New Scientist 10 03 2018

MUSSEL PAIN
The crisis engulfing

our freshwater molluscs
RUDELY INTERRUPTED
Why people are
always butting in
SHAKING THE ICE
The wobbly way to free
ships from frozen seas
WEEKLY 10 March 2018
WHY WE DON’T SLEEP ENOUGH Evolution made us the wide-awake ape
DARK DNA
Found: the hidden genes that drive evolution
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CONTENTS
Management
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Publishing and commercial

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On the cover Leader Features
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1204 38 Mussel pain 3 We shouldn’t dismiss mind-reading 28 The hunt for dark DNA
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The crisis engulfing our technology as science fiction A hidden universe within
Recruitment sales manager Mike Black
Key account managers freshwater molluscs the genome challenges our
Martin Cheng, Reiss Higgins, Viren Vadgama understanding of evolution
US sales manager Jeanne Shapiro
34 Rudely interrupted
News 32 Shaking the ice The wobbly
Marketing Why people are always butting in 4 THIS WEEK Outsmarting cancer way to free ships from frozen seas
Head of marketing Lucy Dunwell
David Hunt, Chloe Thompson, Andrew Wilkinson with game theory. Ex-spy 34 Rudely interrupted
32 Shaking the ice poisoned. Hiding penguins Why people are always butting
Web development
Director of technology Steve Shinn The wobbly way to free ships in – and what to do about it
Maria Moreno Garrido, Tuhin Sheikh, from frozen seas 6 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY 38 Shell shock The crisis engulfing
Amardeep Sian
The oldest known caring parent. our freshwater molluscs
New Scientist Live 7 Why we don’t sleep enough Twisted graphene makes a 42 Psychological profiling David
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1273
Email live@newscientist.com Evolution made us the wide- superconductor. AI cheats at Stillwell revealed how companies
Event director Mike Sherrard awake ape computer games. We evolved to gauge our personalities online
Creative director Valerie Jamieson
sleep less. Mountains on Saturn’s
Sales director Jacqui McCarron
Event manager Henry Gomm 28 Dark DNA moon may be fallen ring. Red
Conference producer Natalie Gorohova
Found: the hidden genes that squirrel saviours. Earliest stars
Culture
UK Newsstand drive evolution spotted. Literal brain over brawn. 44 Becoming human An account
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Design knows about you – and you would the total consent of the brain fMRI and AI could be developed
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THIS WEEK
Treat cancer like a game

An algorithm that tailors treatments to shape cancer evolution is letting
doctors gain the upper hand on the disease, doubling survival times
Andy Coghlan treatment regime to maximise monitoring what the cancer make their own testosterone.
a person’s survival. This enables does in response, Gatenby says Abiraterone is then used to
APPROACHING cancer treatment the team to use game theory to oncologists can stay ahead. target these cells, but large doses
as a game has doubled the keep the upper hand over cancer. To test this approach, his team of the drug wipes them out,
survival time of men with In this “game”, the oncologists turned to people whose prostate prompting cells that don’t need
advanced prostate cancer. This are predators, and the cancer cancer has spread to other parts testosterone to take over and
achievement could mark the start cells are prey. The oncologists’ of the body. They kept track of ultimately kill the patient. By
of using game theory to target a objective is to kill the prey, or whether the cancer was growing using less of the drug, and taking
range of cancers more cleverly. to at least keep it in check. But or shrinking by measuring how breaks between treatment cycles,
“This approach is elegant and much of a chemical called the team can stop these more
exciting, and shows real promise “This approach could prostate specific antigen was shed lethal cells from becoming
to delay treatment failure,” says revolutionise cancer by tumours into the blood every dominant, retaining control
Charles Swanton at the Francis therapy. I want to try it month. As this chemical rises and over the cancer.
Crick Institute in London. on every cancer we can” falls, the algorithm calculates
People with cancer aren’t how much of the drug abiraterone
usually killed by their initial conventional cancer treatment to administer in each treatment
Outsmarting evolution
tumour, but by the rapidly shifts this balance. By giving a cycle, tailoring dosages and It typically takes prostate cancers
evolving secondary tumours that patient repeated strong doses of treatment to each individual. 15 months to evolve resistance to
occur once the disease has spread. a cancer drug, the cells are pushed The approach works because standard doses of abiraterone, at
To work out how each case of to evolve resistance. it keeps the prostate cancer which point the tumours are able
cancer is evolving, Robert Gatenby When this occurs, the hooked on testosterone. Many to grow bigger than their initial
and his colleagues at the Moffitt oncologists stop leading the game cells in prostate tumours require size. But in an ongoing trial of the
Cancer Center & Research and instead have to keep up with this hormone, so men with this algorithm in the treatment of
Institute in Florida created an an evolving, stronger cancer. By cancer are given a chemical to 17 men, this timescale has more
algorithm. Built using clinical using the algorithm to deploy stop them making it. However, than doubled to an average of
data, it also suggests the best drugs more subtly, and closely the cancer often evolves cells that 33 months – and could keep rising.
sealed off by police.
Russian ex-spy Typically, a hospital will first
poisoned in the UK screen samples like blood for common
compounds, like over-the-counter
WHAT poison was used on Sergei drugs, prescription drugs and
Skripal and his daughter Yulia? household chemicals. If these come
The former Russian spy and his up short, samples would be tested
daughter were found on a bench in a for metal salts like arsenic, says Carlin.
shopping centre in Salisbury, UK, on A toxicology report was expected
Sunday. The pair are in intensive care, as New Scientist went to press.
with doctors racing to find out what
they have been given and how to treat
it. In a statement, Wiltshire Police said
there is no risk to the wider public.
Secret penguins
Public Health England said that other revealed by drones
people have been “decontaminated”.
Because the pair were found in TWO huge colonies of Adélie penguins
a shopping centre, it is likely the have been discovered hiding in plain
DAN KITWOOD/GETTY
substance was delivered in a massive sight on Antarctic islands.

dose or is a rapidly acting poison, Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis
says Michelle Carlin at Northumbria adeliae) were known to nest on the
University. The area has been Danger Islands, near the tip of the
4 | NewScientist | 10 March 2018

For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news
SMART THERAPIES
Game theory could be one way to
keep rapidly evolving cancer cells
under control (see main story),
but it isn’t the only game in town.
The CAR-T approach genetically
engineers a person’s own T immune
cells so that they recognise and kill
cancer cells. The strategy has shown
promise in treating otherwise
incurable blood cancers, including
STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
chronic leukaemias. It works

because it can eliminate all cancer
cells, including those that have
evolved drug resistance.
Another tactic is to use
immunotherapy to reawaken a
person’s immune system. Cancers
often evolve to evade a person’s
immune system by producing
molecules that make them look like
Cancer has been able to progress discovery and approval of a new Two prostate cancer cells in the normal cells. Drugs like nivolumab
in only three men in the trial, drug,” says Carlo Maley of Arizona final stage of cell division– unmask these cells, enabling the
and some of the participants have State University. “I want to try immune system to see them and
now lived for four years without this on every cancer we can.” year (Nature Communications, weed them out – a strategy that has
this happening, Gatenby told The team will keep running doi.org/gcm99n). sent cases of melanoma and lung
New Scientist. These results are their small trial until cancers The approach is one of several cancer into long-term remission.
so impressive that the team is resume progressing in all 17 men, to look at cancer evolution. A newer technique is to test
beginning a larger trial, and plans but it could be a long wait. “These Rather than go for broke trying dozens of drugs on clones of a
to extend the treatment strategy patients are still chugging along to eradicate an advanced cancer, person’s cancer in the lab. This
to skin and thyroid cancer. three to four years after the trial these strategies instead aim to should enable oncologists to pick
“This is an approach that could started,” says Gatenby, whose maximise how long a person the best drug first time, giving the
revolutionise cancer therapy, team published a preliminary can continue living a relatively cancer less time to grow and evolve.
and it doesn’t even require the report of the first 11 patients last normal life with the disease. ■
west Antarctic Peninsula. But only in believed to be needed for supremacy. (HPV) infections, which cause over
2014 did satellite images reveal large
Biggest quantum Bristlecone was presented on 99 per cent of cervical cancer cases.
areas stained with guano. computer yet 5 March at a meeting of the American Since 2007, all girls aged 12 or 13
A team led by Heather Lynch of Physical Society in Los Angeles. in Australia have been offered a free
Stony Brook University in New York GOOGLE has introduced Bristlecone, Google has yet to demonstrate its HPV vaccination. A decade later,
has now surveyed the birds, using its new 72-qubit quantum processor, abilities. Julian Kelly of the firm’s the proportion of 18 to 24-year-old
drones specially adapted for the and the largest yet. Quantum AI Lab said in a blog post women with HPV has fallen from
cold. They found 1.5 million Adélie The tech giant is racing rivals like that the research team is “cautiously 22.7 to 1.5 per cent (Journal of
penguins, taking the total number IBM to demonstrate a quantum optimistic that quantum supremacy Infectious Diseases, doi.org/ck6t).
in the world to 8 million (Scientific computer that can surpass the can be achieved with Bristlecone”. The number of Australian women
Reports, doi.org/ck5j). There were abilities of ordinary machines. This diagnosed annually with cervical
also smaller colonies of gentoo and goal of “quantum supremacy” is cancer should drop from 3000 to
chinstrap penguins. generally thought to require about just a few by the year 2050, says
The global population of Adélie 50 quantum bits, or qubits, and
Cervical cancer to study author Suzanne Garland at
penguins was already increasing, for Google hopes to achieve it this year. be eradicated? the Murdoch Children’s Research
unknown reasons. However, numbers A successful quantum computer Institute in Melbourne.
have fallen around the west Antarctic must also have low error rates. AUSTRALIA is on track to become the The original vaccine protected
Peninsula, which has warmed rapidly Bristlecone is designed to mimic first country to practically eradicate against four HPV strains that cause
in recent decades because of climate Google’s previous 9-qubit machine, cervical cancer. 70 per cent of cervical cancer. The
change. An east Antarctic colony, on which had an error rate of 0.6 per cent A national school-based latest version – rolled out in Australia
Petrel Island, has suffered two bad for every two-qubit quantum logic vaccination programme has seen a in January – protects against nine HPV
breeding seasons in the last decade. gate. A rate below 0.5 per cent is sharp decline in human papillomavirus strains that cause 90 per cent of cases.

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
shape and size, and have the for some time, perhaps to protect
Ancient sea animal same number of body segments,
suggesting they are the same age
them from predators.
The find is “as convincing a case
doted on young (bioRxiv, doi.org/ck4m).

The remains are pristine, so the
team claims the five animals died
as possible for the existence of
parenting in the Cambrian”, says
Bruce Lieberman at the University
and were fossilised together, not of Kansas in Lawrence.
Jasmin Fox-Skelly different growth stages, so could at different times. “We argue that It also implies parental care
see how they grew. “Juveniles are they are basically siblings that evolved in this period. Until then,
A SHRIMP-LIKE creature is frozen very similar to the adult, but… were born from the same egg most organisms were simple and
in the act of caring for its four they are naturally smaller and clutch and grew together,” says single-celled. “The Cambrian is
offspring. Captured in a fossil have a more slender body,” says Ortega-Hernández. It seems known to be a time when many
dating back some 520 million Ortega-Hernández. F. protensa lived with its young of the major animal groups, or
years, it is the oldest evidence of Crucially, one fossil seems to be phyla, first appear in the fossil
a parent actively looking after of a mature adult with four young. It is the oldest known example record,” says Lieberman.
its young after they hatch. The juveniles are all a similar of parental behaviour But if new behaviours like
There is little trace of extended this arose at this time, it is not
parental care in the fossil record. clear why parental care evolved
One of the few examples is a in F. protensa and not in other
160-million-year-old reptile that arthropods of a similar age.
died alongside its six young. Previous studies found that
But we have more evidence of the animal had an advanced
animals protecting their eggs. brain and complex cardiovascular
This needs less commitment and system. This could have allowed
has been reported in dinosaurs, it to be more active and care
and in a 508-million-year-old for its young. However, “other
crustacean-like creature that arthropods may have had a
carried eggs in between her body similarly advanced brain at this
and shell. time”, says Lieberman.
Now Javier Ortega-Hernández Instead, F. protensa may have
at the University of Cambridge had a different lifestyle to other
and his colleagues have published arthropods. “There are certain
a study of Fuxianhuia protensa environments or lifestyles where
specimens from the Cambrian [parental care] would be favoured
period, found at the Chengjiang evolutionarily, and others where
fossil site in Yunnan, China. The it wouldn’t be,” says Lieberman.
tiny creature is an arthropod, “Parental care has not only
JING SHAN FU.
the group that includes insects. evolved multiple times… it has

The team had many fossils at also been lost multiple times.” ■
Graphene twist Among the warmest operators are

cuprate superconductors, which
and a superb conductor of heat.
Each layer is less than 30 nanometres
This transformation from an insulator
to a superconductor occurs at
makes simple work at -173°C. But these are messy
electrical systems that are difficult
thick and features a hexagonal
pattern of molecules.
around -271°C, which may seem
frigid, but is warm compared with
superconductor to understand and recreate. The two layers are stacked, with the temperatures at which many
Pablo Jarillo-Herrero at the one rotated by about 1 degree with other superconductors operate.
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY holds great Massachusetts Institute of respect to the other, causing the “This is a striking result – a clean
promise for delivering energy without Technology and his colleagues have hexagons to overlap. This changes the system that appears to show the
the usual losses found in regular made a superconductor that exhibits way the electrons within the lattice same kind of superconductivity that
power lines due to heat and electrical the same kind of resistance-free interact such that they flow through we’ve been trying to understand in
resistance. It is notoriously tricky to energy transfer as cuprates but is without resistance when a voltage cuprates for three decades,” says
achieve, but a new superconductor much less complicated. It switches applied to the system is increased Jenny Hoffman at Harvard University.
may help us better understand how easily between superconducting and (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature26160). Because this material is tunable,
such materials work – and bring us insulating states, making it easier to Jarillo-Herrero says it could also
closer to using them in everyday life. study how superconductivity arises. “This material switches be used to make superconducting
Superconductors transfer energy Their material is made from two from superconducting to transistors for use in quantum
without resistance, but they generally layers of graphene – a form of carbon insulating, which is useful computers or other sophisticated
only work at very low temperatures. that is pliable yet incredibly strong, for quantum computers” electronic applications. Leah Crane ■

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
Cheat helps Our species is adapted to staying

up past our bedtime
AI beat classic Simon Durrant at the University
video game of Lincoln, UK. Chimpanzees
procure a variety of foods, make
IF YOU can’t win the game, self- tools, have complex social lives
destruct or cheat. That is the strategy and fight wars – yet they sleep
invented by an artificial intelligence much more than we do, he says.
trained to play old Atari video games. Durrant points out that the
Patryk Chrabaszcz at the University study was based on captive
of Freiburg, Germany, and his animals, which may sleep more
colleagues created an AI to play eight than their wild counterparts.
Atari games, including the arcade “Animals in captivity are
classic Q*bert, in which players must notoriously bored,” he says.
ALESSANDRO RIZZI/LUZ/EYEVINE
navigate a strange orange character Nunn and Samson aren’t sure

around a pyramid and dodge enemies. why we have cut non-REM sleep
Rather than mastering the game as a and preserved REM sleep. Non-
human gamer might, the algorithm REM sleep seems important for
came up with two unusual tactics. storing long-term memories.
In the first, the AI gives up trying There also appears to be a link
to win and instead baits an enemy into between the amount of non-REM
killing itself, before self-destructing.
This scores just enough points for Why humans evolved to sleep a person gets and whether
or not they develop Alzheimer’s
the AI to advance to the next level.
In the second, the AI seems to have need a lot less sleep disease. Some have suggested that
the plaques of amyloid protein
discovered a bug that lets it cheat. that characterise this condition
The algorithm completes the first THE 7 hours of sleep we get every In fact, we mostly get about are cleared from the brain in
level, but doesn’t advance to the night may not feel like quite 7 hours a night: 5.4 hours in non-REM sleep. “This may make
second as expected. Instead, the enough, but compared with our non-REM sleep and 1.6 hours in humans uniquely vulnerable to
pyramid starts flashing and the AI’s fellow primates, which spend REM sleep. So the drop has come Alzheimer’s disease,” says Nunn.
score starts rising rapidly, reaching around 12 hours a day slumbering, about by cutting non-REM sleep Such a change in sleeping
nearly a million points (arxiv.org/ humans barely get any shut-eye. (American Journal of Physical patterns might have increased
abs/1802.08842). It seems we have evolved to Anthropology, doi.org/ckqt). this risk, agrees Dave Holtzman
Chrabaszcz and colleagues limit our sleep, and that may be The findings don’t mean we at Washington University in
developed their AI using a so-called because we have better things to should be sleeping for 9.5 hours, St Louis, Missouri. Our brains
evolution strategy, which involves do, says Charles Nunn at Duke says Nunn. “We know that, in make less of the amyloid protein
borrowing ideas about mutation and University in North Carolina. But terms of health, there is an characteristic of Alzheimer’s
selection from biology. The AI is given this might have left us susceptible during deep sleep. “If you shorten
a random strategy initially, then as it to Alzheimer’s disease. “Time spent sleeping could the period of non-REM sleep,
plays the game it tweaks or mutates Nunn and his colleague David have been used to find presumably levels of the protein
the approach to create new ones. Samson collected data on how allies, develop skills like are higher, allowing it to
The system evaluates which of these long 29 other primate species tool-making, and teach” accumulate over time,” he says.
“offspring” strategies achieves the sleep, including how much time That said, sleeping more than
highest score and then further they spend in the REM (rapid eye optimal amount of sleep, and average may not protect you
mutates the best-performing ones movement) sleep of vivid dreams people who sleep more or less against Alzheimer’s, given the
at the next time step. Over time, and in deep, non-REM sleep. than that have health problems,” research showing that
evolution ensures the best strategies, The pair also included factors he says. “It definitely seems that oversleeping can also be harmful.
or at least the most successful that might affect sleep, such as sleep has been optimised.” “I don’t think we can improve
ones, dominate. diet and brain size. They used all Nunn thinks humans sleep less on someone who gets normal
In 2015, Google DeepMind this to build a model that predicts because we have more important amounts of sleep,” says Holtzman.
demonstrated an AI that learned to how much sleep a given primate things to do. Time our ancestors “But many people don’t have
play Atari games just by “watching” should get, based on the others. spent sleeping could have been appropriate sleep patterns. It is
the pixels on screen, and could beat Their model calculated that used to do all the things that made more important to correct those
high scores set by top human players. humans should have around us so successful, such as finding to protect against problems.”
The idea is that game-playing 9.5 hours a night. Of this, 8.4 hours allies, developing skills like tool- He recommends getting
algorithms could one day start would be in non-REM sleep and making and teaching children. enough exercise, not reading too
learning about the real world. 1.3 hours in REM sleep – if we were But not everyone is convinced. close to bedtime and switching
Jacob Aron ■ like other primates. Other primates learn plenty, says off lights. Jessica Hamzelou ■

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Pine martens
may save UK’s
red squirrels
YOUR enemy’s enemy is your friend.
The UK’s endangered red squirrels
are getting an unexpected helping
hand – from predators that kill the
grey squirrels that threaten them.
Grey squirrels are native to North
America. They got settled in the UK in
the 19th century after being brought
over by a silk manufacturer, and soon
began to suppress the native red
squirrels. They are bigger, bolder and
eat a more varied diet, and also carry
a virus deadly to red squirrels. Today,
NASA/JPL
they have driven red squirrels out of

much of the UK – although in Europe
the red squirrels remain widespread.
Moon peaks are

The mountains circling Iapetus It has been suggested that
may be remnants of a former ring predators called pine martens might
help restore the UK’s red squirrels, by
fallen ring debris particles would slowly spiral

downwards over several orbits.
Roberts and his colleague Angela
driving down grey squirrel populations.
Pine martens look like a cross
between an otter and a weasel. They
Stickle wondered if the resulting were almost wiped out in the UK, but
James Romero kilometres, far enough away from lower-angle impacts could allow have been recovering since the 1970s.
the planet’s strong pull that the ring debris to build up instead Emma Sheehy at the University of
SATURN’S moon Iapetus tiny moon’s own gravity can keep of digging out Iapetus’s surface. Aberdeen, UK, and her colleagues
resembles a walnut, with a ridge of hold of debris and force it into Them team simulated the studied the populations of all three
peaks 20 kilometres high running a ring. If destabilised, falling impacts of icy blocks 1 metre animals in Scotland during 2016. They
around its centre. A new model ring material could form a thin to 1 kilometre in diameter over enticed pine martens and squirrels to
suggests the ridge could be made equatorial surface ridge. But there various shallow angles. Their feeders and recorded their numbers,
of rubble from the collapse of a is a problem. results show that falling ring using DNA analysis and cameras.
former ring. And data from NASA’s “Usually impacts make a crater. material would rarely make deep This revealed how often red and grey
Cassini spacecraft could confirm it. Here, we need to build [ridge] craters (Icarus, doi.org/ck3t). Also, squirrels encountered pine martens,
Iapetus’s mountain range runs topography,” says James Roberts because impactors generally and how this affected them.
1400 kilometres around the at Johns Hopkins University in survive these glancing blows, In areas where grey squirrels
equator of the tiny moon. Scaled Baltimore, Maryland. Craters ring material piles up. were exposed to pine martens, their
to Earth proportions, its peaks would certainly be the most “You get little traffic jams of numbers dwindled, whereas red
would reach over 100 kilometres common result of impacts from debris as each bumps up against squirrel numbers increased if they
high. Astronomers initially objects not bound to Iapetus’s previous impacts,” says Stickle. encountered pine martens
thought that internal geological “It isn’t a final demonstration (Proceedings of the Royal Society B,
processes could have pushed up “Lower-angle impacts could by any means, but I can’t imagine DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2603).
the ridge, but models struggled to allow ring debris to build another physically plausible Red squirrels were more cautious
replicate what the Cassini probe up instead of digging out scenario,” says William B. than grey squirrels when visiting
saw as it flew by in 2004. Iapetus’s surface” McKinnon at Washington feeders in areas with lots of pine
Recent alternative ideas suggest University in St Louis, Missouri. martens, says Sheehy. It may be that
it is made of impact debris. gravity – like meteorites – which Roberts now wants to look grey squirrels don’t recognise pine
Material kicked up when space would often come in at steep through Cassini data for geological martens as a threat, as they didn’t
junk collides with a moon angles to the surface, causing features associated with their evolve alongside them, she says.
generally falls straight back maximum damage. model. Such a heavy load sitting on Sheehy’s team is now studying how
down or gets sent into orbit Falling ring material doesn’t Iapetus’s surface should cause the the growing pine marten population is
around the moon’s host planet. behave like impacting asteroids icy crust to bulge upwards on each affecting farmers and foresters, who
However, Iapetus orbits Saturn at or meteorites. Trapped inside the side of it, which may be visible have persecuted them in the past.
a distance of more than 13 million moon’s gravity, the falling ring in the images the probe took. ■ Helen Thomson ■

DEFINITION of “Gorilla”
A company that dominates an industry without having a complete monopoly.”
Investopedia.
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NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
strength of absorption depends gas to account for the drastic drop

We’ve seen traces on the gas’s temperature, so this
means the gas was twice as cold –
in temperature. That is because it
is easier to transfer velocity to a
of the first stars at 5 kelvin, or -268°C – as decades

of models predicted.
“The only way to cool
lighter particle.
He calculated that the particles
can be no heavier than about
something is to transfer energy 4.3 giga-electronvolts (GeV)
Leah Crane in the Australian outback, where from it, but what could possibly (Nature, doi.org/gcz8sd). That is
it can avoid contamination by be even colder than the gas? The much lighter than the mass of
OUR first glimpse of the Earthly radio waves. only candidate is dark matter,” about 100 GeV that had long been
universe’s earliest stars may Their radio spectra of the entire says Rennan Barkana at Tel Aviv predicted for weakly interacting
help us figure out what makes sky showed that hydrogen atoms University in Israel. Everything massive particles (WIMPs), the
up dark matter. Observations began absorbing background else in the early universe is just leading contender for dark matter.
have revealed hydrogen from light about 180 million years after too warm. This measurement is a key
the era when stars were first the big bang (Nature, doi.org/ Barkana simulated the early addition to the evidence for what
lighting up, and the gas appears gcz8xm). “Aside from the CMB, universe and found that the dark dark matter is and how it looks.
to have interacted with dark this is the farthest we’ve seen matter particles must have been “Until now, dark matter has been
matter particles. in the early universe,” Bowman fairly light to absorb enough implied from its gravity. It’s been
After the big bang but before says. “It’s the earliest evidence velocity and thus heat from the indirect, and some people have
stars and galaxies formed, most of stars existing.” just questioned our theories of
of space was filled with hydrogen Surprisingly, the signal was This radio antenna in Western gravity,” says Barkana. “This is the
gas that blended in with the much stronger than expected. The Australia detected the oldest stars first evidence that’s independent
background light remaining of gravity.”
from the big bang, called the Bowman and his team remain
cosmic microwave background cautious about their finding, even
or CMB. This renders the gas after two years of double-checking
invisible to telescopes. every part of their radio telescope,
But as stars began to form, their and building an exact copy to
ultraviolet radiation imparted confirm their measurement.
energy to the gas atoms, letting Other experiments will have to
them absorb some of the independently verify the signal
background light. Astrophysicists that the team found.
have been trying to observe that “If it’s confirmed, then the
absorption for decades. implication is going to be a new
Now, Judd Bowman at understanding of dark matter –
Arizona State University and his how it affected the early
colleagues have finally spotted universe and the universe now,”
it. As the frequency of the signal says Lincoln Greenhill at the
CSIRO AUSTRALIA
from the early universe overlaps Harvard-Smithsonian Center

with FM radio frequencies, they for Astrophysics. “It’s going to
built a specialised radio telescope change everything.” ■
Brains really do humans – find the energy to keep

their big brains running.
She says muscle – particularly slow
twitch muscle used in sustained
and the crab-eating macaque, which
weighs several kilograms. The team
mean having An idea emerged in the mid-1990s:
perhaps primates support their large
activities like long-distance running
– is also an expensive tissue. So she
found that primates with larger brain
volumes had less muscle mass, relative
less brawn brains by saving energy elsewhere. explored whether primates with big to their overall body mass (The
In particular, the idea is that their brains have less muscle mass. Anatomical Record, doi.org/ck3r).
PRIMATE species with larger brains guts – another “expensive” tissue – got Muchlinski and her colleagues “What I am seeing now is
have less muscle mass, supporting smaller as brains became larger. But it dissected primates of 10 species that larger-brained primates have less
a controversial theory that energy- isn’t clear that this idea is correct. In lived in captivity and died of natural muscle,” says Muchlinski. But she
hungry brains grew larger by stealing 2011, Karin Isler at the University of causes. They included the Philippine admits the sample size is small.
resources from other tissues. Zurich, Switzerland, published a study tarsier, which weighs about 130 grams, “I think it may be possible that
Brains are expensive to run. Some questioning whether animals with primates, as a group, are adapted
estimates suggest every kilogram of big brains really have small guts. “Primates with larger brain to spend relatively little energy on
brain tissue needs 240 kilocalories There may be another piece to the volumes had less muscle locomotion,” says Isler. But she is
each day. Many researchers have puzzle, says Magdalena Muchlinski mass, relative to their reserving judgement until Muchlinski
wondered how primates – particularly at the University of North Texas. overall body mass” gets more data. Colin Barras ■

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NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Earth vaporised
and the moon
then sprang out
A SHAPE-SHIFTING Earth might have
formed the moon. Roughly 4.5 billion
years ago, a collision made our planet
mushroom outward into a spinning
cloud of vaporised rock resembling
a squished jam doughnut. At its puffy
edges the moon formed, suggests
DANIELE MATTIOLI/ANZENBERGER/EYEVINE
new work on a model of early Earth.

Scientists have long suspected
that a Mars-sized body known
as Theia struck the young Earth,
throwing molten rock into orbit.
It would have coalesced into a moon
mostly made of material from Theia,
but Apollo moon rocks suggest that its
make-up is almost identical to Earth’s.
Tap brainwaves to
Last year, Simon Lock at Harvard Nurturing your talents can help
University stumbled upon a solution. ease you into that alpha state
When he and Sarah Stewart at
the University of California, Davis,
simulated the impact, they did not
see a young Earth surrounded by
jazz up music skills wave synchronisation got the
best scores (Neuropsychologia,
doi.org/f97w8t).
a molten debris disc. Instead, But there was no increase
the collision vaporised the planet Helen Thomson have been linked with coming in alpha-wave synchronisation
into that cosmic doughnut. up with creative ideas, such as in pianists who had no
They called the structure a synestia, IF YOU need to produce your best answering questions like “name improvisation training. “Our
and argued that most planets might creative work, try boosting your as many original uses for a mop results suggest that creativity
form these oddities at some point in alpha brainwaves. as you can”. can be characterised as a distinct
their lives. Now, Lock and his Joel Lopata at the University of When the researchers analysed mental state – one that can be
colleagues argue it can even explain Western Ontario, Canada, and his the pianists’ brainwaves, they nurtured through training, and
our moon (Journal of Geophysical colleagues have found that people found the alpha waves became that can reflect the quality of the
Research: Planets, doi.org/ck3s). with more synchronised alpha more in sync – more neurons were finished product,” says Lopata.
Heated to roughly 3000°C, the waves are more creative and firing at the same time – the more So would boosting alpha-wave
synestia would have had an outer produce work of higher quality. creative someone was at the time. activity make you more musical?
edge marked by clouds of molten rock The team asked 22 pianists to However, they only saw this Researchers have found that
that formed silica rain. There were listen to, play back or improvise in people who had formal training electrical brain stimulation can
also chunks of debris throughout. jazz melodies. As they did so, the in improvisation. Among these improve the playing of novice
Should some of those have slammed researchers monitored electrical jazz musicians. “This may have
together, they could have formed a activity in the prefrontal cortex, “Creativity seems to be put them into an alpha state,
proto-moon. Then silica rain would a brain region that orchestrates a distinct mental state – where they were better able to
have collected on to it, helping it grow. our thoughts. one that can be nurtured come up with new ideas,”
Meanwhile, the synestia cooled When groups of neurons through training” suggests Lopata, who was not
and shrank until it was smaller than send signals at the same time, involved in that experiment.
the young moon’s orbit. That caused the result is a wave of electrical pianists, alpha waves became But in 2016, Rachel Wurzman
our planetary companion to condense activity that EEG caps can pick more synchronised when they at the University of Pennsylvania
at the edges of the synestia, leaving up. Certain brainwave types have played back music they had warned in an open letter of many
it in orbit around the body that kept been linked with mental states – previously heard, and even more safety issues in sourcing brain
cooling until it resembled Earth. delta waves are detectable during so when they were improvising stimulation gear online. Instead,
The model helps explain why the deep sleep, for instance, whereas their own melodies. Lopata says that an activity like
moon is almost Earth’s chemical clone, beta waves signify that someone When expert musicians free-writing, where you write a
yet lacks elements that are easily is analysing something critically. listened to and rated them, spontaneous stream of ideas,
vaporised, such as potassium and Alpha brainwaves, with a the improvisations that were would probably help you practise
sodium. Shannon Hall ■ frequency of 7 to 14 hertz or so, associated with the highest alpha- getting into the alpha zone. ■

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
AI reads your mind

to describe images
Timothy Revell From this, the AI then produces
a caption based on what it thinks
CAN you guess what I’m looking the person was viewing. For
at? Artificial intelligence can. example, one caption it generated
A system developed in Japan was “A dog is sitting on the floor
can describe a picture someone in front of an open door”, which
is viewing, using scans of correctly described the scene
their brain. (arXiv, arxiv.org/abs/1802.02210).
Algorithms have recently Determining the accuracy
become pretty good at generating of the system is tricky because
captions when shown an image. there is no definitive best caption.
Now it seems a similar technique However, of the six captions
can be used to generate captions included in the paper, most of
when an AI is shown scans of a them fairly accurately described
PLAINPICTURE/PETER GLASS
the original image and made
“One accurate caption it grammatical sense.
generated was: ‘A dog To train the AI, Ichiro Kobayashi
is sitting on the floor in at Ochanomizu University in
front of an open door’ ” Japan and his colleagues split the
process into two parts. The first
person’s brain, taken while identifies features in an image fMRI imaging is expensive, certain patterns of brain activity
they were looking at an image. like “man”, “surfboard” or “ocean”, so a dataset of 100,000 brain with certain features within the
“I consider it a form of mind and the second forms captions by scans of people looking at images images the person was viewing.
reading, or perhaps at this point putting these together into a basic just doesn’t exist. Putting the two components
just mind skimming,” says Umut sentence such as “a man is surfing To get around this, the team together gave the final AI.
Güçlü at Radboud University in in the ocean on his surfboard”. trained the caption-forming There are still questions around
the Netherlands, who was not Both components of the part of the AI on regular images how good an AI system like this
involved in the research. AI contain a type of algorithm with captions. This is the most can be. Because fMRIs do not
To generate a caption, the AI is called a neural network, which complex task the AI performs, so record everything the brain is
given an image of a person’s brain, consists of thousands of different requires a lot more training data doing, just a snapshot, this
taken with an fMRI scanner. The connections, inspired by the to become accurate. They then means there may be a limit to
fMRI scanner shows the surges in way neurons connect in the trained the feature-extracting the amount of detail that can
blood flow that correspond with brain. Neural networks typically part on brain scans of a person be extracted using this method.
activity, so the different parts of require tens or hundreds of viewing images. This is an easier In the past, teams have shown
the brain involved in processing thousands of examples to task and so required less training that it is possible to make very
the image light up on the scan. become good at a task. But data. It learned to associate rough video clips estimating
what a person is seeing using
brain scans, as well as detecting
PICTURE PERFECT what type of object a macaque
AI can pluck images directly from experimented with three types of with associated fMRI scans. With is viewing.
a person’s brain. Given an fMRI scan images: “natural” pictures of things enough data, AIs like this might Applications are still a long way
of someone looking at a picture, like bats, snowmobiles and stained make it possible for computers to off, but companies like Facebook
an algorithm can reconstruct the glass; simple shapes like squares and know what we are thinking about and Elon Musk’s Neuralink are
original image from the scan alone plus signs; and alphabetical letters. (see main story). exploring technology to control
(bioRxiv, doi.org/ck4b). Although the The shapes and letters were fairly “These decoding methods could be computers directly with the brain.
results aren’t yet perfect, they are recognisable, but the reconstructions used for human-computer interaction “Once such methods start to
still often recognisable and hint at of the natural images tended to be in the future,” says Haiguang Wen at reliably decode what we imagine
what may be possible in the future. blurry and difficult to parse. You can Purdue University in Indiana. “You or think rather than what we see,
Guohua Shen at Japan’s Advanced see the images at newscienti.st/brain. could know what a person is dreaming I expect them to play an important
Telecommunications Research The team trained their algorithm or thinking just by analysing the role in the development of new
Institute and his colleagues using 6000 images that were paired exciting brain signals.” Leah Crane neuroprosthetic devices,”
says Güçlü. ■

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IN BRIEF
RICHARD HERRMANN/SEAPICS.COM
AI learns to rate
your dance moves
STRICTLY Come Dancing judges
watch out. Artificial intelligence
could be about to waltz in on
your territory.
Abu Zaher Faridee and his
colleagues at the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County,
unveiled HappyFeet at the
HotMobile conference in
Arizona last month.
The team asked people learning
an Indian dance called lasya to
don two wrist and two ankle
motion sensors each. They also
trained an algorithm on data from
an expert dancer, then got it to
process the students’ moves after
each class.
In early tests, the system was
94 per cent accurate at recognising
when someone was dancing in
the correct style. It could also
score their routine for accuracy.
Ultimately, says Faridee,
the team wants to create a
Open-and-shut case on for their apparently sardonic expression when
encountered with their mouths closed. While at the smartphone app that acts as
‘sarcastic’ fish’s big mouth Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, “a personalised dance tutor”.
Hongjamrassilp studied how fringeheads can open
SARCASTIC FRINGEHEADS have more of a temper than their mouths so wide.
your average fish, but it isn’t a sharp tongue that their He and his colleagues discovered that the fish can
Skin bacteria
rivals face: it is their gaping, fluorescent mouth. extend its mouth so much because its upper jawbone is
When threatened by another male, the fish opens its extremely long. It flares out to the sides when its mouth can fight cancer
mouth about as wide as its head, displaying an outer and is open. In addition, the fish has big cheek membranes,
inner row of teeth. This effort is intended to show other which hang off the bones like sails on a boat. MICROBES on your skin may
fringeheads that “I’m bigger than you and you shouldn’t The team has also found that part of the inside of be protecting you from cancer.
come into my area”, says Watcharapong Hongjamrassilp the mouth is fluorescent yellow and the rest reflects Teruaki Nakatsuji at the
at the University of California, Los Angeles. ultraviolet light. These traits make its mouth more University of California,
Sarcastic fringeheads (Neoclinus blanchardi ) are conspicuous in the dark and sometimes murky water this San Diego, and his colleagues
about 20 centimetres long. They may have been named fish calls home (Journal of Morphology, doi.org/ck3n). have found that a strain of
Staphylococcus epidermidis
makes a molecule that is similar
Trump supporters hate bad BO odours that most strongly to a blood cancer drug. When
predicted if a person would rate they gave mice with skin
PEOPLE with authoritarian right-wing authoritarianism, highly for authoritarianism tumours injections of this
attitudes are more likely to be asking to what degree volunteers (Royal Society Open Science, chemical, “the tumour size
disgusted by bad body odours. agreed with statements along the DOI: 10/1098/rsos.171091). was suppressed by 60 per cent”
Jonas Olofsson at Stockholm lines of “we need a strong leader The team reran the experiment compared with mice given saline
University in Sweden and his to deal with an immoral society”. a month before the 2016 US injections, says Nakatsuji.
colleagues asked 201 volunteers People who scored higher for presidential election, and asked Mice given this bacterial strain
from around the world how disgust also tended to do likewise participants which candidate they and then exposed to enough UV
disgusting they found various for right-wing authoritarianism. supported and to what degree. light to cause skin tumours
hypothetical situations. Some Compared with other cues, such as “Those that were most developed around 20 per cent
of these involved smell, such as the thought of seeing something supportive of Donald Trump had fewer tumours than mice given a
exposure to body odour. disgusting, it was a high disgust- the highest body-odour-disgust different strain (Science Advances,
Their survey also assessed response to the thought of body sensitivity,” says Olofsson. doi.org/gcz86k).

For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news

IN BRIEF
Lost plant refound Biggest family tree shows when cousins stopped having sex
after 151 years THE world’s largest family tree families to spread out. The family suggests lifespan is partly
has 13 million people and was tree showed otherwise (Science, heritable, but we haven’t found
A PECULIAR plant has been built using crowdsourced data. doi.org/ck3q). many of the responsible genes.
discovered in the rainforests of Joanna Kaplanis, now at the “Even though people started “It’s difficult to tease apart the
Borneo after having been lost for Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute to be born further away from genetic influence,” says Kaplanis,
more than 150 years. in Cambridge, UK, and her their families during the early because close relatives often share
Thismia neptunis was found in colleagues collected 86 million 19th century, they were still the same environment.
1866 by Italian botanist Odoardo publicly available profiles from marrying cousins for 50 years,” The family tree allowed the
Beccari in the Gunung Matang Geni.com. Users on this website says Kaplanis. It seems the change team to compare the lifespans of
massif in western Sarawak, create family trees, which are then was more to do with cultural people who lived together or apart
Malaysia. He described it a few merged when matches occur. influences. “It just became less and of close and distant relatives.
years later. There are no records of The data dispelled a long- socially acceptable,” she says. This showed that 16 per cent of the
anyone seeing it since, so it was standing myth: that Westerners The results also shed light on variance in lifespan is genetic.
assumed extinct. largely stopped marrying close longevity. We know siblings tend That “is on the lower end of
But in January 2017, Michal relatives in the 19th century to live to a similar age, as do what previous research had
Sochor of the Crop Research because better transport allowed parents and their children. This suggested”, says Kaplanis.
Institute in the Czech Republic
and his colleagues found a few
ALEX SEGRE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

specimens in this area of Borneo
Earth microbes can
and took the first photographs
(Phytotaxa, doi.org/ck3p). thrive on Enceladus
T. neptunis belongs to a group
of plants that steal food from fungi. SATURN’S moon Enceladus could
There are around 500 species of host methane-making organisms.
such “underground plant”, says A microbe found on Earth has
Vincent Merckx of the Naturalis been shown to survive happily in
Biodiversity Center in the conditions known to exist on
Netherlands, who studies these Enceladus, which has a liquid
so-called mycoheterotrophs. water ocean beneath its icy crust.
Many are known only from one This archaeon lives in deep sea
site, so they are assumed to be rare vents near Japan, and survives by
and endangered. But it may just be combining hydrogen and carbon
that no one is looking. While doing dioxide – both detected in
fieldwork in Australia, Merckx was Enceladus’s atmosphere – while
surprised to find that some species excreting methane. The Cassini
are quite widespread. “They are probe found methane traces in
much more common than people the moon’s watery plumes, and
think,” he says. there is a chance some were from
this kind of microbe. Superfast charging ahead
SOCHOR ET AL. 2018
For five years, Simon Rittmann

at the University of Vienna in A CHANCE finding could speed the lithium-ion batteries, which take
Austria and his team exposed the development of electric cars and hours to charge fully, wear out after
microbe to combinations of gases phones that charge in just minutes. a few hundred charges and can
found on Enceladus. It survived in While attempting to develop explode if they overheat.
hydrogen and carbon dioxide water-absorbing plastics called At a press conference in London
levels like those there, and coped hydrophilic polymers for use in last week, the team said the
with temperatures from 0°C to smart contact lenses, UK company material’s performance is an order of
90°C, and pressures up to 50 Earth Superdielectrics inadvertently magnitude better than commercially
atmospheres – both likely to be created an excellent capacitor. available supercapacitors.
found in its oceans (Nature It stores energy by maintaining an Team member Sushma Acharya
Communications, doi.org/ck2q). electric field within the material. used a 2-centimetre square piece
The team also calculate that the The firm has now used this of the material to power a 2-volt fan
breakdown of olivine minerals – material to create prototypes of a for a few minutes. The material is
thought to make up the moon’s new kind of supercapacitor. The hope mostly water by volume, so these
solid core – could produce enough is it will be able to store more energy supercapacitors should also be safer
hydrogen to sustain methane- for its volume and charge faster than than lithium batteries.
making microbes.

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How HIV treatment

became global
At the turn of the century, the best HIV therapies were available only in
developed countries. Now, the increasingly global availability of powerful
new treatments is helping to bring the HIV epidemic to heel
T
he impact of HIV in Africa in the foreign governments and smart licensing Town, South Africa, in response to the lack
1990s and 2000s was profound. deals by pharmaceutical companies. of available treatments. “We said to
“It was a horrendous time,” says Kenly Much of the early funding was made pharmaceutical companies that we needed
Sikwese, who has lived in Zambia for most available via the President’s Emergency Plan access to their drugs on the grounds of
of his life. One report found that, in 1999 for AIDS Relief – an initiative launched by compassionate use,” she says.
alone, 5.4 million people were infected and George W. Bush, US president at the time. Part of that change was led by Gilead
2.8 million died. This programme released $15 million to fund Sciences. The company has pioneered the
“I lost two of my own brothers to HIV, HIV prevention, care and treatment in development of medicines for HIV. “Their
and I was one of the lucky ones – there were drugs have been the first-line agents from
families of 10 that only had two members “Global AIDS-related deaths the get go,” says Bekker.
left,” says Sikwese, who coordinates an HIV Gilead was also one of the first to introduce
treatment advocate network called AfroCAB, peaked at 1.9 million in 2005 tiered pricing of the antiretroviral treatments
which campaigns for the speedy but had halved by 2016” that had become so effective at tackling HIV.
development and approval of life-saving This made key medicines available in low-
treatments. “It was a time of no hope; if you developing countries between 2004 and and middle-income countries for a fraction of
had HIV, all you could do was wait to die.” 2008. Together with the Global Fund to Fight what they cost in high-income countries.
The rapid spread of the virus, combined AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, these Having lower prices for drugs in Africa “has
with a lack of access to treatments, was organisations are still the mainstay for global really been a game changer,” says Sikwese.
especially felt by African nations. “Zambia HIV funding. In another move to make treatments more
became a country of funerals,” says Sikwese. “Things changed in the 2000s,” says accessible, Gilead began entering into
Since then, things have changed thanks Linda-Gail Bekker, who in 1995 founded generic drug licensing agreements with
to a huge surge of financial support from the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in Cape manufacturers in India and elsewhere. This
means that since 2006, these drug makers
On the decline have been allowed to make their own, generic
versions of Gilead’s HIV drugs, and sell them
The number of new HIV infections is dropping in many parts of the world but challenges remain
in places such as Eastern Europe and central Asia where numbers are rising cheaply in low-income countries.
Five years later, Gilead became the first
pharmaceutical company to sign an
Eastern and southern Africa Western and central Europe and North America
Western and central Africa Eastern Europe and central Asia
agreement with the newly formed Medicines
Asia and the Pacific Latin America Caribbean Patent Pool – an organisation formed to
Middle East and North Africa coordinate the licensing of patent-protected
Shaded areas show range of uncertainty
2.5 250 medicines so that they can be produced in
generic form for low income countries.
Number of new HIV infections
Number of new HIV infections
Today, numerous drug manufacturers

2.0 200
based in India, South Africa and China
(thousands)
produce Gilead-developed medicines at low

(millions)
1.5 150
cost. The greater the number of
manufacturers, the better it is for countries
1.0 100 like Zambia, says Sikwese. “You have more
competition, which means you have a lower
SOURCE: UNAIDS
SOURCE: UNAIDS
0.5 50 price, which means you have more

accessibility,” he says.
0 0 The impact has been huge. In 2006, just
1992 2000 2008 2016 1992 2000 2008 2016 30,000 people received Gilead’s HIV
turnaround in the availability of HIV

treatments. According to the latest statistics
from UNAIDS, the UN body that coordinates
global action on HIV, 20.9 million people now
have access to antiretroviral drug treatments.
And that’s led to ambitious plans to build on
that success, tackling the disease on an even
larger scale.
In 2014, UNAIDS launched the 90:90:90
goal – aiming to make 90 per cent of people
with HIV aware of their status, to give
90 per cent of those people HIV treatment,
and for 90 per cent of those on treatment to
have the virus so suppressed that it is
undetectable in a blood test. And all by 2020.
There are encouraging signs. Global
AIDS-related deaths peaked at 1.9 million in
2005, and had halved to 1 million by 2016,
for example.
But the epidemic is far from over (see
On the decline). Today, around 36.7 million
people globally are living with HIV, and there
were 1.8 million new infections in 2016.
“There are still more than 1 million deaths,”
NIELS BUSCH/GETTY BOTTOM: IBL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
says Sikwese. “That’s unacceptably high.”

One of the key challenges faced by public
health practitioners is ensuring that everyone
who is infected knows their status. “More
people need to be tested at an early stage,
without clinical symptoms,” says Papa Salif
Sow, who helps oversee Gilead’s efforts to
improve access to treatments in Africa.
Self-testing kits are proving helpful here –
people can receive and use the kits at home,
allowing them to learn their status without
the stigma and time commitment associated
with attending a clinic.
Improvements are still needed, however.
medicines. By 2011, this number had risen to HIV self-testing kits are helping “HIV mother-to-child transmission remains
2.4 million. By 2016, the company achieved a people get treatment earlier high in some sub-Saharan African
long-standing goal of treating 10 million countries,” says Salif. “And mortality in
people. At the same time, the price of these children living with HIV remains high.”
drugs has fallen by 80 per cent since 2006. He says better paediatric formulations of
Other companies have since followed antiretroviral drugs are urgently needed.
Gilead’s lead, making a range of medicines But the tide seems to be turning. “Over
available at affordable prices; “21 million time, we’ve seen a huge difference in
people are now on treatment,” says Bekker. mortality as more people have access to
The wait for drugs is shrinking, too. In the antiretroviral therapy,” says Sikwese. “Drugs
early days, treatments for HIV that were companies including Gilead have become
developed in the US or Europe took a long more proactive,” he adds. “In terms of
time to be approved for use in developing making drugs available, and ensuring
countries. Sikwese remembers one drug that widespread uptake, they’ve played a critical
was approved for use in the US in 1996, but role in levelling the playing field.”
didn’t make it into Africa until 2010. But The next article in this series will explore
Gilead’s latest agreement with the Medicines the future of HIV treatment.
Patent Pool aims to have new drugs ready for
For more see: @GileadSciences
generic manufacturers as soon as they are
available in high-income countries. Date of preparation: February 2018
On the whole, there has been a huge Job code: 999/IHQ/18-02//1005
ANALYSIS ENERGY-SHARING
Virtual power to the people

A new way of generating energy by letting communities pool together
is getting its first big test in South Australia, says Alice Klein
FIRST there was ride-sharing than it generates, the surplus to buy grid electricity – they rely price spikes by providing
and room-sharing. Now Tesla can be redirected to another that solely on the shared energy in the cheaper energy on demand
is bringing us energy-sharing, needs a bit extra. If a heatwave virtual power plant. They pay a (see “Storing the wind”, below).
with the announcement that it is predicted tomorrow, every flat fee of $30 per month to be Spreading out the state’s
is building the world’s largest battery can recharge from the grid part of the network, instead of the power supply could also improve
“virtual” power plant in Australia. overnight at cheap, off-peak rates, typical $200 per month for grid resilience, because it’s unlikely
Last month, the government then feed the grid when everyone energy. That means they recoup that every battery would fail at
of South Australia revealed that turns on their air conditioning the upfront costs and start the same time, says Graham.
it had hired Elon Musk’s firm to making a profit after about five Plus, home batteries don’t require
fit 50,000 homes with solar “These plants can cut years – which is half the warranty a large expanse of land like a
panels and lithium ion batteries. costs for everyone by period of the battery. central power plant.
The aim is to shake up the offsetting price-gouging And it won’t be just households With these advantages, it’s no
traditional model of having all from energy companies” signed up to the scheme that surprise that CSIRO is predicting
houses connect to a central power benefit. Virtual power plants that 30 to 45 per cent of Australia’s
station. Instead, houses that can in the morning. Or if the forecast can cut costs for everyone by electricity needs will come from
generate power themselves will is looking cloudy, limiting offsetting price-gouging from home solar panels and batteries
be wired up separately. solar energy generation, the energy companies during peak by 2050. Maybe we won’t need
The government says that by software will ensure homes top demand, says Dylan McConnell central power stations at all.
producing their own solar energy, up from the grid to ensure at the University of Melbourne.
participating households will continuous supply. This has long been a headache
shave 30 per cent off their energy Sonnen, a German battery for South Australia, where gas
Power hungry
bills. Anything they don’t use will company, has already tried this companies have been known to Well, not quite. Even if every
be stored in their batteries and peer-to-peer model on a smaller jack up prices 100-fold if asked house in South Australia was
fed into the grid to reduce bills scale. In 2015, they created a to provide emergency back-up fitted with a solar panel and
for everyone in the state, to the virtual power plant that now from gas-fired power stations battery, the energy harvested
tune of $140 million per year connects about 10,000 German during a heatwave or grid failure. would satisfy only about one-
(all prices given are in US dollars). homes. Customers pay A separate Tesla project in South third of the state’s daily
It sounds like a win-win for $10,000 for the solar panels Australia has already shown requirements.
everyone – if it works. and battery but no longer have that batteries can forestall these “It’s not just about powering
Paul Graham at Australia’s homes,” says Graham. “Heavy
national science organisation industries like aluminium
CSIRO says conditions are ripe STORING THE WIND smelting chew through heaps of
for a shift towards decentralised Last July, South Australia and Tesla 75 per cent, for example, when energy, so you still need big power
energy. A major driver is the partnered to build what is in effect a coal plant failed in December generators to support those.”
dramatic fall in the prices of the world’s biggest lithium ion battery. and a heatwave struck in January. And virtual power stations
solar panels and batteries, he Made up of thousands of individual The neighbouring state of Victoria would be much harder in
says. “Just two years ago, batteries batteries, the 100-megawatt system has now commissioned Tesla to build countries with less reliable
were twice the cost they are now.” in Hornsdale stores energy from an a 20-megawatt battery next to a wind sunshine, says Kathryn Toghill at
As prices fall, it makes sense for adjacent wind farm. farm to help power a large hydroponic Lancaster University, UK. “When
individual households to install Unlike a virtual power plant, greenhouse. French renewable the sun rises at 8.30 am and sets at
their own power systems, but the which provides day-to-day energy energy company Neoen is also looking 3.30 pm in winter and it’s drizzly
coordination offered by a virtual to its member households and to build another “very large” battery all day, it’s hard to see the UK
power plant means the entire occasional surplus power to the wider in the state of Queensland. running on virtual power plants.”
community can benefit. grid (see main story), the Hornsdale Having one big battery instead of Nevertheless, a recent energy-
Software oversees the plant to battery kicks in only if demand surges. connecting individual household units sharing trial by battery company
ensure that energy is shared in the It can respond within milliseconds and does have the downside of taking up Moixa suggests these systems
most cost-efficient way between power 30,000 homes for 1 hour. Since land. Moreover, if it’s attached to just could play a useful role in the
battery-fitted households and the it went online on 1 December, it has one solar or wind farm rather than a UK grid. The firm partnered with
main grid, Graham says. It means reduced the cost of electricity across wider network, it can’t store much Oxford City Council to fit 82 social
that if a home uses less energy the state during such spikes by about energy when local weather is poor. housing properties with solar

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TESLA
Tesla’s solar panels are designed the upfront costs. This kind of they also crank their air Asia where some parts basically
to look like ordinary roof tiles approach is important, says conditioning, will there be bypassed landlines,” he says.
McConnell, otherwise low-income enough spare for the grid?” “You could see a similar thing with
panels and batteries, and found households could miss out. Even so, other countries are virtual power plants bypassing
that residents’ power bills fell by Another 25,000 homeowners ploughing ahead with their own traditional energy infrastructure.”
about 35 to 45 per cent. who register their interest will virtual power plants. Sonnen The ultimate hope is that
The company is now hoping to then be invited to join the announced in October that it virtual power plants will finally
sell its energy-sharing platform network. They will have to pay had struck a deal to build a solve the storage issue that
to 50,000 UK homes by 2022, for the installation themselves 3000-home network in Arizona has plagued renewable energy
with the solar panels and batteries and then recoup the cost through and a 20,000-home network in for years. If so, it won’t matter
costing $7000 upfront. their discounted energy bills Italy. In December, US company so much if one area is cloudy,
It also plans to incorporate over several years. The final because a home there can tap
electric car batteries into its $625 million network will have “The ultimate hope is that into energy stored in a battery
network. “If, for example, you a capacity of 250 megawatts – virtual power plants will in a sunny part of the country.
worked at a factory with massive similar to that of a small coal-fired solve the storage issues Tesla’s system will be the first
solar panels on the roof, you plant – and is expected to be of renewable energy” big test of this new energy model.
could charge your car at work completed by 2022. Although it won’t completely
and use its battery to power your We still don’t know for sure Stem Inc. announced it had replace conventional power in
home at night,” says Moixa co- whether virtual power plants won a contract to build several the short term, it is set to become
founder Chris Wright. will be economical and reliable on virtual power plants in Japan. a mighty competitor.
In South Australia, the first such a large scale. “One question McConnell believes these And if it can indeed save
25,000 homes plugged into on my mind is, what’s going to systems could be suitable for everyone money and cut carbon
Tesla’s virtual power plant will happen on peak hot days?” says developing countries, too. emissions to boot, it will prove
be social housing properties, Graham. “Solar energy will pour “It might be like the mobile the old adage that a problem
with the government covering into customers’ batteries but if phone revolution in South-East shared is a problem halved. ■

COMMENT
Shockingly bad
Collars that deliver a jolt of electricity are a poor way to train dogs.
A wider ban on their use would be welcome, says Danny Chambers
OUR ancient ancestors probably they can be very effective at

argued about dog training preventing unwanted behaviours.
techniques as far back as the A commonly cited example is to
domestication of these animals stop sheep-worrying. In theory,
more than 15,000 years ago. a shock will stop an out-of-control
We know Roman farmers were dog chasing sheep and may
exchanging views in the second also prevent a repeat because of
century BC when scholar Marcus the pain associated with that
Varro put pen to papyrus with tips behaviour. Shock collars are also
on how to get canines to herd used to teach dogs not to display
livestock. And of course, debates signs of aggression when around
over training methods still rage. people or other animals.
The latest discussion concerns The problem is that this type
dog collars controlled remotely of punishment suppresses the
to deliver an electric shock. Their desire to act rather than changing
use is illegal in Wales and will soon it. So, a dog does not lose the
be banned in Scotland, but is still desire to chase sheep, it simply
permitted in England. UK charity fears the shock more. Likewise,
the Dogs Trust is now leading a a dog that gets shocked when it
campaign for a ban there too. shows signs of aggression learns
There are many approaches to not to display these signs. The
training, but they tend to involve underlying cause is not addressed,
rewarding desirable behaviour potentially making the dog more
or, as the collars do, punishing dangerous because warning signs
unacceptable behaviour. of an attack are stifled. Aggressive
Advocates of the collars say dogs can become more aggressive
small faces and misaligned teeth people living independently and
Chew it over carefully to a dependence on softer,

processed foods. It is quite likely
that the genetic mutation that
enabled space travel. We mustn’t
lose sight of such benefits.
Just as with most things we
Don’t hate all processed foods – they make enables many Europeans to digest buy, quality varies and we should
milk into adulthood came about be discerning. Some ready meals
modern life possible, says Nicola Temple because milk was being processed dramatically overshoot the
into cheese about 9000 years ago. recommended range of calories
Processed food has arguably for a single meal (500 to 700
WITH a glut of headlines linking soft drinks and sausages. We think
helped us tackle hunger, cut waste calories). Some are higher in
processed foods to obesity and of this latter group as a product of
and saved front-line troops from sugar or saturated fats than
cancer, their status as modern modern society, and yet there aremalnutrition. It helped free the others. Some are more
society’s scourge seems assured. references to sausages in Homer’s1950s housewife from the kitchen, nutritionally balanced and
But is it wise to view all processed Odyssey, and during the Roman provided more options for older provide more fibre.
foods with equal disdain? Emperor Nero’s rule there were There are of course ready
They range from the minimally festivals devoted to the sausage. “Processed food has meals made with cheap
processed – frozen vegetables, We have been processing food arguably helped us tackle ingredients to improve profit
plain yogurt and dried fruit – to for so long that it has shaped us hunger, cut waste and margins. Others are committed to
ultra-processed – crisps, sauces, as a species. We owe our relatively enabled space travel” quality ingredients, with a smaller

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with punishment-based training.

In addition, it can be hard to
INSIGHT Diabetes
deliver the shock at the right
moment, even for experienced
trainers. Punishment can induce
fear, anxiety, confusion and
stress, which may result in a dog
that is dangerous or aggressive to
its owners. All these problems can
arise even when shock collars are
used by responsible owners and
trainers. The pain and distress
caused by irresponsible, ignorant
or sadistic use would be severe.
ALEX LEVINE/EYEEM/GETTY
As for reward-based training,

research shows this is as effective
at changing behaviour as
punishment techniques and
also increases the dog’s desire to
engage in a desirable behaviour.
Using rewards to train is not
Old disease, brand new

But the five subgroups aren’t
a recent thing. In 1882 Stephen the end of the story. Diabetes just
Hammond authored a book, isn’t that simple. For a long time,
Practical Dog Training, advising we considered the condition as being
praise and rewards of meat for
displaying a desired behaviour. view – but will it help? either “childhood-onset” or “adult-
onset”, and this is how many people
The final word should perhaps still think of the disease.
go to army officer and author Yet in the last decade, this
William Hutchinson, another Jessica Hamzelou People with the three more severe taxonomy was discredited as it was
advocate of positive training. In forms are more likely to develop eye discovered that adults in their 40s
his 1848 book he wrote: “Be to his MOST people who know about and kidney disease, so treating them and 50s could develop a form of the
virtues ever kind. Be to his faults diabetes think there are two kinds: is a higher priority. disease that looked very “childhood”-
a little blind.” I’ll second that. Q type 1, which you are born with, and So far, so good. After all, this is the like, while more children are
type 2, which you get later in life from way medicine is heading. The more we developing type 2 diabetes.
Danny Chambers is a vet at Langford eating too much. This isn’t quite right, learn about common diseases, the It is also quite likely that the risks
Vets, part of the University of Bristol, UK, since the two types can occur at more we realise there is huge variation and outcomes of diabetes will look
and is a member of the British Veterinary different life stages and for a number in the way they present themselves. different in people who live outside
Association’s policy committee of reasons, but the broad distinction is For example, research into the Sweden and Finland, such as in the
well established in the public’s mind. genetics of several cancers has helped Middle East, whose nations have some
Now some doctors want to change identify which treatments might work of the highest rates of the condition in
environmental footprint than a that and break the disease down into best for individuals. the world. The results can’t even be
home-made equivalent. five subtypes, each with its own set of The idea that a cheap and fairly generalised to the rest of Europe, as
But if we continue to vilify it risk factors, outcomes and treatments. straightforward blood test, along with those in southern nations are likely to
all, we risk public funding bodies The new claim was made by a note of a person’s age, height and have very different diets and lifestyles.
shying away from an important researchers based in Sweden and That’s not to pour cold water on
part of food research, leaving Finland, who assessed almost “Around 9 per cent of the study – it is an important first step.
it in the hands of those who are 15,000 people with diabetes in those people are affected by And even if it is too soon for doctors
motivated by profit. We face big countries. They found that these diabetes and many don’t to use the subtypes for diagnosis,
challenges in food security in people fell into one of five categories get the right treatment” the blood test, if verified, could assist
an increasingly uncertain based on their blood sugar, insulin with prescriptions.
environment. We need to be production and sensitivity, and their weight, could help doctors predict “I wouldn’t necessarily tell patients
capable of having rational body mass index and age. The the cause and prognosis of that [about the new set of subtypes],
conversations about the role subgroups also vary genetically (The individual’s diabetes – as well as the I’d just use it to tweak treatments,”
processed food might have in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, DOI: best treatment to use – is appealing. says Rob Sladek at McGill University
helping us overcome these. ■ 10.1016/S2213-8587(18)30051-2). This is especially the case given that in Canada. He stresses that our
The researchers say that two of the an estimated 9 per cent of the global understanding of diabetes and other
Nicola Temple is the author of Best subtypes are mild, and can be largely population are affected by the metabolic diseases is still very much
Before: The evolution and future of treated with lifestyle changes and low disorder and many aren’t getting evolving. “This is not a quick
processed food (Bloomsbury) doses of a standard drug, metformin. the right treatment. discovery – it’s a 20-year plan.” Q

APERTURE

Eye of the storms

THE storms on Jupiter are always brewing.
Cloud formations made of ammonia,
hydrocarbons and water swirl in a frigid soup
of hydrogen and helium. Fingers of thick haze
thousands of kilometres across feel their way
around the planet, with various bands of the
atmosphere circling at different speeds.
Depending on their size, these churning clouds
can last from a few days to hundreds of years.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft took this image on
7 February from more than 8000 kilometres
above Jupiter’s northern cloud tops. In the original
design for the spacecraft, which launched in
2011, there was no camera. Thankfully, JunoCam
was added later on, primarily to send back pretty
pictures rather than to perform scientific study.
To create this image, citizen scientist Kevin Gill
processed the camera’s raw data, combining
three images representing red, green and blue,
and enhancing the colour. It looks like it was
taken with a fisheye lens, but this panorama
effect was actually the result of the spacecraft’s
rotation. Leah Crane
Image
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

COVER STORY
The hunt for

dark DNA
A hidden universe within the genome is
challenging our ideas about genetics and
evolution. Biologist Adam Hargreaves explains
HE fat sand rat is a strange creature. biologists interested in understanding paradox coincided with a revolution in
T It lives in burrows, eats around

80 per cent of its body mass in leaves
each day and doesn’t drink water. But the
nutrition-induced diabetes in humans.
Yet, in all that time, the mystery of why these
gerbils are so susceptible to the disease has
genetics that made it possible to investigate.
I teamed up with 17 researchers at nine
institutions around the world, including the
really odd thing about this gerbil is that remained unsolved. Beijing Genomics Institute, and we set out to
some of its DNA appears to be missing. My main work interest is venomous sequence the entire sand rat genome. What
No doubt you have heard of dark matter, snakes. Admittedly, the link with sand rats we discovered was even more baffling; Pdx1
which is thought to make up over a quarter is tenuous – at best, the rodents might be seen was not the only missing gene. In fact, a big
of the universe. We know it’s there; we just as dinner for the snakes – so the species is not chunk of DNA containing nearly 90 genes,
haven’t been able to detect it. Well, something an obvious target of study for me. But I have which are found on the same chromosome
similar is afoot in the genome. My colleagues in other animals, was nowhere to be seen.
and I have dubbed this elusive genetic matter
“dark DNA”. And our investigations into the
“We need to rethink how Many of these genes, like Pdx1, are essential
for survival. What’s more, we found their
sand rat are starting to reveal its nature. much mutation a gene corresponding RNA transcripts – copies of
The discovery of dark DNA is so recent that stretches of genetic code that cells use as
we are still trying to work out how widespread can tolerate and still work” templates to make proteins (see diagram,
it is and whether it benefits those species that page 30). But where were the genes?
possess it. However, its very existence raises always relished a mystery, and the more The big clue came when we scrutinised
some fundamental questions about genetics I found out about sand rats, the more the RNA transcripts. The genetic code is
and evolution. We may need to look again at intrigued I became. The smoking gun seemed comprised of four bases, A, T, G and C. What
how adaptation occurs at the molecular level. to be a gene called Pdx1. The Pdx1 protein it made the sequences in these transcripts so
Controversially, dark DNA might even be a codes for has many roles, including in the bizarre was the very high level of two of these,
driving force of evolution. development of the pancreas and in switching G and C. None of us had ever seen anything
The sand rat (Psammomys obesus) is a desert the insulin gene on and off. like it. But we realised it might explain why the
species native to North Africa and the Middle Being crucial for normal physiology, this corresponding DNA appeared to be missing –
East, but put it in a lab and something strange gene is found in all vertebrates. Intriguingly, standard sequencing technology is not very
happens. When fed a “normal” diet – the though, genetic studies had failed to spot it good at picking up sections of DNA with high
MADE UP/MADEUP.ORG
standard fare for laboratory rodents – sand in sand rats. Yet they have a normal pancreas levels of G and C. So we set out to reveal the
rats tend to become obese and develop type 2 and are able to secrete insulin. That didn’t elusive DNA in a different way: using caesium
diabetes. This was discovered in the 1960s, make sense. What was really going on here? chloride ultracentrifugation. This involves
and has made sand rats the focus of study for Luckily for me, my fascination with this spinning chopped-up DNA in a highly >

Gene genius
The DNA code consists of pairs of bases: C always pairs with G and A with T. To make a protein, the change a gene can tolerate and still work.
code is transcribed onto a molecule of RNA – with U replacing T. This is then used as a template to The extreme divergence of Pdx1 might help
assemble amino acids, the building blocks of proteins
explain why sand rats develop diabetes, if
their Pdx1 protein turns out to be not as
T C T G A C T A G T A G
effective as its counterpart in other animals.
It also explains why Pdx1 initially appeared to
A G A C T G A T C A T C
DNA be absent. But in solving the mystery of the
missing DNA, we have raised an intriguing
TRANSCRIPTION possibility. We know that standard genome
T C T G A C T A G T A G sequencing has trouble picking up sections
U C U G A C U of DNA containing lots of G and C bases, so
A G A C T G A T C A T C perhaps sand rats are not alone in carrying
these sorts of mutation hotspots. Dark DNA
RNA
might be lurking in other genomes.
In fact, 12 other species of gerbils apparently
lack Pdx1, suggesting that they too may
RNA transcript U C U G A C U A G U A G possess dark DNA. We are now looking into
that. What’s more, a striking parallel to the
TRANSLATION sand rat story is found in birds. The many
bird genomes sequenced so far seemed to lack
Amino acids more than 270 genes present in most other
vertebrate genomes, including important
genes such as the one coding for leptin,
a hormone that regulates hunger.
concentrated salt solution very fast – at least region that binds to DNA, has at least 15 amino However, new research by Fidel Botero-
40,000 revolutions per minute – for three days acids differing from the normal version. Castro of Ludwig-Maximilian University in
so that denser fragments, like those rich in GC It is extremely rare for vertebrates to Munich, Germany, and colleagues reveals
bases, sink to the bottom. Having separated have any mutations in this region. Mutations that birds do make RNA transcripts of these
this out, we attempted to sequence it alone. usually compromise the function of a gene, “missing” genes. What’s more, the sequences
It worked. What we found was a mutation and the genes in our chunk of hard-to-detect are very high in G and C bases. Sound familiar?
hotspot – a region of DNA with an dark DNA are so essential for survival that In fact, the researchers estimate that around
extraordinarily large number of mutations, they have barely changed over the course 15 per cent of all bird genes have been
many of them changes from A or T to G or C of evolution. Yet somehow the sand rat’s overlooked in previous studies.
bases. Sand rat Pdx1, for example, contains Pdx1 gene, along with others here, are This hints that dark DNA could be quite
more mutations than any other version of managing to function despite the dramatic widespread. If so, we may have to rethink
the gene we know of in the animal kingdom – mutation levels. This discovery has forced some current ideas about how genomes
resulting in a Pdx1 protein that, in just one key us to revise our ideas about how much evolve. By comparing the thousands of whole
DECIPHERING THE CODE OF LIFE
It took over a decade, a huge deducing the exact order of the consists of some 3.2 billion hard to reassemble overlapping
consortium and an estimated four nucleotides or bases – known base pairs. fragments. As a result, we may
$2.7 billion to sequence the as A, T, G and C – paired along a These days, sequencing is have overlooked substantial
human genome. Since the project DNA strand. Pioneering largely automated, so the process chunks of DNA in the genomes
was completed in 2003, there technologies, such as the one is much faster. Multiple copies of sequenced to date. My colleagues
have been huge advances in devised by Frederick Sanger in a DNA strand are first chopped up and I have dubbed this
technology, making sequencing the 1970s, were largely manual. at random into small fragments – “dark DNA” (see main story).
much faster and cheaper. To date, Sanger sequencing entails usually between 100 and 150 Newer sequencing methods
the full genomes of some 15,000 using a single strand of DNA bases long – which are then are more accurate. They can
species have been deciphered. as a template to “grow” sequenced individually before process stretches of DNA up
And that’s just the start – the race a complementary strand, one being pieced back together by to several thousand bases
to commercialise whole genome base at a time in a test tube, using computer programs that match long, reducing the problem of
sequencing is so intense that it special markers that are then overlapping sections. But there’s deciphering overlapping areas.
may not be long before we read off to give the sequence. a problem. This “next-generation” With the technology rapidly
routinely decipher the entire It is accurate but extremely sequencing is not very good at improving, dark DNA will come
genetic blueprint of individuals, time-consuming; a skilled worker deciphering stretches of DNA into view. We may even discover
including fetuses in the womb. might decipher 10,000 base pairs dominated by just two bases, such new surprises in genomes we
Genetic sequencing involves on a good day. The human genome as G and C, because this makes it thought we had decoded.

genomes that have been sequenced in the Solving the mystery

past decade (see “Deciphering the code of life”, of why sand rats are
page 30), biologists are trying to work out prone to diabetes
which genes have been lost in certain lineages led to the discovery
and which new ones have arisen. This helps of dark DNA
them see what makes groups of organisms
different from one another and how
adaptation occurs at the molecular level.
How much is missing?
MATHIAS SCHAEF/MCPHOTO/ULLSTEIN BILD VIA GETTY IMAGES

If dark DNA is common, that would throw
a spanner in the works because genes we
thought were missing might actually be
present. It may be time to take another look
at the genomes sequenced to date to find out
whether we have got the full picture. At the
least, we should be alert to the possibility of
dark DNA when sequencing new genomes.
Alternatively, some might argue that if dark
DNA were widespread, we would have been on
to it before now. Perhaps gerbils and birds are
extreme cases and regions of dark DNA are far
less extensive in other organisms. That would
be interesting too, because it raises the contained within these mutation hotspots rate of mutation in the many dark DNA genes
question of what makes gerbils and birds have a greater chance of mutating than those could have had a significant effect upon the
different. Answering that could be the key to elsewhere, they will display more variation on species’ evolutionary trajectory. Nevertheless,
understanding how dark DNA forms. Perhaps which natural selection can act, so the traits some selection must also act upon these
there’s a clue in the fact that both groups of they confer will evolve faster. In other words, genes, otherwise mutation would run
animals show an unusually large variation in dark DNA could influence the direction of rampant, creating a region of nonsense with
the number of chromosomes each species evolution, giving a driving role to mutation. no functional genes, and the species would
has – in gerbils it ranges between 22 and 68, Indeed, my colleagues and I have suggested not have survived.
for example. This suggests that during their that mutation rates in dark DNA may be so In truth, it is difficult to determine
evolution their chromosomes have been rapid that natural selection cannot act fast whether the sand rat has benefited overall
prone to breakage. Chromosomes ordinarily enough to remove deleterious variants in from its mutation hotspot. You would expect
break and recombine during the production the usual way. Such genes might even its extreme mutation to be a problem,
of sex cells, boosting genetic diversity in become adaptive later on, if a species faces otherwise why would proteins such as Pdx1
offspring. When this happens, a process be virtually identical in all other animals?
called GC-biased gene conversion can occur,
resulting in more G and C mutations than
“Dark DNA could But the sand rat’s dark DNA could have led to
some adaptations that would not have arisen
A and T ones. This can lead to G and C bases be influencing the under normal circumstances. Perhaps these
accumulating in particular regions of DNA. have allowed it to survive on a diet of very
Could this be the cause of dark DNA in species direction of evolution” nutritionally poor food with little access
with chromosomes that are prone to to water, and so thrive in a harsh desert
breakage? We don’t know, but it’s possible. a new environmental challenge. environment with very few competitors.
Even more intriguing is how dark DNA The idea of mutation-driven evolution is On the other hand, if sand rats eat
might influence evolution. Most textbooks controversial, but it is not without precedent. nutritionally rich food they will develop
describe evolution as a two-step process. First, Since the mid-1970s, esteemed molecular diabetes and die. That could mean they are
a steady trickle of random genetic mutation biologist Masatoshi Nei has argued that constrained to living in deserts. So dark DNA
creates variation in an organism’s DNA. Then, the most important driving force behind could be both their liberator and their jailer.
natural selection acts like a filter, deciding evolution occurs at the molecular level, in the In general, the implications of dark DNA
which mutations are passed on. This usually variation created within DNA by mutation. remain enigmatic. One thing is for sure,
depends on whether they confer some sort of Without this spontaneous variation, natural though. It shows we still have a lot to learn
advantage, although not everything produced selection would have nothing to work with, about how genomes evolve at the molecular
over the course of evolution is an adaptation. making it of secondary importance. The level, and how these processes give rise to the
So, natural selection is the sole driving force discovery of dark DNA lends weight to this way awe-inspiring diversity of life on Earth. Q
pushing the direction in which organisms of thinking. Of course, it’s not a straight choice
evolve. But add dark DNA to the picture, between mutation and natural selection. In Adam Hargreaves is a biologist at the University
and that’s not necessarily the case. If genes the sand rat, for example, a massively elevated of Oxford

SHAKE
THE ICE
A radical new idea could free ships from frozen
seas in no time, says David Hambling
ELLIOT NEEP
T WAS snowing at the edge of Lake Erie ship has faced to date. It is trapped in port, its Despite the risks of ice, Arctic seas are
I during the commissioning ceremony for

the USS Little Rock in December 2017. The
US Navy ship cost more than $300 million
route to sea frozen shut.
The USS Little Rock is only the latest ship
to be frozen out of action. Freight and research
getting busier. The Northern Sea Route
running along the coast of Russia, for example,
provides a shortcut for cargo ships between
and is designed to have the speed and vessels routinely get stuck in Arctic ice, leaving the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, reducing the
manoeuvrability needed for anti-submarine crews twiddling their thumbs until an distance compared with the Suez Canal route
warfare. Towards the end of the ceremony, icebreaker ship arrives to smash a path out. by about 40 per cent. As the ice cap thins, the
the ship’s chaplain prayed for its crew: But icebreakers make slow progress and Arctic route is becoming increasingly viable:
“Protect them from the perils of the sea frequently get stuck themselves. Luckily, a record high of almost ten million tonnes of
and the violence of the enemy.” there is an alternative approach that promises cargo travelled that way in 2017. But although
Ice probably wasn’t at the forefront of his to clear ice much quicker: just give it the right the route isn’t frozen solid these days, there
mind, yet it is the most troublesome foe the sort of shake. will still be plenty of ice floating around for

Smashing job:
hovercraft shatter ice
as they whizz around
CANADIAN COAST GUARD
decades to come – so a way to clear it is more force to ice at its resonant frequency, the 2016, but Kozin couldn’t get the required
important than ever. response will be significant. “That means funds together.
The first inkling that a method less brutish you’ll crack it,” he says. For the moment, Kozin and his team have
than ice-breaking by ship might be possible The potential was obvious: rather than set up a large water tank covered in ice and
came more than half a century ago at the laboriously focusing its jets on small areas of started dragging model submarines through
opposite pole. In the 1950s, the US military ice until they broke, the hovercraft could skim it. On several occasions, they have seen the
was doing experiments to work out when it around, quickly breaking ice as it went. Today, sheet shiver and split as a model sub with
was safe to land aircraft on the Antarctic ice the Canadian Coast Guard operates a pair of the right shape passes below at just the right
sheet. On touchdown, the planes immediately 29-metre hovercraft for resonant ice-breaking speed. Using computer models to scale up
created a bowl-shaped depression as expected. (pictured above). Based in the Québec city the results, they believe that a sub travelling
But intriguingly, instruments attached to the of Trois-Rivières, they play a vital part in 20 metres below the ice at 20 to 60 kilometres
ice recorded a wave rippling through the ice controlling flooding along the St Lawrence per hour could break sheets that are up to
away from the landing site. river, freeing up shallow tributaries where 2 metres thick. That is the same thickness an
conventional icebreakers can’t operate. ice-breaking ship can manage, but the subs
It is ice on this river that is blocking the USS could do the job 10 times as fast.
Ride the wave Little Rock’s route to the sea, but unfortunately One niggle that needs attention is that
It turned out that the plane had set the ice the hovercraft can’t help. It’s so frigid this sheets of ice have irregular projections
sheet wobbling at what is known as its winter that cracked ice quickly fuses again. beneath them known as keels that can extend
resonant frequency. To see how this works, Even in less adverse weather, the craft have for many metres. It would be hard to spot
imagine pushing a child on a swing: you must limitations. They have a short range compared these with sonar, so to reduce the risk of
push at just the right moment to force the with ships. And shards of ice can damage the
swing higher. Ice is similar. Bang it at the right flexible skirt that contains the cushion of air “Submarines could break
speed and you will set it shaking with the supporting the craft, meaning they can only
maximum possible energy. That speed isn’t operate safely in daylight. For long-distance
thick ice ten times faster
easy to calculate because it depends on factors ice-breaking – such as clearing Arctic sea than ships can manage”
such as ice thickness and the depth of water routes – something better is needed.
underneath. But the military experiments Some believe the solution lies below hitting them, submarines might need to
showed that resonant waves in ice travel at the ice. In the 1990s, Viktor Kozin of the have the towers that contain their periscopes
between 20 and 60 kilometres an hour. Komsomolsk-on-Amur State Technical removed, says Vitaliy Zemlyak of Sholem-
It was an abstruse effect that went largely University in Russia was trying to find ways Aleichem Amur State University in Russia,
unnoticed until 1974, when the Canadian for submarines to safely surface through ice. who is part of Kozin’s team. Although that’s
Coast Guard accidentally discovered what Hiding beneath the ice is a neat tactic for subs, a dramatic change, the towers aren’t critical
could follow. A team was testing whether but they must get above it to launch missiles. to the subs’ movement.
an experimental hovercraft could break ice Traditionally, this involves forcing the vessel Meanwhile, commercial interest in Arctic
using the downwards pressure jets it uses to upwards by increasing its buoyancy. That shipping is only growing. A study by the
get around. But when the vehicle accelerated to cracks the ice alright, but it comes with Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy
just over 20 kilometres an hour as it travelled a significant risk of damaging the sub. Analysis suggests the thawing of the Northern
across the ice to a test site, the crew saw a wave Then Kozin and his team noticed in some Sea Route could lead to two-thirds of the
form behind. The wave rose and rose – until calculations that the waves created by a ships that currently use the Suez Canal being
the ice started breaking at its crest. submarine of a particular shape as it moves diverted to the Arctic. And with conventional
The hovercraft happened to be pumping under ice might hit its resonant frequency. icebreakers being both expensive and slow –
energy into the ice at its resonant frequency, So the subs could pull off a similar trick to and plenty of obsolete submarines sitting in
with consequences that are, in hindsight, the hovercraft, but from below. Russian shipyards – the ice shakers could
predictable, says fluid dynamicist Paul So far the team hasn’t carried out any soon be making waves. ■
Milewski at the University of Bath, UK. Similar large-scale tests of the idea. One was scheduled
to the situation with the swing, if you apply a to take place in the Black Sea’s Kerch Strait in David Hambling is a writer based in London

JOHN HOLCROFT

Don’t interru...
Fed up with people butting in? Teal Burrell reveals
the surprising causes and how you can fight back
T HAS happened to all of us. You’re in the Law in Chicago took their research to the US
I middle of an important point, or reaching

the climax of a humorous anecdote, and
someone butts right in. You may jump back
Supreme Court, in a manner of speaking. In
this arena, where nine justices must together
reach a decision, the ability to dominate the
in to finish the story, indignantly stammer a floor can determine the fate of a case.
few more words or quietly fume while the By documenting court hearings, Jacobi and
interrupter takes the floor, but the moment Schweers found that interrupting was indeed
has passed: your eloquent point is lost, highly gendered, regardless of whether a
your story garbled. woman was in a more senior role. Male justices
Media reports tell us that men often interrupted female justices three times as
interrupt and “mansplain” things to women – often as the reverse. Female justices were also
last month, Canadian prime minister Justin interrupted three times more than their male
Trudeau got unflattering attention for doing colleagues by male lawyers arguing the cases,
so – and stereotypes would have us believe despite clear rules against doing so to justices.
that people from some countries are more “Even when women reach such a high pinnacle
likely to jump in than those from others. But in their profession, they are interrupted by
take a closer look at how interruptions play men, not only their colleagues, but also their
out and things aren’t always what they seem. explicit subordinates,” says Jacobi.
Figure out why and how people interrupt and So it seems women, at least supreme court
you might find yourself more forgiving of the justices, have to fight to be heard. But accepted
big mouth who stole your moment or better wisdom about interruptions goes beyond
placed to avoid it happening again.
Let’s start with the oft-cited finding that “Offer someone a cup of tea
men are much quicker to interrupt and talk
over women than the other way round. Media
in Sweden and you might
reports aside, the original research backing wait a minute for a reply”
up this idea comes from the 1970s. It showed
that, in covertly recorded conversations gender. Generalisations abound in popular
between men and women in the US, the men culture and the scientific literature about
cut in 46 out of 48 times. And a 2014 study nationalities too. Italians are famed for
found that men and women both interrupted animated discussion, with people talking
women more than they did men. over each other, and Japanese speakers are
But psychologist Ann Weatherall at Victoria reported to leave long gaps between each
University of Wellington in New Zealand person’s turn in a conversation. It is a similar
says the early studies counted all overlapping story if you offer Swedish visitors a cup of tea,
speech, skewing the results. “Sometimes says Nick Enfield at the University of Sydney.
people overlap and it’s not interruptive at all,” “Ethnographers would write that in
she says. It is also hard to know whether men Scandinavian conversations one might wait
interrupt because of their gender or their a whole minute before a response,” he says.
status, she says, with men more often holding To find out if there is any truth to these
positions of power. potentially offensive stereotypes, Enfield and
To try and disentangle the relationship his colleagues analysed hours of videotape of
between gender, status and interrupting, natural conversations between people speaking
Tonja Jacobi and Dylan Schweers at in 10 languages over five continents.
Northwestern University Pritzker School of We know that English speakers don’t wait >

for a distinct pause in the conversation to take HOW TO INTERRUPT LIKE A BOSS
turns speaking, but instead rely on grammar
and other signals in speech such as intonation Sometimes you need to cut hand. Research shows that sometimes have to make.
to know when it is their go. The ideal is to avoid in. “When what you’re doing the longer women serve on Once you have the floor,
both gaps and overlaps – in everyday speech, in a particular social the US Supreme Court, the there are tricks to keeping
English speakers are actually finely honed in interaction requires holding more they learn to just jump it. Speak more quickly than
the skill of not-interrupting. Is this turn-taking the floor, then interrupting in — as their male peers do. feels natural, and if you get
system any different elsewhere? is part and parcel of that This strategy is viewed more interrupted, Weatherall
What Enfield’s team found challenged all activity,” says Ann Weatherall negatively when women do advises saying, “Let me
their preconceptions. The English speakers at Victoria University of it than men, but Deborah finish,” speaking loudly or
took about 240 milliseconds between Wellington, New Zealand. Tannen at Georgetown using phrases to fill pauses.
speaking turns, whereas Danes waited nearly So how best to do it? University in Washington DC, “Don’t stop, just keep going,”
half a second and Japanese were quickest to Don’t bother raising your says it is a trade-off women says Tannen.
respond, jumping in after just 7 milliseconds.
“What surprised us was how small the idea, than with “intrusive interruptions”, men-only conversations, but women
differences were,” says Enfield. In fact, they such as attempts to steal the floor or change the interrupted each other to agree and build on
were so tiny, the team concluded that this subject (see “Types of interruption”, below). the point being made, rather than to argue or
finely tuned ability to take turns without In comparison, Canadians used intrusive change the topic. “Two people talking at the
talking over each other or waiting too long interruptions slightly more than cooperative same time can be positive, it can show positive
is universal across languages, geography ones, although the difference wasn’t engagement with what somebody else is
and culture. Because it is so widespread, significant. The contrast may be because saying,” says Weatherall, like when couples
this ability may even provide clues about Chinese culture is more collective, rather than finish each other’s sentences. Besides,
the earliest social interactions from which individualistic like Western culture, and interruptions are a part and parcel of our
all languages were built. cooperative interruption is a way of working conversations. “A lively conversation is one
So if speakers of certain languages are no together to facilitate the conversation. Studies where everybody’s jumping in,” says Tannen.
more likely to interrupt, where do these ideas of Thai and Japanese speakers have revealed Interrupting starts at an early age. In a
come from? Enfield thinks it boils down to similar patterns to those of Chinese people. 1990 review, Eleanor Maccoby at Stanford
subjective experience. “Even though the Men and women also use different types of University in California wrote that by early
difference between average response across interruptions when talking to their same-sex school years in the US, boys are already more
the cultures is tiny in terms of clock time, peers. Tannen counted more interruptions in likely to interrupt one another, while girls are
we are exquisitely sensitive to timing in women-only conversations compared with more likely to acknowledge what someone
conversation,” he says. We are so fine-tuned has said or pause to let another girl speak.
to the tempo of languages we speak, we feel Understanding the differences in styles is
these tiny differences to be much longer, TYPES OF a good first step to conversational harmony.
or shorter, than they are. INTERRUPTION “The solution is for us to become more aware
Inevitably, that can lead to interruptions. of the workings of conversations so that we
“Any time two people are speaking that have Interruptions aren’t always bad news. can overcome our instinct to quickly jump to
a different sense of how long of a pause is Building on the work of others, Han Li conclusions about the intentions of others,”
normal, the one who is expecting the longer at the University of Northern British says Enfield. People who respond quickly
pause will get interrupted,” says Deborah Columbia in Canada created the aren’t pushy, people who respond slowly
Tannen, who studies linguistics at Georgetown following categories: aren’t docile, and someone may leap in to
University in Washington DC. She has found show interest, not to take over.
that New Yorkers inferred Californians had COOPERATIVE INTERRUPTIONS Men may not be conscious of interrupting
nothing to say because of their supposedly Agreement: Shows support or women, so awareness can help there too. Since
long pauses, while Californians felt they elaborates on the speaker’s idea. her study was published, Jacobi has noticed
couldn’t get a word in. Moreover, New Yorkers Assistance: Provides a word or chief justice John Roberts give the floor back to
tended to jump in, assuming the other person phrase the speaker was searching for. women more often than before (although she
would stop them if they weren’t finished. Clarification: Asks for an explanation hasn’t formally quantified this). “It looks like
So next time someone speaks out of turn, of something just said. the court actually paid attention to this and
remember they might just be experiencing that it wasn’t deliberate,” says Jacobi. She also
a language-induced time warp. INTRUSIVE INTERRUPTIONS notes that the research has made her male
You could also consider their reasons for Disagreement: Jumps in to voice co-authors realise how often they interrupt
interrupting, which do seem to vary across a different opinion. women. “The traditional power dynamic is
cultures. According to work by Han Li at the Floor taking: Takes over the conversation, just so engrained in us that men just think it’s
University of Northern British Columbia in but stays on the same subject. natural that they interrupt women,” she says.
Canada, Chinese people tend to interrupt Topic change: Cuts in to change “A lot of times, it’s just a matter of realising
each other more often with “cooperative the subject. they’re doing it.” ■
interruptions”, such as agreeing with what was Summarisation: Paraphrases the
said or providing assistance with a word or speaker’s point, often minimising it. Teal Burrell is a writer based in Richmond, Virginia

Shell shock
Saving America’s freshwater mussels requires some
oddball interventions, finds Jason Bittel
HINY pigtoes, elephant ears, winged includes fellow bivalves like oysters and on blood and other nutrients. Several weeks
S spikes, snuffboxes, monkeyfaces and

heelsplitters. If the names call to mind
fantastical creatures from the world of Harry
clams as well as octopuses, squid, slugs and
snails. At first blush, theirs is a simple lifestyle.
They anchor themselves in the sediment at
later, the larval mussels metamorphose
into juveniles and finally drop off the fish
to colonise new territories (See “Masters
Potter, think again. These are all freshwater the bottom of lakes, streams and rivers, where of disguise”, page 41).
mussels, inconspicuous filter-feeders that have they make a living by filtering water for algae It is a good job they do, because mussels
kept our rivers and lakes clean for millions and other microscopic morsels. But they do are the overlooked guardians of freshwater
of years, only to now find themselves at the have a few tricks up their shells. ecosystems. Not only do they stabilise
sharp end of a little-known ecological crisis. To overcome their lack of mobility, riverbeds and provide food for all sorts of
You probably don’t give them a second freshwater mussels deceive fish into serving creatures, they also clean the water, filtering
thought, even on the occasions you are as roaming nurseries for their young – and it out toxic substances including heavy metals
tucking into their saltwater cousins in a white- is quite the show. Evolution has equipped the and bacteria such as E. coli. One adult mussel
wine sauce. But these unsung riverkeepers females with fleshy lures that mimic worms, can process up to a litre of water per hour,
aren’t without their charms: some can live to minnows or even crayfish to tempt predators which means that a healthy mussel bed of
be upwards of 100 years old, for starters, with like the largemouth bass down to the riverbed around 100,000 animals can purify enough
shells that grow rings over time like trees. for a nibble. When the fish attacks, the bait water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool
The problem is that these days, many of explodes into a cloud of parasitic spawn, each day. “That’s the kind of a service we’re
them are growing old and dying without which latch on to the fish’s gills to gorge obtaining for free just from these organisms
producing any offspring. In fact, freshwater existing,” says Carla Atkinson, an ecologist at
mussels are some of the most imperilled the University of Alabama.
lifeforms on the planet. One-third of all Even mussels have their limits, though.
species hail from the US and of these, more We have spent the last 300 years polluting
than 70 per cent are listed as threatened, and damming our rivers, and the results for
endangered or potentially extinct. Just freshwater mussels have been catastrophic.
last year, the known global population of When the Wilson dam was built on the
golden riffleshell mussels was down to Tennessee river in Florence, Alabama, for
only five individuals. example, it put the most diverse mussel bed
They are never going to be a conservation on the planet under vast amounts of standing
priority. So it is down to the underdog efforts water, says Paul Johnson, a malacologist, or
of a handful of biologists strung across the mollusc specialist, at the Alabama Aquatic
RACHEL MAIR/USFWS
US to halt the collapse before it is too late. Biodiversity Center. Some of the 75 or so species
Their strategy? To hand-rear species on the in this area adapted and got on with their lives
brink – a task rendered all the more difficult but more than half disappeared. And that is
by the mussels’ exceedingly peculiar just one spot. There are similar stories all over
reproductive habits. the place, leading the US Geological Survey
Freshwater mussels are part of the mollusc Mussels mimic tasty morsels to attract fish to declare freshwater mussels the most
family, a large group of invertebrates that that then nourish and carry their young endangered group in the country. >

JOEL SARTORE/PHOTOARK/NGS

INVASION OF THE
SHELL SNATCHERS
While many freshwater mussel Mussels in the US aren’t the only molluscs
species native to the US are barely under threat. We are living through a global
scraping by (see main story), invasive mollusc crisis, though you aren’t likely to see
species such as zebra mussels and a bumper sticker decrying it. In 2007, the
quagga mussels are making a killing. International Union for the Conservation of
“There’s a big difference in life Nature (IUCN) listed this as the group most
cycle,” says Monte McGregor, a mollusc affected by extinction, with 302 species
specialist at the Kentucky Department and 11 subspecies officially extinct. A study
of Fish & Wildlife Resources. For published two years later found that the true
starters, zebra and quagga mussels scope of the crisis was being under-reported:
don’t require a fish host to nourish the number of extinct molluscs was close
and transport their offspring, which to double the earlier figures. That means
means one mussel can pump out more than 600 species of mollusc have
millions of free-swimming larvae gone the way of the dodo in the last century
every spawning season. And once or so – that is twice as many lost as there are
those larvae turn into adults, they primate species known to exist.
ruthlessly outcompete native species. Some are not giving up hope. Bernard
In extreme cases, 10,000 tiny Sietman, a malacologist at the Minnesota
zebra mussels have been seen locking Department of Natural Resources, is one
onto a single native. This starves of those dedicated conservationists who
natives of food and oxygen, and can spend much of the year face-down in frigid
stop them from closing their shells, waterways. In recent years, Sietman has
making them vulnerable to predators. focused on the spectaclecase mussel. Growing
Death by 10,000 anchors, if you will. oblong shells large enough to stow a pair of
glasses, this species used to inhabit 44 rivers
and streams across the Midwest. Today, it
can be found in just 20, and the remaining
FASHION populations are severely fragmented. he and his colleagues started taking every
VICTIMS Because of this, the spectaclecase was candidate fish species he could find and
added to the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s squirting them in the face with spectaclecase
The current crisis isn’t the first endangered list in 2012. But it has been in larvae taken from the lower-river mussels.
time North America’s rich array of trouble for a while. In 1907, the St Croix river River shiner? Nope. Gizzard shad? Nope.
freshwater mussels have been that divides Minnesota and Wisconsin was Sauger, white bass, logperch and channel
taken to the brink of extinction. dammed for hydroelectricity at St Croix Falls. catfish? Nothing.
For about two decades around the As a result, there are places above the dam At least one mussel species is known to
turn of the 20th century, freshwater where barely a mussel can be found, Sietman parasitise salamanders called mudpuppies,
mussels were hauled out of the says, and those that remain are all senior so the team tested similarly outside-the-box
water by the tonne to make buttons citizens that have not been reproducing. species, including tiger salamanders,
with a fashionable pearly shimmer. Below the dam, however, the mussels were American eels, crayfish and even turtles.
Not even the species with shells doing the business. This led Sietman to scour All told, Sietman and his team tested more
too thin to make buttons from were all the information he could find about the than 70 species, and all of them were busts.
spared, says G. Thomas Watters, fishes that used to inhabit the St. Croix, and to Finally, Sietman zeroed in on two migratory
who studies molluscs at Ohio State identify the ones that had disappeared from fish known for their iridescent peepers: the
University: “The idea was if you the river’s upper reaches. At the same time, mooneye and the goldeye. The trouble is that
threw them back, you were just they are notoriously difficult to catch and keep
going to waste time recollecting alive. “The mooneye would just rub their eyes
them. Better to just kill them all.” along the tank wall and one or both eyes would
Then someone invented plastic eventually get infected, start swelling and then
buttons, and the industry went down sort of rupture,” he says.
the tubes overnight. The problem Having installed bubble curtains in the
was that the nascent science of how tanks to keep the fish from grinding off their
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
to make sure there would always be own eyes, Sietman’s careful fish husbandry
enough mussels went with it – at was eventually rewarded when he saw a
least until the Endangered Species mooneye’s gills heavy with mussel larvae.
Act became law in 1973. Suddenly Today, his team have about 200 baby
there was a mandate for states to spectaclecase mussels growing in the lab, as
save their most vulnerable creatures, well as containers full of lab-raised juveniles
and a new generation of mussel When it comes to saving hopeless mussels, growing au naturel in the St Croix river. Some
breeders was born. the secret ingredient is rabbit blood may be mature enough for release this year,

and a feline-finger-shaped divot on its grown more than 70 species of freshwater

exterior. This species isn’t so picky: it mussel in vitro. But the golden riffleshell
parasitises several fish. But for Hern and his stands out as a striking story of redemption.
colleagues that came as little consolation Once found in droves across the southern
when it was discovered in 2012 that there were section of the Appalachian mountains, the
just 10 females left, all of them languishing in entire population had dwindled to just five.
a drought-scorched stream in Ohio. Nobody knows the riffleshell’s host fish, but
The following year, experts from three McGregor and his team coaxed larvae from
facilities were given permission to extract those last remaining adults and, thanks to the
larvae from these females to grow in the lab. in vitro method, brought them to adulthood
Several weeks later, Hern announced that 13 of in the lab. In September last year, he and his
his larvae had successfully metamorphosed,
making them the first purple cat’s paw mussels “This gruesome strategy has
born in captivity. However, even with two other
facilities dedicated to the same species, just 48 helped to save the golden
almost-adult mussels were reintroduced to the riffleshell from extinction”
wild in October. That’s not a bad haul given how
few remain, but it illustrates the glacial pace at colleagues distributed some of those
which freshwater-mussel conservation moves. individuals across three sites in Virginia,
JOEL SARTORE/PHOTOARK/NGS
In many cases, it seems hopeless. What is boosting the population to 700 . “If we hadn’t
a malacologist to do when they simply can’t raised these, I think they may have gone
find the host fish or they suspect that it is extinct,” he says
extinct? It turns out that even then, all is not If nothing else, such dogged efforts buy
lost. Some researchers have come up with a time to better understand what is laying
way to bypass the host altogether. mussels low. In addition to dams, dredging
At the Freshwater Mussel Conservation and and reduced water quality, there is evidence
Research Center at Columbus Zoo, home to that run-off from fertilisers can affect mussel
North America’s rich diversity of freshwater around 700 rare mussels, researchers from health, says G. Thomas Watters, a malacologist
mussels is in danger Ohio State University are raising thousands of also at Ohio State University. The rock salt
mussel larvae in dishes filled with warm, red used in the US to melt ice on winter roads
but Sietman says that is probably a long shot. goo. This is designed as a proxy for fish gills and could also be neutralising mussel sperm
For the time being, he can only watch and wait: the secret ingredient is rabbit blood – a cheaper, before it can reach the females. Nowadays,
“It’s a 365-day-a-year monitoring process.” more readily available alternative to fish mussels are even occasionally targeted by
Even in cases where the host is known or blood. “The benefit is that you can transform poachers, since their shells can be broken up
discovered quickly, it can still take several thousands of larvae in one petri dish,” says and inserted into oysters to encourage the
years before you start churning out mussels, team member Jacqualyn Halmbacher. growth of cultured pearls – a throwback to an
says Tyler Hern, a biologist at the White Elsewhere, it has already helped to push earlier era when mussels’ pearly innards made
Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery in the pause button on extinction for the them a target (see “Fashion victims”, left).
West Virginia. Hern has spent the past few golden riffleshell mussel. Monte McGregor, The true test of whether it is possible to
years working with the purple cat’s paw a malacologist at the Kentucky Department return North America’s mussels back to
mussel, named for the colour of its inner shell of Fish & Wildlife Resources, has successfully their former glories is whether recovered
populations can go on to produce new
generations on their own. Hern, for one, sees
Masters of disguise reasons for optimism: a single female can
Freshwater mussels use a fleshy lure to mimic minnows, worms and other tasty morsels generate hundreds of thousands of larvae,
to trick unsuspecting fish into nourishing their young and carrying them upstream he says, so a species can recover rapidly if
we can get enough individuals back into the
water with their host fish.
And Watters, who wades into Ohio’s Darby
river every year to check the endangered
northern riffleshell mussels he helped to
reintroduce, insists that such efforts are more
important than they might appear: “I would
like to think that by protecting a very rare
and intolerant species we are protecting
everything else as well”. ■
Male mussels release Females entice fish with a The larvae latch onto Once the larvae have
sperm, which fertilises fleshy lure. When the fish the fish’s gills, where metamorphosed into
attacks, it is engulfed by they suck blood and juveniles, they drop to a
Jason Bittel is a writer based in Pittsburgh,
the female’s eggs
parasitic larvae other nutrients new part of the riverbed Pennsylvania

PROFILE
The internet knows

you all too well
David Stillwell revealed how easily your personality can
be gauged online, and used to exploit you. But he seems
surprisingly sanguine about it, finds Douglas Heaven
AVID STILLWELL fidgets with his empty Facebook profiles paired to personality
D takeaway cup as we talk. Sitting in this

quiet cafeteria at the University of
Cambridge, the ongoing firestorm of US
types (that number now tops 6 million).
In 2013, Stillwell, Kosinski and colleague
Thore Graepel dropped the bombshell that
politics feels a million miles away. But with machine-learning techniques made it possible
Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 to accurately predict someone’s personality
US presidential election, the fire found its way type simply from their Facebook likes.
to him, thrusting the young researcher into And accurately too. Just nine likes is enough
the spotlight. to predict your personality traits as well as
“It’s uncomfortable,” he says, a colleague could. With 65 likes, as well as a
uncomfortably. “Plenty of investigative friend; with 125 likes, a family member. Most
journalists have wanted to have off-the-record people have around 225 likes, so organisations
conversations about what companies are that possess this sort of data can predict your
doing and whether we’ve helped them.” personality just as well as a spouse could. Not
The conversations he is referring to concern only that, it only takes a few Facebook likes to
what some consider a form of pervasive mind predict your age, gender, intelligence, sexuality,
control. Stillwell played a key role in exposing political and religious views, relationship
ways that firms and governments can exploit status and a host of other things. In short, the
our online data, mining it to create individual internet knows just what pushes your buttons.
psychological profiles they can use to fine-tune
adverts and political messages for maximum
impact, ushering in an era of unprecedented Laid bare
digital persuasion of the masses. Why was that a big deal? For marketers,
It started in summer 2007. On a whim – discovering someone’s characteristics to any
having just finished a psychology degree at great degree typically involved asking them to
the University of Nottingham, UK – Stillwell fill out a questionnaire, making it impractical.
made a Facebook app called myPersonality. But if it could be done automatically, our
It let people take a test that describes psychologies are laid bare. Nowadays, even talking about, says Stillwell. And it can be
personality types according to the “Big Five” your Twitter account can be analysed, your done online, by an algorithm, when you don’t
traits, which include degrees of agreeableness, personality predicted from your tweets. have your psychological guard up.
conscientiousness and extroversion. What does it mean to have such knowledge Stillwell is now deputy director of The
Months later, some researchers asked in corporate hands? “We can be hacked,” Psychometrics Centre at the University of
Stillwell if they could use his data. But he hadn’t says Stillwell. “Manipulated, persuaded Cambridge. His latest experiment with
collected any. He had only set it up because or encouraged.” He gives the example of a Kosinski and colleagues involved 3.5 million
“I thought it would be cool,” he says. Then he smooth-talking car seller. “The guy sizes you people. They found that those targeted with
wised up and started gathering data. It would up and starts giving you the spiel he thinks online advertising based solely on a single
prove a career-making move. When Michal will perfectly match you. As he’s talking, you Facebook like were 40 per cent more likely to
Kosinski, then at the University of Cambridge, are either smiling or looking disinterested and click on an online advert and 50 per cent more
approached him a year later, Stillwell had he’s using that to adjust his pitch as he goes likely to follow through with a purchase than
a data gold mine of more than a million along.” That’s the level of targeting we are those seeing untailored advertising. When

Photographed for New Scientist by Daniel Stier
Analytica would have been able to come up

with something so genius it would have
swung an entire election,” he says. “We spent
four years on it and didn’t come up with
anything that incredible.”
Think of Trump as a dry run, however.
With the amount of money and personal data
that companies like Cambridge Analytica are
feeding into the hopper, there is no doubt that
personality-based profiling will be perfected.
“Just because it didn’t matter in 2016 doesn’t
mean it won’t matter next time,” says Stillwell.
So having lifted the lid of Pandora’s box,
I want to know what worries Stillwell the most.
Being drip-fed personalised messages without
being aware that someone is trying to change
how we think is insidious, he says. “The power
balance right now is weighted towards those
who hold the data, and we really don’t know
how it’s being used,” he says.
Later, Brett Frischmann, a law professor
at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, goes
further, telling me over the phone that we are
“If we think we have it bad

today, mass persuasion
could make it a lot worse”
on a slippery slope. “If we think we have it bad
with filter bubbles today – with people being
fed radically different takes on world events
finding it harder and harder to find political
common ground – then [mass] persuasion
could make it a lot worse. These tools could
be used for a form of brainwashing.”
Considering how much Stillwell knows
about all this, I’m curious to what extent he
moderates his own online habits. “There is
some horrific stuff I’m interested in that I still
Google now and again,” he deadpans. I laugh.
He laughs. Awkward silence. “I don’t think my
data is being used in a way that makes me feel
uncomfortable,” he adds. In a world of hand-
wringing over big-data exploitation, Stillwell
manages to find a silver lining. “In the 1950s,
such messaging can be scaled to target many reconcile himself with Cambridge Analytica’s shopkeepers knew you and sold stuff in a
millions of people at the press of a button, political ambitions. way that made it relevant to you – it was
and with no regulatory oversight, that for And that was that – until Trump’s win a personalised, one-to-one relationship.
some is an alarming degree of influence. shocked the world. Cambridge Analytica Then we moved to a world of internet stores
Nudges at vast scales might sway wasted no time in announcing that its where, in the name of efficiency, we give
democracies. Cambridge Analytica, a firm social media ads tailored to individual everyone the same experience.”
that taps into big data, approached Stillwell’s voters’ personality types were key. Many Stillwell believes that automated
team in 2013. It had been spending big buying were scandalised: targeted campaign ads are psychological profiling is helping to bring
personal data from various sources and legit, but automated personality profiling back that personal touch. “It’s not necessarily
wanted help using it to influence US politics. had the whiff of foul play. all about people taking advantage of us. We
The chance to work with this trove of data When I ask Stillwell about the election can also be treated like individuals again.” ■
was tempting – “we discussed possibilities result, he shrugs. “Given the timescales
for months” – but ultimately Stillwell couldn’t involved, I didn’t think it likely that Cambridge Douglas Heaven is a consultant for New Scientist

CULTURE
Feel your way

to being human
A pioneering account of the origin of feelings shows
how central they are to life, consciousness and
human culture. Alun Anderson explores
given the credit they deserve.” pleasure, well-being and fatigue.

The Strange Order of Things: Life,
Damasio has spent a lifetime These are the “core components
feeling, and the making of cultures
investigating “why and how we of feelings”. He quotes
by Antonio Damasio, Random House
emote, feel, use feelings to Wordsworth with approval:
WE ARE still construct our selves; how feelings “sensations sweet, felt in the
struggling with assist or undermine our best blood and felt along the heart”.
the question of intentions; why and how brains Riding on this background
how it is that our interact with the body”. This book flow are more powerful emotive
brains not only is a summing-up of what he has responses, triggered by our
produce images of learned, explaining why feelings reactions to things around us,
the sights, sounds not only help us crack the hard by memories, by hunger, thirst
and smells around or lust, and by emotions like joy,
us but also accompany them with “Feelings work because sadness, fear, anger and envy.
private feelings and a sense of they ‘see’ the inner These reactions, which bring
“being there”. state and make it about changes within the body,
Antonio Damasio is a professor matter to the owner” are largely powered by parts of
of neuroscience, psychology and the brain beneath the cortex, and
philosophy at the University of problem but also give us a way are triggered non-consciously.
MADS PERCH/GETTY
Southern California, and he has a to connect human culture with It is then that the second and
profound answer to this so-called life that existed “as early as more recently evolved vertebrate
hard problem of consciousness. 3.8 billion years ago”. bodily world, that of the skeleton
In The Strange Order of Things, Damasio’s views have always and muscles, can play its part.
he argues that brains don’t been controversial because he “Images” from this second world
produce consciousness on their insists that we can’t understand provide a “body phantom” for our consciousness” is “wrong on
own. Rather, brains and bodies consciousness by only looking at sensory portals – our ears, nose, all counts”.
work together: feelings, how the brain interacts with the mouth and eyes – and maps of We certainly need the cortex.
subjectivity and consciousness world outside ourselves; we have where we are looking as muscles It helps bring together many
emerge from their interactions. to include the world within us direct our view. The subjective different brain areas in the final
Damasio’s explanation of too. This is “commonly ignored to view emerges, says Damasio, step of the multimedia theatre
how consciousness might be the peril of realistic conceptions when feelings that describe the experience of consciousness.
constructed is a dramatic of general physiology and inner state of life are placed in Here Damasio concurs with
moment in a wonderful, deep cognition”, he writes. the perspective of the body as it other researchers that we need to
and wide-ranging book. He has The body is so important to catches itself in the act of creating explain how the cortex pulls off
tackled the topic before in The consciousness because alongside images of the outside world. massive brain-wide integration,
Feeling of What Happens and what we perceive in the outside Let’s reflect. Damasio has in what neurobiologist Stanislas
other bestsellers, but never world, we map two kinds of provided several ingredients Dehaene vividly describes as
given such a lucid explanation internal world, says Damasio. of consciousness but has scarcely “global ignition”.
in non-technical language, nor The first is the old world of mentioned the cortex, where Damasio is a profound thinker,
embedded it within the wider metabolism – of heart, lungs, guts, explanations usually begin. and there is more to his layered
theme explained in this new skin and blood vessels. What we For him, focusing entirely in panorama describing the work of
book. That theme is simple, says sense from this ancient world the cortex and visual system feelings in consciousness than
Damasio: “Feelings have not been we describe in terms of pain, for the “neural correlates of this sketch implies. I particularly

For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culture
Reframing your past may make

your future wonderful
pleasure” – strings we didn’t make

and can’t easily alter. I am less
sure that this makes it any easier
to pin down the human condition,
other than exploring it as writers
and artists have always done.
In his explorations of himself,
Damasio reveals a humanist
with a few tricks for managing
his own feelings. He explains that,
“for some of us, so many good
moments of the past can become,
in recollection, wonderful… even
extraordinary moments… the
transformation can be magic and
entertaining”. The positive feeling
accompanying his reconstruction
of his past helps to create a great
future. He accepts not everyone
thinks this way, but I suspect it
might be worth learning.
He is unimpressed by futurists
who imagine we may one day
engineer our pains away, or perfect
ourselves. It is the full range of
feelings that makes us what we are,
with our triumphs and tragedies,
suffering and joy. And he thinks it
fine to accept life doesn’t deal you
a perfect hand and you must make
the best of it. “I know, I should have
been taller,” he writes, adding that
his acceptance of imperfection
has been criticised as a kind of
“Stockholm syndrome”, in which
you come to love your captors.
Damasio has a love of life, and
like the way it encourages you automatically in bacteria, but in We usually associate culture the real joy of reading The Strange
to look at your own experience: creatures with nervous systems, with creative intelligence, but Order of Things isn’t its bigger
you might observe that “your its processes can be monitored: instead Damasio asks us to see thesis but the insights that make
conscious mind is not a monolith. “feelings tell the mind, without its purpose as “producing you stop and think. He has
It is composed. It has parts. The any word being spoken, of the homeostatic corrections”. How considered this way of reading,
parts are well integrated, so much good or bad direction of the life can we imagine the birth of the too, explaining how the reference
so that some hinge on others, arts, Damasio asks, and not “I” of subjectivity can come and
but they are parts nonetheless.” “It is the range of feelings picture “one individual working go, and that a flow of highly
To search for the roots of that makes us what we on the resolution of a problem absorbing media can catch us
feeling, Damasio repurposes are, with our triumphs, posed by a feeling?” up in another’s vision so we lose
the word homeostasis, moving tragedies, suffering, joy” I accept Damasio’s big thesis awareness of our thoughts and
from a definition of maintaining that the human condition cede control of our time. “Turn
an organism’s balance to one process”. Feelings work because encompasses two worlds: reason, to literature if you really want to
of its “flourishing”, and to the they “see” the inner state and and feeling. These “nature-given be free,” says Damasio. His book
projection of life into the future. make it matter to the owner. This rules of life-regulation” reach is a wonderful space to practise
Looked at in this way, he finds metaphorical use of homeostasis back to the homeostatic world that freedom. ■
a unity in life, everywhere driven allows Damasio to take an original of the earliest creatures, “the
by “the homeostatic imperative”. look at culture, the human strings of which are pulled by Alun Anderson is an editor emeritus
Homeostasis may proceed condition and science. the invisible hands of pain and of New Scientist

CULTURE
Beyond self-expression
Brendan Byrne explores Paul Brown’s pioneering generative art
work allows us to place it in the in the early programming “certain constraints” remain
Process, Chance, and Serendipity: Art
context of the process-oriented language Fortran and run off invisible to the audience, and
that makes itself, an exhibition by Paul
art of the last 50 years. punch cards. The original took are probably indecipherable to
Brown, National Academy of Sciences,
The earliest of the pieces on several hours to print out on a anyone but the artist.
Washington DC, to 15 July
display, Untitled Gouache, drum plotter. Like several pieces, This is one of the problems
COMPUTER art pioneer Paul was composed the year Brown this is a recent reprint – surely with process-oriented art: if the
Brown likes to say that his work saw Cybernetic Serendipity. one of the benefits of composing underlying rules – the work’s
is “art that makes itself”. Brown’s To generate its orderly chutes computer-generated art. central fascination – are too
involvement in the genre dates and ladders, Brown opened up The succinctly and charmingly complex, they mean nothing
from 1968, when he visited the psychoanalyst-theorist Anton named BIG DIM/0363000 200, to the viewer.
Cybernetic Serendipity show at Ehrenzweig’s The Hidden Order 120/11,969 shows stages in the The development of the fine-art
the ICA in London, featuring such of Art at random, and plugged growth of a 3D cellular automaton inkjet printing process known as
notable trailblazers as Nam June the last digit of the page number under certain constraints. Those giclée in the 1990s enabled Brown
Paik and Jean Tinguely. The into his code. to expand his style, pushing his
impact this show had on Brown Untitled Computer Assisted “Just like punk, the use of colour and depth. The
and his peers could be compared Drawing is populated by what insurgent art of the late colours of Gymnasts somersault
to the famous 1976 Sex Pistols look like deconstructed 20th century has been off the wall and glue themselves
gig in Manchester, UK. alien emojis. Its code was written de-weaponised” behind your eyelids. Ceiling Detail
Brown would go on to study from the House of Signs resembles
at University College London’s a series of interlocking sigils from
Slade School of Art, one of the a Jorge Luis Borges fable. Both
few schools that had already pieces achieve the rare distinction
integrated computers into its of being more beautiful than they
curriculum. Prefiguring the are interesting.
habits of a start-up culture still The presentation of
two decades away, Brown took Reconfigurable Painting is less
to sleeping on the studio floor successful. Originally a set of
where he worked, as the Slade’s six triangular canvases, each
mainframes were both in high composed of nine sub-triangles,
demand and needed lots of it was meant to be something
processing time to finish tasks. the viewer could rearrange.
Avant-garde work such as John Visitors to the exhibition are
Cage’s indeterminate music and no longer given this opportunity:
early 20th-century movements, just like punk, the insurgent art
especially Dada, deeply of the late 20th century has been
COURTESY OF CULTURAL PROGRAMMES OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
influenced Brown’s experiments de-weaponised.

with randomisation, chance and The show is housed in a small
mathematics. The I Ching, a major atrium at the National Academy
text for Cage and Philip K. Dick of Sciences and is best accessed
among others, also played a part. via the building’s C Street
Brown wrote of these years: “Self- entrance. However, you shouldn’t
expression was perceived as an miss the chance to walk past the
outdated romantic notion and main entrance on Constitution
many artists were exploring Avenue to the south, if only for
methods for removing themselves the glares from the goons
from the production process.” guarding the Federal Reserve
A new retrospective of Brown’s next door. Q
Reconfigurable Painting Brendan Byrne is a writer and critic

can no longer be toyed with based in New York

letters@newscientist.com @newscientist newscientist

LETTERS
EDITOR’S PICK Plant communication

Sundry solutions to stop sand slipping through our fingers has even more to tell us
From Jonathan Wallace,
research and development into wood From Malcolm Ratcliff, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
and wood products, their durability, Lincoln, UK Marta Zaraska describes worrying
fireproofing, maintenance and so on. Easily available alluvial sand and gravel evidence of common air
In the meantime, it seems we have reserves may be running out, but the pollutants disrupting chemical
to look again at traditional, modern situation can be easily managed. communication in plants
and future materials and ask what is There are simpler alternatives (17 February, p 32). She suggests
the most sustainable combination for a than high-tech remedies, although this may also be implicated in
particular context. they need planning and the right the decline of pollinating insects,
investment decisions. if they are finding it harder to
From Barry Cash, The Verney Report on aggregate locate flowers as a result.
Bristol, UK supplies to south-east England This raises another troubling
A simple way to use less sand would proposed solutions to the same possibility. Many insects rely on
be to reuse buildings instead of problem in 1976. These have stood chemical signals to attract mates.
From Trevor Jones, demolishing and “redeveloping” them. the test of time. We now use less If these pheromones are similarly
Sheringham, Norfolk, UK Here in Bristol, for example, the recent aggregates as building projects broken down in the presence
As an architect, I was dismayed to learn construction of a hospital involved have been redesigned with lean of ozone and nitrogen oxides,
that the right sort of sand is another knocking down about £60 million construction principles. We use more this could also seriously hit
diminishing, non-renewable raw worth of buildings that were less than recycled materials: around 90 per cent population levels.
material (17 February, p 35). I had no 20 years old, some less than 10 years of construction and demolition waste Monitoring of moths in the UK
idea this was the case. My reaction is old. Reusing them would have saved a is already recycled in the UK. We has shown that many species have
to campaign for millions more trees great deal of sand and carbon dioxide excavate marine aggregates from declined substantially over the
to be grown and for there to be more emissions, not to mention money. around our shores sustainably. past 50 years. Might disruption of
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“Trigger warnings stop flashbacks of sexual

assault, so I don’t nosedive into depression…”
Who drank all the coffee? patiently explains why such warnings
are in fact useful, not censorship (24 February, p 20)
pheromone communication be known as compositionality, has consequences of hypoxia and But physical pain is only one
a factor in this, alongside habitat developed in only one biological allowed to experience it by factor: the emotional torment as
degradation, pesticide use and communication system – ours. breathing through a carbon the tumbril trundled to the killing
light pollution? dioxide-absorbing canister. site must have been horrific.
From Roy Smith, I can honestly describe the Having cared for chickens, I have
From Bob Ladd, Burntwood, Staffordshire, UK onset of profound hypoxia as an seen that sudden changes in
Edinburgh, UK It is a sad irony that at the same enjoyable event. It was only the circumstances upset them. Are
It is interesting that plants time as Zaraska notes the value presence of fellow students, who those organising painless killing
communicate chemically, but of urban trees in dealing with forcefully separated me from emotionally aware?
your use of “word” and “sentence” pollutants, a council contractor the apparatus, that prevented
metaphors is misleading. Plants in Sheffield, UK, is busy cutting me coming to an untimely end. From Archie Campbell,
may combine different chemicals down hundreds of trees in the city Gregg DuPont refers to the Cambridge, UK
to mean different things, but streets. This is in spite of vigorous use of barbiturate drugs for the I welcome trials of the stunning of
there is no plant analogue to protests by its citizens. humane euthanasia of pets chickens using low oxygen levels,
the way we combine words to (Letters, 20 January). Surely which lead to death with no
make sentences. Each chemical Humane execution and hypoxia must be the most warning. It is incomprehensible,
combination has only a the fear of the tumbril humane way of inducing death? though, that the UK Home Office
stand-alone meaning. promotes carbon dioxide for the
The sentence metaphor would From Tom Clarke, From Chrissy Philp, killing of certain laboratory
be valid if one chemical meant Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Bath, UK animals. This is a cruel method
“attack” and it could be combined You report on low atmospheric I am glad that scientific attention since it triggers gasping, a feeling
variously with others that meant pressure stunning as a more is being directed at finding the of suffocation and panic. Perhaps
“cutworm”, “aphid” and so on to humane method of slaughtering kindest way to kill chickens. But civil servants should be asked to
yield combinations with derivable chickens (3 February, p 8). As a I have a question. During the try a lungful of CO2 to see if they
meanings like “cutworm attack”. medical student in 1968, I was French Revolution, the guillotine would still advocate its use for
As far as I know, that property, instructed in the physiological was adopted to kill painlessly. humane killing. >
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letters@newscientist.com @newscientist newscientist

LETTERS
Symbiosis is ubiquitous astronauts (Letters, 3 February). The yet deeper roots of I am disappointed, however, with
and perhaps inevitable But she compares the fatality rate environmental struggle your mentions of Dolly the sheep
NASA tolerates with the actual in three articles over two weeks
From Guy Cox, St Albans, death rate for climbers. The two From Joan Zealey, Balgownie, (27 January, p 3 and p 4, and
New South Wales, Australia figures have nothing in common. New South Wales, Australia 3 February, p 24). Not once did you
Eric Wynter describes the Guy Cox reminds us about credit the Roslin Institute, nor the
internalisation of bacteria into From Paul Whiteley, concern for the environment in University of Edinburgh. Don’t
proto-eukaryotes to become Bittaford, Devon, UK the 1960s (Letters, 3 February). assume everyone knows where
mitochondria as being “more How we perceive risk depends The environmental movement Dolly was made. Do acknowledge
unlikely, perhaps, than the on how much control we have. goes back far further than that. those scientists in Scotland.
appearance of life itself” (Letters, Imagine climbing a tree. Now The world’s first national park,
3 February). But this is just one imagine climbing a tree with a Yellowstone, was proclaimed The shipping forecast:
example of such symbiosis. headset, being instructed what in 1872, and Australia’s Royal old ships may sink
Another is photosynthetic handholds to take. National Park followed in 1879.
bacteria being ingested to form Which is more daring? In the UK, Emily Williamson From Michael Strakosch,
chloroplasts, which happened and Eliza Phillips, both opposed to Sydney, Australia
several times, giving rise to From Aidan Karley, UK the slaughter of birds for feathers Joshua Howgego asks why
different lineages of algae. US and European astronauts at to adorn women’s hats, combined ore carrier ships are sinking
Some scientists believe that least are employees of civilian their fledgling organisations in (27 January, p 34). Some of the
cilia, such as those that remove agencies that have “duties of care” 1891, leading to the Royal Society more ethical mining and oil
mucus from our lungs, and to reduce the hazards of that for the Protection of Birds. companies insist that their
flagella, such as those that enable employment. Everest climbers cargoes be carried by ships that
sperm to swim, had a symbiotic impose risks upon themselves. Cloning credit needed for are less than 10 years old. Old
origin, too. Symbiosis can be seen The question for them is about Dolly the Scottish sheep oil tankers converted to bulk
as inevitable. their employees: the professional commodities carriers seem to
mountaineers called “guides” if From Lynne Turnbull, have the habit of sinking that
The relative risks of Western and “Sherpas” if Nepali North Berwick, East Lothian, UK Howgego describes.
Everest and rockets or Tibetan in origin. So rich and I bought a subscription to New
mostly white people have one set Scientist for my husband, never Might we have proof of a
From David Plews, Wath-upon- of rules and poor local people a having read it myself. Now, each quantised God or gods?
Dearne, South Yorkshire, UK different set. Given the supposed week I will him to finish reading
Danielle Young says Everest egalitarianism of climbing so I can devour it. I love it and am From Ian Napier,
climbers are more daring than culture, this is very awkward. engaging my daughter with it. Adelaide, South Australia
Terry Klumpp shows us that
Epicurus had an understanding
TOM GAULD
of God that was well ahead of his
time (Letters, 3 February). She or
He can be seen to be both able and
unable, and willing and unwilling
to prevent evil – would that be a
quantum God, perhaps?
For the record

Q The team refining the mass of the
proton measured a property of this
subatomic particle called the cyclotron
frequency (13 January, p 7).
Letters should be sent to:

Letters to the Editor, New Scientist,
25 Bedford Street, London, WC2E 9ES
Email: letters@newscientist.com
Include your full postal address and telephone

number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to
articles. We reserve the right to edit letters.
New Scientist Ltd reserves the right to
use any submissions sent to the letters column of
New Scientist magazine, in any other format.

CROSSWORD
Compiled by Richard Smyth
Spectacular wall art from astro photographer Chris Baker
Available as frameless acrylic or framed backlit

up to 1.2 metres wide. All limited editions
NEWS! See the recently launched Chris Lintott Galaxy Collection
Crossword No16
www.galaxyonglass.com
ACROSS
1 In biology, a population that is less 17 Planet discovered by Sir William
+44 (0) 7814 181647 Chris@galaxyonglass.com
widespread than in the past (6) Herschel in 1781 (6)
5 Birth city of physicists John von 19 (& 24 Down) Maria ___
Neumann, Eugene Wigner and (1906–72), Poland-born physicist
Edward Teller (8) and Nobel laureate (8,5)
9 Process once crucial in the 21 The ___ , campus newspaper at
production of high-grade iron (8) MIT (4)
10 Twofold; of communication, 22 Surgical removal of breast
two-way; of printing, tissue (10)
double-sided (6) 25 Marc Isambard ___ (1769–1849),
11 The generic name for polymethyl engineer, designer of the Thames
methacrylate (10) Tunnel (6)
12 A number that when raised to 26 HO• (8)
the power n yields x (4) 27 Bird in the curlew group (8)
13 Boring structure (5,3) 28 Term describing motion about
16 Asian antelope also known as a fixed axis, as in some kinds
the blue bull (6) of engine (6)
DOWN
2 Identical in magnitude (5) 8 Chungkingosaurus or
3 Searchable data set; forefinger (5) Wuerhosaurus, perhaps (9)
4 Schmitt ___ , logic input type that 14 One of a set of 17 elements that
provides hysteresis (7) includes Ce and Y (4,5)
5 Probable origin of the universe 15 A 14 Down, atomic number 57 (9)
(3,4) 18 Musical instrument used to
6 Charles Lutwidge ___ (1832–98), manipulate sound recordings (7)
mathematician and author of 19 Low-ethanol fuel mixture (7)
Euclid and His Modern Rivals; also 20 Device for the perusal of
known as a writer for children (7) electronic books (1-6)
7 Fastener developed in the 23 Kilgore ___ , fictional sci-fi writer
19th century by the Gem created by Kurt Vonnegut (5)
Manufacturing Company (5,4) 24 See 19 Across
Answers to Crossword No15

ACROSS: 1 DMITRI MENDELEEV, 9 CASPIAN, 10 NUCLEON, 11 MOLES, 12 LEWIS PAIR,
13 LANCASTER, 15 DELTA, 16 REPEL, 18 MEDICATED, 20 CORAL REEF, 23 OVALS, 24 INERTIA,
25 RAW DATA, 26 NITROGEN DIOXIDE. DOWN: 1 DECIMAL FRACTION, 2 INSULIN, 3 REINSTALL,
4 MONAL, 5 NANOWORLD, 6 EICAS, 7 EYEBALL, 8 VENEREAL DISEASE, 14 TEMPERATE,
15 DOCTOR WHO, 17 PER CENT, 19 THALAMI, 21 LITHO, 22 FARAD.

For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback

FEEDBACK
HOW do you tell a king penguin from guide to all things emoji – releasing
his queen? Get them to sing you a a design that was two legs short of
song. Antarctic scientists struggle to a full thermidor.
distinguish males from females of the Not only that, the DNA symbol
species, as they look almost identical. contained in the update was back to
Traditionally, beak length was used front, presenting a rare left-handed
to sort the royalty, but this is only molecule instead of the more familiar
accurate in four out of five cases. right-twisted one.
Happily, a new study in Ibis shows In response, Emojipedia’s Jeremy
that a trained ear can tell apart the Burge announced that the site would
distinct vocal patterns of male and be updating its designs for accuracy.
female king penguins with perfect What’s the emoji for “red-faced”?
accuracy. The technique will let
researchers keep tabs on penguin PREVIOUSLY Feedback discussed
populations without needing to the poronkusema, a Finnish unit
follow them into the throne room. of distance that describes how
far a reindeer is believed to travel
OVERSIZED coats and jewelled before relieving itself, roughly
hair partings might have been in 7.5 kilometres (24 February).
vogue recently at London Fashion “There’s an old French country
Week, but 1300 years ago in what measurement of distance, a pipée,
is now Peru, head binding was all the distance you can walk while
WHAT comes in snack packets and Forum calling on parents to limit the rage. A recent study reveals smoking one pipe of tobacco,”
goes crunch when you eat it? Jellyfish, their children’s use of social that, even then, different skull says Ralph Hancock. “If the pipe
as connoisseurs of Asian cuisine well media. Too much screen time, styles competed for dominance. was large and smoked slowly,
know. But how the gelatinous animals it said, was causing distress. Anthropologist Matthew
are transformed into a pickle-like It called for watermarks to Velasco at Cornell University,
texture is still poorly understood. identify falsified images, New York, examined hundreds
Traditionally, the delicacy is cured and classes on how to use social of skeletons uncovered in the
in salt and potassium alum for several media in a healthy way, such as Colca valley. He found that as
weeks, but Mathias Clausen and his creating your own content. head binding became the fashion,
team at the University of Southern Unfortunately, creating your two distinct looks emerged:
Denmark in Odense were able to own content on social media can the Collaguas made their heads
replicate the process in just a few go awry, as Gyimah’s colleague longer and narrower, while the
days using ethanol. Ben Bradley, Conservative MP for Cavanas aimed for a wider,
Yet they are less certain what they Mansfield, was in the process of stouter skull.
are putting in their mouths. “Little is finding out. Days earlier, Bradley In time, the Collagua style won
known about the molecular anatomy had tweeted an accusation that out, as cultural identity in the
of the jellyfish,” Clausen said, adding opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn region coalesced in the face of maybe this could be 7.5 km too.”
that he was “still not completely sure” had “sold British secrets to threats from beyond, including Meanwhile, Richard Machin
what the tissue they had transformed communist spies”. the Inca. Those with modified tells us that in Colombia, one
was. Reassuring stuff. Faster than you can say heads tended to be better fed and horse rider asking directions
Despite this, with fish stocks in “Fake news!”, lawyers for Corbyn lead safer lives, suggesting that from another might describe
decline, the team says that jellyfish appeared in Bradley’s mentions for ancient Peruvians, getting the distance as cinco puros.
could become an important foodstuff, column. Bradley found himself ahead in society meant just that. He explains: “A puro is a cigar,
particularly if the texture can be posting an apology for distress so a puro is the time it takes to
made more palatable. Are you ready caused by his “untrue and false” THE Unicode Consortium recently smoke one. At a gallop, this could
for this jelly? statement and promising to make unveiled 157 new icons to jazz up equate to around 7.5 km, though
a substantial donation to a charity text messages and soften passive- that would be pushing it.”
PAUL MCDEVITT
LATE last month, UK science of Corbyn’s choice. Never mind aggressive notes in shared kitchens. Instead, Richard places the
minister Sam Gyimah retweeted the children: perhaps we ought But not all is picture perfect in the conversion at about three puros
a video from the World Economic to limit MPs’ use of social media. world of typography. to the poronkusema.
The original proposal for a lobster
emoji, submitted in June 2017, noted
What happens to food passing its best before that the animals “are well known for You can send stories to Feedback by
date? Paul Burall knows exactly when to their red color, large claws and long email at feedback@newscientist.com.
segmented tails”. Sadly, the number Please include your home address.
look: his Tesco flapjack bites, says the label, of legs wasn’t specified, resulting in This week’s and past Feedbacks can
expire on 15 March 2018 at 13:48 Emojipedia – the unofficial reference be seen on our website.

Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword

THE LAST WORD
Stray cat strut skaukatt in North America Life in the dome or yellow bird’s nest, which
and Scandinavia respectively), is occasionally found in
In countries where there are lots of and are largely adapted to the When we were hiking the Oyster conifer woods.
stray cats and dogs, many are in poor available prey. Dome Trail in Whatcom County near Greg Nuttgens
condition, especially compared with The most miserable feral Puget Sound in Washington, I found Bridgend, Mid-Glamorgan, UK
the truly wild animals that live in the carnivores occur in cities with this strange plant – or is it a fungus
same places. Why is this? The battle little alternative to scavenging; (see photo)? Can anyone identify it?
for survival must be incredibly tough they face pervasive human This week’s
for all these animals. Is it because feral enmity and, instead of enjoying
domesticated animals can somehow handouts, must cope with questions
live on in poor health through their intensified garbage control.
association with humans, whereas They prey on pets, each other POTATO TIP
nature would ruthlessly pick off and disease-ridden rats. I work in a restaurant where
any weaklings in the wild animal In contrast, urban foxes the chef saves time by parboiling
population? and raccoons are non-feral, potatoes and leaving them in
omnivorous predators; the water overnight, then
QWell-adapted feral populations they merge into city ecology, roasting them the following day.
may thrive: consider dromedaries withdrawing at need. There is To stop the potatoes discolouring
in Australia, pigs in North America misery in the wild too, but it is overnight, he puts a slice of brown
and city pigeons. Natural selection seldom visible or long-lasting. bread in the water. Is this an old
never sleeps, so feral populations Jon Richfield wives’ tale or does this really
such as Soay sheep, originally from Somerset West, South Africa work? And does it have to be
the Scottish island of that name, QThis is Monotropa uniflora, brown bread?
may become as uniform as most QFeral animals that live in urban commonly known as ghost pipe, Emma Down
wild species. areas with no fear of humans can corpse plant or Indian pipe, Hemel Hempstead,
Most successful feral eke out a living on abundant but presumably because the seed Hertfordshire, UK
populations are ecologically otherwise poor-quality food, capsules look like a Native
flexible, non-specialist herbivores such as discarded scraps from American pipe. OUT COLD
or omnivores not vastly different takeaways. It is a flowering plant, not a I read recently that turtles were
from their ancestors in behaviour I recently saw a very mangy fungus, but is unusual in having being “cold-stunned” and sharks
or physiology. Feral city carnivores fox in the centre of Purley, south no chlorophyll, hence the white were freezing to death in the
often rely opportunistically on a London, scavenging. With little ocean off the north-eastern US
prey-rich ecology plus scavenging. need of physical fitness to obtain “It is also known as Indian coast. This was due to a cold spell
Lapdogs are handout enough calories to keep going, pipe, presumably because with air temperatures of -12°C,
specialists, and in nature, and probably few predators, the the seed capsules look like rather than the average 1°C. Is this
specialisation is an evolutionary urban environment keeps such a Native American pipe” particularly cold or within the
one-way ticket. So those that unfit or elderly individuals alive normal winter range, and how is it
survive as strays are usually until they fall ill or become less or pink colour. It parasitises the possible for animals to be affected
“natural-looking” opportunists mobile through arthritis or injury. mycelium of Russula fungi, which in these ways? Also, why do we not
like mongrels, rather than pekes Then they may crawl somewhere in turn parasitise the roots of see mass freezing of land animals
or pugs. quiet to die, and birds, rats and deciduous trees such as beech. before sea animals are affected,
Feral and hybrid populations insects will quickly dispose of It is also said to have a variety of given the relative stability of
succeed mainly in rural or wild the body. medicinal uses. ocean temperatures?
regions (such as dingoes and cats Hillary Shaw A related species grows in Sophie McGlynn
in Australia, or Maine Coon and Newport, Shropshire, UK the UK: Monotropa hypopitys, Haverford College, Pennsylvania, US
We pay £25 for every answer answers to The Last Word, New Scientist,
published in New Scientist. To answer 25 Bedford Street, London, WC2E 9ES.
a question or ask a new one please New Scientist Ltd retains
email lastword@newscientist.com. total editorial control over the
Questions should be scientific published content and reserves all
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MUSSEL PAIN

The crisis engulﬁng

WHY WE DON’T SLEEP ENOUGH Evolution made us the wide-awake ape

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