Home/Science/New Scientist International Edition/3-aug-19/In This Issue
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Water, water everywhere…“IS THIS the beginning of the water wars?” It is a question New Scientist asked back in 2008, as drought forced the authorities in Barcelona to consider importing drinking water from over the border in France.It seems a little hyperbolic now. But a decade ago, it was a common theme that the next big conflict would be over water. Today such talk has all but disappeared from public debate, subsumed into wider concerns about climate change.The two issues are, of course, inseparable. Global warming is altering weather patterns, prolonging periods of drought in some places, while making rainfall more intense and unpredictable in others. To see the future, look to Australia: while New South Wales experiences a prolonged drought, in February parts of northern Queensland had monsoon conditions with 1.4…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19World’s smartest dog has diedWHO’S a clever girl? Chaser, a border collie who learned over 1000 words, died last week, aged 15. Chaser’s exceptional vocabulary earned her the epithet “world’s smartest dog”.Her owner, John Pilley, trained Chaser for up to 5 hours a day for three years, using 800 toys, 116 balls and various plastic items. He would show Chaser an object, say its name up to 40 times, then hide it and ask her to find it.In a test of Chaser’s lexical prowess, she was tasked with getting 20 toys one by one. Out of 838 trials she never got fewer than 18 out of 20 right.…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19The facts about Facebook’s fact-checkingFACEBOOK is attempting to stop the spread of fake news on its site, but it needs to ramp up its efforts and be more transparent about whether they are working. That is the conclusion of a report released on Tuesday by UK fact-checking charity Full Fact, which details the first six months of a partnership with Facebook.Full Fact is one of more than 50 fact-checking firms working with Facebook to review and debunk false content on the site. The tech giant started collaborating with fact-checkers in the US in December 2016, after criticism of its failure to stem the spread of fake news in the run-up to the presidential election.Under the scheme, Facebook provides independent fact-checkers with content to review and rate. Fact-checked content is automatically marked on Facebook, so…3 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Debate reignited over the placenta’s microbiomeIS THE placenta home to communities of bacteria? Recent evidence that the organ has its own microbiome promised to rewrite our understanding of it, but now research suggests that the earlier experiments may have been contaminated.Although the gut is known to host a rich, diverse community of bacteria, as well as viruses and fungi, the fetus and placenta had long been assumed to be sterile.That picture started to change seven years ago, when evidence emerged that babies are born with a gut microbiome, which seems to start taking shape before birth. Then in 2014, a team led by Kjersti Aagaard at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas found low levels of bacteria in the placenta.Julian Parkhill at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues wanted to find…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Bionic eye helps people who are blind read letters againFIVE people who are legally classed as blind are testing a bionic eye. During a trial of the device, most of the participants were able to read individual letters. Although this is far from restoring perfect vision, it is a big improvement.The bionic eye consists of glasses with an embedded camera and a microchip implanted behind the retina. Images beamed from the camera through the pupil are converted by the chip into electrical signals that are sent to the brain.Participants in the trial have macular degeneration, which affects the macula, the central 5 millimetres of the retina that is responsible for the middle part of vision. In severe cases, this part of the vision is blurred or completely dark, making it impossible to read or recognise faces. The bionic eye,…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19AI could lower household energy billsARTIFICIAL intelligence is being used to make the UK’s forecasts for solar power generation more accurate. This could lower energy bills for consumers as well as carbon emissions.The country’s energy system is becoming more reliant on renewable sources of electricity that tend to have a variable output, like solar. About 36 per cent of the UK’s electricity was generated from renewables in the first quarter of 2019.“The growth in solar was much, much more fast-paced than anyone anticipated,” says Cian McLeavey-Reville at National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO), which balances supply and demand in England, Scotland and Wales.But solar panels are connected to local distribution networks rather than the national network, making it difficult for National Grid ESO to monitor their activity. Combined with the trickiness of forecasting the weather,…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Dark feathers give birds a lift when they heat upHAVING dark feathers may help birds fly more efficiently as sunlight heats their wings and the surrounding air, increasing airflow.Svana Rogalla at Ghent University in Belgium and her team thermally imaged an osprey (pictured) and saw that its dark feathers get warmer than light ones, probably because they reflect less light.To see how this might affect flight, the team put stuffed wings of ospreys, gannets and back-blacked gulls in a wind tunnel. These were then heated with infrared light bulbs similar in intensity to being outdoors on sunny and cloudy days.They exposed the wings to wind speeds of 6, 12 and 18 metres per second, similar to the birds’ natural flight speeds. “We wanted to simulate flight under realistic conditions,” says Rogalla.Darker feathers heated up much more than light feathers…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Really briefSomething is up with the starsTwo white dwarf stars seem to be the wrong temperature. Physicists found that the pair are twirling around one another at an incredibly fast rate, but neither is the temperature we expect. The smaller one is colder and the larger one is hotter (Nature, doi.org/c8t7). We don’t yet know why.Light pollution helps virus spreadBirds are the main host of West Nile virus, and outbreaks among infected sparrows are 41 per cent more likely if the birds are exposed to light pollution (Royal Society B, doi.org/c8t8). The virus is transmitted from birds to humans by mosquitoes and it can be fatal in rare cases.Tiny capsules motor around the bodySelf-propelled capsules that shed their outer shells have been shown to linger long enough in mouse intestines to…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Flexible battery works even when stretchedA BATTERY that can conduct electricity and retain its charge when distorted could power flexible devices.Nicholas Kotov at the University of Michigan and his colleagues have developed a conducting component for a lithium-ion battery that maintains conductivity even when stretched to three times its initial size.Layers of negatively charged gold nanoparticles are alternated with positively charged layers of polyurethane – usually used to make things like hose pipes. As the battery is stretched, the gold nanoparticles self-organise into pathways, allowing them to continue conducting electricity.The team tested the performance of the conductor in a battery with a lithium electrolyte. After 1000 cycles of use and recharge, it retained 96 per cent of its capacity. But this was lower if the battery was constantly in a stretched state: under those conditions…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Working hypothesis▲ Bad jokesWhy did the awful joke seem funnier when other people were laughing? Because a study found it to be so. Ha!▲ Forest walksA step backwards for progress. Medi Bastoni is walking 800 kilometres backwards to raise awareness about forest preservation in Indonesia.▲ AsteroidsArmageddon it was not. An asteroid called 2019 OK passed unusually close to Earth and was spotted only hours before. Luckily there was no collision so 2019 is OK, for now.▼ Imperial unitsUK politician Jacob Rees-Mogg has told his staff to use imperial units. We find it hard to fathom (around 1.8 metres) too.▼ HoverboardsIt went quickly from above board to overboard when Franky Zapata splash landed in his attempt to cross the English Channel on a hoverboard.SYLVAIN LEFEVRE/GETTY IMAGES, TOP: TOM CHANCE/GETTY…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Your lettersEditor’s pickThe food advice I needed came from a song13 July, p 32From Alan Larman, Congleton, Cheshire, UKYour article on food advice was unintentionally very amusing. I have read New Scientist from cover to cover since your first issue and have followed the changing, often conflicting, advice on food and nutrition. Since leaving boarding school, I have lived by the advice that “a little of what you fancy does you good, but too much of anything will kill you”.I have a very varied diet and love fruit, vegetables, fish and meat, but have only a small appetite. I recently turned 80, but I am often mistaken for 60 or even younger. Another good piece of advice, taken from an old song, is “I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll drink when…8 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Don’t missListenChris Stringer’s research is one big reason why we think humans originated in Africa. Hear him in conversation with the Financial Times’s science editor Clive Cookson at The Royal Institution in London on 5 August at 7 pm BST.ReadThe Mosquito: A human history of our deadliest predator by Timothy C. Winegard (Dutton) reveals how a small and insubstantial insect triggered the rise and fall of empires, and killed nearly half of humanity in the process.Last chanceEntangled Realities at the House of Electronic Arts Basel, Switzerland, is a group exhibition exploring the social and personal challenges of artificial intelligence. Can human and robot minds coexist? If so, at what cost? Ends 11 August.DETAIL OF BLOEMENVEILING AUCTION,201…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Water from airTHREE MEN in safety goggles stare intently at a clear plastic box filling gradually with fog. Droplets begin to form on the walls. They swell and eventually begin to trickle into the base of the fish tank-like container, forming small puddles. Omar Yaghi smiles broadly and congratulates his colleagues.This seemingly prosaic moment in a laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, may go down in history as the moment scientists turned the tide against water shortage. “Seeing those water droplets was one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” says Yaghi. “It meant I could create water where there is no water.”That was a couple of years ago. Yaghi is now moving beyond drops and puddles, and breaking out of the lab. In his most recent trials, he sucked…9 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19The undiscovered dinosaursTHE name “tyrannosaur” conjures up images of towering predators with enormous heads and ridiculously small arms. But Moros intrepidus wasn’t like that. This 96-million-year-old tyrannosaur was the size of a deer, a lanky pipsqueak of a predator.It is far from the only dinosaur to strut onto the stage this year – 31 new species have been named so far. There’s Bajadasaurus pronuspinax, discovered in Patagonia, which hit the headlines for the forward-facing spines jutting from its neck, and little Ambopteryx longibrachium, unearthed in China, which confirmed that some feathery dinosaurs flapped around using bat-like wings.These add to a tally of more than a thousand species of dinosaur known to have roamed Earth in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods – everything from tiny omnivores no bigger than a pigeon to…8 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Let garden birds tweet onlineHannah Joshua is a science writer and maker based in London. You can follow her on Twitter @hannahmakesNOW for something completely different. Maker projects aren’t just about microcontrollers and small electrical components. They are also about recycling old tech, and harnessing apps and online tools to supercharge your abilities.This week we will pair an old smartphone with internet wizardry to make a motion-activated camera that posts pictures to social media. That will let the birds in your garden tweet as many selfies as they want.To start, get hold of an old smartphone. All it needs is an internet connection and a camera. Clear any old photos off it – you don’t want to accidentally tweet embarrassing old holiday snaps.There are three parts to the project: take the photo, get it…3 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19FeedbackThat’s methed upIn these troubled times, it can be difficult to know exactly what flavour of dystopia we are living through. There are moments when it seems like the one where a superintelligent AI takes over the world; then a heatwave strikes and it all feels closer to a Mad Max-style anarcho-wasteland. For a few days last week, however, it looked as though something radically different was going to devastate the human race: meth-crazed mutant crocodilians from the swamps of Tennessee.On 15 July, CNN reported that police in the “volunteer state” had asked residents to stop flushing their drugs down the toilet during police raids, because of the risk to local wildlife. “Ducks, geese and other fowl frequent our treatment ponds and we shudder to think what one all hyped…4 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Record-breaking heatAS THE world warms, more all-time national heat records have been set. The 38.7°C recorded in Cambridge (pictured) on 25 July during the recent European heatwave has now been confirmed as the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK.The UK Met Office took several days to confirm the record, first checking the instrument located in Cambridge University Botanic Garden that recorded it.The 25 July also saw all-time national records set in Germany (42.6°C), Belgium (41.8°C), Luxembourg (40.8°C) and the Netherlands (40.7°C). Many more places across Europe recorded their highest ever temperatures.The heatwave was caused by a weather pattern that drew hot air from Africa northwards across a broad swathe of Europe. Such patterns occur from time to time, but because parts of North Africa are now 2°C hotter on average…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Anti-ageing’s new hopeCOULD this be the start of a new way to fight ageing? A supplement designed to slow the ageing process aims to increase the number of healthy years we enjoy towards the end of our lives.Launched for online sale in the US in July, the pill hasn’t been through clinical trials. Instead, it is being marketed direct to the public as a dietary supplement named Rejuvant. Its makers claim it is the only scientifically validated anti-ageing supplement on the market.The launch comes at a time of great excitement in longevity medicine. As previously revealed by New Scientist, numerous experimental drugs are in trials, and investors expect the field to become a huge industry.By choosing to sell its product as a supplement rather than a drug, Florida-based firm Ponce De Leon…4 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Origins of the VikingsTHE Vikings weren’t all Nordic natives. They comprised multiple distinct groups of different peoples, according to a major study of ancient DNA.“Viking genetics and Viking ancestry is used quite a lot in extremist right-wing circles,” says Cat Jarman at the University of Bristol in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the study. Many white supremacists identify with a “very pure Viking race of just people from Scandinavia, who had no influence from anywhere else”.In fact, the DNA evidence suggests the Vikings were the product of a diverse melting pot.We know that the Vikings were a seafaring people from Scandinavia who were a major force in northern Europe from about AD 750 to 1050: the Viking Age. They are famous for their violent raids on the British Isles and elsewhere, and…4 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19DNA home testing worriesTHREE of the biggest home DNA testing companies have been the subject of complaints to the UK’s data watchdog, figures released under freedom of information rules show.Since January last year, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received a total of 16 complaints about AncestryDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage. The cases seem to have been relatively low level, but several necessitated action by the firms involved and required the ICO to raise concerns and advise on compliance with data protection rules.Direct-to-consumer DNA testing companies are growing in popularity, with 4.7 million people in the UK estimated to have used a home DNA testing kit. Members of the UK parliament are probing what safeguards should be put in place to protect people who take such tests, some of which can tell people their risk…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Hawaii telescope rowFOR over two weeks, kia‘i mauna (Hawaiians and their allies) have been protesting on the access road to the proposed site of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, a sacred peak on Hawaii Island. If built, the telescope could help us understand the formation of planets and galaxies. But the history of telescopes on Mauna Kea is deeply upsetting.Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world from its undersea base and an excellent place to make astronomical observations. It is already home to 13 telescopes, however the scientific advances these have achieved have been clouded by neglect of the site’s culture and history.In Hawaiian tradition, Hawaii Island is the eldest child of sky father Wākea and earth mother Papahānaumoku. Mauna Kea is the umbilical cord that connects…3 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Jellyfish sperm with stingers that fire inside femalesFEMALE Tripedalia cystophora box jellyfish are stung from the inside by packets of sperm. The tiny stinging structures may boost reproduction by anchoring sperm cells in the body of females.Unlike most jellyfish, T. cystophora copulates, which means the eggs are fertilised inside the female, rather than out in the water. Anders Garm and Sandra Helmark at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark have now shown that T. cystophora sperm are unusual in that they come in packages equipped with stinging structures called cnidocytes.The sperm cnidocytes shouldn’t hurt the female, says Garm. “They are of a type without the penetrating arrow and without poison.” Instead, they seem to anchor the sperm inside the female during fertilisation (Journal of Morphology, doi.org/c8vc).This finding follows on from a 2015 study in which Garm and…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Hurtling star proves Einstein right againEVEN at the centre of the Milky Way, Einstein’s laws rule. Measurements of light from a star that orbits close to our galaxy’s central supermassive black hole can’t be explained by classical views of gravity and instead require Einstein’s general relativity.General relativity predicts that starlight should lose some energy as it travels through the powerful gravitational field of a black hole. That energy loss is expected to stretch the wavelength of light from stars near huge black holes, making them look more red.Standard, or Newtonian, gravitational theory doesn’t predict this. No one really expects Einstein’s theory to be wrong at this scale, but if its predictions were off by even a little bit, it might point the way towards new physics.Tuan Do at the University of California, Los Angeles, and…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Global warming has no recent parallelTHE global warming caused by humanity since the industrial revolution has been found to be unprecedented in the past 2000 years, in the latest blow to a common climate change denier myth.Earlier hot and cold periods over the past two millennia, such as the “Roman warm period” that ended around the year AD 750, were previously thought to be global phenomena. That has led some to suggest that the current phase of warming could be a natural trend akin to these past fluctuations.Now Nathan Steiger at Columbia University in New York and his colleagues have reconstructed temperature records for the past 2000 years from proxies including tree rings, coral and glacier ice.The team has found evidence that four past natural fluctuations were actually regional events. They didn’t span the globe…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19The lowdown on shutdownsIN EARLY June, protesters took to the streets of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, to demand a civilian-led government. Shortly afterwards, Sudan’s ruling military junta turned off the internet.This isn’t an isolated incident. There have been more than 100 internet shutdowns around the world this year already. Not a month has gone by without one in effect somewhere. And the tactic seems to be growing in frequency.Governments usually claim the measure is taken to prevent people from using social media to coordinate violent protests or riots. But growing evidence suggests that shutdowns aren’t effective for this and also have other negative effects.There are essentially two ways to cut off the internet. The first is a routing disruption, which disconnects an entire network, as used recently in Mauritania.The second is packet filtering, which…6 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19The ‘I’ in realityRichard Webb is executive editor at New ScientistFULL disclosure: I am a hypocrite. Two weeks ago, I wrote a New Scientist lead article about the urgent need to find alternatives to flying. Last Friday, I boarded a plane from London to Pisa, Italy, for a scientific conference that, at first glance, would almost certainly fail the “necessary” test.In my defence, one of the themes of the conference, organised by the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi), was the extent to which intelligent agents control their actions – and I did offset my emissions. What’s more, I left the convention feeling that something quite important was stirring in the Tuscan hills.At its heart is the mystery of life: how atoms and molecules come together to make stuff that can self-sustain, make decisions, influence…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Arctic on fireImage Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2019] Sentinel Hub/Pierre MarkuseHUGE wildfires are continuing to burn across the Arctic, releasing more carbon dioxide in 2019 than in any year since satellite records began nearly two decades ago.The ones pictured here in northern Russia show a burn scar about 550 square kilometres in size and enormous smoke plumes. The fires’ hotspots – in yellow, orange and red – were detected using shortwave infrared sensors on the EU’s Sentinel-2 satellite.Temperatures have been well above average in the region and fires erupted in boreal peatlands across Siberia early in June. Normally the fires would last a few days, but this year, some have been ablaze for a month and a half.The result is the rapid release of over 121 megatonnes of carbon dioxide –…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Condensation stationsThe village of Tojquia in the Cuchumatanes mountains of Guatemala is flanked by 35 towering nets, the largest about twice the size of a car parking space. Each net supplies villagers with up to 200 litres of freshwater a day. As the fog rolls over the high ground each morning, water droplets catch on the mesh, slide down, and then drip gradually into containers.The Canadian charity FogQuest began exploring whether nets could provide water for the isolated community here 20 years ago. But this technique could be feasible in much less obviously foggy places. “I believe fog harvesting is quickly becoming viable in a wide variety of regions,” says engineer Jonathan Boreyko at Virginia Tech.The design of the nets matters. Too coarse and fog passes through, too fine and the…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19GOING OUT WITH A BANG OR A WHIMPER?One of the worst days in the history of the planet transpired 66 million years ago. An enormous asteroid struck what is now the Yucatan peninsula in Central America, sparking a mass extinction. It eradicated every non-avian dinosaur, 93 per cent of all mammals, as well as many other forms of life. But were the likes of Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops going strong until the end, or had they already begun to fade away?At first glance, it appears that the dinosaurs might have been waning. Diversity counts seem to show that there were more species 75 million years ago compared with when the asteroid struck, with especially high numbers recorded in western North America. But it now seems that apparent boom is partly down to a fluke of preservation. At that…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Almost the last wordSpecial effectsI took this picture of the sky over Wimbledon, London, on 13 May at around 6 pm, two and a half hours before sunset. How are these spectacular effects created?Bernard Burton Wokingham, Berkshire, UKThe effect is known as irisation or iridescence and is caused by diffraction of sunlight or moonlight by very small particles. These are usually water droplets but, in theory, any particles that are sufficiently small and numerous, such as very fine volcanic ash, can create the effect.Diffraction, or the bending of light rays by obstacles in their path such as water drops, is the same as that produced by a small aperture in a screen, according to Babinet’s principle. The amount of bending varies with the wavelength, so resolution into different colours occurs in the case…4 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19China on track for climate goalsCHINA’S emissions may peak at 13 to 16 gigatonnes of CO2 between 2021 and 2025 - years earlier than its target of “around 2030” in the Paris climate agreement (Nature Sustainability, doi.org/c8w5).This reflects the nation’s efforts to mitigate climate change as part of an economy that focuses on high quality, instead of high speed, says Haikun Wang at Nanjing University, China.China accounts for a quarter of all humanity’s emissions, making it a crucial part of efforts to meet the Paris goal of limiting temperature rises to 2°C.…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Water may flow in giant canyon under Greenland ice sheetA VALLEY longer than the Grand Canyon hidden under the Greenland ice sheet may carry flowing water. It could affect the ice sheet, causing parts of it to move more quickly or slowly towards the sea.The hidden canyon was first described in 2013 by Jonathan Bamber at the University of Bristol, UK. It runs for at least 750 kilometres across northern Greenland. The Grand Canyon in the US is just 446 kilometres long.However, Bamber’s map of the canyon was incomplete because it was obtained by planes that carry ice-penetrating radar flying in straight lines. Bamber filled the gaps using a statistical method based on the average heights of surrounding bedrock. This made it look like the valley was blocked at several points. But he and his team suspected that the…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Brain-inspired chip could transform AIA COMPUTER chip inspired by the brain could pave the way for artificial intelligence with a broader range of abilities. The chip has been used to control an autonomous bicycle, but one day it might power self-driving cars and smart robots.Shi Luping at Tsinghua University in China and his colleagues made the chip with hardware based on the structure of the human brain that can run two types of algorithm.To date, most approaches to developing AIs fall into two camps. The first, and more common, type of algorithm is artificial neural networks, which are simplistic models of neurons designed for specific computer processing tasks such as recognising objects.“One day, this flexible computer chip might power self-driving cars and smart robots”Then there are biologically inspired circuits, known as spiking neural networks,…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19New monkey species already threatened by deforestationIT IS time to welcome another species to the primate family tree – but the Munduruku marmoset may already be under threat from deforestation in the Amazon.Rodrigo Costa Araújo at the National Institute of Amazonian Research, Brazil, discovered the species in 2015. It has a distinctive white tail that sets it apart from most other Amazonian marmosets.“I thought, ‘Oh my God, they are different, they are really, really different’,” says Araújo.To entice monkeys out of the trees, he and his colleagues played an MP3 recording of other marmoset calls over a speaker while trekking through the rainforest.During subsequent expeditions over the next three years, Araújo and his colleagues found that the patch of forest where they first found the white-tailed marmosets is home to clusters of the monkeys.In order to…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Ancient predator on showMORE than half a billion years ago, this stalk-eyed minibeast (Isoxys auritus) cruised the seas in what is now Yunnan, China.This remarkable fossil is one of 55 from the Chengjiang deposit on loan to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, most of which have never been seen outside China before.The fossils date back more than 500 million years to the Cambrian explosion, an evolutionary big bang that gave birth to modern ecosystems and all the basic types of animal we see today. The Chengjiang deposit has become famous for its exquisite specimens, many of which are changing our understanding of how animals evolved.I. auritus was related to insects and crustaceans, and was probably a predator. This fossil is on display as part of the museum’s First Animals exhibition.…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Soothing smartwatch app improves exam resultsEXAMS can make the heart race for even the most well-prepared candidate, but a simple smartwatch app could help alleviate the stress. The app produces a slow, soothing tapping that seems to help people perform better in situations filled with anxiety.Jean Costa and his colleagues at Cornell University in New York created an app that reacts to people’s heart rates by producing a slow, light tapping on the inner wrist of a smartwatch wearer.They tested the app, called BoostMeUp, on 72 college students who were given two maths exams under pressure, and found that slow taps reduced anxiety and improved test performance.Other studies have suggested that techniques like meditation can reduce stress, which apps like Headspace and Calm try to help with. “But in many situations we need something in…2 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Tree stump kept alive by nearby treesA TREE stump that should have died is being kept alive by neighbouring trees, which are funnelling water to it via their roots. The finding adds weight to the idea that organisms can work together for the benefit of a forest.Sebastian Leuzinger and Martin Bader at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand saw a tree stump near Auckland with living tissue growing from it.Wondering how it could survive without foliage, they put water monitors in the kauri (Agathis australis, pictured) stump and in two nearby trees of the same species. In healthy trees, water flow is largely driven by evaporation through their leaves.Over the following weeks, they saw a pattern in the water flow in the trees. When the neighbouring trees evaporated water through their leaves during the…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19The brain’s waste disposal system for flushing out toxinsWE NOW know a major route for clearing substances from the brain, and it may help us treat age-related conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.Where cerebrospinal fluid enters and exits the brain has been a long-standing enigma, says Gou Young Koh at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. In 2014, a network called the meningeal lymphatic vessels (pictured) was found to play a part in flushing out excess proteins.However, the brain’s complex structure meant it remained unclear where most of this drainage occurs.Now Koh and his colleagues have used dye and tracer quantum dots to follow the flow of cerebrospinal fluid as it left the brains of mice. Brain scans showed that the basal meningeal lymphatic vessels let cerebrospinal fluid move in and out of the brain…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Living through a shutdownOn 21 April, several places in Sri Lanka were hit by terrorist bombs, with more than 250 people killed. At the time, I was holidaying in Sri Lanka with friends.News alerts pinged on our phones around 10 am. We messaged our families to let them know we were safe, before cautiously heading out for the day. We were in Galle, about 2 hours’ drive south of the capital, Colombo, where the first bombs struck.In the early afternoon, while we were at a beach on the southern coast, my partner made a WhatsApp call to his mother, who is Sri Lankan, to get updates on the security situation. Fifteen minutes later, his WhatsApp messages stopped going through. We later realised that some social media platforms had been blocked – ostensibly to…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19#FactsMatterJames Wong is a botanist and science writer, with a particular interest in food crops, conservation and the environment. Trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he shares his tiny London flat with more than 500 houseplants. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @botanygeekTHE popular narrative with food is simple: “eating local” is one of the best ways to shrink your carbon footprint. This is because food miles are a handy proxy for overall sustainability, as transporting harvests across the planet is a key driver of carbon emissions. It is a story that is as pervasive in the foodie media as it is intuitively plausible, but how reliable is it?Well, it is indeed true that the food sector uses a lot of energy, contributing 20 to 30 per…4 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19A world gone badBooksNot Working: Where have all the good jobs gone?David G. BlanchflowerPrinceton University PressFully Automated Luxury Communism: A manifestoAaron BastaniVersoMeasuring Poverty Around the WorldAnthony B. AtkinsonPrinceton University PressIN 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. Since then, the country has been in crisis. Talk has been of virtually nothing else. Then there is the talk about the talk. “To say the present era is one of crisis borders on cliché,” writes Aaron Bastani in his polemical manifesto Fully Automated Luxury Communism.What else could he say, given the situation? This grim picture is expanded on in two more books. In Measuring Poverty Around the World, Anthony Atkinson wrestles with the fact that even as countries become wealthier, poverty remains entrenched. And David Blanchflower’s central theme is the crisis of underemployment…6 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Do we see reality?LIFE insurance is a bet on objective reality – a bet that something exists, even if I cease to. This bet seems quite safe to most of us. Life insurance is, accordingly, a lucrative business.While we are alive and paying premiums, our conscious experiences constitute a different kind of reality, a subjective reality. My experience of a pounding migraine is certainly real to me, but it wouldn’t exist if I didn’t. My visual experience of a red cherry fades to an experience of grey when I shut my eyes. Objective reality, I presume, doesn’t likewise fade to grey.What is the relationship between the world out there and my internal experience of it – between objective and subjective reality? If I’m sober, and don’t suspect a prank, I’m inclined to believe…11 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19Shedding light on the mindTHE brain is a complex network of some 86 billion neurons. To find out how they operate, we need to be able to record the activity of these cells. That is why the methods developed by neuroscientist Ed Boyden are so crucial. His breakthrough came in 2004 when, as a graduate student, he flashed a blue light at a nerve cell to see how it would react. Instantly, it fired. This was the birth of optogenetics, a technology that has revolutionised the study of brains and behaviour. We caught up with him to find out more.What is the ultimate goal of your brain studies?I have a deep desire to understand what it means to be human – the meaning of our thoughts and feelings. That is really what motivates me…6 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19THE FIRST DINOSAUROver the past 40 years, palaeontologists have spent a great deal of time investigating the last of the dinosaurs. It is only more recently that they have begun to get acquainted with some of the first.From discoveries in the 1990s, such as the metre-long Eoraptor lunensis found in Argentina, it seemed like the earliest dinosaurs emerged about 228 million years ago in the middle of the Triassic period. But fieldwork in eastern Africa has taken the dinosaur record back even further, dramatically altering our image of what the first dinosaurs were like.In 2013, researchers described Nyasasaurus parringtoni from a 245-million-year-old partial skeleton unearthed in Tanzania. The skeleton is too fragmented to tell if it is definitively one of the first dinosaurs, but along with more complete remains of related animals…1 min
New Scientist International Edition|3-aug-19PuzzlesQuick crossword #37Set by Richard SmythACROSS1 Immature form of a dragonfly, for example (5)4 Type of malicious code inserted into software (5,4)9 Portable gadget launched by Sony in 1979 (7)10 In anatomy, the middle (7)11 Colour between red and yellow on the visible spectrum (6)13 See 12 Down15 Form of H2 O (3)16 ___ Valdez, oil tanker that struck a reef in 1989 (5)DOWN1 Term for classical mechanics (9)2 Software designed to cause harm (7)3 Low, continuous sound (3)4 Organ of respiration (4)5 Precious stone (3)6 Sequence of nucleotide triplets (5)7 Sesame or sunflower, for example (7)8 Lawrence ___, Nobel prizewinning physicist and X-ray crystallographer (5)12/13 Swedish climate activist, b.2003 (5,8)14 H (5)18 Spokes (5)20 Soft sheepskin leather (5)22 Synthetic material (5)23 φ (3)24 Ceefax or ORACLE, for example (8)26…3 min
