

memory of what he is doing there.

And that isn’t even the most

interesting aspect of this book.

Spoiler alert: there’s a big plot twist

The health of Earth’s stellar
companion is crucial to life
on our planet

Views Culture

The TV column

Breaking out of prison in 2143 Intergalactic is packed with plot. As a group
escapes detention by commandeering a spaceship, we begin to uncover more
about the eco-fascist regime back home, finds Bethan Ackerley

Imogen Daines (left)
and Savannah Steyn
(right) in Intergalactic

Bethan Ackerley is a subeditor SKY UK LIMITED leaps, from the logistics of the
at New Scientist. Follow her breakout to a fight scene in
on Twitter @inkerley ON THE festering streets of there, she is drawn into a daring which Ash seems to teleport
between locations.
TV Old London, rookie cop Ash breakout attempt by Verona and
Yet there is plenty to like about
Intergalactic Harper (Savannah Steyn) chases a motley crew of inmates. Led by Intergalactic. For the most part,
each member of the Hemlock’s
Julie Gearey down Verona (Imogen Daines), ruthless matriarch Tula (Sharon crew feels fully realised; Tula and
Sky, NOW, Stan and Peacock Candy (Eleanor Tomlinson), an
a fugitive who has stolen a Duncan-Brewster), the women eccentric, fork-tongued drugs
Bethan also mule, are particularly interesting.
recommends... valuable commodity. Seemingly commandeer the Hemlock prison
By the end of the third
Game abandoned as the climate crisis ship in order to seek a new life in episode, the series has relaxed
its disorientating speed, and is
Mass Effect 2 intensified, London has become the fabled free world of Arcadia. all the better for it. A plot line
that sees Ash, Verona and a pirate
Commander Shepard must a literal underworld; in 2143, the In other shows, such events called Echo (Oliver Coopersmith)
assemble a rag-tag team raid a fuel depot – while the others
of criminals, vigilantes only structures left intact are might be considered meaty contemplate their dire fate if the
and murderers to undergo Hemlock runs out of juice – mixes
a suicide mission. Over the enormous pillars that hold enough to span two or three high-octane thrills with humour
countless playthroughs, and character development
I grew to love every member up the Commonworld, a network episodes. That they are packed (think Guardians of the Galaxy
of this dysfunctional family. without a talking raccoon).
of gleaming metropolises under
Book At this point, it also becomes
authoritarian rule. “The eco-fascist clear that the Commonworld is
The City & the City on shaky ground. The eco-fascist
Like me, you may think that regime will protect regime’s raison d’etre is to protect
China Miéville these superimposed cities Mother Earth at all Mother Earth at all costs – even if
Besźel and Ul Qoma occupy would be an excellent setting costs, even destroying that means destroying countless
the same geographical for a sci-fi show. I was therefore other worlds. The wider galactic
location, but the residents of community isn’t going to take that
each city must “unsee” their surprised that prison-break drama other worlds” lying down, and so Rebecca and
neighbours or risk being the Commonworld’s director,
taken by the Breach. This Intergalactic doesn’t linger here. Benedict Lee (Craig Parkinson),
premise is the perfect means face a growing revolution.
of exploring urban life. Instead, it jumps straight to the into one instalment tells you
Once these political
34 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021 action: just 10 minutes into all you need to know about the machinations begin to dovetail
with the lives of the prisoners,
the first episode, Ash is arrested show’s tone – it burns through particularly that of “enemy
of the state” Emma Grieves
and framed for stealing the cache plot at a breakneck pace, with (Natasha O’Keeffe), you finally get
the sense that the show is going
she retrieved from Verona. all the mayhem this entails. somewhere with all its sound
and fury. Messy and charming by
Despite the efforts of her For the first few episodes, turns, Intergalactic looks set to be
an original and exciting series – if
mother Rebecca (Parminder the show is oddly uninterested in it can keep its feet on the ground
and its head in the sky. ❚
Nagra), the Commonworld’s world-building, opting to get the

head of galactic security, Ash is set-up out of the way via a surfeit

sentenced to live out her days in of exposition-heavy dialogue.

an off-world prison colony. Yet And there are moments when

while she is being transported the narrative makes unexplained



Features Cover story

The dawn of the
quantum internet

The race is on to create a super secure online space
that channels the eerie power of the quantum world.
Stephen Battersby logs on

MANY of us have uploaded our lives Conventional, classical computers deal in engineering and logistics. Their full potential
to the internet. Banking, work digital units called bits. This is the amount is as yet unknown.
emails, social media, dating profiles, of information in the outcome of a coin toss,
medical records – all that vital, sensitive usually represented as having a value of 1 or 0. One thing we do know is that these
information. So it is a little disconcerting Every email, status update or photo on your incredible machines will mean we need a
that the internet has a fatal security flaw. Don’t phone is broken down and stored as bits. quantum internet – because it is quantum
panic; our private information is safe for now. computers that threaten our security. Many
But before very long the encryption algorithms Dealing in qubits encryption schemes that keep the internet
that protect us online are going to crack. secure are based on mathematical problems
That is rather limited when seen from the that are impractical for a classical computer to
That is the urgent driving force behind a new, perspective of the quantum world, where solve, such as factorising large prime numbers.
more secure kind of internet that harnesses we know particles behave in ways that can But a big enough quantum computer could do
the power of the quantum realm. Once up seem very strange. An atom, electron or this in a flash, using an algorithm devised by
and running, the system will be able to do a lot photon can be in a state where its properties Massachusetts Institute of Technology
more than protect our data. It could bring us aren’t determined. For example, it can have mathematician Peter Shor in 1994. That would
unforeseen quantum apps, and maybe become two different energies at once. These quantum undermine the security of everything that
the scaffold for a world-spanning quantum states are extremely delicate, but learn to relies on online communication, from email
computer of incredible power. manipulate them and you can deal in particles to power grids. “A lot of critical infrastructure
that store a quantum unit of information, still relies on such algorithms… including
Building the quantum internet is a huge and or qubit, encoding not only 0 or 1, but any my bank,” says Siddharth Joshi at the
multi-faceted engineering challenge, but the blend of 0 and 1 together. University of Bristol, UK.
foundations are already being laid. Networks
of fibres are spreading. Scientists are chatting Our burgeoning ability to do just this has Such a dangerously powerful quantum
in secret on local networks. There are even already produced impressive new technology, machine is probably at least 10 years away,
plans to use tiny satellites to enable long- such as ultra-sensitive detectors of gravity but the problem is urgent nonetheless. It
distance quantum connections. Sooner or and magnetic fields. Physicists are now able takes a long time to change cryptosystems,
later, we could all be joining the quantum to control dozens of connected qubits at and data sent today could be intercepted,
information superhighway. once, creating prototype quantum stored and decrypted when a powerful enough
computers. When these grow large enough, quantum computer becomes available.
Human culture and industry have long they promise to surpass any classical
been based on information. If you could get computer that could ever be built – at least Joshi and others want to fight qubits
the right kind of information, understand it when it comes to certain types of calculation. with qubits. If you communicate using the
and share it, you could gain power and profit. Among many other things, quantum quantum states of individual particles, then
The rise of the internet as we know it cemented computers should be able to simulate you can tell if anyone eavesdrops because the
the role of information and we are only chemistry to design new drugs and advanced very act of looking at the signal will change
beginning to feel its profound effects. Now we materials and solve knotty problems in those delicate states. This wouldn’t mean
are at the threshold of a new information age, replacing the internet, but building an added
which could change things all over again. layer of quantum communication links on >

36 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

OLLIE HIRST

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 37

top of it so users can share a key that would would be guaranteed, with even the owners of keys between eight users a few kilometres
keep their online exchanges secret. Internet the computer unable to snoop. This is called apart, all receiving entangled photons from
traffic would still travel through the cables it blind quantum computing, and it could enable the same laser source. It should be feasible to
does now, it would just be encrypted and anyone to use quantum computers without extend this to a few hundred people across a
decrypted with those keys. any risk of having sensitive data poached. city, says Joshi. So far, he has demonstrated
QKD and some similar protocols, but he says
This kind of quantum encryption, called Whispering diamonds that with more sophisticated modules to
quantum key distribution or QKD, has been receive the entangled photons the network
demonstrated many times in the past few A seed of the coming quantum internet has would support other applications, including
decades. The first QKD bank transfer was been sown in a laboratory in Delft, the blind quantum computing.
in 2004. There are many different schemes Netherlands. There, three tiny diamonds
for QKD, but some of the most secure are whisper to each other, forming a miniature Many other fledgling quantum networks
based on the quantum phenomenon of but fully functioning prototype network of are appearing, for example in Tokyo in Japan,
entanglement. You begin by putting two entanglement links. Inside each diamond’s Calgary in Canada and Los Alamos in New
qubits into a shared quantum state such that lattice of carbon atoms is a defect where a Mexico. These generally have only two or three
when one of them has its properties measured, single nitrogen atom sits. A pair of electrons nodes and are limited to QKD. But they are
the outcome of measurements on its twin at this site can emit a photon that is growing in range, with several stretching to
change in a predictable way, no matter entangled with them. Each diamond also more than 100 kilometres. The dream is to
where the two particles are. Say your two holds a one-qubit quantum memory, which extend this to connect millions of users across
qubits are photons. Send one of the entangled allows basic quantum information processing. the globe, carrying super-secure encryption
pair through an optical cable, and you have keys across countries and continents.
a means of exchanging a secure key. In a paper published in April, Ronald Hanson
and his team at QuTech, a research institute in Doing this will almost certainly involve
Links that carry much larger numbers Delft, showed they could link three diamonds piggybacking on the existing network of fibre-
of entangled qubits could allow for even in a network and pass quantum information optic cables that carries all today’s internet
more impressive applications, such as between them. In principle, this technology traffic and other telecoms data. But here we
sending messages in entirely quantum can be scaled up, allowing entanglement to run into a serious hitch: optical fibres aren’t
form. In the short term, quantum computers be shared between any number of nodes. completely transparent. Even if you use the
will be modest and probably housed far “This is the basic function that the quantum
apart from each other, at locations like internet needs to perform,” says Hanson.
universities or research centres. But quantum
communication links could connect them to The hardware doesn’t have to be diamonds.
create a quantum supercomputer. They could Other groups are exploring different ways of
also allow users to run programs on quantum handling and linking qubits. In Bristol, Joshi’s
computers remotely in such a way that security group has shown it can distribute quantum

China’s Micius
is the world’s
first quantum
communications
satellite

XINHUA/ALAMY

38 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

ROBBIE JONES/IBM Successors to To carry our quantum data far and wide,
IBM’s quantum we need a device known as a quantum
“The dream is to computer could repeater. Imagine two users called Alice and
connect millions crack the security Bob who want to chat. They each make a pair
of users, carrying of the internet of entangled qubits, and each send one of their
encryption keys pair to a quantum repeater in the middle.
across countries optimum wavelength of light, 50 kilometres The repeater performs a particular kind of
and continents” of fibre will absorb about 90 per cent of simultaneous measurement of the states
photons. That limits quantum-by-fibre to a of the two qubits it has received, designed
range of a few hundred kilometres at most. to entangle them. According to the rules of
Today’s fibre network uses amplifiers to boost quantum physics, this then entangles the
signals. “But you can’t send quantum signals two qubits retained by Alice and Bob, a process
through an amplifier,” says Tim Spiller at the called entanglement swapping. String many
University of York, UK, who leads the country’s quantum repeaters together in a line and you
multi-institution Quantum Communications can end up with entangled qubits at a much
Hub. In effect, amplifiers measure the signal, greater distance.
which would play havoc with the delicate
quantum data. If only we had a quantum repeater. They
have been on the wish list for years, but have
To extend the range of QKD, you can rely proved extraordinarily difficult to make.
on trusted nodes, devices that relay a However, at Stony Brook University in New
message by decrypting it and encrypting it York, Eden Figueroa and his group are
again to send it down the next section of fibre. beginning to put some of the pieces together.
China already has an impressive network, One critical component is what’s called an
with a 2000-kilometre-long backbone of in-and-out quantum memory that can catch
32 trusted nodes between Beijing and a flying qubit and hold it until required for the
Shanghai, and hundreds of links in total. simultaneous measurement. Figueroa’s
Problem solved? Not quite. Each node is quantum memory is based on a cloud of atoms
a security risk that, if compromised, could that can effectively do this with a photon. The
leak your message. Worse, this is no good device also needs to register when it has caught
for fancier applications like blind computing a photon without disrupting the particle’s
because the original quantum information sensitive quantum state. Last year, Figueroa
is discarded at each node. and his colleagues showed they could do this
by sending in another photon that interacts
only very weakly with the stored one.

These quantum memories have three
big pluses for practicality. They are portable,
coming in handy 40-centimetre modules.
They work at room temperature rather than
the frigid temperatures needed for many
atomic-cloud devices. They can also work at
normal telecoms wavelengths, as the team
showed last year when they connected two
of these devices 158 kilometres apart. “We
are getting close to entanglement swapping,
where everything has to work together,”
says Figueroa. Useful repeaters will not only
have to do all of this, but do it very efficiently.

Even boosted by repeaters, the fibre
quantum internet will be patchy. Links across
the ocean will be a particular problem because
existing undersea cables have built-in
amplifiers, spelling doom for qubits. If you >

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 39

The quantum
internet kit at QuTech
in the Netherlands is
some of the most
advanced yet

QUTECH constellation of small satellites. Several
projects are blazing the trail, including a
“The network could have many UK-Singapore mission called SPEQTRE,
quantum terminals, including and ROKS, a satellite built by a private
moving ones on ships and planes” consortium. Both are due to launch in 2022.

laid a dedicated quantum undersea cable, it The disadvantage is that it works slowly. To weave a world-wide quantum web
would have to include quantum repeaters that The two parties can only use an entangled pair on top of all this hardware, we will need the
could be relied on to work for a long time. when both photons in the pair make it to them, kind of software that lets us blithely use apps
and in any satellite link, the majority of the on the classical internet. Several layers of
So researchers are also looking at quantum light is lost because most photons either miss software, known as the internet stack, route
links using satellites. The front runner here the receiver or get absorbed by the data around the existing network, so the
is China, which in 2016 launched the Micius atmosphere. The Chinese ground stations are average user doesn’t need to worry about
satellite, carrying a quantum communications at high altitude and have large telescopes to act the plumbing. Stephanie Wehner at QuTech
toolkit. “When Micius launched, that got as receivers; and the satellite generates about is one of those working to build a quantum
everyone else to sit up,” says Daniel Oi at 6 million entangled pairs per second. But even internet stack. Then there’s the fun stuff, the
the University of Strathclyde, UK. then, the secret key was generated at a rate of actual apps. We still don’t know what could
only a fraction of a bit per second. Jian-Wei Pan be possible. New types of gaming? Novel
Micius encrypted a videoconference at the University of Science and Technology of forms of communication?
between Beijing and Vienna, Austria, in 2017, China in Hefei, who leads the work on Micius,
based on a form of QKD that has a high data says he is now working to boost this rate with When these extraordinary technologies
rate, but in which the satellite acts as a trusted several improvements including brighter have girdled the world, we might not
node. This will be fine for some users, such as sources of entangled light. notice at first. The effect should mainly
governments and corporations that can afford be an absence of problems: you don’t
their own satellites, but it won’t guarantee Quantum constellation lose access to your bank account, elections
security for all the users in a highly connected aren’t hacked, the lights don’t go out. In
future quantum internet. Then in 2019, Micius Pan and Oi both foresee a network with time, there will be more tangible benefits
was used to form a link between two ground many quantum terminals, including too, especially for science. Quantum data
stations in China, at Nanshan and Delingha, moving ones on ships and planes. links could allow telescopes to exchange
1200 kilometres apart, by splitting each “If you have many ground stations, a few information instantaneously to give
entangled pair of photons and sending one to big satellites won’t be able to service them,” astronomers a sharper view of the universe.
each station. This form of QKD is particularly says Oi. Instead, we will need a sprawling They could synchronise atomic clocks more
secure. Even if the satellite were compromised, accurately, and so make gravitational wave
the key would be immune to hacking. detectors more sensitive. Not to mention the
promise of shackling quantum computers
together to boost their power.

On the other hand, the quantum web will
surely turn the dark web darker still, and some
people are bound to take advantage. One
worrying suggestion is that terrorists could
use blind quantum computing to design
new weapons – and nobody would know.
Governments might consider putting back
doors into the hardware, “but that would
defeat the purpose of all this”, says Wehner.

Perhaps in the end, this new form of internet
will make the world simultaneously safer and
more dangerous. How very quantum. ❚

Stephen Battersby is a consultant

for New Scientist based in London

40 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

ANTONIO SORTINOFeatures

Why can I never
be bothered?

Some people seem to possess unlimited motivation,
others not so much. Self-confessed slacker
Amelia Tait wants answers

I’VE had three weeks to write the words
you are about to read, but they were
written at the last possible minute. Why?
I wasn’t busy exercising – I haven’t done that in
months. My time wasn’t spent at my book club
or calligraphy class, because I’m not involved
in anything of the sort. Nor did I procrastinate
by mastering the ultimate sourdough loaf –
just the thought of it makes me want to lie
down. Quite simply, I waited until the last
minute because I couldn’t be arsed.

My condition is what’s known colloquially
among my generation as “The CBAs” – the
“can’t be arseds”. In my case, it is chronic.
I can’t be arsed to go on a run. I can’t be arsed
to cook. I can’t be arsed to reply to my emails.

I’m not alone. According to a December
2020 survey by the Pew Research Center,
42 per cent of people in the US aged between
18 and 49 say they have struggled to find the
motivation to work since the beginning of the
covid-19 pandemic. That still leaves half of the
population who are fine, who get up and get
on. Then there are those people who wake
at 6 am and run 10 kilometres before work.
People who write their memoirs. People
who wash their curtains.

What are their secrets? Why do some people
have so much drive and others, like me, so
little? And is it possible for me to become a go-
getter? To find out, I mustered the motivation
to ask a few of the scientists who might know.

Motivation is what drives much of human
behaviour. It is what turns goals into actions,
whether you are nipping to the fridge, writing
an article or setting off up a mountain. It is
hardly surprising, then, that the process by
which you become motivated involves various
biological and psychological components, all >

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 41

“Could it be that all the
chocolatey cereal and
crisps are depriving my
brain of the ingredients
that generate drive? ”

in delicate interplay with our external differences in the motivation of these children
experiences of the world. can be attributed to their environment. The
problem is that it is impossible to create a
In other words, it is complicated – and what checklist of experiences that produce go-
lies behind individual differences is far from getters – the variables are too vast. Even
straightforward. “It’s the biggest question in something seemingly straightforward, like
the field,” says Kou Murayama, who leads the socio-economic status, is more complicated
Motivation Science Lab at the University of than it seems. You might think people who
Tübingen in Germany. experience hardship might be more motivated
to succeed professionally, for example.
Could it be down to DNA? That would save But we can’t say. “We know surprisingly little
me a lot of effort – if my laziness is baked into about how differences in opportunities
my genome, there is no point trying to change. impact human motivation,” says Tali Sharot,
Alas, Murayama quickly shoots me down. “It’s a neuroscientist at University College London.
wrong to think that there is a ‘motivation gene’,”
he says. In most cases, traits are determined Anticipating rewards
not by individual genes, but by constellations
of genes. And besides, behaviour tends to be If we are looking for the fundamental
shaped by what Murayama calls “the long differences between shirkers and strivers, we
history of the interaction between inherent can at least look at how we perceive rewards.
disposition and external environment”. Regardless of whether we are talking about
That’s nature and nurture to you and me. motivation being driven by satisfaction within
(intrinsic motivation) or by the promise of
The relative impact of each is controversial. external rewards (extrinsic motivation),
Ask most biologists and they will tell you that Sharot says that motivated and unmotivated
environment is the most important factor in individuals differ in their “reward sensitivity”.
determining people’s behaviour. But Robert Some get a greater kick out of rewards, whether
Plomin, a geneticist at King’s College London, it is the internal buzz after exercise or the
argues that our genes play a more important warmth you get from praise. “The same
role than many like to think, pointing to twin reward, let’s say £100, actually feels like
studies as evidence. £1000 to one person, but only feels like £10
to the other,” says Sharot. “The person who
That seems to be the case for one sort of feels they are working for £1000 will be
motivation. In 2015, a study of 13,000 sets of more motivated and work harder.”
twins from six countries, all aged between
9 and 16, found that 40 to 50 per cent of the We also have different expectations about
differences in motivation to learn could be how rewarding things will be. Two people
explained by genetics. “There are personality might have the same reward sensitivity – both
differences that people inherit that have a feel amazing when they get praise – but one
major impact on motivation,” said Stephen might struggle to predict this reward. “What
Petrill at the Ohio State University, one of
the authors of the study, at the time.

That still means that more than half of the

42 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

CREDIT I expect to happen is hugely important in me
deciding what I’m about to do,” says Sharot.
ANTONIO SORTINO
Using her analogies, it seems that I’m the type
of person who expects 10p rewards and feels
them as 5p rewards. Could that have something
to do with the way my brain processes rewards?

Neuroscientists have found that when
rodents receive a reward, specialised cells in
a brain region called the ventral tegmental
area fire up, passing the message onto cells in
another region, the nucleus accumbens, to
release the neurotransmitter dopamine.
More recent experiments have demonstrated
an intimate connection between dopamine
and motivation. When John Salamone at the
University of Connecticut reduced dopamine
levels in the brains of rats, for example, the
animals settled for a smaller pile of food
rather than go for a larger stash placed
behind a barrier. The results have been
corroborated in humans several times.

Dopamine deficient?

This makes sense when you consider that
many people who experience depression
report a dearth of motivation. “There is some
evidence that depressed individuals show a
blunted brain activation in the nucleus
accumbens to expected reward,” says Trevor
Robbins at the University of Cambridge,
although he says that depression is much
more complicated than that.

Can I blame a lack of dopamine for my
unwritten memoirs and unwashed curtains?
Robbins says there are individual differences
in dopamine function, but insists it isn’t as
simple as more dopamine equalling greater
drive. For one thing, the effects of dopamine
seem to depend on where in the brain spikes
occur. Brain imaging studies in humans have
found that while people who are willing to
work harder for rewards have higher release of
dopamine in areas of the brain known to play a
role in motivation, people who are less willing
to work hard had similarly high levels in
another brain region associated with
emotion and risk perception.

The neuroscience of motivation still
contains many mysteries. Last year,
Carmen Sandi at the Swiss Federal Institute >

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 43

“Each of us has different Mind hacks
expectations about how to maximise
rewarding things will be” motivation

of Technology in Lausanne and her colleagues Think realistically,
found that the ratio of two compounds, not just positively
glutamine and glutamate, in the nucleus
accumbens predicted the extent to which Having positive thoughts and mental images
people were able to stay motivated during about a desirable future makes us feel better
a physically demanding task. Glutamate is in the moment. But in the long-term, positive
the major excitatory neurotransmitter, and thinking saps motivation, according to
glutamine is its precursor. So the ratio between Gabriele Oettingen, a psychologist at New
the two can indicate the capacity a person has York University. Oettingen has found that
to produce glutamate on demand and thus people who engage in positive fantasies work
get engaged during motivated behaviour. less hard and perform less well than people
What Sandi found is that participants with a with more questioning, realistic thoughts. The
particular balance of these compounds were trick, she suggests, is to combine the two: think
more motivated to keep going than others. of a desired future as likely, but visualise the
obstacles involved in reaching it, too.
Sandi says that “we know very little” about
why the ratio might differ between individuals. Reward yourself
She is planning to investigate the connection
between levels of certain compounds and It is quite simple: “Any action that is rewarded
changes in motivated behaviours. But she isn’t is more likely to be repeated,” says Tali Sharot,
expecting results any time soon. “These are a neuroscientist at University College London.
not high-throughput experiments,” says Sandi. If you are the sort of person who doesn’t feel
an intrinsic buzz after exercise, for instance,
In the meantime, maybe there are you could find a way to reward or bribe
other interventions that motivationally yourself. Multiple studies suggest that
challenged people like me might consider. financial incentives boosted the willingness
If the neurobiology of motivation boils down of a previously sedentary individual to exercise.
to chemical signals, to what extent can we And these days, apps (sort of) pay you to work
hijack them to boost drive? out: Sweatcoin offers vouchers when you hit
step targets, while Charity Miles allows you
Rachel Alison Adcock at Duke University to earn money for charity when you run.
in North Carolina studies how non-invasive
neurostimulation can target the brain circuits Connect with
involved in motivation. She has demonstrated your future self
that people can self-activate their ventral
tegmental area, triggering dopamine spikes Altering our sense of how close the future is can
elsewhere, without the offer of external enhance motivation, says Daphna Oyserman,
rewards. The trick was to give participants a psychologist at the University of Southern
neurofeedback training, in which they look at California. Her studies show that when high
real-time displays of their brain activity to see school students are taught to relate to their
if they could affect its function. The results future selves in both positive and negative
scenarios, they work harder and get better
44 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021 grades. One approach might be to imagine
yourself months or years from now, in a future
where things have gone according to plan,
and write down what it looks like.

Exercise enhances
motivation, but how
do you motivate
yourself to exercise?

AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES be active, he says, by planning your journey to
work so it involves a walk, for example, we can
were impressive: people who did the training the dreaded word: exercise. Many studies overcome our automatic attraction to physical
were able to sustain stimulation and, have demonstrated that exercise can improve laziness. Once we exercise consistently and
encouragingly, showed increased our cognitive functions and enhance brain develop a habit, we enter a “virtuous cycle” in
connectivity in their reward pathways. dopamine synthesis. The problem is that, like which it takes fewer cognitive resources to
diet and motivation, exercise and motivation motivate ourselves to work out.
That seems like good news. It at least can have a cyclical relationship: you have to be
demonstrates that it is possible to hack your motivated to get moving in the first place. After my call with Boisgontier, I don’t
brain’s reward systems. And there is no need go for a run. I am, after all, automatically
to worry if you, like me, don’t have anyone to In 2018, Matthieu Boisgontier, a attracted to minimising effort. Instead, I call
hand that can give you neurofeedback training neuroscientist at the University of Ottawa Greg Gostinčar, a self-described biohacker and
because there are various solo techniques that in Canada, looked into a paradox involving founder of Your Inception, a company that
could help, from visualising your future self to exercise – even though the vast majority of researches and tests nootropics, supplements
avoiding positive thinking (see “Mind hacks to us intend to be physically active, many don’t claimed to help improve brainpower, including
maximise motivation”, left). do any exercise at all. Boisgontier and his motivation. His team ranks nootropics based
colleagues found that the brain has to exert on their ingredients and quality before testing
Diet of champions more effort to avoid sedentary behaviours. them in people and measuring the effects with
This led him to conclude that humans have an a brain-training game.
What you eat might also be a factor. Could it “automatic attraction to effort minimization”.
be that my diet of chocolatey cereal, cheese Gostinčar has personally tested more than
sandwiches and crisps is depriving my brain I’m thrilled. Boisgontier argues that our 50 of them. One left him “vomiting for quite
of the ingredients required to generate drive? brains evolved this way because the energy some time”. Another made him feel high. But
savings gave us a survival advantage. But by he credits nootropics with helping to turn his
“If I’m in a clinical setting, and someone organising our time in a way that forces us to life around. “I’m able to get in this flow state,”
hasn’t got any motivation, I would start to look he says. “I’m able to focus and stay focused
at what their protein intake looked like,” says Protein-rich foods help us to for much longer than ever before.”
nutritional therapist Jackie Lynch. Complete produce the brain chemicals
proteins like meat, fish, eggs and soya contain that keep us motivated Gostinčar is realistic: “Based on my
all the essential amino acids that work together experience, I’d say 90 per cent or even
to create core neurotransmitters such as NINA FIRSOVA/ALAMY more of supplements either don’t work, are
noradrenaline, which can help keep us underdosed or contain at least one risky
motivated. She adds that unmotivated people compound.” Although some studies have
may also be deficient in B vitamins – also found shown that a few nootropics – or at least
in protein-rich foods and others like bananas, certain ingredients within them – can boost
oats and milk – which convert what we eat into cognitive performance, many on the market
glucose to give us energy. “When I’m dealing have never been studied in a clinical setting.
with someone in your situation,” says Lynch,
“the only thing I’ll ask them to do after that first Clearly, there are no quick fixes. The reasons
consultation is add protein in.” Add hummus to I can’t be arsed are many and complicated, and
toast, for instance, or pumpkin seeds to cereal. some may be set in stone. And although I have
the power to boost my own motivation, I’m left
All of which seems reasonable. Then she says with a cruel, universal truth: diet and exercise
matter. I sprinkle some sunflower seeds on my
cereal, boil an egg and go for a long walk. Or at
least I think about it.

Whether I can become a go-getter in the
long-term remains to be seen. But hey, for
now, just look at all these words. ❚

Amelia Tait is a writer

based in London

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 45

Features

Companion
coronaviruses

Knowledge about the many coronaviruses
that infect pets and farm animals

can inform our battle with covid-19,
finds Anthony King

REPORTS of pet cats and dogs catching of their own. And they aren’t alone: them for decades. “Animal coronaviruses
covid-19 from their owners are coronaviruses commonly infect a range have lots to teach us about interspecies
mounting. They come as no surprise of domestic animals, including dogs, pigs, transmission, pathogenesis, immunity
and vaccines,” says Linda Saif, an expert
to virologist Gary Whittaker. For the past year, cattle and chickens. Yet, while SARS-CoV-2 in coronaviruses of livestock at Ohio State
University. This information could be
he has surveyed cats brought to a veterinary has become probably the most scrutinised extremely valuable as we try to work out
where SARS-CoV-2 came from and where
hospital around the corner from New York virus ever, very little attention has been it might be headed, and vital in our efforts
to learn how to live with this virus and try
Presbyterian hospital in Manhattan’s affluent paid to these other coronaviruses. to avert new pandemics.

Upper East Side, which was ground zero for That is a missed opportunity because Coronaviruses are weird, promiscuous and
flexible. They have the largest genome of any
covid-19 in the US last spring. His unpublished veterinary virologists have been studying RNA viruses and a complex spike protein, which
gives them a greater ability to evolve new forms
findings suggest that around 15 to 20 per cent and infect a wide variety of tissues and host
species. They are also capable of rapid evolution
of pet cats in the area have antibodies for because, while they mutate quite slowly –
typically about 30 times a year – small changes
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19. in these viruses can have colossal effects.

“The mild feline“Cats are easily exposed,” says Whittaker. Yet
most of them are doing fine, as are infected

virus transformsdogs. “What’s puzzling is that cats are dealing

with it pretty well, but they can’t cope with into a killer
their own coronavirus.” with just minor

It is alarming to think that we might pass

SARS-CoV-2 to our pets. But most people genetic tweaks”
are unaware that cats have coronavirus

46 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021

PLAINPICTURE/MYRIAM TIRLER

Although coronaviruses use around a found that they were all infected at least Pet dogs are far less threatened
dozen proteins to evade their host’s immune once, and up to three times. The virus can by SARS-CoV-2 than by their 
system, it is the spike that makes them so remain in a cat’s gut for weeks or months. own coronaviruses
adaptable. It consists of around 1300 amino During this period it is shed in their faeces,
acids, far more than is strictly necessary, and mirroring the persistent shedding of
makes the essential manoeuvres to allow the SARS-CoV-2 that surprised some clinicians,
virus to attach to and then fuse with a cell. but which animal virologists say is part of
“The thing about the spike is that it is very this viral family’s bag of tricks.
plastic,” says Whittaker, who is at Cornell
University in New York. “It’s big and with However, this mild feline virus transforms
that size comes power because it’s more into a killer with just minor genetic tweaks. “It
able to adapt to situations and gain entry to starts with one mutation in the spike protein,
cells.” This makes coronaviruses the master and thereafter a few more mutations occur,”
conjurors of the virus world. says veterinary virologist Peter Rottier at the
University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
Feline coronaviruses provide a perfect This ignites a devastating blitz, termed feline
example. The most prevalent one is fairly infectious peritonitis, which is nearly always
harmless, causing a stomach illness that is fatal. The mutations happen in a hidden part of
usually mild or asymptomatic. Most street the spike protein, which springs out and fuses
moggies have antibodies to it, signalling with the membrane of a host’s cell after the
prior infection. A 10-year study of 26 pet cats virus has latched on to it. It isn’t known why >

29 May 2021 | New Scientist | 47

“Viruses from mutations here make the virus so deadly, but Pigs are particularly prone to coronaviruses:
different species Whittaker suspects that they arise frequently they harbour half a dozen types and have
can swap genetic and cats usually suppress them. They seem regularly contracted new ones in recent
material to form to take hold more easily in stressed cats, decades. One of these causes a gut infection,
mash-ups” for example after surgery. Males are also which, until the 1980s, was a common and
more prone to the severe disease, another deadly disease of young pigs. Then, almost
characteristic of coronaviruses that has been overnight, it disappeared. Scientists were
apparent with SARS-CoV-2, says Whittaker. left scratching their heads, but eventually
discovered that pigs with a mild lung infection
Feline coronavirus illustrates how small had another coronavirus that differed from
mutations in the spike protein can alter the gut infection one by the removal of just
transmission too. Although the mutated one piece of spike protein. “One tiny little
virus is more deadly, it is unable to transmit tweak turned it from a virus that causes
from one cat to another. So far, several diarrhoea to one that exclusively replicates in
new variants of SARS-CoV-2 seem to do the lung,” says virologist Benjamin Neuman
the opposite, magnifying their ability to at Texas A&M University. The new swine
spread from person to person. Increased respiratory virus was very infectious and ran
transmissibility has proved problematic in rampant, mostly unnoticed, which solved the
our efforts to quash SARS-CoV-2, but it needn’t gut infection problem. “It spreads and thereby
necessarily be, as the evolution of another immunises the animals. The more virulent
coronavirus of domestic animals reveals.

Animal vaccines

For much of 2020, there was intense the first coronavirus discovered, and sprayed with vaccine formulations
media speculation about whether it it remains a major pathogen of poultry. containing weakened virus, and birds
would be possible to create a vaccine “Virtually every commercial chicken are often given a second vaccine of a
against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is vaccinated against IBV, which, like different strain a few weeks later. There
that causes covid-19. Veterinary SARS-CoV-2, is a respiratory virus,” says are hundreds of variants of IBV, so
pathologist Ian Tizard at Texas A&M virologist Paul Britton, who recently chicken flocks are constantly monitored
University had no doubt. “I found retired from the Pirbright Institute in and repeatedly vaccinated. “Vaccines
myself shouting at the television,” he the UK. One-day-old birds are usually often have to be made specifically for
says. Of course, that didn’t work, so different ones,” says Britton.
PETER CRIPPS/ALAMY instead he wrote a review highlighting
the fact that veterinarians have been As Tizard points out, animal
administering coronavirus vaccines coronavirus vaccines have some
to livestock and pets for years. downsides: protection can be relatively
short-lived and inactivated vaccines
In fact, the world’s most widely used are less effective than live ones.
vaccine is for a coronavirus – infectious Nevertheless, they are invariably
bronchitis virus (IBV). In 1939, IBV was cheap to make and lend themselves
to mass vaccination programmes.
The world’s most widely All of which bodes well for our
used vaccine is one for prospects of keeping covid-19
a chicken coronavirus under control with vaccination.

48 | New Scientist | 29 May 2021