New Scientist International Edition - October 01, 2022

This week’s issue

On the 43 Inside the There is just one week
cover Neanderthal mind to go until our flagship
science show. Visit our
38 How to beat insomnia 14 Could Earth plants website to see everything
The real reason you can’t grow in alien starlight? on offer, including newly
added talks and speakers.
sleep, and what to do about it 46 Secrets of Beirut’s
ancient glass newscientistlive.com
8 Brazil’s election
Last chance to save 12 Gene variants behind
chronic fatigue syndrome
the Amazon?
15 AI researchers who fear AI
Vol 256 No 3406 12 Best bubble recipe
Cover image: Jasu Hu 14 How sperm travel like cyclists
20 Why lemurs hug trees

News News SHUTTERSTOCK/BLUEORANGE STUDIO Features

9 Gene therapy 16 Not so fast Questions over India’s plan to reintroduce cheetahs 38 Rest easier
Treatment administered in the We finally know why insomnia
brain allows children to walk occurs, and how to beat it
and talk for the first time
43 What were you thinking?
10 Green seas Rebecca Wragg Sykes on
Decarbonising shipping will understanding the Neanderthal
cost $1 trillion by 2050 mind from objects left behind

11 Neptune’s rings 46 A shattered history
James Webb Space Telescope Discovering the long-lost story
sets sights on distant planet of glass through a devastating
explosion in Beirut
Views
The back pages
27 Comment
Benedict Macdonald 51 The science of cooking
on keystone species How to cook corn on the cob

28 The columnist 53 Puzzles
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Try our crossword, quick quiz
on the pace of research and logic puzzle

30 Aperture 54 Almost the last word
Aerial photos show Africa Can some people see the
transformed by industry ultraviolet band of a rainbow?

32 Letters 56 Feedback
Should we be trying to return Nose know-how and a hunt for
humans to the moon? thin things: the week in weird

34 Culture 56 Twisteddoodles
Digital doubles take to the for New Scientist
stage in dance piece Anti-Body Picturing the lighter side of life

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 1

Elsewhere A note from
on New Scientist the editor

Tour

SHUTTERSTOCK/ESDELVAL Dear readers,
At New Scientist, we believe that science is the best tool we have for
Costa Rica Join us to explore the country’s unique biodiversity understanding our universe (or, possibly, universes) and all the extraordinary
wonders that it (or they) may contain. We also believe that science and
Video technology provide us with the best tools we have for tackling the very
real challenges our world now faces.
UCL/IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON/UNIVERSITY OF BATH
All of this and more will be explored at our big live show at the ExCeL
High flying Could drones help us build tall, intricate structures? London, starting next week. This year, we have got four main stages:
Mind and Body, Our Planet, The Future and The Universe, each offering
Tour Newsletter fascinating talks from some of the world’s top scientists and technologists.

Costa Rica: The science Wild Wild Life On the exhibition floor, there will be numerous activities to try your
of biodiversity hand at, exhibits to pore over and chances to meet the scientists,
News and digital director Penny conservationists, academics and artists at our exhibition stands, all drawn
Join broadcaster Gaia Vince on an Sarchet asks what exactly is a together by their shared love of science and our precious natural world.
expedition to explore Costa Rica’s species? Why is it so hard to define?
fascinating ecosystems, including And is that a problem or even a good The show isn’t called New Scientist Live for nothing, and this year, you
cloud forests, volcanic zones and thing? She also brings news from will have the opportunity to properly meet many of our journalists, either
marine reserves. Twelve days the deep biosphere, which is the at informal, fireside-style chats at our exhibition stand or at daily ask-us-
from 29 November, for £5249. largest habitat you’ve never heard of. anything sessions. Rowan Hooper and his team will also be recording
newscientist.com/sign-up a special “ask us anything” episode of the New Scientist Weekly podcast
newscientist.com/tours from the show: it’s your chance to put us on the spot and to hear yourself
Essential guide on our podcast. If you have any questions you would like to send us in
Video advance of the show, please do email them to [email protected].
The Solar System
Building on the fly This year, Friday is for schools only, and then Saturday and Sunday are
How does the sun work? Why does for everyone else. As I write, there are national rail strikes planned for the
Check out drones working together the moon matter? Is there alien life? Saturday, but we very much hope our UK readers will find their way to us
to create 3D-printed cylinder Knowledge of our solar system has nonetheless. As we went to press, the news was that most Transport for
structures made of foam or reached new heights – but there London services, including the tube and buses, would be running. The
cement. The experiments are is still much to discover about our exhibition centre also has parking. For more details on how you can get
paving the way for a future nearest planets and the worlds to the show, please go to newscientistlive.com.
where swarms of drones could beyond. Explore more in the latest
help construct extremely tall New Scientist Essential Guide. All the very best to you, and for those who live close enough and are
or intricate structures. shop.newscientist.com able, we hope to meet you at the show. For anyone too far away to come
but who might still be interested, the show is available digitally this year.
youtube.com/newscientist You can join the stream live or watch on-demand after the show.

Emily Wilson

New Scientist editor-in-chief

Physicist Carlo
Rovelli speaking
at New Scientist
Live in 2018

JONNY DONOVAN

2 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Subscriptions

INTRODUCTORY OFFER

12 WEEKS

FROM JUST £13.75

SAVE 83%*

Whether it’s how to beat insomnia, the fate of the Amazon or getting Scan me to sign up
inside the Neanderthal mind, New Scientist explores the biggest
questions surrounding the most fascinating topics.

Sign up today at newscientist.com/18578

or call: +44 (0) 330 333 9470, quoting 18578

*Saving based on the full cover price of £6.95. Offer available on ’web’, ‘digital’, and ‘digital + print packages’. Prices start from £13.75 for web
subscriptions. Other packages are also included in the offer. This is an auto-renewing subscription. In the unlikely event that you wish to cancel

your subscription, we offer a 14-day cooling-off period after the initial payment is made. This offer ends 19 October 2022.

The leader

No one size fits all

Progress on insomnia suggests we need a more nuanced approach to mental health

THERE can be few things more debilitating on identifying the different types and causes, before considering treatments.
This approach – sometimes called
than going to bed, after a long and tiring treating them accordingly, should be a
precision psychiatry – isn’t entirely new,
day, and being unable to drift off. The flag-bearer for a new way to think about and it is fair to say that progress has been
slower than many would have hoped.
harder you try to fall asleep, the more mental health problems more broadly. Studies performed to-date indicate there
may be limited scope for personalised
difficult it becomes – a vicious cycle Take depression. For decades, the go-to treatments for mental health. And in the
UK at least, there is a shortage of specialist
of unwanted wakefulness that takes a treatment strategy has been to prescribe mental health practitioners.

significant toll on the lives of millions. drugs that boost levels of serotonin in the But that isn’t to say we should give up
on the idea. In other areas of medicine,
But it doesn’t have to be this way, such as cancer, personalised treatments
are beginning to be made available, and
because a new, more nuanced “Underlying recent successes is some of those taking them have seen
spectacular improvements in their health.
understanding of insomnia has made the recognition that there isn’t With mental health problems continuing
to rise across the world, even limited
it a solvable problem, as we report in one type of insomnia but many” success would be transformative. ❚

our cover story on page 38. Underlying

this improved understanding is the brain and yet, as a recent study found, low

recognition that there isn’t one type of levels of this chemical messenger don’t

insomnia but many – a departure from appear to be the primary cause of the

the standard “one-size-fits-all” approach condition for most people. One person’s

to the diagnosis and treatment of mental depression isn’t the same as another’s.

health problems, which is failing. Instead, we should identify the different

This recent progress on insomnia, built types of depression, and the different

PUBLISHING & COMMERCIAL Chief executive Nina Wright EDITORIAL
Executive assistant Lorraine Lodge
Commercial and events director Adrian Newton Team administrator Olivia Abbott Editor-in-chief Emily Wilson
Magazine editor Catherine de Lange
Display advertising Finance & operations News and digital director Penny Sarchet
Tel +44 (0)203 615 6456 Email [email protected] Chief financial officer Amee Dixon
Financial controller Taryn Skorjenko Creative director Craig Mackie
Sales director Justin Viljoen Commercial finance manager Charlotte Thabit
Account manager Matthew Belmoh, Mila Gantcheva Commercial finance manager Anna Labuz News
Management accountant Charlie Robinson News editor Jacob Aron
Partnerships account manager David Allard Commercial management accountant Alexandra Lewis Assistant news editors Chris Simms,
Alexandra Thompson, Sam Wong
Recruitment advertising Human resources Reporters (UK) Michael Le Page, Matthew Sparkes,
Tel +44 (0)203 615 6458 Email [email protected] Human resources director Shirley Spencer Clare Wilson, (Aus) Alice Klein
HR business partner Purnima Subramaniam Trainees Jason Arunn Murugesu, Alex Wilkins
Recruitment sales manager Viren Vadgama
Key account manager Deepak Wagjiani CONTACT US Intern Carissa Wong

New Scientist Events newscientist.com/contact Digital
Tel +44 (0)203 615 6554 Email [email protected] Audience editor Matt Hambly
General & media enquiries Podcast editor Rowan Hooper
Sales director Jacqui McCarron UK Tel+44 (0)203 615 6500 Web team Emily Bates, Chen Ly, David Stock
Head of event production Martin Davies Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT
Head of product management (Events, Courses Australia 58 Gipps Street, Collingwood, Victoria 3066 Features
& Commercial Projects) Henry Gomm US PO Box 80247, Portland, OR 97280 Head of features Daniel Cossins and Helen Thomson
Marketing manager Emiley Partington
Events and projects executive Georgia Peart UK Newsstand Editors Colin Barras, Abigail Beall, Anna Demming,
Marketforce UK Ltd Tel +44 (0)33 0390 6555 Kate Douglas, Alison George, Joshua Howgego
New Scientist Discovery Tours Feature writer Graham Lawton
Director Kevin Currie Syndication
Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0)20 7588 7588 Culture and Community
Marketing & Data Comment and culture editor Alison Flood
Marketing director Jo Adams Email [email protected]
Director of performance marketing Senior culture editor Liz Else
and audience development Jeffrey Baker Subscriptions
Head of campaign marketing James Nicholson newscientist.com/subscription Subeditors
Head of customer experience Emma Robinson One year print subscription (51 issues) UK £270 Chief subeditor Eleanor Parsons
Head of audience data Rachael Dunderdale Bethan Ackerley, Tom Campbell, Jon White
Senior email marketing executive Natalie Valls Tel +44 (0)330 333 9470
Email marketing executive Ffion Evans Email [email protected] Trainee Tom Leslie
Digital marketing manager Jonathan Schnaider Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road,
Senior customer experience marketing manager Esha Bhabuta Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH Design
Senior marketing executive Sahad Ahmed Art editor Julia Lee
Marketing executive Tilly Howarth © 2022 New Scientist Ltd, England. New Scientist is published Joe Hetzel, Ryan Wills
Marketing assistant Charlotte Weeks weekly by New Scientist Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. New Scientist (Online)
Picture desk
Digital Products ISSN 2059 5387. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and Picture editor Tim Boddy
Digital product development director Laurence Taylor printed in England by Precision Colour Printing Ltd
Production
Technology Production manager Joanne Keogh
Chief operations officer International Production coordinator Carl Latter

Debora Brooksbank-Taylor New Scientist US
Technology director Tom McQuillan US Editor Tiffany O’Callaghan
Maria Moreno Garrido, Dan Pudsey, Editors Timothy Revell, Chelsea Whyte
Reporters Leah Crane, James Dinneen, Jeremy Hsu,
Amardeep Sian, Piotr Walków Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Grace Wade, Corryn Wetzel
Front end developer Damilola Aigoro
Junior front end developer Matthew Staines Subeditor Alexis Wnuk

Program manager Jennifer Chilton

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 5

News Under pressure Asteroid detectives Gut feeling Save the banana
Whale brains have a Astronomers trace Microbiome can Creating resistance
Bubble trouble trick to stay safe from fireball to space rock influence malaria to fruit-threatening
Cloud of electrons swimming forces p10 that made it p16 severity p19 fungus p22
spotted orbiting
black hole p9

Planning rules in
wildlife zones
could be relaxed

KEN JACK/GETTY IMAGES to be up for negotiation. The
government hopes to extend the
Environment scheme to Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland.
Alarm at UK growth push
There have been similar ideas in
Environmentalists are raising concerns over government plans for the UK and elsewhere before. The
development that they fear will hit nature, reports Michael Le Page last government announced plans
for “Freeports” where different
WORRIES are rising that wildlife Protection of Birds stated on finalised. A fact sheet says: “The regulations apply. What’s more,
could be in the firing line of the 23 September. “If they carry out need for planning applications there are already 48 “enterprise
new UK Conservative government their plans, nowhere will be safe.” will be minimised and where zones” across England that
bid to boost economic growth. planning applications remain “benefit from tax and planning
“Rather than ramp up action necessary, they will be radically concessions”, but have generated
The administration’s “mini- to support our environment, this streamlined… We will set out far fewer jobs than forecast,
budget”, unveiled by chancellor government appears, however, further detail on the liberalised according to a 22 August House
Kwasi Kwarteng on 23 September, to be heading in the opposite planning offer for Investment of Commons research briefing.
included plans to set up low-tax direction,” stated Hilary McGrady, Zones in due course.”
investment zones with relaxed the head of the National Trust, Sources within the government
planning restrictions in parts of a charity that manages large “This government has have also confirmed that the
England. Separately, it has also areas of land in the UK. launched an attack Environmental Land Management
emerged that it is likely to ditch on nature. Nowhere Scheme (ELMS) will be scrapped
plans under which farmers and “Everything we have and will be safe” before it even comes into effect,
landowners in England would everything we do depends upon according to The Observer
be paid for helping preserve and the health and vibrancy of… The government says it newspaper. The idea was to pay
enhance areas for wildlife. nature,” tweeted Conservative is in discussions with 38 local farmers to manage land in a way
MP Ben Goldsmith, implying authorities in England to establish that is more beneficial to wildlife
This has led to a widespread a rethink is needed. “Britain is investment zones. The authorities and the wider environment.
outcry from environmentalists. one of the most nature-depleted cover most of England, but which
countries on Earth,” he added. areas will become zones appears Instead, farmers may get paid
“This government has today per area of land they own, as under
launched an attack on nature,” Plans for the investment zones the Common Agricultural Policy
the UK’s Royal Society for the are vague, with no details yet (CAP) of the European Union that
the UK was meant to be moving
away from after Brexit. Wildlife
campaigners say the CAP has
harmed biodiversity as a result of
subsidising intensive agriculture
and paying farmers to keep
land clear even if it isn’t used
to grow crops.

The replacement of CAP with
ELMS was seen by environmental
campaigners as one of the few
potential upsides to Brexit.

“The utter madness of this,” said
Craig Bennett at The Wildlife Trusts
on Twitter. “If we revert to an
agricultural system where people
get given taxpayers’ money on
[the] basis of how much land they
own, then one of the few potential
environmental benefits of Brexit
will have been squandered. It will
be unfair and unsustainable.”  ❚

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 7

News

Analysis Brazil election

Decision time for the Amazon If Brazil re-elects Jair Bolsonaro as president,
the impact on the rainforest could be catastrophic, while his rival Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva is promising to reverse environmental damage, reports Luke Taylor

SINCE Brazilian president Jair ERALDO PERES/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK as stepping up forest monitoring,
Bolsonaro took office in 2019, they sought to tackle the causes
deforestation records in the Experts blame Bolsonaro for Jair Bolsonaro is facing of deforestation by promoting
Amazon rainforest have the destruction. The president sustainable production and
repeatedly been broken as his has stripped environmental off against Luiz Inácio formalising land ownership.
administration pursued a policy of regulations, appointed military
environmental deregulation. Now, officials who seek to develop the Lula da Silva The task this time would be
ahead of the nation’s 2 October Amazon to run environmental more complicated. Growing
election, the Amazon is under institutions and publicly by dissolving many of Bolsonaro’s mining communities depend
increased threat as land-grabbers encouraged colonisation of decrees, appointing experts to on the illicit gold they extract
are exploiting what could be their the rainforest. “The Bolsonaro environmental agencies and from Indigenous reserves, new
final opportunity to clear trees administration has been a purging Indigenous reserves roads have been constructed
without retribution, says Philip complete disaster for the of illegal miners. and regions of the Amazon
Fearnside at the National Institute environment,” says Fearnside. have become lawless.
for Research in Amazonia. The former president has
Bolsonaro’s main opponent, also proposed more ambitious If elected, Lula’s strategy
The number of fires in the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was measures, such as the creation of a will have to be more ambitious
Brazilian Amazon usually president from 2003 to 2010 and carbon-pricing scheme, a ministry this time round, says Izabella
increases in June, when ranchers leads the latest polls with 41 per dedicated to Indigenous peoples Teixeira, his adviser on the
take advantage of a drop in rainfall cent to Bolsonaro’s 37 per cent. and a National Climate Change environment and Brazil’s
to clear land. But even for the dry To win in the first round and Authority to ensure Brazil’s environment minister from
season, the level of blazes in the avoid a run-off poll, scheduled for policies are in line with its 2010 to 2016. As well as military
Amazon this year has shocked Paris Agreement targets. operations to clear the Amazon
conservationists: 31,513 fires were 75% of illegal miners, loggers and
detected by Brazil’s national space Conservationists have raised ranchers, the government has
agency in August, the highest Increase in annual deforestation concerns over mega-dams to improve regulation of food
number in 12 years. constructed when Lula was in and gold markets, incentivise
since Jair Bolsonaro took office power, but the former union sustainable production and use
“People realise they can get leader has a strong track record technology to make agriculture
away with ignoring all the current 30 October, a candidate must gain on defending the Amazon: more sustainable, she says.
environmental regulations under 50 per cent of the votes. Former deforestation plunged 72 per cent
Bolsonaro, but the end of his governor of the state of Ceará, between 2004 and 2016, when Lula “I think that Lula is very
first term is looming and many Ciro Gomes, and senator Simone and then his successor Dilma cautious to understand that this is
assume he may not be re-elected,” Tebet are also in the presidential Rousseff – also representing the a huge challenge and is completely
says Fearnside. race, but are outsiders, polling Workers’ party – were in power. different than it was in the past,”
8 and 6 per cent, respectively. says Teixeira.
Issues like inflation and hunger Lula’s administration made
are high on the political agenda, Lula says he will reverse Amazon conservation a central Lula would unite the
but the vote is also a referendum the environmental damage goal for all government ministries, government with the private
on the future of the Amazon, say says Suely Araújo at the Climate sector, scientists and civil society
researchers. “I don’t say this lightly Observatory in São Paulo. As well to tackle the root causes of
as a scientist, but this is the most deforestation, Teixeira adds.
important election ever in Brazil As president, he would also seek
for the Amazon and its survival,” to restore the international
says Erika Berenguer at the relationships and conservation
University of Oxford. funding that have been lost under
Bolsonaro, turning Brazil into a
The amount of forest lost global leader on tackling climate
in the Amazon each year is now change, she says.
75 per cent higher than when
Bolsonaro took office, with Meanwhile, Bolsonaro has
13,000 hectares cleared in 2021 played down the growing
alone, the largest annual figure deforestation. He told the UN
since 2008. This deforestation General Assembly in New York
has pushed the Amazon to a on 20 September that the Amazon
tipping point that could see the is as pristine today as it was in the
rainforest become a savannah. 1500s. His office didn’t respond
to a request for comment. ❚

8 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Join us at New Scientist Live

A brief history of your brain with Emma Byrne
newscientistlive.com

Health

Gene therapy infused into the brain

eases debilitating rare condition

Alice Klein

A GENE-REPLACEMENT therapy Many also experience “oculogyric adeno-associated virus type 2, participants who have since
that is administered directly to the crises”, where their eyes roll up modified so it doesn’t harm. learned to walk and one of three
brain has allowed some children into their heads. Most die at a The treatment is infused into who have learned to talk. “Speech
with a rare genetic condition to young age, he says. a part of the brain called the is the most difficult thing for
walk and talk for the first time. putamen through a small hole patients to learn because it uses
Upstaza was developed by PTC that is drilled into the skull. so many muscles,” says Hwu.
“It’s a dream come true,” says Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical
Richard Poulin, whose daughter company based in New Jersey. It Since 2010, Hwu and his A common side effect of the
Rylae-Ann received the therapy in replaces the faulty DDC gene with colleagues have trialled the gene gene therapy was dyskinesia, or
November 2019, aged 18 months. a version that functions normally. therapy in 30 children with AADC sudden uncontrolled movements,
Rylae-Ann, who lives in Thailand, This version is delivered into deficiency at the National Taiwan but this resolved in all cases.
went from being unable to say any brain cells via a virus called University Hospital. The children
words, move or even lift her head ranged from 18 months to 10 years In the past, some early gene
to “running, jumping, kicking a Rylae-Ann was unable old at the time of treatment, and therapies caused cancer. Upstaza
ball, riding a horse, swimming and to move before the mostly lived in Taiwan and other shouldn’t stimulate abnormal cell
speaking in multiple languages”, gene therapy South-East Asian countries, where growth because the virus used to
according to Poulin. the condition is most prevalent. deliver the DDC gene variant is
JUDY WEI non-replicating, as are the brain
Rylae-Ann was born with AADC Following treatment, the cells it is delivered to, says Hwu.
deficiency, a genetic condition children all improved in their
with fewer than 150 documented motor and cognitive function, The gene therapy was approved
cases worldwide. It is caused by and had fewer oculogyric crises, by the European Medicines
a faulty variant of a gene called according to clinical trial Agency in July. PTC Therapeutics
DDC that prevents the brain from results presented at the annual plans to seek approval from the
making dopamine and serotonin. symposium of the Society for US Food and Drug Administration.
the Study of Inborn Errors of
Without these important Metabolism in Freiburg, Germany. Poulin says the therapy has
neurotransmitters, children with worked better for Rylae-Ann, now
AADC deficiency “don’t have head “The ones who got it before 4, than he and her mother Judy
control, they cannot sit up, they 4 years of age, it’s quite a dramatic could have ever hoped. “We didn’t
cannot walk or talk – they are difference,” says Hwu. “We say know what to expect – would she
bedridden”, says Wuh-Liang Hwu they have been reborn.” be able to lift her head? But now,
at the National Taiwan University when I get home, she runs up and
Hospital, who led a clinical trial of Rylae-Ann sat up just one gives me a big hug and kiss and
the gene therapy, called Upstaza. month after receiving the gene says, ‘Daddy, Daddy, I love you’,”
therapy. She is one of seven trial he says. “It’s incredible.” ❚

Astronomy

Hot electron bubble submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile at about 30 per cent the speed experience less shear force as
whizzes around our to observe the area surrounding of light. The researchers were only it travelled around the black hole,
galaxy’s black hole Sagittarius A* as the black hole able to see it for two orbits before so it would live longer. “It’s a huge
was emitting a huge flare of X-rays. it faded from view, meaning it was bubble, it’s not a tiny little guy.”
A BUBBLE of hot electrons appears either destroyed or was no longer
to be circling Sagittarius A*, the Minutes after the flare occurred, emitting light in wavelengths From observations of the two
supermassive black hole at the the researchers saw an enormous ALMA can observe (Astronomy orbits, the researchers managed
centre of the Milky Way, at “hot spot” of radiation, most likely & Astrophysics, doi.org/gqvmcw). to determine that the magnetic
extraordinary speeds. This strange made up of electrons heated to fields affecting the bubble seem
bubble could help us learn about billions of degrees, circling the “The bubble cannot be too small, to be aligned as we would expect
how black holes devour the material black hole on an orbit roughly the because a small bubble would them to be based on a model of
around them. distance that Mercury’s sits from not disappear that quickly,” says black holes called the magnetically
the sun in our solar system. Wielgus. A small bubble would arrested disc model.
Maciek Wielgus at the Max Planck
Institute for Radio Astronomy in Mercury takes 88 days to orbit “The bubble cannot be “It tells us that maybe our
Germany and his colleagues used the sun, whereas it only took this too small, because a models of these systems really
the Atacama Large Millimeter/ bubble about 70 minutes to make small bubble would not have something to do with reality,”
a loop around Sagittarius A*, disappear that quickly” says Wielgus. ❚
meaning that it was travelling Leah Crane

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 9

News

Climate change Animals

Decarbonising shipping will Blood vessel web
cost more than $1 trillion protects the brain of
a swimming whale
James Dinneen
Corryn Wetzel
MORE than $1 trillion of shipping industry has made literally nothing happening
investment is required to so far, focusing on what they in the shipping space [on A NETWORK of blood vessels in
decarbonise the shipping call a “breakthrough” target decarbonisation],” says whales’ brains may protect them
industry by 2050, according of using zero-emission fuel for Rasmus Bach Nielsen at from powerful pressure pulses
to a report released at the 5 per cent of international and Trafigura, a global commodities generated during swimming.
Global Maritime Forum 15 per cent of domestic shipping trading company.
summit in New York during fuels by 2030. Whales get around by moving
Climate Week NYC. Despite commitments, their tails up and down which, in
“Even though 5 per cent the industry is only “partially combination with breath-holding,
The shipping industry is sounds small, it implies that on track” towards the 2030 sends a wave of pressure from the
responsible for about 3 per all of the necessary conditions targets, the report finds. tail to the head. This would typically
cent of total global greenhouse start being in place” for rapidly cause injury to the brain, but whales
gas emissions. Most of the increasing use of zero-emission “Now we’re at that stage manage to evade such damage.
industry’s emissions come from where it’s about seeing
fossil fuels burned to propel the 3% commitments turn into “The squeezing actions create
more than 100,000 large ships real-world actions,” says pressure pulses which can travel in
on the ocean – and total The shipping industry’s Baresic. “Is the money there? the blood through veins or arteries,”
emissions could more than Are we actually seeing the says Robert Shadwick at the
double by 2050 without efforts contribution to global emissions construction of the ships University of British Columbia in
to decarbonise. and the infrastructure?” Canada. “Unlike a running mammal,
fuel from that point on, says [whales] cannot alleviate the
Improving energy efficiency Baresic. Almost no zero- The report counts at least locomotion-induced pulses by
could significantly reduce emission fuel is currently 203 green shipping pilot exhaling air.”
emissions from shipping, but used for shipping, he says. projects underway but says
fully decarbonising requires those must now translate to Researchers discovered
replacing fossil fuels outright The International Maritime longer-term commitments, such blood vessel webs known as
with zero-emissions fuels Organization, the UN agency as investments in zero-emission retia mirabilia in the brains of
produced using renewable that regulates international fuel infrastructure. Some ships deep-diving whales in the 1600s.
energy and methanol, says shipping, has adopted a strategy could be powered with electric To investigate their function,
Domagoj Baresic at University to reduce shipping emissions batteries, nuclear power or even Shadwick’s team created a model
Maritime Advisory Services, a by 50 per cent by 2050. A more wind-powered sails, though the that simulates pressure changes in
shipping consultancy in the UK. ambitious plan to reduce report considers zero-emission a whale while swimming, based on
shipping emissions by 100 per fuels to be the central strategy. the characteristics of 11 cetaceans.
Baresic and Katharine Palmer cent by 2050 has been signed by
at Lloyd’s Register, a maritime at least 14 countries, including Twenty-two countries have The analysis revealed that retia
services company in the UK, the US and the UK. also committed to create six mirabilia help maintain steady
considered what progress the zero-emissions shipping routes blood pressure in the brain without
“Two years back, there was by 2025, which could help create dampening the pressure pulses
the infrastructure needed to or the power of the whale’s tail
SHUTTERSTOCK/AERIAL-MOTION scale up green shipping. (Science, doi.org/gqvnkm).

In all, the report estimates The web of blood vessels reroutes
that decarbonising global pressure from arteries entering the
shipping by 2050 would brain to veins leaving it, protecting
require between $1 trillion the organ from pressure swings
and $1.4 trillion of investment. without changing how blood
moves elsewhere.
“It’s a big number,” says
Baresic, but it would derive from “The simulations showed that
global investments from many the retia [mirabilia] could eliminate
industries spread over decades. over 90 per cent of the harmful
effect of locomotion-induced
“Now we’ve got a common pulses by this transfer mechanism,”
destination,” says Palmer. says Shadwick.
“The question is how fast
will we go there.” ❚ The work also helps explain
why marine mammals like seals
A tanker near the lack retia mirabilia. They swim via
commercial port side-to-side undulations, so avoid
of Piraeus, Greece sending a hazardous pressure pulse
to the brain. ❚

10 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Astronomy NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI

Neptune on display

A stunning view of the planet’s rarely seen ring system from JWST

Leah Crane

THE James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST) has seen Neptune’s rings and
some of its moons.

Neptune appears blue in visible
wavelengths due to methane gas in
its atmosphere, but the gas absorbs
the infrared light that JWST observes,
so the planet appears to glow a
white colour here. The brightest
areas are icy clouds high in the
atmosphere, which reflect sunlight
before methane can absorb it.

Also visible are Neptune’s two
bright rings, and two fainter ones.
The rings are full of dust, which
makes them dimmer and harder
to spot than shining, icy rings like
the ones that encircle Saturn.

“It has been three decades since
we last saw these faint, dusty rings,
and this is the first time we’ve seen
them in the infrared,” said JWST
scientist Heidi Hammel in a
statement, referring to when NASA’s
Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past the
planet in 1989. ❚

Technology

Robot navigates rooms using magnetic fields

A ROBOT can autonomously on fighter jets, which relies on have focused on taking magnetic its location guesses in terms
navigate inside a building using the unique patterns produced measurements and GPS readings of probable correctness. Within
a magnetometer and a detailed by the geology of Earth’s crust together to test the accuracy of the several readings, the robot can
map of local magnetic anomalies. and, crucially, can’t be jammed. concept, and his team’s robot is determine where it is and begin
one of the first demonstrations of to navigate to a target destination
The technique could provide Now, Prashant Ganesh at the real-time, autonomous magnetic (arxiv.org/abs/2208.00988).
a means for people as well as University of Florida and his anomaly navigation.
robots to find their way around colleagues have collaborated Ganesh says that when mapping
large buildings. with a scientist from the Air Force The team’s small robot takes the lab, the sensors picked up on
Research Lab at Eglin Air Force a reading of the magnetic field at metal pipes beneath the floor,
Satellite navigation systems Base in Florida to demonstrate its initial location and generates which became landmarks for the
like Russia’s GLONASS and the that a similar technique can be a database of possible locations robot just as mountains or ridges
European Union’s Galileo can used indoors by robots. based on its anomaly map. As would be for an aircraft.
provide accurate location the robot moves – at a constant
information all over the planet, The team created a map of rate of 20 centimetres a second – it It may be some time before
but they have weaknesses. Signals the magnetic anomalies in an gathers more readings, and ranks magnetic navigation becomes
can be jammed in times of 11-metre-by-6-metre area of a lab a practical consumer tool. The
conflict, as GPS signals currently and showed that a robot equipped “Metal pipes beneath the magnetic sensors used cost
are in Ukraine, and they tend to with a magnetometer could floor became landmarks $10,000 and, at 16 centimetres
be difficult to pick up indoors. navigate to waypoints despite not for the robot just as long, are too bulky to fit inside
being told its starting position. mountains are for aircraft” a smartphone or tablet.  ❚
The US Air Force has run tests Matthew Sparkes
of magnetic anomaly navigation Ganesh says Air Force tests

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 11

News Join us at New Scientist Live

Health How the immune system fights disease with Daniel Davis
newscientistlive.com

Genes may raise chronic fatigue risk

Almost 200 genetic variants were identified in 91 per cent of people with the condition

David Cox

SCIENTISTS have discovered A statistical analysis suggests According to Gardner, could help lead to a blood
identifying the genetic variants test or some other relatively
possible genetic risk factors this wasn’t a chance finding. provides clues as to the underlying non-invasive test.”
mechanisms of ME/CFS.
involved in chronic fatigue Previous studies have linked Chris Ponting at the University
“These findings allow us to of Edinburgh, UK, says the findings
syndrome (CFS), also known as these genetic variants to our now target research towards these could lead to new treatments, but
areas, which could significantly warns that the study was relatively
myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). overall stress response, our accelerate both the discovery small for genetic research and the
of new diagnostics and provide results need to be replicated.
ME/CFS is a poorly understood circadian rhythm or body clock a feasible background for novel
drug discovery,” he says. Ponting is involved in the
condition that affects around and the mitochondria that power DecodeME study, which is
There are no diagnostic tests for analysing DNA samples from
17 million people worldwide. our cells. People with these ME/CFS, with people often told 25,000 people with ME/CFS. If the
symptoms are psychosomatic. same 14 genes are identified, it
To better understand its cause, could lead to work into blocking
Identifying these variants is those pathways in tissues to help
Steve Gardner at UK biotech firm “These findings could insufficient to make a diagnostic alleviate the symptoms of ME/CFS.
test, as they indicate whether
PrecisionLife and his colleagues significantly accelerate someone is at a heightened risk “If DecodeME were to find
of ME/CFS, not that they have the the same thing, it would really
analysed DNA samples from 2382 new diagnostics and condition, says Gardner. But they be quite exciting,” says Ponting.
could point in the right direction. “Knowing whether CFS is a disease
participants of the UK Biobank novel drug discovery” of, say, mitochondria or the
“Knowing the genes allows us to nervous system or an immune
study, who all had ME/CFS. see which processes are involved system disease, will be a huge step
in the disease,” says Gardner. forward. At the moment, there’s
Most genetic studies look for variants may also be at heightened “We may be able to spot some of a rather scattergun approach to
the products of those metabolic looking at all things.” ❚
differences in individual DNA risk of catching viral and bacterial processes in the blood, which

letters, known as single nucleotide infections or developing certain

polymorphisms (SNPs). Gardner autoimmune conditions.

and his colleagues instead hunted Research suggests that around

for differences in combinations 70 per cent of people with ME/CFS

of SNPs, allowing them to identify report that their symptoms began

genetic traits that may only be in a after an infection. Many with

subgroup of people with ME/CFS. the condition also commonly

The team identified 199 SNPs, experience sleep disturbances

of 14 genes, in 91 per cent of and symptoms associated with

the participants with ME/CFS autoimmune conditions, such

(medRxiv, doi.org/jdgb). as muscle and joint pain.

Chemistry

The recipe for packages of air surrounded SERGE GUICHARD Marina Pasquet and her
perfect bubbles, by an iridescent liquid film. team experimented with
according to science A phenomenon known as examples include J-Lube, which large bubbles
the Marangoni effect, which is an obstetrical lubricant used by
RESEARCHERS have worked out influences the flow of molecules vets, and the food additives guar glycerol, also known as glycerine,
the optimal recipe for making giant, on the surface of bubbles, helps gum and xanthan gum. which helps the ingredients mix well
long-lasting soap bubbles. It should to keep their surface intact. so the solution consistently forms
allow anyone to reliably blow The final key ingredient is a little bubbles. The glycerol can also slow
bubbles at least 12 centimetres The amount of detergent has evaporation of the water in the
across and potentially create some to strike a balance: with more bubble’s film, which allows it to
large enough to envelop a person. detergent, the bubbles become last for longer, says the team.
easier to blow, but their lifespan
Marina Pasquet, who carried out also drops, says Pasquet. The ideal recipe, according to
the work with her colleagues at the the researchers, is 85.9 per cent
University of Paris-Saclay, started That is probably all that most water, 4 per cent washing-up liquid,
the project by investigating liquids people would add at home, but 0.1 per cent guar gum and 10 per
that artists and performers were the researchers found that two cent glycerol. This mix enabled
using to make giant bubbles. “There extra ingredients can lift your the team to reliably create big,
are a lot of recipes out there,” says bubbles to another level. Chemicals long-lasting bubbles (arxiv.org/
Pasquet, who is now at the called long aqueous polymers abs/2209.04435). One example
University of California, Berkeley. increase a characteristic known as about 12 centimetres across lasted
elongational viscosity, keeping the 24 hours in the lab, says Pasquet. ❚
Soap bubbles are essentially film of the bubble stable as you Chris Simms
blow it, says Pasquet. Common

12 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Technology Environment

Radio wave attack Guatemala’s decimated
makes cameras see rainforest is on the mend
phantom images
Luke Taylor
David Hambling
Ancient ruins are
A CYBERATTACK that uses radio dotted throughout
waves to fool image-recognition the Maya Forest
systems can stop them working.
So far, it can disrupt a barcode MARIANA DIAZ/WCS communities and rangers to
scanner and alter frames captured protect and monitor the forest.
by cameras, but it could potentially A COMMUNITY-LED will be the guardians of this
make digital detection systems see conservation programme forest,” says Ponce Santizo. Community leaders were
things that aren’t there. in Guatemala has started threatened by those being
to reverse two decades of The reserve stretches evicted and one was killed,
Digital cameras contain sensors devastating deforestation. across 21,000 km2, making up says Ponce Santizo. “There
that convert light into electrical around a fifth of Guatemala’s were a lot of brave people, both
pulses. Additional electrical signals Life is now returning total land area and a large part in the authorities and local
induced in the circuit going from the to swathes of the Maya of the Maya Forest – the second- communities,” she says.
sensor to other parts of the system, Biosphere Reserve that were largest tropical rainforest in the
known as post-transducer signals, illegally cleared 13 years ago. Americas after the Amazon – The key to the turnaround
can give the false impression that Regeneration of the forest shared with Belize and Mexico. was putting communities at the
the camera has seen something. means it was 25 square heart of the strategy, says Ponce
kilometres larger in 2020 25 km2 Santizo. Local communities were
Sebastian Köhler at the University than in 2019 and grew another granted control of the forest by
of Oxford and his colleagues have 3.5 km2 in 2021. What were How much the Maya Biosphere the government, provided they
used radio waves to induce these uniform pastures punctuated conserve it, while researchers
signals and manipulate a barcode with bare trees in 2009 have Reserve grew by in 2020 at Guatemala’s National Council
scanner from half a metre away. become blankets of forest for Protected Areas helped them
teeming with tropical birds Ancient Maya ruins are divide it for different crops.
The slight blurring effect on and monkeys once more. scattered through the reserve
a photo the scanner takes of a as well as myriad communities The communities now live
barcode is barely visible to humans, Trusting local communities and endangered species such sustainably by harvesting
but caused the scanner to fail to and emboldening them with as jaguars and scarlet macaws. products such as allspice,
read barcodes 99 per cent of the scientific research was key to the gum and pepper. The areas
time. This attack simply added forest’s survival, says Gabriela In 2009, the reserve was that are used for this rotate
“noise” to the data the camera was Ponce Santizo, director of the thought to be all but lost, says after a period determined
collecting, but Köhler says his team Wildlife Conservation Society Ponce Santizo. Ranchers were by the sustainability of the
has introduced actual shapes into (WCS) Guatemala programme, torching as much as 8 km2 of resource and the time it takes
images in such attacks. which supported the project. forest a day to clear land to raise forest to regenerate.
cattle for profit and use their
He presented the research at Researchers helped to businesses to launder money Some trees are cut down
the 17th ACM ASIA Conference on find sustainable ways for for drug traffickers. for timber, but 10 per cent of
Computer and Communications communities to live off the those in harvested areas are left
Security in Nagasaki, Japan. forest without cutting down too Bold actions taken then to seed regrowth. The parts of
many trees – a model that could seem to have put the reserve the forest designated for this
The attack works on cameras that be emulated across the world. on the road to restoration. The alternate every five years, so
rely on technology called charge- government evicted ranchers that by the end of a 25-year cycle,
coupled device image sensors, used “As long as the forest can and prosecuted those with links the first part of the forest used
in many scientific applications and provide the people with the to the drug trade before joining has fully regenerated.
military surveillance systems, but livelihoods they need, they forces with the army, local
wouldn’t work on the image sensors The gains in the past
used in most consumer devices, two years are a fraction of the
such as smartphones. 270 km2 lost since 2000, says
the WCS, but the reserve has
In a military context, such switched from annual net
attacks could create phantom loss to net gain.
images, for example to make
an autonomous vehicle detect “The lessons of the Maya
non-existent obstacles in its path Biosphere Reserve can be
to get it to change direction. Any transferred elsewhere in all
attacker would need to be nearby, tropical forests,” says Carlos
though. “An attack from tens of Nobre at the University of
metres is possible with reasonably São Paulo in Brazil.  ❚
sized hardware,” says Köhler.  ❚

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 13

News

Astrobiology Fertility

Moss from Earth could grow Sperm move
under the light of another star in packs to push
through vaginal fluid
Alex Wilkins
Christa Lesté-Lasserre
ALGAE, moss and bacteria can LA ROCCA ET AL. The LED
all survive and grow in the light simulator that SWIMMING in a pack may help
produced by a red dwarf star, oxygen production,” she said. was used to sperm push upstream through
according to experiments on La Rocca told the conference mimic a red thick vaginal and uterine mucus.
Earth. This boosts the idea that dwarf star’s light
planets around red dwarf stars that her team has now put in experiments Sperm are often represented
like TRAPPIST-1 could host life. other types of organisms in on Earth as individuals racing to fertilise an
the simulator that aren’t as egg, but this is based on flat views
The most promising good at harvesting light as under red dwarf starlight. of microscope slides and other
exoplanets for life orbit stars the cyanobacteria, such as the Next, La Rocca’s team hopes settings that don’t reflect their
that are smaller and cooler microalgae Chlorella vulgaris natural context, says Chih-Kuan
than our sun, so they radiate and Chromera velia, and a moss, to test how much oxygen the Tung at North Carolina Agricultural
different profiles of light. Physcomitrella patens, to test more complex organisms & Technical State University.
how they might fare. produce, and to make
For instance, a star like mathematical models to When placed in a mock-up
TRAPPIST-1 would give out Although all the organisms evaluate the possibility of of the female reproductive tract,
more infrared light. But we were able to grow under the these organisms existing bull sperm – which are similar to
know little about how this artificial red dwarf light, on planet surfaces. human sperm – appear to team up.
would affect life. most of them grew slightly
less than they did under the Complex organisms To better understand why, the
Last year, Nicoletta La Rocca simulated sunlight – except researchers injected 100 million
at the University of Padua in for one species, C. velia, Using organisms from Earth fresh bull sperm into a silicone tube
Italy and her colleagues tested which grew more. to evaluate how habitable alien containing fluid that resembled
how organisms from Earth star systems could be isn’t cows’ cervical and uterine mucus.
might fare under simulated La Rocca and her team also straightforward, says Michael Then, they used a syringe pump
starlight by placing several noticed that under artificial Phillips at Johns Hopkins to create two speeds of flow.
types of cyanobacteria starlight, the moss failed to University Applied Physics
(also known as blue-green grow certain reproductive Laboratory in Maryland. When there was no flow, the
algae) in a starlight generator structures that are normally clustered sperm swam in a straighter
consisting of 273 controllable present under sunlight. “Maybe “It’s very difficult to imagine line than the individual sperm. In an
LEDs, which could mimic the organism can grow but no life in other star systems intermediate flow, the clusters could
sunlight or red dwarf light. longer reproduce. This will evolving exactly how it evolved swim upstream, unlike individual
deserve more investigation,” on Earth,” he says. “So while sperm. When the flow was strong,
The cyanobacteria, La Rocca told the conference. it’s interesting to see how a the clustered sperm pushed through
which are efficient at photosynthetic organism might far better than individual sperm,
photosynthesising – getting The team also tested how respond to different starlight, which usually got swept away
their energy from sunlight – and much oxygen was produced by those organisms are still very (Frontiers in Cell and Developmental
can work in low and redder light, each species of cyanobacteria complex, and it took billions Biology, doi.org/jdck).
grew almost as well under the under different simulated lights of years of evolution on Earth
and found that they would all to get them.” There was never one “leader”
273 contribute to an atmosphere that was supported by others, says
However, the work gives us a Tung. Instead, the arrangement
The number of LEDs used to baseline for hypotheses to test resembles cyclists riding together
when looking at the light spectra in a peloton to encounter less air
copy the light from a red dwarf that come from worlds orbiting resistance. “It could be this kind of
different stars, says Phillips.  ❚ mechanism that just allows that at
artificial red dwarf light as they least some of them will eventually
did under the simulated light get to the oviducts,” he says.
from the sun.
The clusters probably serve a
This is important, La Rocca role in the thick outflowing mucus
told the Europlanet Science in the vagina and cervix as well as in
Congress in Granada, Spain, the uterus, where contractions push
on 19 September, because fluids in multiple directions, he says.
cyanobacteria were crucial As sperm reach the oviducts, where
in making Earth habitable for fluids are thinner and less mobile,
other organisms. “They totally it is possible they swim individually.
changed our planet, being
responsible for the start of The findings open new avenues
for helping diagnose unexplained
infertility, says Tung.  ❚

14 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Technology

Fears of AI-driven global disaster

A third of scientists working in AI say it could cause catastrophe on the scale of nuclear war

Jeremy Hsu

MORE than one-third of artificial New American Security, a think concerns. Some respondents said That evokes the idea of an AI with
intelligence researchers around the intellectual capabilities equalling
world agree that AI decisions could tank based in Washington DC. they would have agreed that AI those of humans. Seventy-three
cause a catastrophe as bad as all- per cent also agreed that AI
out nuclear war in this century. “But it would also require people poses serious risks in a less extreme automation of labour could lead to
revolutionary societal changes on
The findings are from a survey to do some dangerous things with scenario than an all-out nuclear a par with the industrial revolution.
of 327 researchers who recently
co-authored papers on AI research military uses of AI technology.” war (arxiv.org/abs/2208.12852). Given that researchers expect
in natural language processing. major advances in AI capabilities,
In recent years, there have been US military officials have “Concerns brought up in other it is somewhat heartening that
big advances in this area, with the just 36 per cent see a catastrophic
development of large language expressed concern about arming parts of the survey feedback risk from AI as plausible, says
AI models capable of writing Scharre. But he cautioned that it
computer code or creating drones with nuclear weapons, let include the impacts of large-scale is important to pay attention to
novel images from text prompts. any risks related to AI that can
alone giving AI a major role in impact large swathes of society.
The survey, by Julian Michael
at New York University and his nuclear command-and-control “If it was an all-out “I’m much more concerned
colleagues, reveals that 36 per cent about AI risk that seems less
of all respondents think nuclear- systems. But Russia is reportedly nuclear war that AI catastrophic than all-out
level catastrophe is possible. nuclear war but is probably
developing a drone torpedo with contributed to, there likely, because of the challenges
“If it was actually an all-out in dealing with the systems
nuclear war that AI contributed autonomous capabilities that are plausible scenarios” as we integrate them into
to, there are plausible scenarios different industries and military
that could get you there,” says could deliver a nuclear strike. operations,” says Scharre.  ❚
Paul Scharre at the Center for a
Fears about possible nuclear- automation, mass surveillance or

level catastrophe were even AI-guided weapons,” says Michael.

greater when looking specifically “But it’s hard to say if these were

at responses from women and the dominant concerns when

people in underrepresented it came to the question about

groups: 46 per cent of women catastrophic risk.”

saw this outcome as possible, Separately, 57 per cent of all

as did 53 per cent of people respondents saw developments

in minority groups. in large AI models as “significant

The survey may even have steps toward the development

underestimated AI researchers’ of artificial general intelligence”.

Genetics

Mutation that helps Bowheads (Balaena
bowhead whale live mysticetus) are thought to be
longer shrinks testes the longest-lived mammals

BOWHEAD whales are the TONY WU/NATUREPL.COM duplication of a gene called
longest-lived mammals known, CDKN2C (bioRxiv, doi.org/jdq3).
with one male estimated to have acquire cancer-causing mutations. elephants, killing cells before they
been 211 years old when it died. Yet long-lived animals such as can turn cancerous. But bowheads Studies have shown that high
Now, it has been found that the seem to have another strategy. levels of the protein this gene
whales have a gene duplication that elephants and whales have very low “The alternative is to keep the cell encodes halt cell division and
appears to slow the division of cells, rates of cancer, probably because from dividing and give the cell time prevent programmed cell death.
allowing them to live longer – but they have evolved mechanisms to fix the damage,” says Lynch. It has a similar effect in bowhead
at the cost of reduced male fertility. for preventing tumours. whales, Lynch’s team has found.
This is what he thinks happens in
The long life of bowheads is likely For example, even low levels of bowhead whales as a result of the Other studies have also shown
to be a result of many genes, but DNA damage trigger cell death in that higher levels of this protein
this particular gene being duplicated affect male fertility by influencing
is probably pretty significant, says how many cells are involved in
Vincent Lynch at the University at generating sperm, says Lynch.
Buffalo in New York, whose team
made the discovery. The testes of bowheads are
relatively small, weighing about
One of the greatest obstacles 200 kilograms compared with
to a long life is that the longer 1000 kg for the closely related
you live, the more time there is to right whale, which doesn’t have
the mutation, the team notes.  ❚
Michael Le Page

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 15

News Analysis Wildlife

Astronomy Unsustainable conservation Cheetahs have been
reintroduced to India for the first time in 70 years, but
Fireball traced the project has drawn criticism, reports Lou Del Bello
to space rock
that made it A cheetah about
to be transported
Will Gater from Namibia to India

ASTRONOMERS searching for DIRK HEINRICH/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK What’s more, these cats are
the origins of a small asteroid that an inherently fragile species – just
exploded over the Pacific Ocean in INDIA’S ambitious plan to into an enclosure of about 100 5 per cent of cheetahs make it
September 2020 have found an to adulthood, says Karanth. Even
archive picture of it, in space, taken reintroduce cheetahs to the Indian hectares, where they will be able in the 19th century, when India
minutes before the impact, in the wasn’t as densely populated as
first discovery of its kind. subcontinent, which kicked off on to stretch their muscles,” she says. it is today, the records show a very
thin cheetah population, he says.
David Clark at the University of 17 September with the release of The plan is to set up a Now, the cats are much more
Western Ontario in Canada and his likely to cross paths with people,
colleagues analysed satellite data of eight individuals by Prime Minister “metapopulation”, a small livestock and wild dogs that
previous fireballs, identifying ones could harm or kill them.
created by space rocks big enough Narendra Modi, is unlikely to succeed community that survives through
to show up in telescopic surveys, Bettina Wachter, head of
which routinely monitor the skies. because the habitat provided the addition of new individuals the Cheetah Research Project
After calculating the orbital path in Namibia, says that even if they
of each rock prior to it hitting Earth, is inadequate, scientists warn. over time. Based on the amount were to have access to more prey,
Clark and his team scoured archive the cheetahs would still roam over
imagery of patches of sky where it Only around 6500 adult of prey available, the project large distances. Her research has
might have been caught on camera. shown that cheetahs spend most
cheetahs are alive today, most designers estimate that Kuno of their time at “communication
They had one success. For a hubs” spread throughout the
0.4-kiloton fireball that exploded of them in Africa, according National Park will be able to host landscape at 23-kilometre
over the Pacific Ocean in September intervals. Learning to avoid these
2020, the researchers found to the International Union 21 cheetahs, or as many as 36 hubs helped Namibian farmers
what they believe is the trail of an minimise livestock losses.
unknown asteroid in archival data for Conservation of Nature. if officials succeed in restoring the
from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact “Think of it as cheetahs’
Last Alert System project. Crucially, The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx Facebook, where they go
studying this imagery allowed and exchange olfactory [scent]
the researchers to glean more jubatus venaticus), a subspecies “They will show them information, they spray urine
information about the space rock or faeces, and these are places
(arxiv.org/abs/2209.04583). that is now only found in Iran, around in zoos, but it where they always go back to,”
says Wachter. They don’t change
“We were able to better define went extinct in India in 1952. will not lead to a stable their roaming patterns based on
the original orbit, acquired hints the availability of prey, she says.
on shape, and were able to measure Now, the country is introducing population of cheetahs”
its magnitude, giving us constraints “I’m fascinated by the idea
on how its size and surface the cats to Kuno National Park, of bringing the cheetah back in
brightness relate,” says Clark. a science-based manner, but
an area measuring 748 square park’s periphery. There are 169 ecologically, that’s a very tough
The finding means that a total goal,” says Karanth. Having
of six asteroids that hit Earth have kilometres in Madhya Pradesh. villages in the surrounding area, invested 1.14 billion rupees
now been observed in space, but ($14.3 million) in the project,
this is the first to be uncovered in Five females and three males presenting a high risk of conflict India’s government will be under
archival data after its impact had pressure to paint it as a success,
already occurred. The other five from the southeast African between cheetahs and humans. he says. “They will bring these
were all discovered and examined cheetahs, show them around
before entering the atmosphere. cheetah subspecies (Acinonyx But according to Ullas Karanth, in zoos and build some tourism
around them. It will not lead to a
Work like this can help jubatus jubatus) have so far a former director of the Wildlife sustained, stable population of
astronomers learn more about cheetahs that can live on its own.”  ❚
near-Earth asteroids, including been relocated from Namibia. Conservation Society’s India
their composition and what risk
they pose, says Clark, who intends Laurie Marker, executive director programme, a viable population
to carry on the project by searching
through updated satellite and of the Cheetah Conservation Fund requires at least 50 wild cheetahs
sky-survey data.  ❚
in Namibia and coordinator of the that are able to independently
16 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022
project, says great care has been reproduce. A single cheetah needs

taken to ease the cheetahs into a territory of at least 100km² and

their new home. “The cats have up to 400km2. Karanth estimates

been in quarantine for a month that a population of sufficient size

[before being brought to India], to be viable would require an area

and they will soon be moved of 10,000km2 to 15,000km2.

ESSENTIAL GUIDES OUT NOW!

ESSENTIAL GUIDE№14

HUMAN SOCIETY

How have evolution and psychology shaped human society? Homo sapiens
have developed uniquely complex societal structures that allow cooperation
beyond our immediate kin. Learn how that happened, and the natural tensions
it has created, in the latest New Scientist Essential Guide.

BUY IT IN PRINT NOW AT:

SHOP.NEWSCIENTIST.COM/EG14

Buy each issue digitally via the New Scientist iOS or Google Play App

News Join us at New Scientist Live

Solar system The story of life on Earth with Elsa Panciroli
newscientistlive.com

Enceladus has all life’s key elements

Reanalysis of icy rock grains has revealed presence of phosphorus from Saturn’s moon

Alex Wilkins

SATURN’S moon Enceladus is from Enceladus, which are good spectra of known here in our Earth ocean,” Postberg
producing phosphorus, meaning themselves fed by its oceans. compounds from lab work to told the conference.
that this icy world holds all the But previous analyses of this compare their findings against
essential building blocks for material, in 2009, failed to turn and work out what was in the The phosphorus wasn’t seen
life as we know it. up any phosphorus compounds. Cassini grains. in organic carbon-containing
molecules, though. Organic
Every life form on Earth “Enceladus now satisfies But Postberg and his team phosphates would be even
contains six key elements: what is considered one of have now analysed many more beneficial for life, but the
carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, the strictest requirements more grains individually and resolution of the spectrometer
oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur. for habitability” compared their spectra with that the researchers used
All of these, bar phosphorus, high-resolution ones that have meant they couldn’t identify
were already known to exist Now, Frank Postberg at the Free been captured by other research these. However, said Postberg, “it
on Enceladus. This fact, combined University of Berlin, Germany, and groups in the decade since the doesn’t mean they’re not there”.
with its liquid ocean and warm his colleagues have reanalysed first analysis.
core, had already made the many of these grains with more “It seems to be really
moon one of the most likely advanced techniques than Out of the roughly 1000 compelling,” says Veronique
places for life elsewhere in the previously used and have grains or so they analysed, Vuitton at Grenoble Alpes
solar system, if it exists. identified phosphorus molecules. nine “unmistakably” have the University in France. “It’s so
fingerprint of phosphorus – as exciting to find phosphorus, for all
However, the lack of “Enceladus now satisfies what phosphates – in the form of the obvious habitability reasons.”
phosphorus was thought by is generally considered one of various salts it forms with
some to make life unlikely to the strictest requirements for sodium, hydrogen and oxygen. “Enceladus was already one
exist on icy ocean worlds. habitability,” Postberg told the of the most likely bodies in
Europlanet Science Congress in Based on the levels of the solar system with a high
The spacecraft Cassini collected Granada, Spain, on 20 September. phosphorus found in the grains, habitability potential and
icy rock grains in Saturn’s E ring the researchers predict that this makes it an even stronger
with its Cosmic Dust Analyzer The original analyses could Enceladus’s ocean has relatively case,” says Pietro Matteoni
for 13 years from 1999. This ring only look at the average spectra high levels of the element. “This is at the Free University of
is thought to be fed by plumes from the grains and didn’t have roughly 100 to 1000 times higher Berlin, who wasn’t involved
of water ice shot out into space compared to the concentration with the research.  ❚

Health with Plasmodium falciparum, DR GOPAL MURTI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Malaria parasites (yellow)
one of the protozoan parasites enter and grow inside
Your gut microbes that cause malaria in humans. higher than the average across red blood cells
may affect how ill participants – as type HC3 people.
malaria makes you Thirty-five volunteers provided On average, levels of P. falciparum microbiome (bioRxiv, doi.org/jdfj).
stool samples before allowing were nearly six times higher in Manipulating the gut microbiome
THE microbes in your gut may themselves to be bitten by those with an HC1 microbiome
influence how malaria parasites mosquitoes carrying P. falciparum. than in people who had an HC3 may become a useful way to reduce
replicate in your body, according The researchers then compared the the severity of many diseases,
to a small study. If confirmed, the bacteria in the volunteers’ faeces including malaria, say Maria Mota
findings could mean that altering with the parasite levels in their and Debanjan Mukherjee at the
the gut microbiome can protect blood at the peak of infection. University of Lisbon in Portugal.
people against severe malaria. However, we don’t know how
People with a microbiome high gut microbes might influence
Previous studies looking in Catenibacterium and low in the severity of the illness.
at naturally acquired malaria Bifidobacterium bacteria were
infections in people have hinted grouped into type HC1, while those One possible mechanism may
at a possible link between the with high levels of Streptococcus be through the immune system
mix of bacteria in their guts and and Bifidobacterium bacteria reacting to sugar molecules that
the severity of the infections. were labelled type HC3. are found on both gut bacteria
and P. falciparum, says Miguel
Jennifer Manuzak at Tulane Type HC1 individuals were Soares at the Gulbenkian Institute
University in Louisiana and her nearly nine times as likely to have of Science in Oeiras, Portugal.  ❚
colleagues tested this idea by severe parasite levels – defined Carissa Wong
deliberately infecting people as a parasite concentration

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 19

News

Physics Animal behaviour

Maxwell’s demon device Tree-hugging
could help explain entropy lemurs are trying
to beat the heat
Leah Crane
Richard Kemeny
AN ENGINE based on a 155-year- canister and rebounding offANTOINE NAERT/ENS DE LYON A canister of shaking
old thought experiment has a small rotor. A motor only CHLOE CHEN-KRAUS LEMURS seem to cuddle trees to
been realised at the largest allows the rotor to spin in beads produces energy keep cool on sweltering days.
scale yet, and it may help us one direction. If the beads
understand how entropy, or are pushing it in the allowed from motion Chloe Chen-Kraus, affiliated with
disorder, is produced. It could direction, it spins and generates Yale University, and her colleagues
also someday be used to harvest an electrical current, and if they have to pay for it, then it could noticed that in the Bezà Mahafaly
energy from motion. are pushing it in the other make sense.” Special Reserve in south-west
direction, it stays still. The Madagascar, a type of lemur called
Maxwell’s demon is a thought motor stands in for Maxwell’s This experiment produced the white sifaka (Propithecus
experiment first proposed by demon, and without it, the rotor only about 4 microwatts of verreauxi) hugs the base of tree
Scottish mathematician James would simply jiggle back and power – tiny compared with trunks on particularly hot days.
Clerk Maxwell in 1867. He forth randomly (Physical Review the 10 watts required to keep
imagined a tiny demon sorting Letters, doi.org/jdcj). the beads shaking. If this These lemurs have fewer sweat
gas particles by temperature engine could be made larger glands than most primates, so the
into two chambers, heating up The electricity to power the and the shaking provided for researchers wondered if this was a
one and cooling down another. shaker is far more than what free, the researchers say it could way to regulate body temperature.
In theory, this temperature can be obtained from the rotor’s potentially be used to harvest
differential could drive a motion, but it isn’t hard to energy from its environment. To learn more, the team watched
perpetual engine, but in imagine a situation where the six groups of sifakas in the hotter
practice, it is impossible – shaking is provided naturally, It could also be useful part of Madagascar’s dry season,
it would decrease the amount such as in a river or on a bridge in fundamental research, noting tree-hugging habits over
of entropy in the system, which people are crossing. particularly in understanding 615 hours in all. The temperature of
is forbidden by the second law how information – in this case, the air, ground and trees at several
of thermodynamics. “If you have to pay to create information about which heights was also logged. Over two
this fluctuating environment, direction the rotor is being months, the researchers noted
However, physicists now then of course it doesn’t work – pushed – is turned into 64 episodes of tree hugging by
understand that a device similar you can’t get around the second entropy, says Naert. 20 sifakas in five of the six groups.
to Maxwell’s demon can be law of thermodynamics,” says
created if you are simply willing John Bechhoefer at Simon “If we can measure the The hugging only took place
to put more energy into the Fraser University in Canada, information which is exchanged when air temperatures rose
system than you take out of it, who wasn’t involved in this between the ‘demon’ and the above 30°C (86°F). Each 1°C
which obeys the second law work. “But if someone else surroundings, then we can increase then doubled the chance
gives you this fluctuating measure the entropy creation the lemurs would hug trees.
4 environment and you don’t rate,” he says. “The properties
of that process are completely The bases of the trees were up to
Microwatts of power produced unknown, so it’s very exciting 5°C cooler than higher parts of the
to explore.” ❚ trees and the air, suggesting lemurs
by the small engine embrace the trunks to release
some heat (International Journal
of thermodynamics but means of Primatology, doi.org/jdb7).
that the demon cannot function
as a perpetual engine. Antoine This is potentially a very effective
Naert at École Normale way for them to lose heat without
Supérieure in Lyon, France, relying on evaporative cooling, says
and his colleagues made one Natalie Briscoe at the University of
such device to see whether it Melbourne, Australia.  ❚
would still work at relatively
large scales. Tree-hugging lemurs on
the Bezà Mahafaly Special
Their device consists of a Reserve in Madagascar
canister 5 centimetres across
sat atop a shaker and containing
small stainless steel beads. As
the beads bounce about, they
act like the particles in a gas,
moving randomly around the

20 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

News In brief

Energy Really brief

US grid may buckle SHUTTERSTOCK/MIA STUDIO Spider catches ants
ALFONSO ALCEVES with acrobatic leap
under switch to EVs
When an ant comes up
GROWTH in electric car ownership a tree trunk towards an
could strain power grids if most Australian ant-slayer
drivers continue chiefly charging spider, the spider jumps
at home overnight. Increasing and attaches a silk line to
daytime charging will be crucial its prey. It then somersaults
to help the western US power over the ant and dangles
grid handle the demand with an from the line below it. The
estimated 50 per cent of drivers spider then circles its victim
using electric vehicles by 2035. to entangle it, only moving
in for the kill once it is safe
The finding comes from (PNAS, doi.org/gqt7r8).
computer models. These found
that if drivers primarily charge Smart face mask
vehicles at home during the night, could detect viruses
that could lead to a 25 per cent
surge in peak net electricity A prototype face mask with
demand when states reach 50 per a sensor could tell whether
cent electric vehicle ownership, someone you are talking to
and possibly surpass grid capacity has coronavirus by spotting
at higher levels of ownership. But telltale proteins in their
more daytime charging facilities breath. So far, the mask has
could reduce that increase in peak only been tested on viral
net electricity demand to just surface proteins, not whole
7.5 per cent (Nature Energy, viruses, but it can detect
doi.org/jdfv). Jeremy Hsu those of two flu strains and
the virus behind covid-19
Archaeology Agriculture (Matter, doi.org/gqt2j4).

Historical migration Glimmer of Now, however, a strain of Drone swarm could
hope in the Fusarium called TR4, which can kill build tower blocks
dispute looks settled battle to save many varieties of banana including
the banana the Cavendish, is spreading to more Drones working together
IN ANGLO-SAXON times, and more countries. can create large 3D-printed
more than three-quarters of BANANA plants that produce structures made of foam
the ancestry of people in parts the world’s most widely eaten Gert Kema at Wageningen or cement. AIs guide their
of England came from north variety of the fruit have been University in the Netherlands and decisions, but they still
European migrants. made temporarily resistant to a his colleagues wondered if exposure require human supervision.
devastating fungal disease that is to TR1 would protect Cavendish The experiments pave the
The finding may end an spreading around the world and bananas against TR4. The team way for swarms of drones
ongoing debate about just how destroying plantations. The hope uprooted young plants and dunked to construct tall buildings
much migration there was in this is that the work could lead to ways them in a solution containing without use of scaffolding
era, from about AD 400 to 1066. to make bananas permanently assorted types of TR1 fungus. or large machinery (Nature,
resistant to this threat. At various time intervals from doi.org/jdbp).
Duncan Sayer at the University 30 minutes to 10 days later, they
of Central Lancashire in Preston, The main banana exported then immersed plants in a solution
UK, and his team sequenced the to Western countries used to be a with spores of TR4 in it.
DNA of 460 people buried in variety called Gros Michel. But in
graves in north-west Europe the 1920s, a strain of Fusarium The team found that prior
between AD 200 and 1300, of fungus called tropical race 1 (TR1), exposure to a particular strain
whom 278 were from England. which causes Panama disease, of TR1 from Brazil provided
began wiping out plantations. significant protection against
This showed that during the 7th By the late 1950s, growers had TR4 up to 10 days later (PLoS One,
century, people buried in the east switched to the Cavendish banana, doi.org/gqvm2h). Kema says the
of England could trace 76 per cent which is highly resistant to TR1. protection is only temporary.
of ancestry to recent migration
from Germany, Denmark and the The team is now trying to
Netherlands. Bodies further west work out the precise protective
in England had a lower proportion mechanism at work, with the aim of
of ancestry from Europe (Nature, finding ways to permanently turn it
doi.org/jdfw). Clare Wilson on in the plants. Michael Le Page

22 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

EXCEL LONDON & ONLINE | 8–9 OCT 2022 | SCHOOLS’ DAY 7 OCT

THE WORLD’S
G R E AT E ST F E ST I VA L O F

IDEAS & DISCOVERIES

LIMITED
TICKETS
REMAINING
BOOK NOW

WEEKEND
TA L KS P RO G R A M M E

Book your tickets now at

newscientist.com/ns0710

Schools’ day timetable available at live.newscientist.com/schools-day-2022

FE ATURE PARTNERS SCHOOLS’ DAY SPONSOR MEDIA PARTNER CHARIT Y PARTNER

S AT U R D AY
8 OCTOBER

FUTURE MIND & BODY OUR PLANET UNIVERSE
S TA G E S TA G E S TA G E S TA G E

10.45 - 11.35 10.45 - 11.35 10.45 - 11.35 10.45 - 11.35

AN OCEAN OF SALT THE DARK HISTORY HAND TO MOUTH: THE HIDDEN SCIENCE
Helen Czerski will explore AND TROUBLING PRESENT THE LANGUAGE PUZZLE OF WEATHER, CLIMATE
the great stories of our ocean OF EUGENICS Gillian Forrester will explore CHANGE AND THE AIR THAT
told through salt. Adam Rutherford will tell the a leading theory behind the SURROUNDS US
story of the pseudoscience emergence of modern Simon Clark introduces
11.55 - 12.45 of eugenics. human language. the fascinating story of our
atmosphere.
THE PATTERN SEEKERS 11.55 - 12.45 11.55 - 12.45
Simon Baron-Cohen puts 11.55 - 12.45
forward a bold new theory A BRIEF HISTORY NOMAD CENTURY: THE
about humans’ remarkable OF YOUR BRAIN GREAT CLIMATE UPHEAVAL THE JOY OF ABSTRACTION
ability to recognise patterns. Emma Byrne reveals how our Gaia Vince will describe how Eugenia Cheng will show
brains change over the course we can use managed climate how even high-level abstract
13.25 - 14.15 of childhood and beyond. migration for our survival while maths can be accessible,
we restore the planet’s open-ended, and joyful.
MAKING SENSE OF 13.25 - 14.15 habitability.
SCREEN TIME 13.25 - 14.15
Pete Etchells will uncover THE SECRET BODY 13.25 - 14.15
what we really know about Daniel Davis will discuss THE HIDDEN UNIVERSE
the impact of screen time on the ground-breaking scientific WONDERDOG! Emma Osborne will take
our mental health, behaviour quest to understand the HOW WE CAME TO KNOW you on a gravitational wave
and sleep. human immune system. THAT DOGS ARE SO SMART journey from creation to
What do dogs really think of detection, and the remarkable
14.35 - 15.25 14.35 - 15.25 us? Jules Howard will reveal discoveries that are beginning
the latest research into to reveal the hidden universe.
HOW TO SPEND BELIEVING ‘dognition’.
A TRILLION DOLLARS THE UNBELIEVABLE: 14.35 - 15.25
Rowan Hooper conducts the THE SCIENCE OF PARANOIA 14.35 - 15.25
ultimate thought experiment AND CONSPIRACY THINKING ELUSIVE: THE STORY
but with a serious message: Nichola Raihani presents WHY WASPS OF PETER HIGGS AND
these are all things we could an evolutionary perspective to MATTER HIS BOSON
do, if we put our minds to it – illuminate the logic – and even Seirian Sumner will journey Frank Close will examine
and our money. the benefits – of paranoia. into the secret world of wasps, the life of Peter Higgs, and his
guaranteed to blow your mind. eponymous boson.
15.45 - 16.35 15.45 - 16.35
15.45 - 16.35 15.45 - 16.35
THE BIGGEST NUMBER REBEL CELL: A NEW VIEW
IN THE WORLD OF AN OLD DISEASE THE SECRET LIVES BLACK HOLES
Join Agnijo Banerjee on an Kat Arney will take us to the OF ANIMALS Jeff Forshaw reveals the
epic quest for unfathomably dawn of life on planet Earth Lizzie Daly takes you on a complex quantum problems
large numbers. right up to the present day to journey following in the that emerge when trying to
get to the heart of what cancer footprints of wildlife from track information flowing in
really is. across the world. and out of black holes.

Schools’ day timetable available at live.newscientist.com/schools-day-2022

S U N D AY
9 OCTOBER

FUTURE MIND & BODY OUR PLANET UNIVERSE
S TA G E S TA G E S TA G E S TA G E

10.45 - 11.35 10.45 - 11.35 10.45 - 11.35 10.45 - 11.35

THE FUTURE OF UK ULTRA-PROCESSED FOOD THE DEEP CHEMISTRY THE DARK UNIVERSE:
SCIENCE AND INNOVATION Chris and Xand van Tulleken OF LIFE AND DEATH SEEING THE INVISIBLE
Sir Patrick Vallance outlines reveal the truth about what Nick Lane will describe the Alexandra Amon will look
the case for why science in ultra-processed foods do to Krebs cycle – a series of at why cosmology ‘needs’
government matters. our bodies. reactions that transform dark matter and how
inorganic molecules into the astrophysicists are learning
11.55 - 12.45 11.55 - 12.45 building blocks of life. more about what it is.

A WORLD-RECORD CAN FISH COUNT? 11.55 - 12.45 11.55 - 12.45
BREAKING ATTEMPT TO Brian Butterworth will
CREATE STAR POWER propose a scientific definition EXPLORING THE DEEP SEA A NEW FORCE OF NATURE?
Joe Miles will tell the story of of counting and describe Marine biologist Helen Scales Harry Cliff will reveal the
the world’s largest operating evidence showing how animals will tell the story of our growing evidence for a new
fusion energy machine, the from fish to insects can count. relationship with the deep sea. force of nature, through
Joint European Torus. recent data from the LHC
13.25 - 14.15 13.25 - 14.15 and Fermilab.
13.25 - 14.15
THE HUMAN BODY: IT’S NOT EASY 13.25 - 14.15
THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD DESIGN DISASTER BEING GREEN
OF CLIMATE CHANGE Cardiologist and comedian Julia Cooke and Yoseph Araya EXPLORING
Chris Jackson will look at Dr Rohin Francis will explore reveal fascinating stories OCEAN WORLDS
how the geological record of just some of the myriad ways about how plants survive, from In this talk Emma Bunce
climate change can help us there’s nothing Intelligent the poles to the tropics and will explore the methods for
better understand our present about our Design. the seas. detecting the oceans on the
and future climate. icy moons in our solar system.
14.35 - 15.25 14.35 - 15.25
14.35 - 15.25 14.35 - 15.25
DNA FAMILY SECRETS THE EARTH: A BIOGRAPHY
MATHEMATICS IS Turi King will chart the OF A LIVING PLANET THE SCIENCE OF
OUR SUPERPOWER rise in the use of DNA in Elsa Panciroli explores some EXPLODING STARS
Junaid Mubeen will take us genealogy and forensics of the incredible organisms Or Graur will be your
on a fascinating exploration for everything from tracing that have lived and continue guide to the awe-inspiring
of a surprising advantage that long lost family members to thrive in our world. astronomical phenomena
humans have over artificially to catching criminals. of supernovae.
intelligent robots. 15.45 - 16.35
15.45 - 16.35 15.45 - 16.35
15.45 - 16.35 NEANDERTHALS:
THE BODY AND SELF- EXPLORING COMPLEX PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS
CAN SCIENCE SAVE CONSCIOUSNESS MINDS THAT CHANGED THE
THE WORLD? Moheb Costandi uncovers the Rebecca Wragg Sykes will WORLD
Lord Rees will argue that latest research into how our reveal the latest research into Suzie Sheehy will uncover
science is not just for brains perceive our bodies. Neanderthals; how they lived, how our curiosity-driven
scientists. We all need to thought and died. determination to understand
be involved in the decisions the microscopic brought about
which will shape our future. a revolution in physics.

ENGAGE STAGE

S AT U R D AY S U N D AY
8 OCTOBER 9 OCTOBER

10.45 - 11.30 10.45 - 11.30 13.25 - 14.10

HOW I HACKED MY LIVE FROM THE SPACE SHED MAPPING THE UNIVERSE
WAY INTO SPACE WITH DALLAS CAMPBELL WITH ALEXANDRA AMON
Join TV presenter and space Join J Spooner as they
Join J Spooner of the superfan Dallas Campbell for get cosmological with
Unlimited Space Agency as a lively conversation about amazing astrophysicist
they tell the inspirational story humanity’s attempts to leave Alexandra Amon.
of a 42 year old person’s the planet.
creative adventure to hack 14.20 - 14.40
their way into space. 11.40 - 12.20
GEOLOGY ROCKS,
11.40 - 12.00 14.20 - 14.40 FECAL MICROBIOTA WITH CHRIS JACKSON
T R A N S P L A N TAT I O N : Join geologist Chris Jackson
NEGLECTED TROPICAL GILLIAN FORRESTER: FROM BENCH TO BEDSIDE to explore why we should look
DISEASES AND WHERE WHY ARE HUMANS THE AND BEYOND underground to understand
TO FIND THEM ONLY TALKING APES? Join Blair Merrick as he explains our future.
Join Poppy Lamberton, Cognitive scientist Gillian how transplanting stools from
in conversation with host Forrester discusses her healthy to ill people is a
Emily Bates, to find out pioneering research into potentially lifesaving treatment
how her and her team are how humans learnt to talk. for a host of conditions.
working to control neglected
tropical diseases. 14.40 - 15.00 12.20 - 12.40 15.00 - 16.00

12.00 - 12.40 THE WONDER OF DOGS TALKING TOXOPLASMA: NEW SCIENTIST
WITH JULES HOWARD THE PARASITE THAT GETS JOURNALISTS:
EXPLORING DEEP OCEANS Join author and dog cognition EVERYWHERE! ASK US ANYTHING!
WITH GHISLAIN BARDOUT expert Jules Howard, in Join Lilach Sheiner and Put your questions
Join ocean explorer Ghislain conversation with Emily Bates, Clare Harding as they to our team of amazing
Bardout, in conversation with for a lively chat about all reveal the amazing life science journalists.
host Emily Bates, to hear about things canine. of Toxoplasma gondii.
how we all have a part to play 16.00 - 17.00
in preserving our seas. 15.00 - 15.20 12.40 - 13.00
RPGEEKS: INTERACTIVE
12.40 - 13.00 HOW TO BECOME OUTSMARTING SCIENCE D&D
A YOUTUBE SCIENTIST HEART DISEASE Join our team of
OUTSMARTING WITH DR SIMON CLARK Join experts from the British science improvisors on
HEART DISEASE Join host Emily Bates Heart Foundation to hear how an imaginative interactive
Join experts from the British as she chats to physicist the latest research is tackling adventure.
Heart Foundation to hear how Simon Clark about being heart disease.
the latest research is tackling one of the UK’s most popular
heart disease. science YouTubers. Please note the talks
and speakers are subject
13.25 - 14.10 16.00 - 17.00 to change

LIVE FROM THE SPACE NEW SCIENTIST
SHED: BRAINS WITH JOURNALISTS:
EMMA BYRNE ASK US ANYTHING!
J Spooner returns with special Put your questions
guest Emma Byrne for a chat to our team of amazing
about all things cerebral. science journalists.

Schools’ day timetable available at live.newscientist.com/schools-day-2022

Views Aperture Letters Culture Culture columnist
Aerial photos show Should we be trying Digital doubles take Brothers battle to
The columnist Africa transformed to return humans to the stage in dance save raptors in Delhi,
Chanda Prescod- by industry p30 to the moon? p32 piece Anti-Body p34 finds Simon Ings p36
Weinstein on the
pace of research p28

Comment

Snouting around

Keystone species such as wild boar may be far better conservationists
than humans. We must cherish them, says Benedict Macdonald

WELCOME to some MICHELLE D’URBANO appreciate if they returned to the
uncomfortable truths: same site year on year. Small
keystone species were and caused chaos. The uneven soil, Boar may be forest gardeners, depressions where boar have
managing the planet quite well disrupted bulbs, broken flowers but no garden looks its best on day wallowed turn into vital ponds,
for millions of years before and smashed bracken don’t one. Like any ecological process, it which are rich spawning grounds
humans ever got involved, and look like the work of an animal takes time. That said, within a few for frogs. Rotavated areas of soil
wild boar may be considerably possessed of ecological genius. months of rootling, the new soil come to burst with wild mint and
better conservationists and will already have been colonised. bramble, which, in turn, bring
foresters than we are. The robins and blackbirds, Dog violets can appear the spring pollen resources into the forest,
however, have already cottoned after, bringing in their wake attracting hoverflies, bees and
In recent decades, we have seen on. If you sit and quietly watch colonies of small, pearl-bordered butterflies like the white admiral.
great breakthroughs in the study the exposed ground, called a fritillary butterflies. Yet it may be
of wild animals. But when I began “boar digging”, you will begin to as many as three years later that Eventually, these same diggings
writing Cornerstones, a book see a procession of birds, always green-winged orchids appear in begin to sprout with trees, as
about how keystone species robins first, following in the boar’s profusion, in the same boar blackthorn, hawthorn or hazel
such as beavers, eagles and lynx wake because their actions have digging, alongside foxgloves push up from them, so beginning
once helped to shape Britain’s exposed vital earthy areas where buzzing with solitary bees. a whole new forest generation.
ecology, one thing became clear. the birds can find worms. After all, It doesn’t stop there. Boar are one
While there are many studies of why do you think robins follow By opening up the soil, boar of very few mammals able to carry
animals as organisms within a disruptive primates with hoes pave the way for many outcomes large tree seeds – such as wild crab
landscape, we appear far more around their gardens? that ecologists could only apple – in their guts and then
reluctant to admit that some excrete them, intact, complete
animals profoundly enhance with a healthy dose of fertiliser.
the habitats in which they live.
Ecologists and scientists aren’t
Boar, as I found in my 10-year without ego. It can be hard to
study in the Forest of Dean, act accept that an animal “snouting”
as nature’s excavators, but are around to find food can not only
possessed of an ecological finesse create habitats for rare orchids,
few credit them with. By “rootling” butterflies, fruit trees and frogs,
soil – turning it over in search of but may also be far better at
tubers, invertebrates and other carrying out all these processes
subterranean goodies – boar than we are. But given boar do this,
“rotavate” and reset the soil and did it before us, then what is
biome. This aerates it, exposes it our role? Well, as the steward of
to a new generation of plant and stewards, my argument would
tree seeds and creates complex be that we must cherish and
microhabitats, including ponds, protect keystone species like them.
grassland glades and bare earth – Then, we will become the greatest
the basis of new floral life. keystone species of them all.  ❚

If you walk through a once- Benedict Macdonald
pristine glade of bluebells in the
Forest of Dean, it might appear is a conservationist
upsetting – destructive, even –
that, in the dead of night, an army and author of
of nocturnal diggers have arrived
Cornerstones

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 27

Views Columnist

Field notes from space-time

On a cosmic schedule I work on the dark matter problem
knowing it may be solved long after I die. The universe doesn’t
cater to human timelines, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

IT HAS been almost a century as one of many people involved in or get the right data. I try not
since Fritz Zwicky first a dramatic debate about another to get emotional about this.
hypothesised the existence of cosmic mystery. This particular This is the life I signed up for:
to think about interesting
dunkle materie – which translates conundrum – how to measure ideas and hopefully find
out whether any of them are
to “dark matter” in English. In how fast space-time is expanding – correct. Emphasis on hopefully.

1933, looking at observations began with Edwin Hubble’s first In particle physics, we got a bit
spoiled during the 20th century.
of galaxy clusters, he noted that measurements in the late 1920s There are people older than me
who came of age at a time when
there seemed to be a mismatch and continues to this day. there were new particle physics
discoveries, it seemed, every
between the mass indicated by In fact, the “Hubble tension”, few years. A piece of data led
someone to hypothesise a model
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein the motions of the galaxies and as the discrepancy between our with a new particle in it. People
is an assistant professor went looking for the particle,
of physics and astronomy, the mass measured by how much measurements of this is now and they found the particle.
and a core faculty member
in women’s studies at the light the galaxies were radiating. known, has been one of the There are also people my age
University of New Hampshire. and younger who were raised
Her research in theoretical About 30 years later, Vera Rubin hottest topics in observational on stories of these discoveries,
physics focuses on cosmology, with the promise that when we
neutron stars and particles and Kent Ford used observations cosmology in the past few years. were older, we would experience
beyond the standard model a similar journey in science. As
of stars orbiting their galactic It is a bit of a rabbit hole, too: every recently as 2012, we actually did,
Chanda’s week with the direct measurement of
centres to truly substantiate this time we think we have answers, the mass of the Higgs boson. But
What I’m reading the last major excitement before
I am loving Elizabeth mystery: there was more matter we get more questions. In 1998, that was with the top quark in 1995
Crane’s divorce memoir (if we aren’t counting dark energy,
This Story Will Change: than we could see, suggesting a two different teams realised the which we should, but I digress). It
After the happily had been a while – if we are using
ever after. kind of invisible particle was an academic lifetime as our unit
of measurement. And in 2022,
What I’m watching actually dominating the motions “This is the nature we haven’t seen anything new.
I have been rewatching
Star Trek: Discovery, of visible particles. Rubin and of science: we Some people will have you
which is even better Ford’s papers on this topic were think we know believe this means particle
the second time! published over the 1970s, leading something, then physicists are wasting our time
to an awakening in the 1980s: the our understanding pushing forward using techniques
What I’m working on dark matter problem was real, and that we know have worked in the
I have begun to work past. “They just make things up
out the concept for it wasn’t going anywhere. is transformed” for a living!” they say, as if this is
my next book. a bad thing. But I love this creative
These timescales are large element of science, and it has
This column been a historically important
appears monthly compared with a human lifetime. expansion of space-time was feature of the process.

28 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022 Having just turned 40, I still feel speeding up. So the problem is In a time of rising fascism,
I think it is important to be
like 10 years is a long time! But now different to the one Hubble humble and embrace our creative
side. There is so much we don’t
30 years is about half of many thought he had identified in 1929. know about the cosmos, and as
Carl Sagan once said, without
human lifetimes, and it was This is the nature of science, imagination, we go nowhere.  ❚

long enough that Zwicky didn’t at least in the realm of particle

get to see all of Rubin and Ford’s physics and cosmology. We think

papers be published – he died we know something, then our

in 1974. He didn’t live to see his understanding is transformed

hypothesis blossom into a by new information. We get

major field of research. new, interesting findings when

The universe – beyond those we get them, which isn’t always

close to Zwicky or superfans of when we want to get them. The

his work – doesn’t care that he cosmos, on the whole, doesn’t

couldn’t witness dark matter cater to our personal interests

become a compelling area of or timelines. We are the only

research. But, ultimately, we part of the cosmos to do that.

humans are the only part of This is personal for me. I work

the cosmos to care about the on the dark matter problem, and

schedule on which we understand I do that daily while knowing

its details, and sometimes we that the questions I have may

get very emotionally invested well be answered the day after

in this process. I die. Or 200 years after I die. My

As a teenager, I read a book by personal timeline is, in many

Dennis Overbye – Lonely Hearts of ways, irrelevant to when we

the Cosmos – that featured Zwicky humans work out the right model

Discovery
Tours

9 April 2023
8 days for £4189 per person

Astronomy and radio telescopes
in New South Wales: Australia

Explore the celestial wonders of the southern hemisphere

Discover why Australia has played such an Warrumbungle National Park, and the vibrant BOOKNIONWG
important role in radio astronomy and NASA cities of Sydney and Canberra.
missions by visiting its famous telescopes and
observatories, while enjoying stargazing at Highlights
the southern hemisphere’s celestial wonders.
Accompanied throughout by New Scientist editor - Visit several important sites including
and astronomer Abigail Beall on this eight-day the Canberra Deep Space Communication
tour from Sydney across New South Wales. Complex and the Parkes Observatory.

Visit the Canberra Deep Space Communication - Guided stargazing and astrophotography
Complex, Parkes Observatory and the isolated at three observatories with local expert
Australia Telescope Compact Array. Plus, guided astronomers.
stargazing and astrophotography with local
expert astronomers at three sites, including Sydney - Accompanied throughout by
Observatory’s historic 19th century telescope. astronomer Abigail Beall.

Enjoy historical and atmospheric outback - Discover the geologically fascinating
towns that offer access to some of the darkest Warrumbungle National Park.
skies. Plus, explore the geological marvels of
- Explore historical outback towns plus the
cities of Sydney and Canberra.

To book, call In partnership with Intrepid Travel
UK +44 (0) 203 3089 917
ABTA No.88888
(UK office hours: Mon-Fri 9am to 5:30pm, Sat 10am to 4:30pm)

Or email [email protected]

Views Aperture

30 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Salt of the Earth

Photographer Edward Burtynsky
Gallery Flowers Gallery, London

AFRICA has played a significant
role in our species’ history
and development, and is where
the first humans emerged.
Today, thanks to an abundance
of untapped resources, this
giant continent is on the cusp
of becoming the next major
industrial hotspot – but the
appetite for economic growth is
also propelling resource depletion.

These arresting images
illustrate the scale of this change,
and are taken from the upcoming
photography book African Studies,
by artist and photographer Edward
Burtynsky, who spent four years
capturing the landscapes of
sub-Saharan Africa, mainly using
drones and taking photographs
from aircraft. “Africa… now stands
as a final destination for the
complex arc of globalism,” he says.

The top images show two
saltworks in Senegal, the largest
producer of salt in West Africa.
Salt water from nearby canals
trickles into these human-made
ponds near Naglou Sam Sam (top
left) and Tikat Banguel (top right),
before evaporating to leave the salt
behind. The ponds’ brilliant hues
are due to minerals, pigments
and algae that colour the water
differently depending on salinity.

Namibia is another of Africa’s
salt suppliers, with a saltworks in
Swakopmund shown at bottom
left. The image to its right is the
Sishen iron ore mine near the
town of Kathu in South Africa,
one of the world’s largest
producers of this material, which
is primarily used to make steel.

Burtynsky’s images will be
exhibited at the Flowers Gallery
in London from 14 October
to 19 November.  ❚

Gege Li

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 31

Views Your letters

Editor’s pick fragments of pulverised rock. The There was, however, a striking To shift the climate needle
function of the hydrogel would be change in behaviour around we must rethink message
Should humans be to lock those spiky particles into that time. People began to travel
returning to the moon? place and fill the voids between much more. There was a greater 10 September, p 27
them, thereby reducing the willingness to meet in groups From Steph Győry,
17 September, p 38 porosity. As a building material, it indoors and a rapid decline in Sydney, Australia
From Nick Burke, Portland, Oregon, US would have the desirable property elementary precautions against The case for “longtermism” –
Sending people to the moon always of being readily recyclable, should covid-19, such as wearing masks caring about future generations
seemed misguided. Space agencies the need arise to reconfigure the when shopping. I haven’t seen any and the environment – wouldn’t
could have flooded the solar system layout of a base, for example. convincing account of the relative need to be made if we raised all
with hundreds of probes, rather importance of these precautions, children to accept they belong
than operating expensive crewed Risk of illness puts me off but the sum of them seems to have to an interdependent species
missions to space that make swimming in wild water been about 1000 deaths a week. that is part of a global biosphere
only narrow discoveries. with a shared, billions-of-years-
17 September, p 25 Figuring out chronic old lineage connected through
For example, there are seven other From Julius Hogben, London, UK fatigue is never easy DNA – and aren’t, as humans,
substantial planetary atmospheres “Come on in, the water’s cold” somehow chosen or special.
that should be utterly surrounded briefly raised the issue of water 10 September, p 42
by weather satellites. This would quality for anyone swimming From Shaun Phillips, In making his case, the
increase meteorological knowledge, wild, but needed to go further. Bilston, Midlothian, UK author of the article, William
vital for our climate crisis. Also, the I enjoyed your article “Figuring MacAskill, invokes a moral
most habitable places in the solar A report by UK group Surfers out fatigue”. As an academic argument. This approach is
system other than Earth are the Against Sewage in May included who researches fatigue from a unhelpful because it makes it easy
oceans on some of the moons a survey of 2000 people that sport and exercise perspective, to attribute blame and difficult to
of the outer planets. We should found over half of those who went I appreciate how complex it is to find the root cause of behaviours,
already know if life is found there. wild swimming last year, or tried conceptualise. You focused heavily let alone win people over.
water sports in British seas and on sensing of energy availability
Spaceflight is hard. Small rivers, fell ill from pollution. It as the driver behind fatigue Drought and fire cast
populations of isolated people sure puts me off. More than half development, but there is copious doubt on offsetting
sparsely scattered in nearby parts of of the respondents were clear that evidence in the sport and exercise
the galaxy thousands of years from improvements to reduce sewage sciences of acute and chronic 17 September, p 13
now might be plausible. But science pollution should come from fatigue, though not in the clinical From Alex Wilks, Bristol, UK
fantasy has misled humanity and the water companies’ profits. definition, in the presence of an You report an expert warning
raised the perceived benefits of abundance of cellular energy. of a “cascade of tree mortality”
crewed programmes above today’s On the mystery of higher caused by drought in Europe. The
realities. Current priorities should be death rates in parts of UK From Stephanie Woodcock, claims of many schemes to offset
reversed: space science, not space Carnon Downs, Cornwall, UK carbon emissions by planting
engineering, has the greater return. 10 September, p 14 An anti-inflammatory strategy trees were already controversial.
From David Fremlin, to tackle fatigue might be risky These findings about the impacts
From Philip Stewart, Oxford, UK Colchester, Essex, UK in some cases. Maybe the body of drought, plus the rise of large
It is beyond belief that we are Your graph showed there have is right and is doing its best to forest fires in many regions of
talking of sending humans back been more deaths than usual in counter a very clever pathogen the world, make it even clearer
to the moon. Have we forgotten England and Wales up to 5 August. that has so far eluded discovery. that planting trees is a palliative,
the general loss of interest in 1972? The figures before 15 April were not a cure, for climate change.
There is now increased awareness consistently low, and since then I acknowledge that short-
of the dilapidated state of Earth, have been consistently high. term treatment to defuse major There is no substitute for
the huge cost of sustaining settlers My own analysis suggests inflammation must sometimes cutting fossil fuel emissions
on other celestial bodies and the that this has continued. be done. However, trying to negate and halting deforestation.
fact that returns on such huge the body’s attempt to defend itself
investments are likely to be meagre. You proposed some reasons, while it faces a little-understood It is time to rethink
These are just vanity projects. such as issues in health services, chronic illness, simply by relying the equation for BMI
but none can account for the on the presumption that it is
From Keith Davis, uniform difference between the wrong, could be a mistake. 10 September, p 28
Kinver, Staffordshire, UK periods before and after mid-April. From Larry Stoter,
I propose the use of a “mooncrete”, The Narth, Monmouthshire, UK
comprising a mixture of lunar Want to get in touch? Body mass index – weight divided
regolith – or moon dust – water by height squared – has always
and hydrogel, as a material Send letters to [email protected]; seemed questionable to me.
from which to build a lunar base. see terms at newscientist.com/letters Wouldn’t weight divided by height
Letters sent to New Scientist, Northcliffe House, cubed, a rough measurement of
Moon dust is notoriously gritty 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT will be delayed density, be better?  ❚
stuff, composed of microscopic

32 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Views Culture

Dancing towards a new future?

Who will we become in a transhuman world? A new dance work uses motion
capture and beguiling visuals to explore further, says Alexandra Thompson

Dance The “dancing” visuals in

Anti-Body Anti-Body are created by

Alexander Whitley Dance Company motion-capture tech
Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells
Theatre, London, from 6 to 8 October project, but the message may get
a little lost in translation, with no
IN HIS book Homo Deus, writer dialogue or subtitles to guide the
audience. But what I saw was
Yuval Noah Harari asks: “Are a rehearsal, and I was told the
show may open with a passage
organisms just algorithms and from Homo Deus (though not
necessarily the one I cited
is life just data processing?” Is it above) to help set the scene.

possible that the human mind Whitley, however, is unfazed
by the prospect that the audience
could one day be downloaded will set about making their own
interpretation of his dance piece.
onto a computer chip? “There will always be ambiguity
in interpretation when working
This existential, unsettling idea through dance,” he says.

is key to Anti-Body, a new dance While the dancing is obviously
impressive, the movements
work from the Alexander Whitley are less showy and technically
demanding than those you would
Dance Company, which has its typically find in a traditional ballet
or modern dance performance.
London premiere next week.
Perhaps Whitley isn’t really
At a recent technical rehearsal, that concerned with showing off
his choreography credentials by
I saw the piece’s three dancers putting his dancers through their
paces. After all, if the simplicity
standing behind screens. Motion- of the movements lets the screen
visuals do the work, Whitley
capture sensors strapped to their SODIUM BULLET is then free to concentrate
on conveying his messages.
bodies pick up their routines
So, if next week’s audiences
and the movement data is have modern and adventurous
tastes, they should enjoy the
transmitted to a computer. choreography. But the big
draw for many will be the piece’s
The technology, more technological feats. I found
myself drawn to the “dancing”
commonly used in video games, visuals more than to the talented
physical dancers themselves.
creates a series of visuals on the sate our appetite for information. concepts through movement.
The way technology reshapes As for what Anti-Body
screens. These range from 3D cell- Who or what are we becoming, means, it will take someone
our world may be unsettling, but with a vivid imagination (or deep
like images to human avatars, all asks Whitley, in a hybrid, post- Anti-Body feels more positive than knowledge of post-human theory)
that, concerned with discovering to walk away with a new take on
shifting in real time in response human, real/virtual world? what motion capture and other transhumanism or how the digital
emerging methods can offer art, world will impinge on their life.
to the dancers’ movements. It His dance company has turned creativity and self-expression. As a more traditional dance fan,
I think I will stick to Swan Lake.  ❚
is stunning and technologically to science and technology before Whitley says he also wants
to explore the way the dancers’
impressive, with nothing pre- through works like Uncanny Valley, movements influence the
visuals produced on the screens:
recorded – should a dancer trip, for him, the show is about what
motivates people to think about
the images will also take a tumble. “Anti-Body is concerned living beyond the material
The dancers’ control of the confines of the body. Welcome
visuals is a nod to our increasing with discovering what to the transhuman.

reliance on technology and how motion capture can In one routine, a dancer
remotely controls two cell-like
this blurs the line between the offer art, creativity images that appear on one screen.
The visuals evolve as the cells
physical and digital worlds. “Our and self-expression” are replaced by increasingly
actions take effect far beyond human-like avatars.

the immediate presence of drawing on the idea from robotics Anti-Body is an ambitious

our bodies,” explains Alexander that objects appearing almost, but

Whitley, the work’s choreographer not quite, like humans produce

and artistic director. feelings of eeriness in us all.

With billions of us keeping a Then there was 8 Minutes,

smartphone semi-permanently in named after the time it takes

our back pocket (or at least within for light from the sun to reach

easy reach), the internet is always Earth, which explored the

on hand to answer our queries or possibility of explaining advanced

34 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Don’t miss

Rare seeds of hope

As agriculture becomes more industrialised, saving unusual
vegetables from extinction is vital, finds Chris Stokel-Walker

Book standard range of vegetables and gardeners will know, he does delve Visit
their varieties usually stocked on deep into the cultural history of Science Fiction:
The Seed Detective supermarket shelves – flavourless, common plants and vegetables, Voyage to the edge
listless tomatoes and watery, puncturing the myths around them of imagination
Adam Alexander pap-like cucumbers – but on rarer (no, carrots weren’t bred to be invites you to board
Chelsea Green Publishing or more ancient varieties that have orange to honour the Dutch royal an imaginary spaceship
been pushed to the fringes, from the family), while providing new insight to explore an unknown
CATACLYSMIC headlines about food tomato Solanum pimpinellifolium into things we take for granted. planet, guided by an
shortages, broken supply chains to the Stenner runner bean, which alien AI. Blast off from
and overwhelming heat in the past was first grown by Brython Stenner Take lettuce. In an early chapter, 6 October at the Science
few months have brought more in his garden in the 1970s. Alexander explains how the Museum in London.
awareness of where our food tasteless, ubiquitous iceberg lettuce
comes from. But decades of One of the author’s bugbears is came to be, starting with the Great Read
industrialisation of production the branding of unusually coloured Lakes iceberg, which was designed Body Am I declares
have ensured we are still relatively tomatoes and carrots on upscale to withstand a cross-country train neuroscientist Moheb
detached from what we eat. restaurant menus, or in plastic ride. But there are rarer lettuces Costandi, whose stories
packs on supermarket shelves, as we should try: his suggestions of phantom limbs,
Award-winning film and TV “heritage” or “heirloom”. They are include bloody warrior, Bunyard’s rubber hands and
producer Adam Alexander wants often nothing of the sort, he says, matchless and Amish deer tongue. other phenomena
to fix that, as he makes clear in but are modern hybrids designed reveal the central role
his book The Seed Detective: to look a little different. Each chapter takes a theme, bodily awareness plays
Uncovering the secret histories focusing either on a specific fruit or in how we establish
of remarkable vegetables. His fascination started with a vegetable, or on a broader family of a sense of identity.
sweet and spicy pepper he ate on a plants, looking at their history and Out on 4 October.
While Alexander’s day job trip to Ukraine. It was unlike any he telling of how Alexander has hunted
involves producing documentaries, had tried before, and it helped him down the rarest seeds. The writing Read
his other passion is collecting seeds develop his sixth sense for seeking is rich, demonstrating his deep Night Terrors is
from around the world. He is one of out unusual fruits and vegetables – integration into the world of seed creative writing lecturer
a number of dedicated enthusiasts and their seeds. Rather than be seekers. He is a board member of Alice Vernon’s deep
looking to uncover and conserve the drawn in by colourful varieties or Garden Organic, a UK gardening dive into the history,
seeds of edible plants that are feared bombastic backstories, Alexander charity, and a seed guardian for the science and culture
to be on the edge of extinction. seeks proprietors of market stalls, Heritage Seed Library, which asks of sleep disorders, or
assuming – usually correctly – that growers worldwide to distribute, parasomnias, as well
Alexander isn’t focused on the they are growing the oldest, most grow and propagate seeds in order as a confrontation of
reliable, least mainstream varieties. to ensure their continued survival. her own troubled nights.
Adam Alexander seeks out Published on 6 October.
unusual seeds in Luang While Alexander doesn’t limit Alexander argues that we should
Prabang market, Laos himself to the crops most amateur delve deeper into the more obscure 1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 35
varieties due to their importance in
maintaining global crop diversity.JULIA ALEXANDER
Ninety per cent of all fruit and TOP: SCIENCE MUSEUM GROUP
vegetable varieties, he writes,
have been lost in the past century
as production has become ever
more mechanised and standardised.

It is a clarion call to think about
our food in new ways and to
carefully consider where it comes
from. “We are now, I hope, on a
journey back to a more meaningful
relationship with our soil, our seeds
and our produce,” says Alexander.
“Long may it continue.”  ❚

Chris Stokel-Walker is a technology
writer based in Newcastle, UK

Views Culture

The film column

Really in it together In All That Breathes, a compelling documentary set in Delhi,
humans are just another animal – alongside pigs, black kites, rats, mosquitoes and
millipedes – struggling to survive during a global emergency, finds Simon Ings

Salik Rehman and one
of the injured birds
he works to save

Simon Ings is a novelist and KITERABBIT FILMS bare centimetres off the ground,
science writer. Follow him a fascinating, complex world is
on Instagram @simon_ings “HUNDREDS of birds are falling there is a power cut. What happens revealed. Later, we hear that Hindu
nationalists are linking Delhi’s
Film out of the sky every day,” says to the family’s sewer connection Muslim population with disease
and poor hygiene. Those with
All That Breathes Nadeem Shehzad, by far the when the monsoon arrives any historical sense will know
where this thinking can lead.
Shaunak Sen grumpier of two brothers whose doesn’t even bear discussing.
In UK cinemas Whether or not one picks up on
from 14 October life’s work is to rescue the injured These struggles are compelling, all the film’s nested ironies is left
to the viewer. Sen’s method isn’t
Simon also raptors and water birds of Delhi. and yet this isn’t really a film to present an argument, but rather
recommends... to get us to see things in a new way.
“What amazes me is that people about humans. It is about, quite Of the film’s black kites, Sen has
Book said: “I want audiences to leave the
go on as if everything’s normal.” literally, “all that breathes”. The theatre and immediately look up.”
The Great
Derangement In Shaunak Sen’s All That humans are just one more animal Achieving this requires a certain
artifice. We may wonder how a
Amitav Ghosh Breathes, which won a Grand Jury trying to eke out a living in and tortoise can reach the top of a pile
University of Chicago Press of rubbish just in time to watch a
A book packed with original prize at this year’s Sundance Film motorbike career around a distant
insights traces the accidents corner. The human conversations
of literary history that have Festival, people aren’t the only “Black kites now replace are also somewhat problematic.
made it all but impossible to ones making the best of things vultures as Delhi’s After watching so many handheld
write good literature about under Delhi’s polluted skies. chief recycling service, documentaries, I found them a bit
the climate emergency. The city is also home to rats, pigs, cleaning up after the too on-message, a bit too polished.
frogs, mosquitoes, turtles, cows, city’s slaughterhouses”
Film horses and birds, especially black But why cavil at such a
powerful and insightful film?
Kes kites, which have now replaced Filmed in 2020 and 2021 by
cinematographers Ben Bernhard,
Ken Loach vultures as the city’s chief around the streets of Delhi, one of Riju Das and Saumyananda Sahi,
Based on the novel A Kestrel All That Breathes inhales extreme
for a Knave by Barry Hines, recycling service, cleaning up the world’s most populous cities. close-ups and cramped interiors,
this film tells the story of a and exhales vertiginous skyscapes
working class boy who finds after its many slaughterhouses The cousins compare notes on and city skylines.
a life worth living when he
adopts a fledgling kestrel. and meat-processing plants. the threat of nuclear war between The story of Delhi’s black kites,
often injured by the glass-coated
36 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022 The film follows Nadeem, India and Pakistan while, barely threads used to fly and battle
paper kites – one of Delhi’s most
his brother Mohammad Saud and 2 kilometres away, riots tear up the popular pastimes – might have
been better served by a more
their young cousin Salik Rehman streets. Feral pigs cross a nearby straightforward story. But then
they would have become a small,
as they struggle to turn their stream. A millipede eases itself out even inconsequential problem.

family obsession into a wildlife of a puddle, even as a passing plane The whole point of Sen’s film
is that the kites are a bellwether.
hospital at their home. No sooner casts its reflection in the water. We are all in this emergency
together, struggling to fly,
is another funding bid completed The documentary opens with struggling to breathe.  ❚

than their meat mincer for kite a sumptuous panning shot across

food breaks down. No sooner is a rat-infested rubbish dump.

a wounded bird stitched up than Filmed at a rodent’s-eye level,

To advertise here please email [email protected] or call 020 3615 1151 1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 37

JASU HUFeatures Cover story

38 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Rest easier

Insomnia is a nightmarish problem – but at last 
we know why it occurs and the best ways to tackle it,

finds David Robson

H“ ow do people fall asleep? I’m afraid impaired daytime functioning, such as fatigue,
I’ve lost the knack,” muses the irritability or struggles concentrating. Around
unnamed protagonist in Dorothy 10 per cent of the population meet these
Parker’s 1933 short story The Little Hours. stringent criteria, though there are significant
“Early to bed, and you’ll wish you were dead. differences between men and women (see
Bed before eleven, nuts before seven.” “The gender sleep gap,” page 41).
You will almost certainly relate to this
frustration if you have ever found it difficult Insomnia comes with a health burden: those
to nod off. The more you try to create the who experience it are at an increased risk of
right conditions for sleep, the more elusive it depression, diabetes, cardiovascular disease
appears; the very desire makes it impossible and Alzheimer’s disease. The condition has
to achieve. Parker’s character experienced financial implications too. In the UK alone,
such angst from her unwanted wakefulness the lost productivity due to insufficient sleep
that she considered “busting [myself] over is equivalent to 1.7 million working hours
the temple with a night-light”. per year, amounting to an economic hit of
That may be a familiar feeling for many: £42 billion ($50 billion). In the US, 9.9 million
insomnia is a common condition. It is also one working hours are lost each year – equating
that has far-reaching health and economic to a $411 billion blow to the economy there.
impacts. Yet, for decades, scientists had These figures suggest insufficient sleep is
struggled to offer a good solution. But an costing these countries roughly 2 per cent
explosion in sleep research over the past few of their GDP. So what can be done about it?
years has helped to identify the neurological
and mental processes underlying it. This In an ideal world, we would banish insomnia
deeper understanding of how the brain can with universally effective sleeping pills that are
cause this debilitating condition means we free from side effects. Unfortunately, such pills
have reached a turning point in its treatment. don’t yet exist. Earlier this year, Andrea
Simply put, we are now in a much better Cipriani at the University of Oxford and his
position to work out why someone has trouble colleagues examined the published evidence
sleeping – and the best way to bring them the on 30 sleeping pills, with a comprehensive
rest they so desperately seek. “Insomnia is a meta-analysis of more than 150 clinical trials.
solvable problem,” says Colin Espie at the The research team decided that in order for any
University of Oxford. candidate medication to be considered
That will be sweet music to many ears. effective, it should act relatively quickly –
The chances are that either you, or someone within one month – and provide relief for at
very close to you, could directly benefit from least three months, while being well tolerated.
this new knowledge, given how prevalent
insomnia is. According to various surveys, a The results were disappointing. In total,
third of people regularly experience difficulties just two of the 30 medications were shown
falling and remaining asleep. To be considered to provide both short and long-term relief.
insomnia, this nocturnal unrest must occur One of these – eszopiclone – boosts the actions
at least three times a week over a period of of an amino acid called GABA, which inhibits
more than three months and, crucially, the electrical signalling in neurons. The second –
sleep loss must not be linked to external lemborexant – blocks the action of the
factors, such as a crying baby or too much neuropeptide orexin, which makes neurons
partying. It must also be accompanied by extra excitable. Both medications are approved
for use in the US, but not yet in the UK.

Significantly, Cipriani’s team found that
some of the most commonly prescribed >

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 39

Join us at New Scientist Live

Discover how to live a happier life by visiting our
Mind and Body Stage newscientistlive.com

Some brain regions Multiple lines of evidence now support
(highlighted) behave this idea, including measures of the brain’s
differently in people structure and function. In 2019, for example,
with insomnia, Kira Vibe Jespersen at Aarhus University in
hinting at a specific Denmark and her colleagues showed that
kind of dysfunction people with insomnia tend to have reduced
connectivity between the frontal lobe, the part
LI, JIANG ET AL. RADIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA of the brain associated with self-control, and
regions such as the insula that are involved in
“Excessive worrying about sleep loss emotional processing. “The consequences of
seems to worsen daytime symptoms this reduced connectivity could definitely be
of insomnia, including fatigue” a greater difficulty regulating emotional states
and stress responses,” says Jespersen.
drugs to treat insomnia – including might leave someone feeling too alert when
benzodiazepines, which also work through the they turn out the light. It all sounds like This picture of a ruminative brain going into
GABA pathway – appear to offer no long-term common sense, but it may not be particularly overdrive also chimes with work published last
relief, while their undesirable side effects effective. That was the conclusion of a review year by Yishul Wei at the Netherlands Institute
include daytime fatigue, dizziness, general published last year examining the results of for Neuroscience in Amsterdam and his
mental fogginess and the risk of dependency. 89 previous studies into treating insomnia. colleagues. They found that the brain activity
There are also pills that either modulate levels It found that offering education about sleep of someone with insomnia is generally more
of the hormone melatonin or mimic its action hygiene as the sole intervention produces fixed, so less able to vary. This “inertia” might
in the brain, where, in people unaffected by barely any improvement in symptoms. help explain the tendency for those with
insomnia, it naturally builds up as the day insomnia to lock into fixed patterns of negative,
fades into night and then drops by morning. Ruminative brain repetitive thoughts, concluded the researchers.
But Cipriani’s team found very weak evidence
that these pills could provide even significant There are ways to really make a difference, As you might expect, ruminative thinking
short-term benefits. “There’s no point in though. Psychologists now know they must may be particularly harmful if the anticipation
prescribing them as a first-line treatment,” pay much greater attention to the underlying of sleep itself is the subject of these thoughts,
Cipriani concludes. mental processes that lead to insomnia. Since putting someone in a state of high arousal at
the 1990s, this has been a major research focus, the very time they need to be relaxing. There
If pills aren’t necessarily the answer for and the efforts are starting to pay dividends. is also evidence that people with insomnia
people with insomnia, neither are overly show heightened activity in the amygdala –
simplistic behavioural interventions. From the Much of this research has centred on the another brain area responsible for processing
1970s until fairly recently, the primary option idea that people with insomnia experience emotions – if anything reminds them of sleep.
on this front was education on “sleep hygiene”. “hyperarousal”, fuelled by ruminative
This includes advice on buying a comfortable thoughts, that leaves them feeling anxious Even more importantly, excessive worrying
mattress and good curtains, so that the and physically on edge. This makes it harder about sleep loss and its consequences seems to
bedroom is as restful as possible, while to get to sleep at bedtime, and may prevent worsen the daytime symptoms of insomnia –
avoiding activities such as drinking coffee them from entering a deep slumber, leaving which include fatigue and problems
in the afternoon or watching TV in bed that them more likely to wake up during the night. concentrating – through a process known as
the nocebo effect. Like its more benign twin
the placebo effect, the nocebo effect is a type
of self-fulfilling prophecy. When it strikes,
negative expectations lead to more negative
outcomes than would otherwise occur.

Various observational studies offer evidence
in line with this idea. The more that people
worry about their sleep loss, the worse their
symptoms – independent of how well they
are actually sleeping. Perhaps most tellingly,
researchers can even identify a group of
“complaining good sleepers” who don’t seem
to suffer any objective sleep loss, but who
experience all the fatigue and concentration
problems of people with insomnia, as a result
of their negative expectations. The worst
situation, of course, is to experience poor

40 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

The gender
sleep gap

About 10 per cent of The reasons for this sleep and excessive worries about the
people experience may be both biological consequences – the “complaining bad
insomnia, but it is women and social. Around sleepers”. People in this category are the most
who are particularly three-quarters of pregnant likely to live with the cognitive impairments
hard hit (relatively few women experience and the physical signs of insomnia, such as
studies to-date have insomnia in their high blood pressure.
explored the prevalence third trimester. These
of insomnia among symptoms can continue The good news is that with this clearer
transgender people). after the birth – caused understanding of the causes of insomnia –
partly by the huge and of the thoughts that run through the
Research published life changes, but also minds of those with the condition – effective
last year by Liang-Nan by fluctuations in psychological therapies are now available.
Zeng at Southwest progesterone and
Medical University in melatonin, both of Sleep strategies
Luzhou, China, and her which normally regulate
colleagues pooled the sleep. Symptoms of the One tried-and-tested solution is cognitive
data of 13 studies from menopause, such as hot behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBTI).
various parts of the world flushes and night sweats, When it is carried out in person, this typically
covering hundreds of can also create prolonged takes place over four to six sessions, during
thousands of participants. sleep disturbances. which a therapist will discuss strategies to break
The meta-analysis free of rumination, when it occurs. Rather than
revealed that the odds of Psychological research willing themselves to sleep, for example, the
a woman having insomnia suggests that women are person may be told to direct their thoughts to
are around 60 per cent also more predisposed to staying awake. This counterintuitive technique,
greater than the odds negative rumination, which called paradoxical intention, can reduce the
of a man having it. may prevent restful sleep. person’s sleep “performance anxiety”, leading
to more rapid sleep onset. The therapist will
Sleep hygiene can also help counteract negative beliefs about
include relaxing sleep loss, if, say, they have started to
near bedtime – catastrophise about the effects of even minimal
but on its own, disturbances. For good measure, CBTI also
it might not help includes education on concepts such as sleep
with insomnia hygiene, which can help when combined with
the cognitive strategies. Overall, more than
PRESSMASTER/SHUTTERSTOCK 70 per cent of people show improved sleep after
CBTI and 40 per cent go into remission from
“Rather than willing themselves to their insomnia, according to a recent review.
sleep, a person may be told to direct
their thoughts to staying awake” Mindfulness and behaviour therapy for
insomnia (MBTI) is another rising star. As the
name suggests, it is based around the Buddhist
goals of non-judgemental awareness and
acceptance, with participants trained to notice
the thoughts and feelings they might have
around their sleep without necessarily trying
to change them. “It’s more how you relate
to that thought, rather than just the content
itself,” says Jason Ong, a former professor
at Northwestern University in Illinois who
pioneered the technique and who is now
director of behavioural sleep medicine at
US company Nox Health.

The passive observation of the thoughts,
and the recognition of their fleeting nature,
is meant to defuse some of the person’s
frustrations and prevent them from being >

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 41

New Scientist audio

You can now listen to many articles – look for the
headphones icon in our app newscientist.com/app

Mindfulness can sophisticated apps that provide, usually for
help some people a small fee, the kind of insight and guidance
cope with insomnia normally offered by a therapist.

STEVE MCCURRY/MAGNUM PHOTOS Automated therapy has some obvious
limitations over face-to-face encounters.
“Over my career, all we’ve ever been “The human relationship is very important,”
able to give people is pills, so this says Cipriani. But the results of recent trials
is a real breakthrough moment” show that these technological approaches are
worth pursuing. Take Espie’s app Sleepio, for
drawn into the rumination and worry that future, she hopes such discoveries might help example. This provides a six-week CBTI course,
exacerbate their distress. Clinical trials back to personalise treatments. “We could find with an AI algorithm that helps to tailor the
this up. A 2018 study showed that MBTI can when particular factors are of importance for app to the patient’s behaviour – reported
significantly reduce insomnia symptoms, particular people and the mechanisms through through an online sleep diary or recorded
while a 2020 study showed that these benefits which the treatment works,” says Blanken. through wearables. In May, the National
last long after the therapy has finished. “We could then prioritise the people who Institute for Health and Care Excellence,
would gain the most from a particular therapy.” which gives guidance on which treatments
Most insomnia researchers agree that doctors should use in England and Wales,
each person’s insomnia will differ in the Smartphone saviour recommended that Sleepio should be made
details of its causes and consequences. freely available on the National Health Service
With time, however, it may be possible to But such ambition is unlikely to be met in in those countries, based on data from
identify the particular flavour of someone’s the near future, largely because of a lack of 12 recent trials. Espie says that the remission
complaint, and to predict which therapies available therapists. “There are thousands rate in one study was greater than 70 per cent.
will prove most beneficial. of patients for each person trained in CBTI,” “Over my career, all we’ve ever been able to
says Daniel Gartenberg at the Pennsylvania give people is pills, you know, so this is a real
Tessa Blanken at the University of State University. This means that the majority breakthrough moment,” he says.
Amsterdam in the Netherlands has already of people with insomnia are still given
taken some important steps in this direction. medications, despite the evidence favouring Gartenberg is pursuing a similar course of
Analysing masses of data on people’s the psychological therapies. “It’s perverse that action in ongoing trials of his app, SleepSpace.
experiences of insomnia and its potential we have a common condition for which the Like Sleepio, it tracks data from someone’s
causes, she has identified five distinct subtypes evidence-based treatment is not [widely] phone or smartwatch for a personalised form
of the condition, each with unique patterns of available,” says Espie. of CBTI. Through a smartphone’s speakers, it
sleep-time arousal and daytime distress. also delivers short pulses of restful sound at
Such frustrations have led a growing night that are designed to induce the right
Earlier this year, Blanken showed that people number of sleep scientists, including Espie frequencies of slow brainwaves associated with
with some of these subtypes are much more and Gartenberg, to investigate whether our sleep, and it can be connected to smart light
likely to develop depression as a result of their smartphones might hold the answer, with sources that will change the hue to fit the stage
sleep loss, and that their mental health was of your circadian rhythm. Gartenberg says that
especially likely to benefit from CBTI. In the SleepSpace could be used together with trained
therapists or as a standalone treatment –
provided that trial results are positive.

We may not yet have an easy, quick fix for
sleepless nights – but most people with
insomnia should soon be able to access some
good, evidence-based therapies, without
resorting to potentially addictive pills. Parker,
if she were writing today, could have her sleep-
deprived protagonist put aside her lamp. There
are now much better solutions than “busting”
oneself over the temple with a night-light. ❚

David Robson is author of The

Expectation Effect: How your

mindset can transform your life

42 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

Features Interview

NABIL NEZZAR

Inside the
Neanderthal mind

Our closest cousins died out some 40,000 years
ago, but we can get a glimpse of their thoughts
from the objects they left behind, archaeologist

Rebecca Wragg Sykes tells Colin Barras

DID Neanderthals think like us? We used Archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes,
to assume that our closest ancient
human relatives, who lived in Europe honorary fellow at the University of Liverpool,
and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years,
were concerned only with survival. But in the UK, and author of Kindred: Neanderthal life,
past few decades we have discovered various
things they made that had no clear practical love, death and art, is fascinated by these
purpose: a shell coloured with red pigment, a
deer bone engraved with chevrons and a ring artistic – or what she calls aesthetic – objects.
of stalagmites assembled deep inside a cave.
She spoke to New Scientist about whether

they bring us closer to understanding

how Neanderthals thought about the

world, and what clues they offer to the

species’ mysterious disappearance. >

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 43

Colin Barras: How can we get inside Rebecca Wragg Sykes will be speaking about important tools for hunter-gatherers, and
the minds of Neanderthals at New Scientist show the same clear appreciation of material
the Neanderthal mind? Live on 9 October. properties and clever production methods
Rebecca Wragg Sykes: Clearly, there are Join us at the world’s as used for making spears. They used fire to
no Neanderthal texts, so we can’t hear greatest festival of science soften harder wood.
descriptions of what they were thinking at ExCeL London from
about the world around them in their own 7 to 9 October and online Is a similar approach useful for studying objects
voices. But there is a mass of information
in the material they left behind. In a sense, newscientistlive.com that may have had social or symbolic purposes?
what we can do with those artefacts is
limited only by our imagination. That’s mind-blowing. What do you think is the For instance, a 2018 study concluded the
most exciting recent discovery that gives new
How we can glean information insight into Neanderthal cognition? notches on an animal bone might have been
Archaeology advances not just by single
from these artefacts? new discoveries, but by the knowledge and made by a Neanderthal to tally or keep count.
One way to is to study their technology inferences that emerge through comparing When archaeologists find objects beyond the
through a technique called refitting – many sites, many analyses. So I’ll be cheeky “everyday”, which may be to do with aesthetics
basically, putting things back together, and choose a category: our understanding or point to complex mental processes, it’s
looking at the sequences they used for of Neanderthal organic technologies. exciting. But we are also really cautious. No one
knapping, the process of flaking stone blocks wants to make claims that are later dismantled.
to make tools. It’s “slow archaeology”: you We have known for quite some time that Very carefully argued cases were made in 2018
excavate meticulously and collect even the Neanderthals invented the first synthetic for the Les Pradelles object you mention – a
tiniest objects. Then you try, piece by piece, substance, birch tar, at least one use for which hyena bone from a site in France marked with
to fit those fragments back together. It takes is as a glue in tool-making. But in recent years tally-like notches – as representing something
hundreds of hours, but if you don’t do that there has been renewed interest in assessing extraordinary. The same peer scrutiny was
you’re missing so much about how things the techniques of manufacture and the applied to the 2021 discovery of chevrons
were made and used. cognitive complexity involved in the process. carved on a giant deer bone from Einhornhöhle
in Germany at least 51,000 years ago.
This is as close as we can get to time travel Wooden objects are immensely exciting too,
because you recreate this series of moments because they are so rare. New discoveries of At every stage we second-guess ourselves
and you can watch the decision-making that probable digging sticks are very interesting, and look for different possibilities. If, after all
was going on. For instance, a Neanderthal such as ones found in central Italy that are of that filtering, you’re still left with an object
might encounter a natural flaw – say, a crack – nearly 200,000 years old. These are extremely that doesn’t have a clear explanation from
in the cobble they’re flaking, and you can a functional or survival perspective, then
watch how they decide to problem solve. It’s you know it’s reliably “weird”. It’s an object
almost like looking over their shoulder. that tells us something deeper about how
Neanderthal minds worked and how they
engaged with the world.

LUC-HENRI FAGE/SSAC (CC BY-SA 4.0) What is your favourite “reliably weird” object?

A shell from Grotta Fumane in Italy, which
was left there more than 47,000 years ago. It’s
actually a small fossil originally picked up at
least 100 kilometres away. At some point, a
Neanderthal had rubbed the outside of the
shell with red mineral pigment that had been
sourced elsewhere. There is no clear simple
explanation for this object: it’s not food waste
and doesn’t have an obvious functional use.

As hunter-gatherers with no means of
transport except walking, Neanderthals
wouldn’t have carried anything without value.
I can imagine the shell itself being noticed
out of curiosity, and the pigment does seem
to make most sense as a means to alter the
surface appearance for a visual aesthetic effect.

A circle constructed
from stalagmites by
Neanderthals more
than 174,000 years ago

44 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: FRANCESCO D’ERRICO ET AL.; MARCO PERESANI ET AL.; DIRK WIERSMA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY “It’s almost like
looking over the
shoulder of a
Neanderthal”

Neanderthal objects:
An etched bone (above),
flint hand axe (left) and
fossil shell (below)

Why might someone have decorated this object? might not have had the same resonance for material culture was not systematically
We will never know what it was understood them as for the original creators. integrated into those interactions.
as, how many individuals were involved with it
or how long it had been held onto for. But this Why do you think this? Do these findings bring us any closer to solving
object opens many windows to thinking about When we look at Neanderthal stone tool the mystery of the Neanderthal extinction?
Neanderthals as motivated by more than mere technology, some core flaking methods were This question is so hard to answer. It’s clear that
survival. I think we must consider them as apparently commonly known and understood, Neanderthals were good at being hunter-
beings curious about materials, and interested albeit with some regional differences. But it’s gatherers, and they survived all sorts of
in the aesthetics of engaging with them, for not as easy to see that universality with their dramatic climate change. To some extent they
instance applying colour to a surface. rare aesthetic objects. were able to flexibly adapt. But, yes, there are
these differences with H. sapiens that have
I think the idea of who these objects are Is this different to the aesthetic objects been highlighted more and more as we have
being made for is fascinating. We tend to made by early Homo sapiens? developed a better understanding of the
assume such artefacts are designed for an I feel like Neanderthal aesthetic objects are a archaeology and the genetics.
audience, but perhaps this is not the case. more intimate form of expression, and there
was never the intention to use them as badges So far, every early H. sapiens genome we
So, when we struggle to understand the of identity, woven into encounters with other have looks like it comes from a well-connected
groups. Early Homo sapiens had a greater population, unlike a lot of the Neanderthal
significance of an aesthetic object, maybe repetition and coherence in their material genomes. Maybe the ability to network and
culture than we see with Neanderthals. Instead cooperate did make a difference.
we’re not alone? Perhaps an object that of one red-coloured shell, we find many in a
single site occupied by H. sapiens. I find it hard to accept the argument that
was meaningful for one Neanderthal Neanderthals were heading for extinction
Could that imply that interacting with anyway. I think we would very much like there
might have puzzled another? other groups wasn’t as important or as to be a reason for our survival that makes us
That’s a really interesting question. routine for Neanderthals? sound great. But maybe we were just lucky. ❚
What would a different Neanderthal group Neanderthals were living in more isolated
make of a site like, say, Bruniquel [a French groups than most early H. sapiens were, and Colin Barras is a features
cave made famous in 2016 when it was while encounters would have been important editor at New Scientist
discovered that, more than 174,000 years socially, they may have been rare enough that
ago, Neanderthals had snapped hundreds of
stalagmites off the cave floor and arranged
them into rings several metres across]? I think
they would have been intrigued. They would
have recognised purposeful activity, but it

1 October 2022 | New Scientist | 45

Features THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT

Piecing together a
shattered history

In 2020, an explosion in Beirut caused 218 deaths and
widespread destruction. It also shattered one of the world’s
richest collections of ancient glass artefacts. Now, researchers
are using the devastation to fill in gaps in the history of this

vital material, says James Dacey

46 | New Scientist | 1 October 2022