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The race to model, track
and trace covid-19
RED-DWARF DYNAMO
Electric exoplanet creates
an interstellar stir
SOME DON’T LIKE IT HOT
How climate change is
skewing sex ratios
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This week’s issue
On the 5 Coronavirus latest

The race to model, track
cover and trace covid-19
34 Cool minds 9 Red-dwarf dynamo The Science of Happiness

Secrets of the people who Electric exoplanet creates How do you measure
never get stressed an interstellar stir happiness? How can we
make ourselves happier
39 Lab-grown meat 44 Some don’t like it hot and how important is it
It’s finally here - but will it How climate change is to laugh? Find out at our
really save the planet? skewing sex ratios evening lecture on 15 April
in London.
For more information go to
newscientist.com/events
10 NASA’s weird moon missions 18 What counts as human?

16 Upside-down jellyfish 51 Perfect pancakes 12 Mega-turtles
Vol 245 No 3270

Cover image: Nathalie Lees
News Features
8 Fossil eukaryotes 34 Cool minds
Are these the oldest complex Features Understanding the resilience of
cells ever discovered? people who don’t get stressed
could transform our lives
10 Psychological tests
US courts are still using 39 Lab-grown meat
controversial and subjective The surprising taste of a
assessments long-awaited food revolution
13 Long-range recognition 44 Some don’t like it hot

The plan to be able to spot When the sex of your offspring
you from 1 kilometre away is tuned to temperature, a
warming world looks risky
Views
The back pages
23 Comment
The coronavirus outbreak can 51 Science of cooking
be modelled with maths, says Better batter for pancake day
Adam Kucharski
52 Puzzles
WILDTYPE
24 The columnist A cryptic crossword, plus the

James Wong on what eating quick quiz and puzzle
like our ancestors entails 39 Lab-grown meat Forget fake steaks and impossible burgers – the
first cultured animal products are likely to be seafood 53 Feedback
26 Letters A case of nominative
Do we live in a simulation? contradeterminism
5 News
28 Aperture
The wild island that looks like
“The SARS outbreak felt 54 Almost the last word
Mulberry juice stains and cold
a colourful biological jewel exactly this hopeless in the fingers: readers respond
30 Culture
A chemical giant gets hunted
middle of it. This feels like 56 The Q&A
Elisabeth Bik, science sleuth,
in the movie Dark Waters a replay of the same movie” on research and cheating
22 February 2020 | New Scientist | 1

What is consciousness?
What is intelligence?
Why do we sleep and dream?
What causes cognitive decline?
Where do our personalities come from?
and many more
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The leader
A lab-grown future
For all our sakes, governments need to invest more in cultured meat
AS PEOPLE get richer, they tend to eat Consumer squeamishness may still into university research on conventional
more meat. Global meat consumption be a problem and some claims about agriculture, only around $150 million
has roughly doubled over the past cultured meat’s reduced environmental has been invested in developing cultured
30 years and is forecast to double again impact may be overblown (see page 39). meat up to now, all from the private
over the next 30. Satisfying demand However, it could be a game-changer, sector or philanthropy. That is chicken
without trashing the environment and shrinking livestock farming’s footprint, feed for a technology that could change
crashing the climate will be a challenge. stemming the tide of antibiotic the world for the better.
According to the World Economic We can’t rely on the free market to
Forum, doing so through conventional “Venture capital has a poor sort this out alone. Venture capital has
agriculture will be impossible. record of supporting truly a poor track record at supporting truly
Another type of agriculture is on the original innovation – just original innovation. Just look at that
way that could fill stomachs without look at any smartphone” icon of modern consumer capitalism,
killing the planet – or anything, for that the smartphone: from the internet
matter. Cellular agriculture, or cultured resistance, improving animal welfare to GPS, touchscreen displays and even
meat, is almost oven-ready. The first and solving looming food security the voice-activated assistant Siri, pretty
commercial products could be plated issues. Even lab-made shrimp would much all its key technologies initially
up next year. The starter will be seafood: be an improvement, as aquaculture received state cash.
shrimp, crab, lobster, salmon and tuna. has its own sustainability problems. Governments should ignore the
But the technology is basically the same So why are governments paying bleating of meat industry lobbyists.
and cultured shrimp should pave the cultured meat so little attention? It is time to put our money where
way for burgers and nuggets. While they continue to pour money our mouths need to be. ❚
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News
Antimatter problem Exoplanet discovery Largest ever turtle Starlink controversy Food waste
It turns out that Planet detected Huge fossil sheds Astronomers’ Have we been
anti-atoms look that generates light on mysterious concerns over underestimating
just like atoms p8 radio waves p9 reptile p12 satellites p13 the problem? p14
Medical imaging is being

used to work out how the
coronavirus affects the body
similar results. We know that

many mild cases have gone
undetected, and that case
numbers should be higher.
However, if most of these people
don’t infect others, this would
explain why the number of new
detectable cases is now falling.
Importantly, this could also
mean that the epidemic could
sputter out, especially if we can
FENG DAPENG/XINHUA NEWS AGENCY/PA IMAGES
10%
of cases may be responsible for
80 per cent of transmission
limit super-spreading events.

If many places outside Wuhan
“get lucky” and get few
superspreaders, “this seems the
most likely way a pandemic might
Coronavirus update be averted”, says Marc Lipsitch
at Harvard University.
Is it super-spreading? However, Lipsitch says that

seems a lot to hope for, given
the number of countries with
infections, and the likely number
If the covid-19 virus is transmitted largely by superspreaders, of missed cases. He predicts
it might not go pandemic, reports Debora MacKenzie that covid-19 will go pandemic,
infecting between 40 to 70 per
FOR yet another week, covid-19, province, whose capital Wuhan death, an 80-year-old Chinese cent of people globally.
the disease caused by the new is the epidemic epicentre, have tourist hospitalised in Paris Lipsitch and Fisman both say
coronavirus, has remained stopped rising. Apart from a jump a month ago. The day before, that if that is going to happen,
poised just short of becoming last week as China redefined some the first case of the virus in Africa unexplained clusters of severe
a pandemic. As case counts 15,000 unconfirmed cases as was reported in Egypt. pneumonia in older people
stabilise in China, and don’t take covid-19, the number of new cases But cases outside China are outside China will emerge
off elsewhere, the big question is: reported daily seems to be falling. infecting fewer other people than in a few weeks.
will it happen? “Every scenario “Hubei peaked around expected, given the rate of spread However, Fisman still thinks
is still on the table,” said Tedros 6 February, and daily case numbers in China. Using epidemic models, the threat could fizzle out. Toronto
Ghebreyesus, head of the World are dropping,” says David Fisman Justin Lessler at Johns Hopkins was hit hard by SARS in 2003. “It
Health Organization (WHO), in at the University of Toronto, University in Maryland says this felt exactly this hopeless in the
Geneva, Switzerland, this week. Canada. He says this is unlikely to fits a situation in which only 10 per middle of it,” he says. “This feels
To be pandemic, covid-19 has be due to cases not being reported, cent of cases are responsible for like a replay of the same movie.”
to spread generally in a population and that the fall was predictable 80 per cent of transmission – in The SARS coronavirus moved
outside China, not just in limited based on trends seen in January. other words, most cases are mainly via super-spreading and
clusters triggered by a known case, On 15 February, France caused by superspreaders. the epidemic died out. Whether
as has happened so far. “We are confirmed Europe’s first covid-19 Other researchers have found that is likely to happen this time
not seeing that,” Mike Ryan, head should become apparent soon.
of the WHO emergencies More on the coronavirus online “The next couple of weeks are
programme, said on Monday. All the latest on the science of the outbreak going to be like waiting for a
In China, cases outside Hubei newscientist.com/article-topic/coronavirus bomb to go off,” says Fisman. ❚

News Coronavirus update

Treatment
Drug trials under way

We’ll soon know if covid-19 can be treated with drugs developed
for HIV and Ebola, reports Alice Klein
THE results of two clinical trials any positive signal,” she added. The press conference followed infected and understanding the
testing whether HIV and Ebola In addition, four vaccines are a global research forum held in behaviour of the virus.
drugs are effective at treating the being developed to try to prevent Geneva on 11 and 12 February At the moment, covid-19 testing
symptoms of covid-19, the disease people getting the disease in the that brought together scientists, involves analysing specimens in a
caused by the new coronavirus, first place, Soumya Swaminathan public health agencies and health lab using specialised equipment.
will be known soon, says the World of the WHO told the press ministries from around the world It would be easier if there was a
Health Organization (WHO). And conference. “It’s likely that there to discuss the research that needs fast, simple test that could be
on 16 February, an antiviral called will be one or two that will go into to be done to tackle the covid-19 done on the spot in community
favilavir was approved by China’s human trials in about three to outbreak. Researchers from settings, Swaminathan said.
National Medical Products four months from now,” she said. Wuhan, where the outbreak Dominic Dwyer at the
Administration for use in treating “However, it would take at least began, attended via video link University of Sydney, Australia,
the disease, according to a report 12 to 18 months for a vaccine to due to travel restrictions. agrees that the development of
in China Daily. become available for wider use.” The forum identified the most these “point of care” tests should
Marie-Paule Kieny of the WHO urgent research areas: working be a priority. “The quicker you can
told a press conference in Geneva, Various drugs are being on treatments for people who are make a diagnosis, the quicker you
Switzerland, on 12 February that trialled in China to treat already sick, finding easier ways can do something about it, like
doctors in China have given a covid-19 to test people to see if they are isolating the patient,” he says.
combination of two HIV drugs – “If a cruise ship had an outbreak
lopinavir and ritonavir – to “quite of coronavirus, for example, being
a number” of people with covid-19. able to come on board straight
The results of the trial will be away with a point-of-care device
known within “a few days or a few would be very useful.”
weeks”, she said. We also need to find out more
Doctors in China will also start about where the new coronavirus
testing remdesivir, a drug first came from, how it jumped to
developed to treat the Ebola virus, humans, which people it affects
CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
in people with covid-19 very soon, most and why, and whether
Kieny said. The drug was tested quarantine methods and travel
without much success with bans are effective at containing
Ebola, but may be more effective it, Swaminathan told the press
against covid-19, she said. “But conference. “I think we have a
we will have to wait for a few lot to learn from studying all
weeks to know whether this gives these,” she said. ❚
Analysis Temperature
of people think that goes away in example, are less transmissible.

Will heat kill the coronavirus? We don’t April as the heat comes in.” It is thought the virus – known
know if changing seasons will help stem Trump isn’t the only politician as 2019-nCoV – can survive for
the outbreak, says Michael Le Page to make this sort of claim. The UK’s up to four days on surfaces. Some
health secretary, Matt Hancock, researchers, including Paul Hunter
recently told ITV reporter Tom at the University of East Anglia,
WILL the covid-19 outbreak of Oxford. “I keep asking virologist Clarke that the hope was to slow the UK, do think the new coronavirus
caused by the new coronavirus colleagues this and nobody knows. spread of the virus so any epidemic won’t survive for as long in
fade as winter in the northern So when you hear people say reaches the UK in spring and warmer conditions.
hemisphere comes to an end? the weather will warm up and it will summer when coronaviruses, of “One extreme scenario is that it
This has been suggested by some just disappear, it’s a very unhelpful which the new virus is just a specific will burn itself out sometime in the
researchers and repeated by some generalisation.” summer,” says Hunter. “The other
political leaders, including US This is essentially what Trump “One scenario is that it will extreme scenario is that it will
president Donald Trump. said on 10 February. “The heat, burn itself out in summer, reduce in the summer but it will
“We absolutely don’t know that,” generally speaking, kills this kind another that it will reduce come back again in the winter
says Trudie Lang at the University of virus,” he told a meeting. “A lot but then return in winter” and become what we call endemic,
6 | New Scientist | 22 February 2020

Tracking
China uses mass surveillance tech

to fight spread of coronavirus
Donna Lu
IN A bid to contain the country’s cars are allowed to enter cities, a Drivers in some areas
coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese process that can track the location have to scan QR codes
government has teamed up with of people by their Chinese resident before entering a city
tech firms to monitor citizens identity card number.
and track confirmed cases of On 13 February, China’s Ministry Chinese tech firms don’t. The
infection with the covid-19 virus. of Industry and Information Smart Assistant function on
On 16 February, Alipay – the Technology jointly launched Huawei phones in China, for
world’s largest mobile payments a service with three state-run example, pulls information from
telecommunications firms – Ding Xiang Yuan, or DXY – a
70,000 China Telecom, China Unicom website for medical professionals
LAI LI/XINHUA/ALAMY LIVE NEWS

and China Mobile – that allows – to let people search by flight
Number of close contacts detected users to request their location number to see if there were any
by one state-owned tracking app data from the previous 14 days suspected or confirmed cases.
by text message. An app in Chinese messaging
platform – announced that a Other technologies tap into platform WeChat allows someone
colour-coded QR phone app to the Chinese government’s vast in a city to locate the nearest
monitor individuals in China collection of citizens’ data to confirmed case registered by
would be available within a week. screen for coronavirus carriers. lived, worked or travelled with Chinese health authorities and
The app assigns individuals a The Close Contact Detector a person confirmed or suspected the date somebody with
QR code with a red, yellow or green mobile app, developed by the to have the coronavirus. coronavirus was last there.
status based on their travel history state-owned China Electronics The system flags people who Cases are colour-coded red
and self-reported health. Anyone Technology Group Corporation have sat within three rows of and orange to indicate cases
flagged as red is instructed to (CETC), pulls data from national each other on a plane or in the diagnosed within the previous
remain quarantined for 14 days, health, aviation and transport same air-conditioned train 14 and 28 days, respectively.
and people flagged as yellow for authorities. Purchasing train compartment. In the first two The widespread tracking of
seven days. Authorities can scan and plane tickets in China days after it was introduced, the Chinese citizens raises privacy
an individual’s QR code to log requires ID, and the state-owned app was used 100 million times concerns. The city of Hangzhou
their movements. China Rail has a database of all and detected more than 70,000 has detained or fined nine people
QR codes are also being trips taken since 2000. close contacts who could have for lying about their travel and
deployed at travel checkpoints, Once a user registers with their coronavirus, according to the CETC. medical history since the
including hanging from drones name, ID card number and phone State-run apps require a user coronavirus outbreak began,
at highway tollbooths. Drivers are number, the app flags whether in to input their personal details, and authorities in Shanghai have
required to scan them before their the previous fortnight the user has but others developed by some vowed to take similar measures. ❚
in that it will spread pretty much A message in the snow exposed to many strains. This isn’t
everywhere.” urging China to stay strong the case for the new coronavirus:
However, if it is more infectious amid the outbreak fewer cases have been reported in
in cooler conditions, there is an young people, though this may be
increased chance of it spreading high temperature seasons,” he says. just because they are less likely to
faster in the southern hemisphere It is thought one reason why become seriously ill.
as conditions there cool in the flu spreads less readily in summer The World Health Organization
coming months. David Heymann is that people spend less time says we don’t know yet how heat
at the London School of Hygiene together in confined spaces. and humidity affect the virus.
and Tropical Medicine, who led In particular, it could be linked to “There is currently no data available
TPG/ZUMA PRESS/PA IMAGES
the global response to the SARS school closures, says John Edmunds, on stability of 2019-nCoV on
coronavirus outbreak in 2003, also at the London School of surfaces,” it says in its guidance
points out that the MERS coronavirus Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. on preventing infections. ❚
has spread in Saudi Arabia in However, children tend to spread Find out how mathematics is key
August, when it is very hot. “These flu because they have less immunity to understanding the spread of
viruses can certainly spread during to it than adults, who have been the new coronavirus on page 23

News
Evolution
The oldest complex cells

Two-billion-year-old fossils may be world’s earliest eukaryotes
Michael Marshall
CHINA’s Wutai mountains may has dubbed Dongyesphaera. New Scientist gave the fossils a they are really eukaryotes, says
contain the earliest fossil evidence Both types of fossil have roughly cautious welcome. Högström. They could be bacteria
of an evolutionary milestone: the spherical cells with multilayered It is plausible that they are that look superficially like fungi,
moment that complex eukaryotic outer walls and visible spines – eukaryotes, says Małgorzata for instance.
life appeared on Earth. all features that the team says Moczydłowska-Vidal at Uppsala If eukaryotes really were
Eukaryotes have large cells suggests they are eukaryotes, University in Sweden.“I could go present as early as 2 billion years
with complex internal structures. not bacteria (Precambrian for them being eukaryotic,” says ago, they emerged in the wake of
While the first eukaryotic Research, doi.org/dmsf). Anette Högström at the Arctic tumultuous changes. The first
organisms were all single-celled, Experts contacted by University of Norway in Tromsø. oxygen built up in the atmosphere
they gave rise to all multicellular However, the identification 2.4 billion years ago, albeit at low
life – including fungi, plants This Dictyosphaera is solely based on the shapes of levels, in the Great Oxidation
and animals. fossil may be one of the the fossils, says Yuangao Qu at Event. This was followed by an
Leiming Yin at the Nanjing earliest complex cells the Institute of Deep-sea Science ice age known as Snowball Earth.
Institute of Geology and and Engineering at the Chinese These abrupt environmental
Palaeontology in China and his Academy of Sciences in Sanya. variations may have triggered the
colleagues found the fossils in “If more geochemical data evolution of eukaryotes, says Qu.
a set of rocks called the Hutuo could be obtained, it would However, the mechanisms
Group in the Wutai mountains. be more convincing.” of this are unclear, says
Previous studies have shown If confirmed to be eukaryotes, Moczydłowska-Vidal. She says
that the rocks were laid down the fossils are arguably the oldest that the Great Oxidation Event
between 2.15 and 1.95 billion known. Previously the oldest “might have triggered the
years ago. confirmed eukaryotes were evolution of the first eukaryotes”,
In total, the researchers found around 1.5 billion years old. but adds that this isn’t certain.
eight kinds of microfossil: four are Some researchers have claimed Meanwhile, it is even less clear
bacteria, two couldn’t be identified to have found significantly older how the Snowball conditions
PRECAM.2020.105650/ELSEVIER
and two appear to be eukaryotes. eukaryotes: one 2017 study could have contributed, she says.
Of these two, one appears to reported fungi, which are “The only certain thing is that
belong to a known genus of eukaryotes, in rocks 2.4 billion these microbes originated in
eukaryotes called Dictyosphaera. years old. However, these older a marine environment with
There were also six specimens microfossils are rare and poorly relatively high oxygen levels
of a new genus that the team preserved, and it isn’t clear that in the surface layers,” she says. ❚
Particle physics
Antimatter looks like model, physicists’ well-tested a property known as the Lamb shift, Lamb shift can’t help to explain the
theory of particles and their which is caused by fluctuations antimatter mystery, however. The
matter – which is a interactions, predicts that matter in the quantum vacuum thought measurements are consistent only
problem for physics and antimatter were created in to pervade all of space, in atoms to within one decimal place, so it
equal quantities in the big bang, of antihydrogen. is possible that future research
PHYSICISTS have made a key so both should have disappeared in These consist of a positively will discover subtle differences
measurement of anti-atoms, and an orgy of annihilation shortly after. charged electron, or positron, between the Lamb shift of atoms
found that they look just like atoms. This has led to the suggestion and anti-atoms (Nature, DOI:
The result means we are no closer that there is a small imbalance “An imbalance between 10.1038/s41586-020-2006-5).
to solving the mystery of why we live between matter and antimatter matter and antimatter may “This measurement is certainly
in a universe made only of matter, properties, which allowed some have allowed some matter an important step forward,” says
or why there is anything at all. matter to survive and form the to survive the big bang” Chloé Malbrunot, who works on
Antimatter particles are the universe of stars and galaxies we the rival ASACUSA experiment,
same as matter particles, but live in. But we have failed to find circling an antiproton. Just as also at CERN. ❚
have the opposite electrical charge. much evidence of one. the standard model predicts, the Richard Webb
If the two meet, they annihilate Now the ALPHA collaboration at Lamb shift was the same in atoms Read an exclusive feature on the
in a blitz of light and energy. the CERN particle physics lab near of hydrogen and antihydrogen. mysteries of antimatter in next
The problem is that the standard Geneva, Switzerland, has measured It is too early to conclude that the week’s New Scientist

Astronomy Ancient humans
Exoplanet generates
radio waves from
How our ancestors tried
its red dwarf sun to battle sea level rise
Stuart Clark Alice Klein
RADIO waves blasting out of a Were the Carnac stones

red dwarf star have an unusual in France an attempt to
source – an orbiting planet. ward off rising seas?
Astronomers using the Low-
Frequency Array radio telescope histories documenting sea level
in the Netherlands have discovered rise more than 8000 years ago
that red dwarf star GJ 1151 is is compelling.”
emitting radio signals consistent Efforts to prevent sea level
with the star possessing a roughly rise weren’t limited to Australia.
Earth-sized planet completing a Seas continued to rise in the
full orbit every few days. Mediterranean until about 6000
A planet orbiting at this distance years ago. Divers off the coast of
LOUIS-MICHEL DESERT/GETTY IMAGES
would probably be in a star’s Israel recently discovered a stone

habitable zone, the region in which wall built about 7000 years ago,
temperatures allow for liquid water seemingly to protect the ancient
to flow on the planet’s surface. village of Tel Hreiz from flooding.
However, the star is generating In France, the Carnac stones –
radio waves because the orbiting parallel rows of stones along the
planet passing through its magnetic Brittany coast thought to be more
field acts like an electric dynamo. than 6000 years old – may also
The strength of the waves shows THE last time humans came up groups living in coastal areas seem have been laid down to ward off
that substantial electrical power is against rising seas due to major to have preserved stories of their rising seas, says Nunn. The stones
flowing between the star and the global warming they tried to ancestors’ experiences. have previously been interpreted
planet, which will heat up the protect themselves by putting In one story told by the as astronomical symbols or
planet’s atmosphere. It could even up physical barriers and possibly Wati Nyiinyii people of southern graveyards, but these explanations
be boiling the atmosphere away, appealing to divine powers to hold Australia, their ancestors tried haven’t held up to scrutiny, he says.
rendering the world uninhabitable back the water. to block the incoming water by Spiritual offerings may have
(Nature Astronomy, doi.org/dmst). Following the last glacial stacking bundles of thousands been another way that people
Harish Vedantham at the maximum 21,000 years ago, tried to resist sea level rise, says
Netherlands Institute for Radio
Astronomy, who led the work, says
there is considerable uncertainty
Earth warmed by about 3 to 5°C
over thousands of years, probably
due to a slight change in its orbit
8000
The minimum age of some
Nunn. He believes neatly arranged
collections of stone tools and
human remains that have been
about the size and mass of the that increased sunshine exposure. sea level rise stories, in years found along the north-west coast
planet, so it is hard to say what is This melted ice sheets that once of Europe were placed there to “try
happening with the atmosphere. covered much of North America of spears along the coastline. to persuade the gods to stop the
But the discovery suggests radio and northern Europe and raised In a story told by the Gunggandji sea level from continuing to rise”.
astronomy could be a good method global seas by about 120 metres people of north-east Australia, Ulm says this is certainly
for detecting exoplanets, he says. to today’s levels. their ancestors heated boulders possible, but it is hard to interpret
The next step is to attempt There are no written accounts with fire and rolled them down the motivations of people in the
to detect this planet through its of this period, as writing was cliffs into the water (Norois, distant past.
gravitational pull on the star, which invented only about 5000 years doi.org/dmsg). Ultimately, these attempts
would cause it to wobble slightly. ago. But Patrick Nunn at the The fact that so many groups were futile. In Australia, the
This would provide better estimates University of the Sunshine Coast have stories of sea level rise coastline contracted by about
of the planet’s mass and orbit, in Australia has found clues to how suggests it was transformational 140 kilometres. In Israel, Tel Hreiz
and let us figure out the condition our ancestors coped with sea level enough to warrant being was submerged. Legends also tell
of its atmosphere. rise in oral histories that may have described to hundreds of of cities like Ys in France, Cantre’r
The team is also looking at been passed down for hundreds subsequent generations, Gwaelod in Wales and Dvārakā
radio data from other stars in an of generations. says Sean Ulm at James Cook in India that disappeared
effort to locate further planets. In Australia, for example, University in Australia. “Although underwater. Though these may
Other detection methods have a quarter of the continent was there is scepticism that oral not represent literal cities, they
found numerous planets around swallowed by the rising ocean histories record events more than may be based on memories of
red dwarfs, and the stars generally between 18,000 and 8000 a couple of hundred years old, real places that were drowned
have strong magnetic fields. ❚ years ago. At least 26 Aboriginal the evidence for Aboriginal oral by rising seas, says Nunn. ❚

News
Psychology
Controversial tests used in court

Common psychological assessments used in US court cases may be too subjective
Clare Wilson
A THIRD of the psychological No such wide-ranging and

tests used in US court proceedings systematic review has been done
aren’t generally accepted by in the UK. But Robert Forde, who
experts in the field, a study has written a book called Bad
has found. “A clinician has the Psychology: How forensic
freedom to use whatever tool psychology left science behind,
they want and it’s the Wild West says there are concerns in the UK
out there,” says Tess Neal at too, particularly over decisions
Arizona State University. by parole boards, which assess
Neal’s team looked at the prisoners on their risk of
validity of 364 psychological reoffending before they can be
assessments commonly used released. Parole boards tend to
MARMADUKE ST. JOHN/ALAMY
in US courts. Assessments are be influenced by the scores that

used in a range of circumstances, psychologists give prisoners on
from parental custody cases to subjective factors, such as how
determining a person’s sanity. much remorse or empathy they
In a custody case, for instance, show, he says. “Those factors are
a psychologist might be asked prone to bias.”
to assess whether a parent is In UK Family Court cases,
responsible enough to care The Rorschach inkblot in which people are asked what a 2012 report found that a fifth
for their child. test has been widely images they see in abstract of psychologists who gave
The team compiled the list of criticised patterns. This has been widely evidence weren’t qualified to do
364 tests used in US courts based criticised for letting clinicians so, on the basis of their submitted
on 22 previous surveys of forensic psychology experts, according to interpret responses based on curriculum vitae. One problem is
mental health professionals. nine previously published reviews their own impressions of a that while some job titles such as
“There’s way more variety out of the field (Psychological Science in person. “There are questions “forensic psychologist” are legally
there than we realised,” says Neal. the Public Interest, doi.org/dmr9). about its scientific protected in the UK, anyone can
When the researchers looked The most problematic tests underpinnings,” says Neal. call themselves a psychologist.
up the tests in widely accepted are usually those that are overly Another problematic Even when people are qualified,
textbooks to assess their scientific subjective, says Neal. For instance, personality test asks people to they may act as expert witnesses
validity, they found that 60 per the second most common complete sentences where only outside their field of expertise,
cent hadn’t received generally assessment used in US courts, the first few words are given, says Ruth Tully of Tully Forensic
favourable reviews. And 33 per according to previous surveys, which again is thought to be Psychology, a consultancy firm
cent weren’t broadly accepted by was the Rorschach inkblot test, too subjective. based in Nottingham, UK. ❚
Space exploration
Missions may go active place in the solar system. try to explain the moon’s activity. and help us understand whether
While we know that Io is covered The final two missions aim to Venus ever had surface oceans.
to solar system’s in massive volcanoes, IVO would explore Venus, the second planet The other is VERITAS (Venus
strangest moons help us figure out where the magma from the sun. One is DAVINCI+ Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR,
that supplies those volcanoes (Deep Atmosphere Venus Topography, and Spectroscopy),
NASA has selected four possible comes from and how they erupt. Investigation of Noble gases, which would orbit Venus with
missions to visit some of our solar The second proposal is Trident, Chemistry, and Imaging Plus). powerful radar instruments to
system’s least understood worlds. a plan to fly past Neptune and It aims to send a probe through map the surface and look for active
The proposals were chosen as part its biggest moon Triton. This the planet’s atmosphere to measure processes such as plate tectonics.
of the space agency’s lower-cost planetary satellite is strangely its composition from top to bottom, Each mission will get $3 million
Discovery programme. active – it has icy volcanoes, for over the next nine months. At the
The first is called IVO (Io Volcano example – despite being far from “Triton is strangely active, end of this development period,
Observer), a proposed craft that the sun and therefore extremely with icy volcanoes, despite one or two of them will be selected
would make close passes of Jupiter’s cold. Trident would look for a being far from the sun to actually launch. ❚
moon Io, the most volcanically subsurface ocean on Triton and and extremely cold” Leah Crane

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News
Palaeontology Climate change
Largest turtle shell found Antarctic melt may

lead to 1.5-metre
Turtle twice the size of a leatherback was among largest ever known sea level rise
Bethan Ackerley Adam Vaughan
MELTING Antarctic ice could

cause sea levels to rise up to
58 centimetres by the end of the
century under a worst-case climate
scenario, an increase three times
bigger than the world saw in the
20th century from all sources.
Adding other sources of sea level
rise as the world warms, including
Greenland ice melt and global water
58cm
The contribution Antarctic ice could
make to sea level rise by 2100
expansion, means seas could

climb about 1.5 metres by 2100,
according to researchers.
“We know sea level is going to
consume eventually a number of
coastal cities and regions we hold
dear. That will likely be in a few
hundred years. What we show here
is this could come earlier than we
thought,” says Anders Levermann
at the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research in Germany.
His team combined 16 ice sheet
UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH/EDWIN CADENA/PA MEDIA
models – up from just three in a

similar exercise six years ago – and
incorporated uncertainties in how
the world will warm in response
to carbon emissions, and how
ocean currents will transport heat
to Antarctica.
The group found that if carbon
emissions go largely unchecked
and temperatures rise by almost 5°C
NEW fossils of the largest the Urumaco Palaeontology lakes that researchers believe by 2100, Antarctica would have a
non-marine turtle to have ever Museum in Venezuela. Sánchez created just the right habitat more than 90 per cent likelihood
lived have been discovered in and his colleagues studied the and food supply for the huge of causing sea level rise of between
the Tatacoa desert in Colombia. newly found fossils alongside animal to survive. 6 and 58 centimetres by the end
These include the biggest several other specimens It may have evolved to be of the century. The median was
complete turtle shell ever discovered in 1994. Although so big to help protect it from 17 centimetres (Earth System
found, a 2.4-metre-long S. geographicus was first other large species, such as Dynamics, doi.org/dmsd).
carapace that is more than described in 1976, little was giant crocodilians, with which Andy Smith at the British
twice the size of the largest known about the turtle due to it shared a habitat. Some male Antarctic Survey says the new
living turtle, the leatherback a lack of complete specimens. shells had horn-like structures projections seem reasonable.
sea turtle. Analysis of the fossils suggests that may have been used “If we really get 58 centimetres
This shell of Stupendemys the turtles lived during the late in combat against other from Antarctica then it’s very
geographicus is pictured here Miocene, around 12 to 5 million males (Science Advances, likely we get 1.5 metres [in total],”
next to Rodolfo Sánchez at years ago, in warm wetlands and doi.org/dmns). ❚ Smith adds. ❚

Military technology
Face recognition that can identify

you from a kilometre away
David Hambling
THE US military is developing a These devices have a range this is unclear, but an Australian In principle, such techniques
portable face-recognition device of about 300 metres. Extending Department of Defence team has might work at a range of a
capable of identifying individuals that distance isn’t as simple recently developed an algorithm kilometre, says Walter Scheirer at
from a kilometre away. as adding a longer lens to the capable of unscrambling Notre Dame University in Indiana.
The Advanced Tactical Facial camera, because this increases atmospheric turbulence to aid “We have not yet hit a serious
Recognition at a Distance noise from vibration. Atmospheric long-range face recognition. fundamental limit to long-range
Technology project is being turbulence also becomes a Other researchers have facial recognition,” he says.
carried out for US Special problem because the air acts as experimented with using what “We haven’t pushed the optics
Operations Command (SOCOM). an ever-changing distorting lens. is known as a convolutional or the algorithms to the limit.”
It commenced in 2016, and a The challenge for the new neural network to transform However, Scheirer is sceptical
prototype was demonstrated in extreme-range recognition a series of blurred images that reliable identification is
December 2019, paving the way system is turning captured images into a single distinct one. possible with current technology
for a production version. SOCOM into something clear enough for at such ranges. “I’d be interested
says the research is ongoing, but the software, which works best Long-distance face- to know what are the imaging
declined to comment further. with passport-style photos. recognition technology may circumstances,” he says. “Are they
Initially designed for hand-held How Secure Planet is achieving be used from US drones doing this on a clear, sunny day
use, the technology could also with a co-operative subject?”
be used from drones. SOCOM Rasha Abdul-Rahim at
documents say it could be shared human-rights group Amnesty
with law-enforcement agencies. International says the technology
This technology would enable is troubling. She says it may be a
people to be identified without step towards fully autonomous
knowing they were even on weapons that find targets
camera. Privacy advocates have and attack them without any
expressed concern over its use. meaningful human control. “Until
The device is being developed governments can demonstrate
by US firm Secure Planet, that it is in line with human rights
US AIR FORCE PHOTO/ALAMY
which produces long-range laws, this type of technology

face-recognition devices based should not be used at all,
on digital SLR cameras with especially in a situation where an
commercial face-recognition algorithm will be determining life
software running on a laptop. and death,” says Abdul-Rahim. ❚
SpaceX
Starlink satellites artificial bright lights in the sky. of the studies, simulated 26,000 number of satellite trails rendering
SpaceX performed its fifth satellites at various altitudes. observations useless. However,
will have ‘negative Starlink launch on Monday, bringing He found that about 1000 of the impact on naked eye astronomy
impact’, says report its total number of satellites to 300. them would be visible to telescopes would be “small”, says Hainaut.
The firm plans to launch thousands at dawn or dusk, when the sun The IAU says the night sky “should
THE International Astronomical more, as do competitors such as is below the horizon but the be considered a non-renounceable
Union (IAU) has concluded a review OneWeb in the UK. satellites are still illuminated. world human heritage”, and hopes
of satellite mega constellations such “When all this started, we were Telescopes conducting surveys of to draw up guidelines on satellite
as SpaceX’s Starlink, and warns of course worried by the situation, the night sky, such as the upcoming brightness for submission to the
that they could have “worrisome” but we wanted to be scientific Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, United Nations in the next year,
consequences for astronomy. in our evaluation of the impact,” could lose up to 50 per cent of their says Benvenuti. “We have to be
The IAU began the work following says Piero Benvenuti at the IAU. images at this time, with the large very fast, because these private
concerns after SpaceX’s launch of The findings showed that mega companies are moving much faster
60 Starlink satellites in May 2019. constellations would have a “We were worried by the than the space agencies,” he says.
The satellites will beam high-speed “negative impact” on astronomy. situation, but we wanted SpaceX and One Web didn’t
internet around the world, but Olivier Hainaut of the European to be scientific in our respond to requests for comment. ❚
the launch also resulted in many Southern Observatory, who led one evaluation of the impact” Jonathan O’Callaghan

News
Pollution Analysis Environment
Hairy spider skins Scale of food waste A widely cited statistic claims a third of
could be used to food is lost or wasted – but this doesn’t account for how much
soak up oil spills more food richer nations squander, says Adam Vaughan
James Urquhart
A SEA of floating, shed tarantula Food waste reduction

skins might be an arachnophobe’s is a UN Sustainable
nightmare, but the moults of these Development Goal
spiders could help mop up ocean
oil spills. become a serious issue once
Spider skin is mainly made of people reach a total spending
chitin, a biopolymer that is also power of $6.70 a day.
found in the tough exoskeletons She says the work shows the
of crustaceans. Chitin from importance of looking at different
crustaceans is widely used to consumer attributes. “Food waste
clean up oil spills, as its molecular is a luxury when you’re poor, it’s
structure soaks up the oil. not when you’re richer. The value
Spider skins have very strong of food, it goes down [as you get
BIOSPHOTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
water-repelling properties, says richer]. It’s also availability: the

Tomasz Machałowski at Poznan more you have, the more you’re
University of Technology in Poland. likely to waste.”
This means they could be handy There are limitations to the
for cleaning up oil spills, as the new analysis. It only covers 67 per
materials used need to not only cent of the world population and
attract oil, but also repel water doesn’t draw on data from some
to stop them from sinking. CONSUMERS around the world world, they instead inferred it. First, big food-wasting countries,
Machałowski and his colleagues could be wasting more than they compared how much food is including the US.
wanted to find out if the skin shed twice as much food as thought, produced – based on UN data on The FAO says the research
by Peru purple tarantulas of the according to an analysis that its availability – with how much is provides new insights, but should
genus Avicularia, which moult says previous figures have eaten, as calculated by the energy be viewed as part of a body of
many times during their life cycle, been gross underestimates. people need to consume and literature. Andrea Cattaneo at
could be an efficient oil sponge. The Food and Agriculture World Health Organization data the FAO has some doubts about
The team put 100 milligrams of Organization of the United Nations on body mass from 63 countries. the results, such as Japan coming
shed tarantula skin in a dish with (FAO) said in 2011 that around Then they used World Bank data out as a country that wastes lots
60 millilitres of seawater that had a third of food is lost or wasted. Its to factor in affluence. of food, which he says is unlikely
2 grams of crude oil on the surface, report is considered to have played This suggests that an average to reflect the reality. “The study
then measured how much oil was a key part in food waste reduction person wastes 527 kilocalories is by no means the definitive word
soaked up. After 2 minutes, the becoming one of the UN’s (kcal) a day. That is about one-fifth on the levels of consumer waste,”
tarantula skin had captured 63 per Sustainable Development Goals. of the 2500 kcals the average he says. “It is one more estimate.”
cent of the oil – nearly 13 times But the widely cited estimate The UK’s waste agency, WRAP,
its own weight – while absorbing
very little water (Journal of
Environmental Management,
appears to be wrong when it
comes to the amount of food
people waste at home because it
527
Average daily food waste per
says it has used a similar modelling
approach to the Dutch team, but
found it tended to significantly
doi.org/dmnv). was based on models that failed person in kilocalories overestimate the amount of food
Machałowski says the dense, to account for affluence – how consumers waste when compared
bristly hairs trap the oil, while much more the rich waste than man needs to maintain a healthy with approaches that involve
their irregular arrangement less-affluent people. body weight, according to the painstakingly collecting real data
helps them clump together to “The problem is much worse UK’s National Health Service, or a on household waste and getting
lock the oil in. The oil is soaked than we think. We have to wake quarter of the daily recommended people to keep waste diaries.
up through a similar mechanism up. I hope it’s a wake-up call,” intake for a woman. The previous Van den Bos Verma says the
to capillary action. says Monika van den Bos Verma FAO estimate came to only biggest assumption the new
“This is a very unusual concept, at Wageningen University & 214 kcals a day (PLoS One, analysis makes is that poorer
but surprisingly effective,” says Research in the Netherlands. doi.org/ggktnh). countries will develop the same
Megan Murray at the University She and her team took an The new figures are for 2005, way as richer ones have in the
of Technology Sydney. “I’m not unusual approach to calculate due to a lag in data availability and past. That risks a “brewing
sure how this can scale up, but the global food waste. Due to a to allow a comparison with the potential future problem” of
physical mechanism could inspire scarcity of comparable national UN research. Van den Bos Verma even more food waste, she
new material designs.” ❚ data on such waste around the found that food waste starts to and her colleagues warn. ❚

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News In brief
Animal behaviour
Upside-down jellyfish sends

out tiny jelly drones to kill
YOU know not to poke a jellyfish, water” in the vicinity of the animals.
but some jellies can sting without Ames’s group has found that
even touching you – by detaching this happens because the creatures
tiny bits of their body that float shed hollow balls of stinging cells
off and move independently. up to half a millimetre wide. Dubbed
Upside-down jellyfish jettison cassiosomes, they can move in
small balls of stinging cells in a circles to boost their chances of
sticky mucus to kill prey such as bumping into prey.
shrimp. The jellies then seem to The jellies released cassiosomes
suck in their dinner by pulsating. and mucus when brine shrimp, their
It is as if we could spit out our natural prey, were put in their tank.
teeth and they killed things for The cassiosomes killed the shrimp
us somehow, says Cheryl Ames in under a minute (Communications
at Tohoku University in Japan. Biology, doi.org/dmnt). In the wild,
“It’s a real evolutionary novelty.” the dead shrimp are then sucked
Species of upside-down jellyfish into the jellies’ feeding pores by
of the genus Cassiopea, such as their pulsating motions.
C. xamachana (pictured), live in These jellies tend to float at the
DAVID FLEETHAM/ALAMY
warm coastal waters such as those bottom of coastal lagoons, and

off Florida, Australia and the Red extend their networks of mucus to
Sea. Their sting isn’t generally seen float above them. The mucus may
as dangerous, but there have been not be easily visible to swimmers,
reports from people of “stinging says Ames. Clare Wilson
Ancient humans Physics
than are seen in Neanderthal and of them seems to influence

Signs of mystery Denisovan genes, suggesting that Quantum distance the measured state of the other
hominin in genes neither of these groups of ancient record smashed instantly, regardless of their
humans were the source of the distance. This can be used to
FOUR West African populations genomic variance. TWO clouds of atoms that store create an encrypted channel.
carry genes from what may be an Similar patterns were seen in quantum information, called Individual photons have
undiscovered archaic hominin. the genomes of Mende people quantum memories, have been been entangled across distances
Previous research has shown in Sierra Leone, Esan people in connected across a longer distance exceeding 1000 kilometres, but
that Homo sapiens bred with Nigeria and those in western areas than ever before. They could prove for larger systems of particles,
Neanderthals and Denisovans of Gambia. The four populations useful for one day building a which hold more information,
after migrating from Africa, but are estimated to derive between quantum version of the internet. maintaining this entanglement
little is known about the presence 2 and 19 per cent of their ancestry Quantum communication is harder. The maximum distance
of genes from ancient hominins from an archaic group of genes. relies on a phenomenon known between entangled quantum
in people whose ancestors never We don’t know whether this as entanglement. When a pair memories had been 1.3 kilometres.
left Africa, partly because ancient archaic hominin is a “ghost”, for of particles or systems are Xiao-Hui Bao at the University
DNA can degrade in hot climates. which we have no physical record, entangled, measuring one of Science and Technology of
Sriram Sankararaman and Arun or one we have traces of already, China and his team have smashed
Durvasula at the University of such as Homo heidelbergensis. that record, entangling quantum
California, Los Angeles, overcame The mystery hominin probably memories over 22 kilometres of
this by using a computer model to diverged from the ancestors of underground fibre-optic cable.
compare gene variations in 405 Neanderthals, Denisovans and Their quantum memories were
West African genomes with those modern humans before that each made of about 100 million
in Neanderthal and Denisovan lineage split into these groups, extremely cold rubidium atoms in
genomes. They looked at both say the researchers. Interbreeding a vacuum chamber. The quantum
THOMAS SÖLLNER/ALAMY
modern and ancient segments between this unknown hominin state of each system of atoms was
within the genomes of Yoruba and ancestors of the modern entangled with the state of a single
people from Ibadan, Nigeria. They populations occurred in the past photon, and the photons sent
found more instances of genetic 124,000 years (Science Advances, through the cables (Nature,
variation in the ancient segments doi.org/dmn6). Bethan Ackerley doi.org/ggkrvj). Leah Crane

New Scientist Daily

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Neuroscience
Really brief
language with the left side. models of each brain. Anatomical
Ape brains are Now it seems the pattern came features on the left and right sides
more like ours first, before humans evolved. “It of each brain model were then
suggests it is an ancestral pattern marked with digital dots.
OUR brains could have more in that was established far earlier When the hemispheres were
common with those of our ape during evolution,” says Simon superimposed, mismatching dots
cousins than previously thought. Neubauer at the Max Planck revealed the pattern and size of
ROBERT K. CHIN/ALAMY
The left and right sides of our Institute for Evolutionary brain asymmetry. They all shared
brains aren’t symmetrical; some Anthropology in Germany. a common pattern but it was
areas on one side are larger or His team analysed skulls from less pronounced in chimpanzees
smaller, while other bits protrude 95 humans, 45 chimpanzees, than in the other species (Science
more. The pattern of these 43 gorillas and 43 orangutans. Advances, doi.org/dmsq). Past
Sweaty summer differences, or asymmetries, was Brain shape is imprinted on the comparisons relied on chimps,
nights ahead thought to be uniquely human, inside of the skull during growth, which may explain why the deep
dating from when our brain so the team used CT scanning to evolutionary history of brain
The number of extremely hemispheres became specialised detect these details in the hollow asymmetry wasn’t spotted sooner.
hot days followed by for certain tasks, like processing skulls and then created digital James Urquhart
intensely hot nights in
northern hemisphere Palaeontology Environment
summers could jump to
32 by 2100 – four times as
many as now. That applies BP oil spill was even
even if the world acts to bigger than thought
check global warming
(Nature Communications, THE worst ever oil spill in the US,
doi.org/dmk8). at a rig run by BP a decade ago,
may have been almost a third
Mars may have larger than previously thought.
SINCLAIR STAMMERS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
been a late bloomer The Deepwater Horizon disaster

in 2010 saw nearly 800 million
Evidence from Martian litres of oil spew into the Gulf of
meteorites that landed on Mexico, which satellite tracking
Earth has shown that Mars suggested covered an estimated
may have taken 15 million 149,000 square kilometres.
years more to form than But an analysis suggests that the
we thought. The meteorites real extent of the spill may have
had initially pointed to early been 30 per cent greater, because
formation, but simulations much of the oil was invisible to
of large rocks hitting Mars Heated debate over dinosaurs satellites. The study also found
show their compositions that the oil extended much deeper
better fit a later formation may finally have been settled than satellites had detected,
of the planet (Science with toxic concentrations
Advances, doi.org/dmk7). ALL dinosaurs were warm-blooded, warm-blooded. Now Robin 1.3 kilometres down.
suggests a new analysis of fossil Dawson at Yale University and her A US team made this estimate
Conception most eggshells. The finding also means colleagues have done the same using data from 25,000 samples of
likely in autumn the ancestors of dinosaurs were to three more fossil eggshells. water and sediment from the area,
warm-blooded too, say researchers. One belonged to a theropod, much of it only released in recent
Women may be most likely It is now mostly agreed that the another to a duck-billed dinosaur years by BP, in addition to satellite
to conceive in late autumn theropod dinosaurs that gave rise and the third is thought to have and aerial images. The team used
and least likely to do so in to birds were warm-blooded, but been a sauropod. Their analysis these to model how far the oil is
spring. A study of 14,000 there is still a debate about whether showed all were warm-blooded likely to have spread, accounting
women in North America other groups of dinosaurs were too. (Science Advances, doi.org/dmsb). for ocean currents, temperature
and Denmark found the There is a way to work out the Duck-billed dinosaurs are a more and the biodegradation of oil.
chance of conceiving in a temperature at which organic distant relative of theropods and The results suggest the spill
given menstrual cycle was matter, such as eggshells, forms sauropods. It is much less likely reached as far as the West Florida
highest in late November inside bodies. In 2015, a team that warm-bloodedness evolved shelf, Texas shores and Florida
and early December applied this method to the independently in these three major Keys (Science Advances, doi.org/
(Human Reproduction, eggshell of a theropod and groups, says Dawson, which implies dmn9). The Deepwater Horizon
doi.org/dmpb). a sauropod – a long-necked this trait had an ancestral origin. crisis has cost BP more than
dinosaur – and found both were Michael Le Page $65 billion. Adam Vaughan

News Insight
Medical ethics
I, human
Researchers are blurring the lines of what it means to be human,
so do our laws need to change, asks Jessica Hamzelou
LAST year, researchers in China
announced they had inserted a
human brain gene into monkeys.
These 11 monkeys outperformed
typical monkeys in tests of
short-term memory, and their
brain development more closely
resembled that of humans.
Are these animals still fully
monkeys? Or are they something
else? Something human?
Plenty of other experiments
have blurred the line between
what is human and what isn’t.
VICTOR DE SCHWANBERG/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Research teams have created

pigs with human genes. Clumps
of human brain cells have been
grown in dishes, and the cells can
communicate with each other.
Then there are “synthetic human
entities with embryo-like
features” – structures made
from human stem cells that
look like early embryos.
Should all these entities be
protected by law in the same ways 100 per cent traditional human, is a lot of similarity between a arguably they are outside it,”
humans or human tissues are? he or she should still be viewed human genome and that of a says Greely.
Some researchers think so, and are as human for purposes of human chimp, for example – or other He worries that such criteria
proposing a new legal definition protections,” says Greely. animals, for that matter. We share could be used to argue that
for such entities: “substantially The pair are being intentionally 97.5 per cent of our genes with some individuals aren’t fully
human”. If the entity is more vague. Whether an entity is mice, according to one estimate. human. “Our species has an
human than not, it should be substantially human or not However, genes alone can’t often-expressed willingness
granted human rights, they say. should be a judgement call to be determine legal status. Embryos to find and magnify minor
But this raises questions as to how made by individual countries. are genetically human, but in differences amongst ourselves
exactly we define humanness, and The decision could be influenced most countries an early embryo into sources for hatred and
what that means for entities that by a nation’s culture and values, doesn’t have the same rights as discrimination,” he says.
fall outside that definition. in the same way that the law uses a baby. The same could be said Instead, we need to think about
It is only a matter of time terms like “unreasonable” or of human cells cultured in a lab. what makes humans “morally
before we will be forced to decide, “best interests” without precisely significant”, says Julian Savulescu
say Bartha Knoppers at McGill defining them, they say. at the University of Oxford.
University in Montreal and Hank
Greely at Stanford University in
California. “At some point, courts
will be faced with the questions:
Others think we need firmer
guidelines. “Rules that include the
word ‘substantially’ are never fully
satisfying,” says Jeantine Lunshof
97.5%
Estimated percentage of genes
“The idea of something being
‘substantially human’ is a step
forward because it shows there
isn’t a bright line between human
is this tissue human or not? Are at Harvard University. humans share with mice and non-human,” he says. “But
these remains human or not? Is Inevitably, some will want I think we’ll have to go further
this living organism in front of to come up with a test of – or at On the other hand, gene-edited than that and start to think
us human or not?” says Greely. least a guide to – humanness. people like the three CRISPR about the properties that are
He and Knoppers suggest that One starting point might be the babies born in China are very especially valuable.”
the term substantially human genome. Our genes certainly much human, even if they Such traits are thought
could be applied in cases where make us human, in terms of have newly introduced genetic to include things like self-
the line is blurred. “It means that coding for human features. But mutations. “If you take a gene- consciousness and the ability
just because something is not when we take a closer look, there centred view of humanity, to form complex relationships,

More Insight online Working

Your guide to a rapidly changing world hypothesis
newscientist.com/insight Sorting the week’s
supernovae from
the absolute zeros
says Savulescu. “How do you self-consciousness. “We have to A company called Kernel is
evaluate that in a life form that get off the fence and decide what working on a brain implant
doesn’t speak our language and it is about life that makes killing to boost human intelligence,
communicate in the way we do?” that being especially wrong,” while Neuralink, which Elon Musk
he asks. says Savulescu. co-founded, aims to connect
It is a pressing question. Greely Other potential legal cases people’s brains to computer-based ▲ Badgers
thinks that the first legal cases will surround the physical and artificial intelligence. US president Donald
will surround the treatment cognitive enhancement of Because these devices target Trump is obsessed with
of substantially human tissues. humans, says Jennifer Chandler our brains, they have a greater badgers, according to a
If a human organ is grown in at the University of Ottawa. potential to affect the new book. Is it something
a lab from an individual’s cells, Technically, we humans have about the hair?
how should it be dealt with and been cognitively enhancing “We have to get off
disposed of? “There are statutes ourselves for as long as we have the fence and decide ▲ Particle physics
that require human remains been around. Education improves what about life makes Fancy spotting the Higgs
be treated with certain kinds of our thinking, for instance. killing it wrong?” boson at home? CERN
respect,” he says. For example, But newer approaches that has released data from
in the UK, human tissue must be involve stimulating the brain characteristics that make us 1 quadrillion particle
disposed of in accordance with the using implanted devices start human, says Chandler. Hip collisions at the Large
donor’s wishes, as far as possible. to merge human and machine, replacements and insulin pumps Hadron Collider for
she says. Brain implants are are one thing, but “it seems anyone to analyse.
already being used to treat somehow a little different when
Enter the chimera conditions like epilepsy and you’re talking about an implant ▲ Dinosaurs
Savulescu, however, thinks Parkinson’s disease, and are that’s meant to directly modify The UK’s Royal Mint has
the first legal cases will involve currently being investigated mental functioning”, she says. released three dinosaur-
human-animal chimeras: animals in a range of other conditions. In the future, the law may themed 50 pence coins
that contain cells from two species. Some neuroscientists are distinguish between “enhanced” to lose down the sofa and
Human-pig chimeras are attempting to tweak the way and “unenhanced” humans, be unearthed millions of
already being grown. These those implants work to enhance says Chandler. “People fuss about years from now.
contain cells that could allow cognition. One team has already cheating,” she says. “If people
them to develop human organs, used a device originally implanted cognitively enhance in the context ▼ Betelgeuse
although, so far, the resulting to treat epilepsy to improve of a competition, does that break The red giant star
embryos have been destroyed memory in a group of volunteers. the rules or not?” Courts may Betelgeuse has been
before this happens. The idea is eventually be forced to decide, fading for months
that transplant organs could be Brain implants used to she says. now – mood lighting
made in pigs using a person’s cells, treat Parkinson’s disease Some futurists predict that on an epic scale?
allowing them to circumvent might enhance cognition we will one day be able to upload
lengthy waiting lists for human- the contents of our brains onto ▼ Wood stoves
donated organs. In theory, the a computer. Would such an Domestic pollution is
organs should be human enough upload be human? “I guess that on the rise in the UK due
to avoid being rejected by the would be a place to apply the
LES. LADBURY/ALAMY, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
to wood-burning stoves,
recipient’s immune system. substantially human test that but, hey, nothing beats a
But at what point do the pigs we propose,” says Greely. bit of particulate matter to
themselves become too human In the meantime, there are make a house feel homely.
to be used in this way? Mice with plenty of scientific and technical
BSIP, ASTIER-CHRU LILLE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
human brain cells are smarter achievements to keep ethicists

than typical mice, and perform and lawyers busy. “We should err
four times better on memory on the side of generosity: if we’re
tests, for example. There is a uncertain of the status, we should
concern that should these pigs grant the status,” says Savulescu.
accidentally develop human brain “Unless we’re certain this thing
cells, they might also develop is closer to a pig than it is to a
some of the “morally significant” human, we should treat it as a
characteristics of humans, such as human until we know more.” ❚

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Views
The columnist Letters Aperture Culture Culture columnist
James Wong learns Reasons why we do The wild island that A chemical giant gets For All Mankind is
what eating like our and don’t live in a looks like a colourful hunted in the movie inspirational, says
ancestors entails p24 simulation p26 biological jewel p28 Dark Waters p30 Emily Wilson p32
Comment
Calculating virus spread

Getting a full picture of the coronavirus outbreak is extremely difficult.
Maths can help plug some of the gaps, says Adam Kucharski
B
ACK in mid-January, the in China in late January, from
current coronavirus travel restrictions to school
outbreak was merely an closures. Mathematicians are
unusual cluster of pneumonia working to understand whether
cases. At least, that is what the tally these measures have curbed
of 41 confirmed infections in the transmission, or whether they are
Chinese city of Wuhan suggested. pump handles removed after the
But then cases started appearing situation has already changed.
elsewhere: first one in Thailand, One of the challenges again
then one in Japan, then another comes from the delays involved.
in Thailand, all among people It takes time for infected people to
who had travelled from Wuhan. show symptoms, and further time
There were some flights to these for ill people to be reported as
places from Wuhan, but for three cases, so changes in transmission
cases to have already appeared today may not show up in the data
internationally, there must have for another week or two. It means
been many more infections in the that if we put in a new control
city that hadn’t been picked up. measure and cases decline
When researchers used flight data immediately, we can be confident
to estimate how many unreported we shouldn’t be taking the credit.
cases there must have been to Having helped us to understand
generate these patterns, it implied the past and present of an
Wuhan was more likely to have outbreak, maths can also give
thousands than dozens of cases. clues about what might happen
During an outbreak, we rarely in the future. Although we only
see the full picture at first, and this ever see one version of an
is where mathematics is essential. outbreak, with mathematical
As well as the question of how models, we can simulate dozens
many cases there really are, we better, so we can’t include recent help us to work out what to of alternatives. We can forecast
also need to know how severe the cases in the analysis because we do about it. In my book, The Rules where the outbreak may spread
disease is: if someone is diagnosed don’t yet know what will happen of Contagion, I outline how to to, and how quickly, and what
with the new coronavirus, what to them. If we adjust for this delay, tell whether disease-control new control measures might do.
is the chance it will prove fatal? we instead end up with a fatality measures are having an effect. In just a few months, the new
As of 11 February, there had been risk of around 1 per cent. In 1854, English physician John coronavirus has turned into
395 cases confirmed outside China We saw a similar data illusion Snow famously removed the a major outbreak. With some
and one death, which may be the during the Ebola outbreak in West handle from Broad Street’s water mathematical help, the hope
most accurate picture of the Africa in 2014: early reports put pump in London, apparently is that before too long, we really
outbreak. At first glance, it seems the chance of death much lower ending a huge cholera outbreak. will be counting a small number
the chance of death is therefore than it should have been, causing There was just one problem: the of cases. ❚
1/395 or 0.3 per cent. However, this unnecessary speculation about outbreak had already peaked by
calculation makes a crucial error. why it was unusually low. the time he got to the handle. Adam Kucharski is a
There is generally a delay of a Maths isn’t only useful for In the current coronavirus mathematician at the
JOSIE FORD
couple of weeks between someone understanding the extent of outbreak, several unprecedented London School of Hygiene
falling ill and dying or getting illness and infection. It can also interventions were introduced and Tropical Medicine

Views Columnist
#FactsMatter
Eat like your ancestors? There is a new diet trend in town –

eat what your family ate 500 years ago. Following the diet,
however, is more difficult than it sounds, writes James Wong
F
OOD fads come and go. just two generations ago – and if decades, resulting in an 80 per
One minute, kale smoothies we go back another century or two cent reduction in nutrient
are the elixir to everything in Borneo, possibly a bit of human deficiencies. I can’t help but
that ails you, the next it is ultra- as well. This may sound facetious, think that my ancestors would
low-carb lard and offal. But what but it can be the reality of trying take a slightly higher risk of heart
if the real solution was far more to apply these principles. disease over lifelong nutrient
traditional? Meet the latest Putting aside the questionable deficiency any day.
trend: the “ancestral diet”. ethics of eating pangolins or Another problematic pillar on
Proponents of the diet say people, nutritionally these diets which this movement rests is the
James Wong is a botanist and research shows that people have also aren’t a great idea. Although idea that humans have perfectly
science writer, with a particular genetic adaptations – such as these are extreme examples, the adapted to their traditional food
interest in food crops, lactose tolerance – to what would diets of people in 16th-century sources. Although there is good
conservation and the have been their traditional diets. Wales probably aren’t to be envied evidence that certain populations,
environment. Trained at the Therefore, a personalised diet, either. My family were likely to such as the Maasai in Kenya and
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he based on what our families ate have lived lives of abject poverty Tanzania, have evolved the ability
shares his tiny London flat with in centuries past, could be the characterised by frequent periods to better digest lactose because
more than 500 houseplants. secret to good health. of famine. Oh, and that advice of the selective pressure of a long
You can follow him on Twitter All modern health conditions, of just looking at old cookbooks history of dairy consumption,
and Instagram @botanygeek they say, can be attributed to the this is far from a universal rule.
mismatch between our current “Putting aside the Research into the plaque
diets and our genes. For example, ethics of eating build-up on teeth has
it is claimed that Asia has gone demonstrated, for example, that
pangolins or people,
from one of the lowest rates of the dairy-rich diet of Mongolia can
James’s week chronic disease to the highest nutritionally these be traced back at least 3000 years
What I’m reading in just one generation, due to diets also aren’t despite 95 per cent of Mongolians
My Twitter feed, a bunch increasingly Westernised diets. a great idea” still being lactose intolerant.
of journals and stacks So the recipe for a long and Traditional diets actually tend to
of scripts. healthy life is simple: we just need doesn’t help much when you reflect the availability of certain
to look at historical cookbooks for discover they were essentially food types, far more than they do
What I’m watching what our genetic ancestors ate all written for the 16th-century’s their value to human nutrition.
An awful lot of 500 years ago. Definitions vary, but super rich. It would be like basing For me, the trickiest thing
in-flight movies. the general idea is that Europeans a typical 21st-century diet on a about this nutritional approach is
should eat a wheat-based diet with menu found on a private jet. that it requires that people can be
What I’m working on plenty of dairy, whereas Asians Another problematic aspect of neatly labelled in boxes and
A new BBC wildlife should have a rice-based diet, rich this advice is that it is predicated assigned an “ideal” way of eating
comedy show for Radio 4 in vegetables and tiny amounts on the modern assumption that on that basis. The idea that you
and a TV series on global of protein like fish sauce. the lack of obesity and diet-related can generalise the “typical” diet
farming. As an ethnobotanist, I am degenerative diseases of the past of a single country, let alone an
fascinated by traditional diets, automatically means we were entire incredibly diverse continent
but I must admit I would find once much healthier. By almost like Europe or Asia, to a small
this advice hard to follow. Being any objective measure, we weren’t. set of prescriptive rules
half-Bornean and half-Welsh, my It is true there is now a higher inevitably means one falls back
ancestral diet is rather harder to age-adjusted mortality from on unhelpful stereotypes.
pinpoint. Following this advice cardiovascular disease in much While the research into genetic
would mean a diet that blends, of Asia, but the same period has adaptations to diet is to me
I guess, rice and wheat as a primary also seen some of the greatest endlessly fascinating, translating
energy source, with probably an reductions in malnutrition this into a simple set of dietary
awful lot of millet and sago palm. on Earth in the region. In 1961, rules is fraught with difficulty.
Protein and fats would probably East Asia had the lowest per Not least because, as most of us
come from a significant dairy and capita calorie availability of are really genetic mishmashes,
This column appears beef component, but also bush anywhere on the planet, which like me, it seems that the
monthly. Up next week: meat like pangolins and bats – has subsequently rocketed more exceptions might just be
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein which my Malaysian family ate than three-fold in a few short more common than the rules. ❚

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ABTA No.Y0766
Views Your letters
Editor’s pick
Reasons why we do and
don’t live in a simulation
1 February, p 34
From Andy Howe, Sheffield, UK
In Daniel Cossins’s piece “Do we
make reality?”, philosopher Kelvin
McQueen says consciousness may
not be exclusive to humans or other
complex organisms, but may exist,
in a rudimentary form, in inanimate
objects. How does that differ from
proposing that the wave function
collapse, which produces a “real”
event, occurs whenever quantum
objects interact?
Although ascribing consciousness
exclusively to humans seems
very out of date, ascribing it to
inanimate matter would need
some philosophical and semantic
gymnastics. But if Einstein was
wrong, and reality does depend on
our absurd, pre-Darwinian sense of
superiority – by only existing when and physicists who propose any UK and Ireland. He omits the could have occasional pork chops,
our species is looking – wouldn’t kind of multiverse. Without a original and best land use for as pigs are very good at turning
that constitute sufficient evidence compelling reason to believe from much of that region: forest. food waste into crackling.
that we all must be in a simulation? first principles that we are one of We shouldn’t plant short-lived
Simulating only features seen by a many universes, we cannot say industrial conifer plantations –
We should make use
“conscious observer” would save a anything about the likelihood of though there is a place for these –
vast amount of computing power. ours being one thing or another. but diverse, well-managed forests of every scrap of land
Technically speaking, we don’t producing high-quality logs for 1 February, p 15
From Carl Zetie, have a measure for the underlying buildings and furniture, as well From Roy Harrison,
Raleigh, North Carolina, US population of universes, and so can as wildlife habitats, which Verwood, Dorset, UK
In “Can we create reality?”, Donna say nothing about any distribution. attract visitors. The UK’s Committee on Climate
Lu reports the claim by philosopher In many parts of Europe, Change proposes that airlines and
Nick Bostrom that if there are any From John Davenport, abandonment of hill grazing has oil companies should pay for a
simulated universes at all they will Kenley, Surrey, UK led to restoration of forests by colossal tree-planting drive. How
vastly outnumber any real ones. Lu suggests that if we live in a natural regeneration, which has much would this reduce the area
So, he says, we probably live in simulation it would be switched cost taxpayers nothing and has of land dedicated to producing
a simulated universe. off if the overlords realised that we fixed significant amounts of food in the UK?
This argument is fatally knew about it. But it is most likely carbon and expanded wildlife I wonder whether this is a good
self-contradicting. The universe that the overlords are kids playing habitat. We will soon come to idea in a world that has a growing
that we live in is enormously more in their bedrooms. Our discovery see uncontrolled goat and sheep population and in which we
complicated than it needs to be would merely add excitement. grazing for the environmental expect farmland to be lost because
to simulate intelligent beings like The risk arises when they disaster that it is, with extreme of rising sea levels.
ourselves. For example, you could discover girls, boys or whatever, examples in Australia, Ethiopia, The report assumes that the
discard the other 100 billion visible at which point they lose interest. Kenya, Greece and Scotland. UK will continue to import 47 per
galaxies in our universe without cent of the food it consumes and
significantly affecting the From Margaret Pitcher, export 18 per cent of what it grows.
In praise of diverse
experiment. So simpler universes Canberra, Australia It does advocate things that we
should vastly outnumber those as and productive forests In the past, forests were should do for other reasons,
complex as ours. My conclusion – at Letters, 1 February considered part of the farming such as restoring peatlands and
least as logical as Bostrom’s – is that From Nick Marshall, Edinburgh, UK economy. Their resources could hedgerows. Perhaps we should
if we lived in a simulated universe, Sandy Henderson, arguing for still be used to cut down carbon make use of every scrap of land.
it wouldn’t look like this one. meat production, says that this pollution in other ways. Perhaps solar panels should be on
Bostrom is making the same is the only practical way to farm If we fed pigs on the dropped the roofs of buildings rather than
mistake as many other philosophers much of the north and west of the nuts and undergrowth, maybe we occupying cultivable land.

supports his stance. Others claim that kites in Australia have been between life and death, questions
Thoughts on highways
that socio-economic status is a observed transporting fire with whether frozen Canadian frogs
being byways safe for kids better predictor, though such burning sticks to set fires to are dead or alive. They are very
Letters, 25 January a strong link isn’t often found. expose prey (13 January 2018, p 4). definitely alive, as they aren’t
From David Mason, Both measures are trumped I wonder whether Neanderthals entirely frozen. For example, Rana
Swindon, Wiltshire, UK by good educational assessments observed this behaviour by birds. sylvatica, the North American
Readers discuss making towns of children. The Performance wood frog, has biochemical
more pedestrian-friendly. One Indicators in Primary Schools adaptations that prevent more
Face recognition may
thing that my 40 years of highway baseline assessment is carried out than about 75 per cent of its
engineering work has taught at the age of 4, at the start of school already be regulated water from freezing, including
me is that some drivers believe in the UK. I am an author of a 1 February, p 23 antifreeze proteins and sugars like
themselves to be expert highway study that found a correlation of From Tim Stevenson, sorbitol and betaine. Yes, they are
design engineers. 0.5 between these and results in Prestwood, Buckinghamshire, UK very cold. Yes, their metabolism is
I agree with Rob Wheway maths and English exams taken Donna Lu says face recognition extremely slow. One could even
that play space should be part of at ages 14 to 16 (doi.org/gftrzg). needs to be regulated. It may view them as crunchy frogs, but,
development, including on-street Including other factors, such as already be. The EU General Data no, they have yet to croak.
play space that allows shared use socio-economic status, improves Protection Regulation, which
between vehicles and players. But the prediction a little. wears a Union Jack hat as the UK
You think you’re so clever
my colleagues in local authorities Data Protection Act 2018, covers
tend to be conservative and prefer cases in which it is possible to with your eight legs
A gaping lacuna in your 21/28 December 2019, p 52
wider carriageways. Robert Hale identify an individual directly
notes that this means all drivers coverage of fear of holes from processed data. From Geoff Patton,
tend to travel too fast. 18 January, p 38 Silver Spring, Maryland, US
Unfortunately, the narrow From Hugh Kolb, Rowan Hooper’s report on the
Why does recycling always
footpaths that Graham Jones Logie Coldstone, Aberdeenshire, UK discovery of social species of
mentions aren’t attractive to You report on trypophobia, a fear lag behind innovation? octopus reminds me of stories
pedestrians, who want to see of holes. I am puzzled that you 16 November 2019, p 12 about their supposed intelligence.
ahead and around to be confident didn’t link this to the image a few From Tom Eddy, Esher, Surrey, UK My marine biology
that they will not be accosted. pages earlier of rather unpleasant Your article about recycling baccalaureate professor was Sneed
spotty bacterial patterns on agar electric car batteries was necessary Collard. He told us of a research
From Ian Wall, Edinburgh, UK gels (p 28). Isn’t it likely that some but depressing. I remember the project in which the investigator
Wheway rightly points out the people’s disgust at spots is related car industry being very keen would regularly head to the lab
importance of children being able to a reaction to decomposing 10 years ago to tell us that it was fridge for a fresh crab to feed his
to play safely in our streets. But food with bacterial and fungal designing cars for the whole life prized octopus. The octopus
cul-de-sacs are socially isolating colonies on it? cycle, including recycling. It is gradually approached closer and
and make direct pedestrian ironic that the greenest cars now closer to the edge of the aquarium.
movement difficult, encouraging seem to have drifted from this. On entering the lab one day, the
In praise of the bravery
higher vehicle use. This is always a problem with scientist found his animal friend
The solution is to build and of Neanderthal scientists new technology. Recycling dried out on the lab floor, halfway
rebuild roads on the shared space 1 February, p 14 develops only to treat current to the fridge, as if it had sought a
principle, with constant priority From Paul Wood, technology. Aluminium planes, midnight snack. ❚
given to pedestrians and vehicles Hamilton, New Zealand for example, were eminently
able to move only slowly. There is You report that Neanderthals may recyclable – but what happens
For the record
something seriously wrong with have climbed an active volcano with composite planes? Has
a society if the only place children soon after it erupted. I suspect anyone thought it through? ❚ Research into adding human
can play safely is a park to which that there were Neanderthals who genes to pigs to try to prevent donor
they need to be escorted. were protoscientists. They would, organs being rejected could solve
The frog is cold, but it
by observation, experiment the problem of the shortage of
and deduction, make startling definitely isn’t dead human donor organs, as organs
Attainment is the best
predictor of attainment discoveries. One might have been Letters, 11 January from normal pigs trigger a very
that a person who walked up a live From Simon Goodman, strong attack from the immune
18 January, p 9 volcano with a dry piece of wood Griesheim, Germany system (1 February, p 10).
From Peter Tymms, Durham, UK could walk back with fire. Michael Vandeman, asking ❚ It was December 2019 that was
Geneticist Robert Plomin believes You have previously reported whether we can draw a line the warmest month on record in
genetic testing can help to identify Europe, not the whole year
pupils who would benefit from (8 February, p 15).
educational interventions, Want to get in touch? ❚ When something has a heritability
and says a study that found Send letters to New Scientist, 25 Bedford Street, London of 55 per cent, genetic differences
a correlation of 0.4 between WC2E 9ES or letters@newscientist.com; see terms at explain about 30 per cent of the
polygenic scores and GCSE results newscientist.com/letters variation in it (25 January, p 34).

Views Aperture

A natural jewel
Photographer Kacper Kowalski
THIS speckled diamond looks

like it belongs in an Impressionist
painting. In fact, it is a photo
of a small island in a lake in
northern Poland.
The image comes from
Side Effects, a project by aerial
photographer Kacper Kowalski
about the complex relationship
between humans and nature.
To shoot his photos, Kowalski
takes to the air in a paramotor or a
gyrocopter, which he barely steers
to allow the wind to dictate the
direction. He sticks to the skies of
Pomerania, surrounding his home
in Gdynia, and rarely strays more
than 150 kilometres from where
he sets out.
Despite working within such
a small area, Kowalski’s work is
incredibly varied, as likely to
feature tourists sprawling on a
beach as the brightly coloured
effluent of a salt production plant.
But he often focuses on points of
tension or isolation, areas where
the natural world has been
accommodated, beaten back
or abandoned.
With this comes a carefully
studied neutrality: while the
viewer is invited to judge the
image, Kowalski never does so
himself. From such a vantage
point, the familiar is broken
down into shapes and colours,
emphasising form rather than
content – as befits his training as
an architect. With this abstraction
comes reflection and the kind of
perspective that can only come
from distance. ❚
Bethan Ackerley
KACPER KOWALSKI / PANOS PICTURES

Views Culture
Taking on a chemical Goliath

Dead cows, people getting sick… Dark Waters follows a lawyer’s fight for
environmental justice for a town afflicted by pollution, says Francesca Steele
Film
Dark Waters
Directed by Todd Haynes
UK cinemas, 28 February
“WHAT would happen if you

drank it?” asks lawyer Robert
Bilott in the movie Dark Waters,
about an unregulated chemical
he has found listed in documents
belonging to one of the highest
profile chemical companies in
the US. “That’s like saying, ‘What
if you swallowed a tyre?’” chuckles
the scientist he is asking, as if no
one would ever consume it.
Except people have. In this
dramatised version of a true story,
FOCUS FEATURES
it is 1998. Bilott (played by Mark

Ruffalo) is a partner at a law firm
in Cincinnati, Ohio, known for
defending chemical companies.
A West Virginia farmer, who lives The New York Times article on starring Cate Blanchett, deploys Mark Ruffalo as lawyer
in the same small town as Bilott’s which Dark Waters is based called discretion here, too. Dark Waters Robert Bilott in an
grandmother, asks him for help. Bilott “the lawyer who became may market itself as a legal egoless battle for justice
DuPont, the behemoth behind DuPont’s worst nightmare”. Even thriller, but it is uninterested in
Teflon, bought some of the farm’s though he is a successful lawyer, sensationalism, almost obtusely allows the film’s power to grow
land years ago so it could create when it comes to chemistry so. Blink and you can miss crucial slowly, like the case, frustrating
a landfill site for chemical waste he is a self-confessed dunce. evidence. Bilott pores over piles of our hopes and increasing its final
from its nearby factory. Since This is useful, because it allows obfuscating papers and witness impact. It was 1998 when Bilott
then, says the farmer, nearly a scientist to explain to Bilott the statements as the horrors stack up. began. It was 2017 when DuPont
200 cows have died. No one DuPont documents point to finally settled what had become
in Parkersburg will help. “The chemical is phased some degree of knowledge about more than 3550 personal injury
They are all afraid of DuPont. C8’s toxicity. The firm removed claims, for $671 million, but
out in most Western
At first, Bilott declines. Then he pregnant women from factory denied any wrongdoing.
sees the depleted grasslands, the
manufacturing, but it work after babies were born Real-life implications of this
lake covered in a putrid scum, a is still present in 99 per deformed. It did tests on rats David and Goliath case continue
raving, tumour-ridden cow, and cent of life on Earth” who got cancer. Yet it didn’t to emerge: the US environmental
he files a small lawsuit on behalf stop using the chemical. watchdog recently reported that
of the farmer, and gains access complex chemical compound The film is measured, without levels of contamination in US
to DuPont’s files. And, as he used that drives the plot in gotcha moments. One scene in drinking water are far higher than
recalls the black teeth of a child a way we can all understand. which Bilott chats to his wife, previously thought, and PFOA,
riding her bike in Parkersburg, Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), played by Anne Hathaway, is although phased out in most
he realises with horror that also known as C8, was used in filmed to show only the back of Western manufacturing, remains
residents have also been affected. Teflon and found everywhere her head throughout, as if to insist present in 99 per cent of life on
The lawsuit gradually grows from non-stick frying pans to that she isn’t the point. Bilott is the Earth. This film is a must-watch.
into a class action. Bilott loses carpets. It is a “forever chemical”, point. The hard work is the point. Non-stick frying pans will never
money and his health, and nearly a substance that stays in the The realism can feel hard going. look the same again. ❚
his family and job. Ruffalo plays environment, well, forever. This is a less sexy film than, say,
Bilott with calm bewilderment: Director Todd Haynes, who Erin Brockovich, even though they Francesca Steele is a writer
dogged, aghast, egoless. directed delicate love story Carol, share plot similarities. But realism and critic based in London

Don’t miss
Won’t get fooled again

Are we easily taken in? Nic Fleming finds that we’re not so gullible
and actually have an innate ability to pick up on the implausible
comparing new information with that fake news can spread smears Watch
existing beliefs, drawing on the past about politicians, but only among I Am Not Okay With
Book reliability of sources and checking those who already dislike its targets. This, Netflix’s adaptation
Not Born Yesterday: The new messages against intuitions. But what about creationism or of Charles Forsman’s
science of who we trust Mercier bolsters his case with anti-vax beliefs? And surely the graphic novel, stars
and what we believe examples from comparative open vigilance mechanisms of those Sophia Lillis as Sydney,
Hugo Mercier biology. For example, why do fit who fall for 9/11 or moon landing a teenage girl handling
Princeton University Press Thomson’s gazelles jump up and conspiracy theories are failing school, sex, her family –
down rather than run when they see them? Conspiracy beliefs are, and odd superpowers.
IN 1951 at Swarthmore College, predatory wild dogs? How does this perhaps, where Mercier is at his Streams 26 February.
Pennsylvania, social psychologist deter the dogs from chasing? weakest, as he argues these aren’t
Solomon Asch staged a telling No one knows for sure – it might down to gullibility but occur as
experiment on groups of eight be a form of deception. But Mercier a result of plausibility checking
students. He showed them three operating on “poor material”.
lines of different lengths and asked “Fake news can For Mercier, conspiracy theories
them which one matched a fourth are held as reflective beliefs that
spread smears about
line. The answer was obvious. can remain insulated from our other
But seven of the students were politicians, but only beliefs and actions. These contrast
in fact actors. When they went first among those who with intuitive beliefs, from which
and gave the wrong answer, the dislike its targets” we freely draw inferences and use
eighth participant – the real one – to ground our actions. Couldn’t the Read
was much more likely to do the argues that dishonesty (in prey or same be said of those who accept The Changing Mind:
same. This became known as the predator) would requires gullibility climate change science yet still fly A neuroscientist’s
“conformity experiment” – proof of to endure, and the need for that or eat meat? Maybe it isn’t so binary. guide to ageing well
the human tendency to be gullible. gullibility to confer benefits means Despite this, Mercier’s insights (Penguin Life) by Daniel
Throughout history, people have that it can’t survive as a stable trait. may help us learn more about why Levitin delivers welcome
often been portrayed as credulous. History backs Mercier up. In Nazi we can get things wrong. At the risk news about the ageing
Preachers see the trait in those who Germany, anti-Semitic propaganda of being seen as credulous, I’d say brain: it is happier, quicker
believe in gods other than theirs. was only effective in areas with high he makes a strong case for gullibility and often much healthier
Atheists bemoan the credulity of levels of existing prejudice against being a far less prevalent and than you may imagine.
all believers. Conservatives see it Jewish people. He also cites research important trait than we thought. ❚
in those who revolt. Leftists say it on US political campaigns that
explains why more people don’t. concludes that their impact on Nic Fleming is a science writer
In Not Born Yesterday, cognitive voters is negligible. Studies show based in Bristol, UK
psychologist Hugo Mercier argues
that actually we aren’t easily fooled,
wielding psychological, biological
and historical evidence to make the
case that humans are hardwired to
work out who and what to believe.
While the complexity of our Listen
communication makes us more 99% Invisible is a
adaptable, it also means staying long-running radio show
open to beneficial messages and and podcast by Roman
alert to harmful ones. That is Mars that tackles the built
why, Mercier says, we have “open environment, revealing
vigilance” cognitive mechanisms, the unsung triumphs
the most basic of which he calls (and some of the flaws)
plausibility checking. This involves of architecture and
design. Dip into a world
JIM WEST/ALAMY
that we usually take

TOP: NETFLIX
Do political campaigns, like

that of Bernie Sanders in for granted.
the US, have much effect?

Views Culture
The TV column
What if the Soviets won the space race? When people in the US see the Soviet Union
land on the moon first they are shocked and disheartened. But For All Mankind provides
an even bigger surprise when one cosmonaut’s identity is revealed, says Emily Wilson
In For All Mankind the

space race heats up after
a Soviet moon landing
NASA and the wives watching

at home can’t believe their eyes.
The Soviet Union has put a
woman on the moon, while the
US doesn’t have a single woman
Emily Wilson is the editor in astronaut training.
of New Scientist. You Now, on Nixon’s personal
can follow her on twitter orders, NASA scrambles together
@emilyhwilson or email her at 20 female pilots for an emergency
editor@newscientist.com space training programme. Joel
Kinnaman, who plays fictional
astronaut Ed Baldwin, has top
billing in this show and is
excellent. But it is an ensemble
APPLE TV+
piece, and Baldwin’s credibility as

our hero is largely measured by
TV the grace with which he responds
For All Mankind YOU may have been put off For All chewing pencils and doing flight to the new trainees.
Created by Ronald D. Mankind by the pretty mediocre calculations on bits of paper. The female astronaut
Moore, Matt Wolpert reviews it received when it first There are women, but they are candidates are all well written
and Ben Nedivi came out as part of the Apple TV+ holding trays of tea or, at best, and acted, but most fun is Molly
Apple TV+ launch. “Adequately entertaining” working in the back-up team. Cobb (played by Sonya Walger).
was one verdict; “moves too Then comes the first what-if Cobb was part of the Mercury 13
slowly” was another. I think those twist: the Soviet Union gets boots programme: she has proved she
Emily also reviews were unfair. on the moon first. Suddenly we has what it takes. But her dreams
recommends... The show does take a while to are plunged into an alternate have already been squished once,
put on its afterburners, but that timeline, in which the space race and so she is deeply cynical about
TV shouldn’t be a surprise given it the new training programme. Her
Battlestar Galactica was created by Ronald D. Moore, “Moore deliberately tolerance for being patronised by
Also by Ronald D. Moore, who was behind the brilliant 2003 male astronauts, meanwhile, is set
sets a scene that is
this game-changing show reboot of Battlestar Galactica. to absolute zero.
proved that sci-fi involving This had an enormous amount
almost nauseatingly There are beautifully played
robots that looked like of character set up and humdrum familiar, in order moments as Baldwin and the men
humans could also be daily life (albeit on a spaceship) to upend it” learn how to get along with Cobb,
seeringly political and before, in a thrilling heartbeat, while she in turn learns what it
relevant. Kind of! the crew of the Galactica finally heats up rather than down, and a means to be a team player and
understood what was happening. moon base becomes a US priority. a role model. One of the great
TV In For All Mankind Moore It is the second what-if twist, things about this show is that
Altered Carbon deliberately sets a scene that is though, that packs the punch. you don’t know which rocket will
Also starring For All almost nauseatingly familiar, in While the US scrambles to get its crash, or who will get to the moon.
Mankind’s Joel Kinnaman, order to upend it. We begin with act together, the Soviets land on Nothing is ever perfect, and not
this is set far in the future strong-jawed, white, male NASA the moon for a second time. On every plot line in For All Mankind
in a near-exact copy of astronauts going back and forth 1960s TV sets we see a cosmonaut works, but this is a great show and
the Bladerunner universe. between flight training and their standing on the lunar surface. more than deserves its upcoming
It is very violent and at thin, pretty, chain-smoking wives Then up comes their mirror visor, second season. Also, if you have
times very silly, but it is in those 1960s shift dresses. and it is a woman. daughters, definitely watch it with
great fun. Season 2 is At mission control we are This is when For All Mankind them. Even if they have no plans
out soon on Netflix. served row upon row of men bursts into life. The women in to join NASA, I think they will find
in dark-rimmed spectacles those background shots at it inspirational. ❚

SOUVENIR ISSUE
MOON LANDING
5OTH ANNIVERSARY
1969-2O19
THE
QUEST
FOR
SPACE
Don’t miss a special souvenir issue from
New Scientist celebrating the 50th anniversary
of the moon landings. Explore the past, present
and future of space exploration with over 100
pages of in-depth articles on the wonders of the
solar system, plus 20 pages of newly resurfaced
historical content from New Scientist’s archive
detailing the original space race as it happened
Available from all good

magazine retailers, digitally in the
New Scientist app or direct from
newscientist.com/thecollection
Features Cover story

STUART PATIENCE
The secrets of
stress-free living
Some people never seem to get stressed out.
Understanding their unique resilience could help
change all our lives for the better, says Helen Thomson

damaging to our well-being that one in three of

these people had been left feeling suicidal, and
one in six had self-harmed.
Yet, stress is also an essential physiological
response that allows us to quickly adapt to
the world around us. What we call stress is
actually a chemical reaction that begins in our
brain, specifically the amygdala, which is on
constant surveillance for any potential threat.
The amygdala combines sensory information
with memories of similar situations to judge
whether an emergency response is required.
If alarm bells ring, a distress signal is sent to
the hypothalamus – a small nodule near the
base of the brain – which activates two
major pathways. The first triggers our ancient
fight-or-flight system, which pumps out
adrenaline, making us more alert by increasing
our heartbeat and the efficiency of our
breathing and forcing more blood into our
muscles. The second prompts the release
of other hormones, including cortisol. This
keeps the stress response active and releases
stored glucose to give us more energy. It
also suppresses our digestion, immune system
and inflammation, to focus resources on the
immediate threat. When the threat has passed,
cortisol levels drop, helping to bring all these
chemicals back to their original levels.
Runaway response
This is all very handy when you are facing a
poisonous snake or an oncoming vehicle
because it enables you to start taking evasive
action before you have even registered the
threat. It also allows you to concentrate on
your work as a deadline looms, and focuses
Y
OU know that person. The one who Indianapolis and humour classes in Austria. your thoughts when speaking in front of an
uses a delayed train as an excuse to get This work is helping the military recruit audience. But sometimes the stress response
stuck into a good book. The one who can candidates for high-stress jobs. It has also led kicks in unnecessarily or is so powerful it
make a joke 10 seconds after breaking their to the first human trial of a “stress vaccine”, overwhelms us. Sudden or severe stress can
ankle. The one who loves giving presentations with the potential to inoculate us against its result in PTSD and depression. And low-level,
and never falters under pressure. They seem to devastating effects, from post-traumatic stress chronic stress creates a slew of health
float through life unfazed by the stress that can disorder (PTSD) to depression. But there is problems. With no let up, raised levels of
overwhelm the rest of us. What’s their secret? a bigger pay-off to understanding the secret adrenaline can damage blood vessels and
Are they blessed with stress-resistant genes? of stress-free living. Knowing why some increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Did their upbringing make them exceptionally people handle stress better than others, and Cortisol can cause digestive problems,
resilient? Have they learned specific ways the things we might all do to improve our weight gain and diabetes. And constant
of coping with life’s challenges? Or do they resilience, won’t just help all of us manage life’s modulation of the immune system can lead to
just know how to avoid stress altogether? daily struggles better, it might also teach us fatigue and physical and mental health issues.
To answer these questions, researchers have how to use stress to our advantage. Whether stress has positive or negative
been examining how humans and animals One thing is for certain: whether you are consequences often depends on how we
react and adapt to adversity, identifying those running late for an interview or coping with a deal with it. Your reaction to stress and how
who are particularly resilient to stress and personal loss, stress is unavoidable. In 2018, the quickly you return to normal when the
teasing apart the factors that contribute to this largest known study of stress levels in the UK stressor has passed is called resilience.
ability. It is a journey that has taken them from showed that three-quarters of people had been This is what varies significantly between
orphanages in Romania and interrogation so stressed in the past year that they had felt individuals. But what makes some of us so
chambers in North Carolina to fire stations in overwhelmed or unable to cope. It can be so resilient while others struggle to cope? >

There is no doubt that upbringing plays a

part. Animal experiments demonstrate that
How to make a early trauma affects an individual’s response
stress vaccine to stress as an adult. Testing this link in
humans is difficult, though, given the diversity,
We all produce a chemical mice from the negative effects frequency and severity of events that can
called neuropeptide Y (NPY) of chronic stress. It seems to negatively impact a child. One of the few
that acts like an on-off switch work by increasing the brain’s studies to give an insight is the Bucharest Early
to modulate our body’s stress ability to grow new neurons Intervention Project, a one-of-a-kind study of
response. Intriguingly, a single and form new connections. children raised in Romanian orphanages. In
injection of NPY before a Recently, Murrough’s total, 136 children were randomly chosen from
stressful experience seems to colleague Sara Costi began six institutions, half of whom were fostered
protect animals from some of the first human study to see if between the ages of 6 months and 30 months.
the negative consequences of ketamine has potential as a When the children were around 12 years old, a
stress. This discovery inspired human “stress vaccine”. team led by Katie McLaughlin at the University
James Murrough and Dennis Her healthy volunteers receive of Washington, Seattle, assessed their response
Charney at Mount Sinai one dose of ketamine – less to stress-inducing tasks. Analysis of their saliva
Hospital in New York to try a than people tend to take for revealed that those who had been fostered had
similar approach for people recreational purposes – or a similar cortisol levels to a control group of
with post-traumatic stress placebo. A week later, the children living in nearby families – but only if
disorder (PTSD). Their team volunteers give a presentation they had been placed in foster care before the
gave each volunteer an to a stern-looking panel, who age of 2. Those fostered later or who remained
intranasal dose of NPY before provide negative feedback. in orphanages had a blunted stress response,
they read a story designed to “We’re looking at whether producing less cortisol.
elicit their PTSD. Although only pretreating people with
a small pilot study, it hinted ketamine has an effect on their
that NPY might offer relief stress response,” says Sensitive period
from some PTSD symptoms. Murrough. The team is also This might seem like a good thing because it
There was a problem though: closely monitoring for side suggests that these children were less easily
it took an hour of inhalation effects. But, he says, there are stressed. In fact, it seems to be a manifestation
and a specially designed few of these with this low, of underlying damage to the normal stress
gadget to get enough of the one-off dose, and even if response, and is associated with long-term
chemical into people’s brains. ketamine is needed several behavioural problems and an increased risk
times in a year, the available of depression. Other research hints at what
KETAMINE SURPRISE evidence suggest that the is going on, revealing that the first two years
For this reason, Murrough and benefits outweigh the risk. of life are a sensitive period in which our
his colleagues have turned Results are expected within environment is particularly likely to cause
their attention to another the year. “It’s very exciting,” changes to the brain that influence the stress
chemical. Infamous as a party says Murrough. “We wouldn’t response. The mechanisms are probably
drug, ketamine may sound like be advocating putting it in our numerous, but research led by Linda Chao
an unlikely stress buster, but drinking water, but perhaps we at the University of California, San Francisco,
it is actually a mainstay of could give it to soldiers about suggests that trauma can trigger an increase
modern medicine, commonly to deploy on a mission, or to in myelin in the brain’s grey matter, where
used as an anaesthetic. It firefighters or police.” He the cell bodies of neurons are found. Myelin
has also been found to have acknowledges that using the normally forms an insulating sheath around
antidepressant properties. stress vaccine in a non-combat nerve fibres, but in grey matter it prevents
While testing these in mice, scenario would be harder new connections forming between neurons,
Rebecca Brachman, then because stress is usually and is linked with PTSD and depression.
at Columbia University in unexpected. “But there might As for which aspects of the early
New York, made a surprise be a window of time after the environment are key to healthy development,
discovery. As with NPY, a single stress in which the drug might experiments point to social interaction,
dose of ketamine can protect still be useful,” he says. stimulation and parental support.
Developmental psychologist Suniya Luthar
at Arizona State University identifies the single
most important factor in developing stress
resilience as a strong, supportive, dependable
relationship with your primary caregivers.
“But adults who did not have a good childhood
experience are by no means doomed,” she says.

Whether facing We all inherit different variations of NPY

a delayed flight genes. Some protect against stress, while
(left) or a war others increase the risk of an impaired stress
zone (below), response and the psychiatric conditions
our natural related to this. So perhaps these special forces
resilience to soldiers hit the genetic jackpot. However, there
stress varies, are tantalising hints that we aren’t stuck with
but we can learn the NPY that our genes dictate. For instance,
to cope better after a surprise simulated ambush, the
NPY levels of marines who had previously
completed an eight-week course on
mindfulness returned to normal far quicker
than those of soldiers without such training.
Another common thread that links
AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES
chilled-out people is to do with their personality,

particularly their sense of humour. Research
shows that people who see the funny side of
life’s mishaps are likely to interpret and react
to stress more positively, buffering themselves
against some of the negative effects. For
instance, in a study of firefighters, Michael
Sliter at Indiana University–Purdue University
Indianapolis, found that, in general, the
number of symptoms of PTSD and burnout
they reported correlated with the number of
“If they are able to find the same
ingredients – dependable, supportive,
“Human studies stressful situations they had been in over the
past month. But firefighters who used humour
close relationships – the ill effects of often focus on more often as a coping mechanism were less
childhood adversity can certainly be reduced.” likely to experience these negative effects.
Moreover, an individual’s ability to cope members of elite Laughing releases feel-good hormones
with stress isn’t purely down to early life
experiences. Genes also play a role, especially
military forces thought to make us less likely to ruminate on
or re-experience stressful events. It also helps
those involved in the production of a chemical
called neuropeptide Y (NPY). Exactly how this
who perform well us build relationships, providing the social
support that is a key to resilience. But there is
works is unknown, but animal experiments under stress” good news for anyone who struggles to find
suggest that NPY acts as a kind of on-off switch their funny bone. A pilot study in Austria
for the stress response. Faced with a threat, put 35 people who were experiencing stress,
production soars, helping to instigate a rapid exhaustion or depressive symptoms through
response, but levels quickly return to normal a seven-week “humour training” course,
once the danger is over. including role play, finding humour in
To assess NPY’s role in humans, studies often everyday life, cultivating playfulness and
focus on members of elite military forces who learning how to make others laugh. The
perform well under extreme stress. For training seemed to decrease perceived stress
example, researchers at the US National Center and increase cheerfulness, although it was
for PTSD in Connecticut compared blood limited by not having a control group.
samples from US special forces and regular An additional factor influencing your
soldiers during a training exercise at Fort Bragg stress resilience is more surprising. Growing
in North Carolina, where they were deprived evidence points to an intimate relationship
of food and sleep, pursued by the “enemy” between gut bacteria and our mood and
and interrogated when caught. This revealed behaviour. What’s more, several studies
that the special forces soldiers sustained have highlighted differences between the
higher levels of NPY for longer during the gut bacteria in people with stress-related
exercise. Their NPY also returned to its conditions, such as depression and PTSD,
SCOTT NELSON/GETTY IMAGES
original level more quickly afterwards, and in people without these. Stress can also
showing that they were better able to recover make your gut more leaky, allowing bacteria
from the stress they had experienced. In to escape into your bloodstream, which
addition, the more NPY an individual released, triggers inflammation that can lead to physical
the less confusion and fewer mental health and mental health problems. One study, for
issues they reported during the training. example, found that couples experiencing >

the chronic stress of a bad marriage had history as a stress reliever, and research shows
leakier guts than less hostile couples. But the that just eight weeks’ practice can trigger brain
relationship works in the other direction too. changes related to better emotional control
Mice given “good” bacteria called Lactobacillus and stress resilience that are similar to those
rhamnosus for 28 days before facing chronic seen in long-term meditators.
social stress were protected against some In future, we may even be able to inoculate
stress-induced behaviours. ourselves against stress (see “How to make a
Although there are still major gaps in our stress vaccine”, page 36). For now, James
understanding of the complex dialogue Murrough at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New
between gut and brain, there is substantial York, who is working on this, recommends
evidence that therapies aimed at changing the good mental hygiene. “This is about making
balance of microbes in the gut, and also what sure you have the right resources in place to
we eat, could have an exciting role in protecting help you cope,” he says. Alongside regular
FRANK GAGLIONE/GETTY IMAGES
us against – even reversing – the negative exercise, sufficient sleep and time out to relax,
consequences of stress. you should also cultivate your social networks.
“You have to put the work in to make sure your
social ties are healthy so that when stress
Cool profile occurs you can rely on them,” says Murrough.
All this makes it clear that people who “Data suggests that is your best bet for building
seem immune to stress are blessed with resilience against daily stress.”
a combination of attributes. We still don’t It doesn’t take long to get But don’t forget that a little stress isn’t a
have a scientific way to identify the ideal big stress-busting effects bad thing. In fact, it might just boost your
stress-resilient profile, but Belgian special from meditation cognition, if research on rats is anything to
forces are working on it. In one study, they go by. A team led by Daniela Kaufer at the
randomly subjected half their wannabe Such a resilience profile would be useful University of California, Berkeley, exposed
recruits to a highly stressful prisoner of war for any employer needing to recruit people rats to a stressful environment for 3 hours
exercise, while the others undertook mundane for stressful jobs. But what about the rest of while tracking the development of new
weapons training. Researchers wanted to us just wanting to cope better when we miss neurons in their hippocampus, a brain region
compare their hormone profiles and any a train or attend an interview? Of course, responsible for memory. Intriguingly, these
deterioration of cognitive functions in later there are plenty of ways to de-stress. Regularly cells proliferated more in the stressed animals
tests to gauge the effects of stress. The aim is to listening to music seems to alter many than in a control group. But the real surprise
use these markers in future selection exercises chemicals involved in our stress response, was the long-term effect. Rats that had been
to identify candidates likely to struggle in and lowers blood glucose, making challenges stressed did better in cognitive tests, even
stressful situations. They could also be used seem less stressful. Exercise also boosts weeks later, specifically engaging their new
to monitor soldiers in the field and measure hormones that can act to lower perceived neurons to help with these tasks. It isn’t yet
the impact of training on stress resilience. stress. Meditation, meanwhile, has a long possible to do this kind of study in humans,
but we do know that new neurons allow us
to learn better. “We think there are many
similarities between animals and humans,
but we’re not quite there yet,” says Kaufer.
The difference between Nevertheless, she is often asked what the
stress and anxiety perfect amount of stress is. “It’s impossible
to give you an exact figure,” she says. “The
Stress and anxiety are often or a few weeks, it normally ideal amount is going to be different from
intertwined in our minds, occurs within a discrete one person to another.” What someone finds
but they refer to different time frame. invigorating, another may find daunting. On
things. Stress is a biological Anxiety can be triggered top of that, what feels stressful one day might
process that results in a by stress, but it is a feeling not feel so another. “But if there is beneficial
series of chemical reactions that tends to hang around stress, then it’s likely to be something you can
within our body and brain after the initial threat or pinpoint yourself,” says Kaufer. “It’s probably
that help us focus on a challenge disappears. the difference between the stress that paralyses
challenging situation and If anxiety occurs most you and the stress that you can push through,
adapt our behaviour (see days for longer than six that makes you feel really great afterwards.” ❚
main story). months, it is known as
Stress can be a positive generalised anxiety
or negative experience disorder. This condition Helen Thomson is a consultant for
and although you may feel affects around 6.8 million New Scientist and author of
stressed for a few seconds, adults in the US each year. Unthinkable: An extraordinary journey
through the world’s strangest brains

Features
The food revolution

starts here
Lab-grown meat will be on our plates soon, but it won’t be what
you’re expecting, says Graham Lawton
U
NTIL four years ago, stem-cell biologist to create shrimp meat without actual shrimp. commercialisation nears, difficult questions
Sandhya Sriram had never eaten Shiok is now close to doing something that are being asked and there are many unknowns.
seafood. Then she visited a shrimp has been talked about for decades but never Will regulators approve it? Will consumers
farm in Vietnam and realised she had to give realised: putting lab-grown meat onto people’s eat it? Is it safe? And is it as environmentally
it a go – which was odd, given what she saw plates. Sriram says her company is on course benign as proponents claim?
there. The conditions were “disgusting”, she to launch its cultured shrimp meat (pictured The dream of growing meat in a lab instead
says. The shrimp appeared to be growing in above) next year, an ambitious goal that would of on a farm goes back 25 years. The first
sewage, and were drenched in antibiotics and put Shiok at the forefront of a food revolution patents were issued in 1995, and in the early
bleach to clean them before consumption. that could be a game changer for humanity. 2000s, NASA funded research with the aim of
“These are things that should never be It is also the first step towards an alternative finding new ways to make nutritious food for
SHARAS CLICKZ/SHIOK MEATS
associated with food. That was my motivation.” to an industry that has done terrible damage long-distance space travellers.
Sriram went home to Singapore, quit her to the environment, poses an existential threat Things got more serious in 2013, when a
lab job and started a company called Shiok to human health and causes untold suffering patty made from cow muscle fibres grown in a
Meats. With co-founder Ka Yi Ling, she set to billions of animals every year. lab was cooked and eaten at a press conference.
about discovering how to grow shrimp muscle It is too soon to declare that the age of This was a “defining moment” for cultured
tissue from stem cells – in other words, how cultured meat has arrived, but as meat, says sociologist Neil Stephens at >

How to grow meat Brunel University London, elevating it from The technology hasn’t stood still. Back in
Meat can be made in the lab from a few starter cells
futuristic possibility to practical reality. 2013, the standard culture medium was bovine
Companies quickly sprang up all over fetal serum extracted from unborn calves,
the world, driven by a desire to right the which was both expensive and ethically
wrongs of livestock farming. Unlike the real troubling. The industry has now developed
thing, cultured meat is almost cruelty-free: animal-free alternatives using ingredients
aside from biopsies to obtain stem cells, grown in genetically modified bacteria.
no animals are harmed. In theory, the There are still technical challenges to
environmental footprint – all that land, water overcome, principally scaling up production
and pollution – shrinks to almost nothing, and getting the taste and texture right. Yet
Begin with a small although this is the subject of much debate. these are widely seen as solvable in the near
sample of cells Perhaps best of all, antibiotics become future. Nobody has yet achieved mass
unnecessary. In return, we get sin-free real production, but some companies can already
meat, in as large a quantity as we can eat. produce enough meat at an affordable-enough
price to launch a product in a restaurant, says
Elliot Swartz of the GFI. And while texture
Cellular agriculture matters a great deal if you want to grow a steak,
Grow the cells in a
bioreactor. To create Back in 2013, the technology was nowhere near it isn’t so important for minced beef or shrimp.
3D tissues, an edible ready for the market; the burger took three This is one reason why Sriram is so confident
scaffold is needed for
the cells to grow on months to grow at a cost of about €250,000. in Shiok. “Shrimp is only muscle and not any
Mark Post, at Maastricht University in the other tissue,” she says. “We don’t have to worry
Netherlands, the scientist behind the project, about fat or connective tissue. Definitely,
said it would take 10 or 20 years to make it crustacean cells are easier than land-based
commercially viable. But things have moved animals.” Shiok doesn’t even have to grow
faster than he anticipated. That doesn’t mean whole shrimp, just recreate the minced
Harvest the beef muscle cultured burgers, let alone steaks. Those are shrimp that is a staple in Asian cooking. Last
fibres or shrimp proteins still at least five years away, according to year, the firm demonstrated a prototype, and
and process them into Stephens. Seafood is a different story. is prepping for an invitation-only tasting event
food products
“We might see the first commercial sale at a meeting in Singapore in April.
soon, maybe in the next year,” says Stephens.
Shrimp or other crustacean meat will be
followed by salmon, tuna and white fish
and then mammal and bird meats. Other
animal products such as milk, leather and
wool are also in development.
Beneficial
As this “cellular agriculture” industry
develops, new battle lines are being drawn.
bugs
Cultured meat will be the biggest disruptive
technology to hit the food industry since The cleanness of cultured meat
genetic modification. How will the conventional compared with farmed alternatives
meat industry respond – embrace the new might be problematic. Conventional
technology or fight it tooth and nail? “It’s all meat has a microbiome that,
to play for in this space,” says Richard Parr at assuming the bacteria are benign,
the Good Food Institute (GFI), a US non-profit protects against food poisoning
organisation that promotes the development because the resident bacteria
of alternatives to animal products. outcompete hostile interlopers.
The cultured meat technology being refined But cultured meat comes out of
by Shiok and other companies – there are the bioreactor sterile and is a sitting
about 30 firms doing this around the world – duck for bacteria. “Uncolonised meat
is essentially the same as that used to grow is dramatically attractive to bacteria
the €250,000 burger. The main ingredient is and they can grow very rapidly,” says
a culture of muscle cells (often with fat cells microbiologist Elizabeth Wellington
too) growing on a support structure called a at the University of Warwick, UK.
scaffold, bathed in a liquid medium containing “That’s how food poisoning happens.”
nutrients and growth factors (see “How to It may prove necessary to inoculate
grow meat”, top left). The medium stimulates cultured meat with benign bacteria
the cells to proliferate, whereupon they to eliminate this risk, she says.
SHIOK MEATS
spontaneously organise themselves into

muscle tissue, aka meat.

“Unlike the real thing,

cultured meat is
almost cruelty-free”
Another reason for the confidence coursing there,” says David Wagstaff of US company is so innovative that we don’t have an example
through the veins of the cultured meat JUST, which is developing cultured chicken to follow,” says Justyna Pałasińska at Pen & Tec
industry is the success of plant-based meat meat. “Taste, quality, consistency are the Consulting in Reading, UK, which helps food
substitutes such as the Impossible and Beyond fundamentals to any product and if you companies negotiate the regulatory labyrinth.
burgers and the vegan sausage roll sold by the don’t get those three right, it doesn’t matter Another unknown is what the labelling
UK bakery chain Greggs. But there are also how welfare-friendly you are, people won’t requirements will be, which could have a
some salutary lessons from plant-based meats. buy your product again.” huge influence on consumer perceptions.
Despite their vegan halo, there is a growing This wariness is one of the biggest barriers That is a further reason why eyes are on
awareness that they are ultra-processed to commercialisation, says Swartz. “What’s Singapore: its regulatory regime is seen as
foods often high in fat and salt. Worse, many holding them back is the burden of being the being more friendly to cultured meat than
of the products flooding onto the market aren’t first to release a product. If it isn’t really good, those of the US or European Union. Last
good enough, says Robert Lawson, the former then it could make people less excited than November, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA)
head of meat-substitute company Quorn. they could be.” released the country’s first “novel food”
“Consumers are open to trying, but they will Another obstacle is red tape. Before cultured regulations, in part to respond to looming
walk away if they eat rubbish.” meat can be sold and eaten, regulators will food security issues. The island city state has
The cultured meat industry is aware of this have to be satisfied that it is fit for human almost no agriculture and imports 90 per cent
risk. “We should always remember that we are consumption. As yet, it isn’t clear how the of its food. Cultured meat is seen as part of
ALAMY
no different from any other food products out regulatory system will work. “Lab-grown meat the solution, says Kelvin Ng at the Singapore
Agency for Science, Technology and Research.
This will increasingly become a
consideration elsewhere, says Charles
Godfray, director of the Oxford Martin School
at the University of Oxford and co-author of
a recent World Economic Forum report on the
future of meat. “We can feed 7 billion, but by
mid-century, food security will be an issue.”
The SFA wouldn’t comment about whether
any company has yet submitted a novel food
for evaluation. Shiok told New Scientist that
it will file one later this year and the SFA says
it will process applications in just three to
six months. Once the regulatory authorities
receive an application, the key question will
be whether the meat is safe to eat. This may
be trickier than it sounds. One selling point
is that it is “clean”: that, unlike carcass meat,
it won’t be exposed to dangerous bacteria
during processing. “We don’t have to slaughter
animals, so there is less susceptibility to
contamination from faeces,” says Neta Lavon
of Israeli company Aleph Farms. But, ironically,
cultured meat may be too clean (see “Beneficial
bugs”, opposite).
Other food-safety issues may come to light
This cultured too. One possibility – albeit a remote one – is
salmon was that the cells will produce toxic metabolites,
WILD TYPE
spawned in the perhaps misfolded prion proteins similar to

lab, not the sea the ones that cause bovine spongiform >

encephalopathy (BSE). Growth medium “Cultured meat is still an abstract idea, it’s not
residues in the meat may also be problematic, something we can test consumer acceptability
says Pałasińska, and there is zero data about for,” says Laura Wellesley at independent UK
possible long-term effects. policy institute Chatham House, who co-wrote
Even if regulators clear it, will consumers a paper on meat alternatives for the EU. Finding
eat it? As a rule, tastings of prototypes generate the right name for these new products will be
positive reviews. Liz Specht of the GFI has crucial (see “What’s in a name?”, right).
tasted two cultured meat products: Memphis One obvious selling point is compassion,
Meats’ duck “breast” and salmon by a company both for animals and the planet. Cultured
called Wild Type. Both were impressively meat isn’t entirely animal-free because of the
authentic, she says – although they were need for cell lines, but its welfare issues are
prepared by professional chefs, which may negligible in comparison with conventional
be hard to replicate at home. meat. One small farm could meet the global
And even if the final product is excellent, demand for cells, says Lavon.
that is no guarantee of acceptance. As Cultured meat also has a reputation for
proponents of genetic modification found, being greener. This seems a reasonable
even demonstrably superior food can be assumption: conventional livestock farming
doomed by consumer perceptions. In a contributes around 15 per cent of greenhouse
recent survey of attitudes in the US, more than gas emissions and is a voracious consumer
60 per cent of people said they were willing to of land, water, energy and pesticides. Shrimp
try cultured meat, but about 40 per cent said farms are also a destroyer of coastal habitats,
ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
they were put off by its unnaturalness. especially mangroves and salt marshes.
Until the food actually gets on to the market, To produce 1 calorie of edible meat, on
with whatever labelling is mandated, there is average, it takes 7 calories of agricultural
no way to know how it will be received. inputs, says Kurt Schmidinger of Austrian NGO
Appetite for meat

The consumption of meat is increasing globally and this
“Radical change in the food
trend is expected to continue, even if it is dropping off in
a few regions. This means there might be quite an
appetite for non-farmed alternatives
system is going to be forced
China Europe Rest of Asia
upon us at some point”
Central and South America North America
Africa India
80
Meat consumption (million tonnes)
60
40
20
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
WORLD
600
HANS SILVESTER/GETTY IMAGES
400
Forecast
200
Antibiotics are
0 used heavily when
1960 1990 2020 2050 animals are reared
SOURCE: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM in close quarters

Future Food. For beef the ratio is 25 to 1. For

cultured meat, the GFI says it is 3 to 1.
Cultured meat’s green credentials, however,
aren’t a proven fact. They are usually based
What’s in
on a widely cited analysis from 2011. It found
that producing a tonne of cultured beef would
a name?
require less than 1 per cent of the land needed
for the same amount of cow meat, about 4 per Getting the right name for
cent of the water and about half the energy. alternative meats will be crucial
It would also generate just 4 per cent of the to their success. Over the years,
greenhouse gas emissions. cultured meat has acquired many
Environmentalists are increasingly prefixes: in-vitro, lab-grown,
challenging this assessment. “Cultured meat cultivated, cell-based, clean,
may not be the silver bullet for sustainability animal-free, synthetic, fake,
that innovators are suggesting it is,” says slaughter-free. Unsurprisingly,
Wellesley. “There are big questions still to consumers react more positively
answer in terms of energy intensity.” to words like “clean” and
According to John Lynch, a climate scientist “animal-free” than they do
at the University of Oxford, the numbers in to “lab-grown”.
that 2011 paper are highly speculative and
based on an optimistic scenario that is now out
of date. He recently ran a new greenhouse gas
analysis and concluded that, in the long run,
SHIOK MEATS
cultured meat may actually be worse for the

climate. That is largely because it exchanges
the methane emissions belched out by the
digestive system of cattle for carbon dioxide.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, but meat industry will respond. Up to now, it has have said they hope to be ready to launch
doesn’t stay in the atmosphere for long, sent out mixed messages. On the one hand, it within the next three years.
whereas CO2 hangs around for centuries. sees cultured meat as a threat and is going to Those initial launches are likely to be in
Unless cultured meat production is fuelled great lengths to pull the rug from under it ahead restaurants rather than shops, in part because
by decarbonised energy, its global warming of launch. In the US, for example, the National of a lack of large-scale production, but also
potential could be very high, says Lynch. Cattlemen’s Beef Association has been lobbying to replicate the success of plant-based meats,
Yet until the technology matures, it is all the authorities to ban the upstart industry from which created a buzz by offering limited-
speculation. “We still have no idea at all how describing its products as “meat”. In Europe, edition dishes in trendy eateries. Full-scale
realistic these footprints are,” he says. an organisation called European Livestock launch into supermarkets is probably still
Voice is running adverts on the Brussels metro several years away – at least five, says Stephens.
trying to warn consumers off cultured meat. Nonetheless, mass-market cultured meat
Clean eating “There’s an organised opposition emerging is coming. There is simply no other way to
One advantage that seems unarguable is and that says something about the maturity keep up with growing demand for meat, says
cultured meat’s freedom from antibiotics. of the technologies,” says Stephens. Friedrich (see “Appetite for meat”, opposite).
“Worldwide, 80 per cent of antibiotics are used But at the same time, the conventional meat Last year, UK-based consultancy Kearney
in agriculture,” says microbiologist Elizabeth industry wants a slice of the pie. Tyson Meats, forecast that, by 2040, cultured meat will
Wellington at the University of Warwick, UK. the world’s second-largest meat producer, account for 35 per cent of global consumption
That is largely down to intensive farming, in recently disinvested from plant-based protein of meat and vegan, meat-like products, with
which animals are kept in close proximity and company Impossible and put money into conventional meat down to 40 per cent.
bacteria can spread like wildfire. Antibiotics Memphis Meats and its cultured meats “Radical change in the food system is going to
are given to promote growth too. This use is instead, a decision that industry observers be forced upon us at some point,” says Godfray.
contributing to the rising tide of antibiotic say shows where it thinks the future lies. Back in Singapore, Sriram and her company
resistance that is a greater threat to human “They don’t want to be the next Kodak,” says are betting the farm on it happening sooner
health than climate change, according to Swartz, referring to the camera company that rather than later. “In Singapore Malay slang,
Bruce Friedrich at the GFI. went bust after rejecting digital photography. Shiok means fantastic or delicious,” she says.
In that respect, clean meat is clean. “We don’t If Shiok doesn’t make it to market first, there Proof of that will be in the eating – and soon. ❚
need to use antibiotics, it’s as simple as that,” are plenty of other contenders. One is another
says Stephanie Wallis, chief scientific officer seafood company called BlueNalu, which in
of Higher Steaks, the UK’s only cultured meat December demonstrated its cultured yellowfin Graham Lawton
company and the only one anywhere that is tuna and recently revealed plans for a major (@GrahamLawton) is a
attempting to grow bacon. production facility in the US. Other contenders staff writer at New Scientist
Another key unknown is how the incumbent are Aleph, and Mosa in the Netherlands. Both

Features
In hot water
When the sex of your offspring is tuned to
temperature, not chromosomes, a warming
world looks risky. Sofia Deleniv investigates
W
E HAVE all seen images of polar backboneless invertebrates, sex is
bears stranded at sea on chunks determined by sex chromosomes inherited
of ice. This charismatic species from their parents. Among humans and
has become a poster child for the devastating other mammals, for example, most females
effects of climate change. But as the world have two X chromosomes, while males have
warms, spare a thought for another group of one X and one Y chromosome. But some
animals that face a unique challenge. These are fish species and many reptiles, including
the creatures whose entire reproductive future crocodiles, alligators and marine turtles, take
depends on how hot their environment is. a different approach. They are at the mercy of
The threat from climate change to animals ambient temperatures, which flick a switch
whose sex is determined by temperature that dictates whether the embryo will develop
seems obvious. Higher temperatures cause into a male or a female. In reptiles, the critical
them to produce offspring primarily of one period of temperature sensitivity occurs
sex, a skew that would appear to put them on during egg incubation. In fish, it is after
the road to extinction. But the curious fact is, hatching, at the larval stage.
this group contains some of the most ancient There is now abundant evidence that global
lineages in the animal kingdom – from warming is leading to increasingly unequal sex
crocodiles and turtles to fish and even a ratios in these creatures. For most, that means
reptile-like “living fossil” called the tuatara – an excess of females. Take most species of
and they have survived repeated bouts of marine turtles, which usually hatch as females
global warming in the past. if incubated at temperatures above 26°C. Many
So how have they made it this far given their studies confirm that in recent, warmer, years
apparent sensitivity to temperature? To what they have produced female-heavy hatchling
extent does the current warming differ from populations. And projections reveal that the
events they have faced before? And should situation could get more extreme very soon.
DAMOCEAN/GETTY IMAGES
we worry about their survival? Researchers One study, for example, calculated that in
rushing to answer these questions have made green sea turtle populations the proportion of
some surprising discoveries, including a females will rise from the current level of 52 per
sexual innovation that might have helped cent to between 76 and 93 per cent by 2100.
these species survive climate change in the That sounds disastrous, but there are
past. This innovation could have been key to some glimmers of hope. For a start, some of
the evolution of birds, and even explain why these animals are taking steps to influence
they are the only dinosaur descendants today. their destiny. Female marine turtles, for
What’s more, the plight of these species may example, have begun nesting earlier, when
not be as far removed from us as it seems. There conditions are cooler. What’s more, research
are now intriguing hints that global warming published in 2019 reveals that turtle embryos
is having an effect on the sex ratios of newborn may move around within their eggs to find
humans too (see “Girls like it hot”, page 46). cooler spots and so play a part in determining
For many animals, including the their own sex. Such strategies can help to

By 2100, up to reduce the impact of higher temperatures

93 per cent of on these creatures.
green sea turtle But there is an even stronger reason to be
hatchlings could optimistic that female-biased populations
be female won’t lead to extinction. “An excess of
females is actually beneficial,” says Nadav
Pezaro at Stellenbosch University in South
Africa, “as long as there are enough males to
service the entire female population.” There
are only so many offspring that each female
can produce, so they – not males – represent
a limiting factor to population size. As a
result, female-biased populations tend to
have higher reproductive output than groups
with equal numbers of males and females.
Some researchers even think that this
explains why temperature-dependent sex
determination is so widespread. While other
species might struggle to adapt to changing
environmental conditions, those that have
evolved this mechanism could respond with
a population boom.
The pro-female bias has another benefit too:
it is inherently self-correcting. Pezaro and his
colleagues have shown how this may work
in reptiles such as crocodilians, a group that
evolved perhaps more than 200 million years
ago. For these animals, both low and high
incubation temperatures produce females,
while males are produced at intermediate
temperatures. Crucially, individuals differ
genetically in the temperature range that
“Evidence shows triggers male development. So, while the
genome of one crocodile might make it male if
warming is leading incubated between 25°C and 29°C, for another
the range could be 27°C to 32°C. In a particularly
to increasingly warm year, only embryos carrying genes to
produce males in a high temperature range
unequal sex ratios” will hatch as male. Once mature, these few >

males will probably mate with multiple

females, making future hatchlings more likely
to carry genes that favour male development
Girls like it hot
at warmer temperatures. In this way, mostly
female populations can continue to produce
a modest reserve of males, helping the As Earth warms, it is affecting fewer boys shortly after dealing
population stay afloat and even thrive the balance of males and females with catastrophes such as
as temperatures increase. among animals whose sex is earthquakes, floods and bouts
This tendency to self-correct, together determined by temperature of smog pollution, as well as
with the ability to produce population booms, (see main story). Surprisingly, periods of unemployment.
could explain how species that produce more temperature can also affect Why male fetuses are more
females at higher temperatures have survived human sex ratios. A host of likely to be victims of these
warming in the distant past. But there is a studies show that fewer boys events remains a matter of
limit to the adaptability of this mechanism. are born in unusually cold years.
Eventually, there won’t be enough males to What’s more, when researchers
mate with all the females and populations tracked Japanese populations
“Women give
will start declining. Unfortunately, there are in the aftermath of two abnormal birth to fewer
signs that this is happening now as a result seasonal events – the extremely
of the rapid pace of modern climate change hot summer of 2010 and
boys after
compared with past events. Reptiles are at unusually cold winter weather dealing with a
particular risk because their long generation of early 2011 – they discovered
spans mean they can’t adapt fast enough. that fewer boys were born nine
stressful event”
Loggerhead turtles, for example, take up to months later in both cases.
30 years to reach sexual maturity. And a recent At first glance, these findings debate. Ralph Catalano at the
study of freshwater turtles in China predicted seem to defy logic. In humans, University of California, Berkeley,
that many populations will be almost sex is genetically determined. thinks it might reflect an
exclusively female within just a few decades. Embryos that inherit two X sex evolutionary drive for a pregnant
Global warming poses an even greater threat chromosomes become female woman’s body to reject a child
for another group of species – those in which and those inheriting an X and a Y that is less likely to survive under
higher temperatures produce fewer females become male. Temperature can’t difficult conditions. And he notes
and more males. Animals with this rarer type override the genetic instructions that males tend to have weaker
we pass down to our children. It immune systems than females,
Caimans and other can’t switch a genetically male making them more likely to
crocodilians embryo into a female. However, succumb to infectious diseases
have a way to it can influence sex ratios in at any age. Indeed, many species
defy global another way. seem to have evolved a system
warming Only about 30 to 50 per cent for aborting male embryos in
of pregnancies result in live times of stress and scarcity.
births, with most of the rest Rodents, for example, give birth
being miscarried within six to fewer males when placed on
weeks of conception. This has low-fat diets or diets lacking in
been dubbed “natural selection calories or essential amino acids.
in utero”. And when it comes It is estimated that 15 fewer
to survival, male fetuses seem boys are born for every 1000
to be at a disadvantage. For a babies in the aftermath of
start, they fall victim to a host of flood, earthquake or smog.
developmental issues that don’t Climate change is increasing
affect females, because they the likelihood of some of these
can’t compensate for any genetic stressful events, so in that sense
mutation on their X chromosome it is having an impact on the sex
by relying on a normal second ratios of human populations.
copy. They are also more These changes might marginally
sensitive to environmental increase the difficulty of finding
conditions during pregnancy – a sexual partner in affected
MARK MACEWEN/NATURE PL
not just extremes of temperature regions, but they don’t present

but a variety of factors that an existential threat to humanity
induce stress in mothers-to-be. as rising temperatures may do
Women give birth to relatively to other species.

of temperature-dependent sex determination Young talapia

include the tuatara, the last member of a prefer warmer
reptile-like lineage dating back to the Triassic waters, making
era, 250 million years ago. Today, most tuatara them more likely
populations are isolated on a few dozen to become male
islands off New Zealand, and Nicki Mitchell
at the University of Western Australia thinks
we should be concerned for their future. Her
research has identified an escalating male
bias on one of these islands. “We suspect an
extinction vortex is in play,” she says. “By 2085,
there will be almost no nest microclimates on
the island that would produce females, even
with radical adjustments to nesting behaviour.”
Tuataras are by no means alone. Fish with
temperature-dependent sex determination
also produce more males when the going
C1A1P1C1O1M1/GETTY IMAGES
gets hot – the number of species that do it
is unknown but it includes commercially
important ones such as sea bass, tilapia and
grayling. In both freshwater and marine
species, the sex ratio can shift from equal
numbers to three males for every female
if temperatures rise by just 1°C to 2°C, which mutated genes would, de facto, become a during their evolutionary history, each one
is lower than some projections of the rise nascent sex chromosome, obliging embryos thought to coincide with global temperature
in global sea temperatures by the end of that inherit it to become female. Only embryos peaks. This gives grounds for optimism that
this century as a result of global warming. inheriting two copies of the chromosome it can happen again.
Many of these species have sex lacking the mutated genes would be capable The major difference this time, however,
chromosomes that would normally dictate of developing into males. is that along with rising temperature, the
whether they become male or female, but This is precisely the system universally animals face other challenges their ancestors
temperature routinely overrides these genetic found in birds, where females have a set of didn’t have to deal with. “Many species have
instructions. Some fish, such as Nile tilapia, may ZW sex chromosomes – where W dictates lost the connecting habitat that would have
be contributing to this effect and fast-tracking femaleness – and males have ZZ. According allowed them to shift their distributions to
the development of a sex imbalance in their to Pezaro and his colleagues, birds might be more suitable climates in the past,” says
own populations. A recent study found that a prime example of animals whose ancestors Mitchell. Habitat destruction also reduces
they prefer spending time in warmer waters originally had temperature-dependent sex population sizes, which can limit the ability to
during their critical period of development, determination, but who evolved a pro-female adapt. “The likelihood of harbouring beneficial
causing many genetically female tilapia to sex chromosome as a way out of a catastrophic genetic variants is significantly greater in
effectively convert themselves into males. male bias. This, the researchers suggest, larger populations,” says Pezaro. “And many
could have been triggered by the evolution of today’s populations are nowhere near the
of hot-bloodedness and egg-brooding sizes they were at their historic peaks.” That
A sexual revolution behaviour, which maintained incubating means they have less of the raw material on
So how will things pan out for these species eggs at consistent, warm temperatures. The which evolution can get to work. And even
as global temperatures continue to rise? Will evolution of sex chromosomes might have if they can adapt, they may not be able to
populations become trapped in a runaway contributed to the rise of birds in the fossil evolve fast enough if the rate of temperature
male bias and go extinct? That is certainly a record some 150 million years ago. Meanwhile, change outpaces the speed at which they
possibility. However, a study by Pezaro and some researchers believe that continued can reproduce.
others suggests there may be a way out, one reliance on temperature-dependent sex Here is yet another reason why we need
that appears to have been used in the past. determination may have played a role in the to act now to limit climate change and
According to their model, a prolonged eventual demise of the dinosaurs. Birds are environmental degradation. Our efforts
shortage of females could eventually trigger their only descendants alive today. won’t just help polar bears on thin ice, they
the evolution of a primitive sex chromosome This evolutionary innovation could also be will also help turtles, tilapia and tuataras that
dictating female development. This might the saving strategy for today’s species that rely find themselves in increasingly hot water. ❚
begin with a chance event in which one or on temperature to determine sex. Some of the
more genes become mutated, causing them to fish involved already have sex chromosomes,
switch off the genes that regulate an embryo’s so the solution for them could be to simply Sofia Deleniv is a doctoral
thermal sensitivity. This would prevent it find a way to prevent temperature overriding student in neuroscience at
from developing into a male, whatever the these. And evidence suggests that turtles have the University of Oxford
temperature. The chromosome carrying these evolved sex chromosomes at least six times

Recruitment
POSTDOCTORAL POSITION - Vascular smooth muscle

and endothelial cell ion channels
NIH-funded postdoctoral position immediately available to study
physiological functions and pathological alterations in arterial
smooth muscle and endothelial cell ion channels. Projects include
studying blood pressure regulation by ion channels and regulation
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The University of Tennessee is an EEO/AA/Title VI/Title IX/Section
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Putting brilliant
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submits a technical proposal that responds to a research opportunity
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48 | New Scientist | 22 February 2020 newscientistjobs.com

Assistant/Associate/Full Teaching Professor

- Electrical and Computer Engineering -
Robotics
About the Opportunity:
The Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL)
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern
is hiring faculty at all levels to expand our program in coastal
University invites applications for Assistant/Associate/Full Teaching
ecosystems ecology. Scientists with an interest in collaborative,
Professor with a focus on Robotics
interdisciplinary studies on coastal estuaries, bays, marshes,
and/or coastal watersheds across the globe will be considered. Responsibilities:
Applicants from communities underrepresented in science, or with Northeastern University’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
a strong history of service to these communities, are particularly seeks outstanding candidates for the position of Assistant/associate/
encouraged. Candidates applying at the Associate or Senior level full teaching professor with a focus on Robotics. This is a full-time,
should demonstrate the potential to take a leadership role in the EHQH¿WVHOLJLEOHQRQWHQXUHWUDFNSRVLWLRQ$SSRLQWPHQWVDUHPDGHRQ
Plum Island Ecosystems Long-Term Ecological Research program an annual 8-month basis, with salary commensurate with experience.
(pie-lter.ecosystems.mbl.edu/) or the Semester in Environmental The position of Assistant Teaching professor entails educational
Science (mbl.edu/ses/). We seek candidates with diverse areas interaction with students in roles including, but not limited to, traditional
of research expertise, including, but not limited to, biogeochemistry instruction (lecture courses, lab courses), curriculum development, and
and its controls, trophic interactions, ecological modeling, and student advising. The main responsibility of this position is teaching
community and ecosystem ecology. Top priority will be given to courses related to robotics, including kinematics, dynamics, and control
candidates demonstrating interest in conducting research within of robots, design of microprocessor-based control systems, sensory
the broad context of global climate change and other anthropogenic devices, output actuators, numerical methods, state estimation,
LQÀXHQFHVRQWKHFRDVWDO]RQH control, perception, localization and mapping, motion planning, and
the ROS (Robotic Operating System) environment. Also expected to
The Ecosystems Center (mbl.edu/ecosystems/) was founded four
teach courses in embedded systems, digital logic design, computer
decades ago to investigate the structure and functioning of ecological
organization and/or programming.
systems and predict their responses to changing environmental
conditions. The current faculty is highly collaborative, with strength The annual teaching course load is six courses, with the potential for
in biogeochemistry, ecological modeling, microbial ecology, teaching more than one section of a course in the same semester, over
microbial dynamics, plant-soil interactions, coastal processes, Fall and Spring semesters. Courses may be at both the undergraduate
and adaption to life on land (mbl.edu/ecosystems/faculty/). and graduate levels.
Ecosystems faculty also collaborate with other groups at MBL with 4XDOL¿FDWLRQV
expertise in molecular evolution, functional genomics, microbial
A PhD in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer
diversity, developmental and regenerative biology, bioinformatics,
Science, teaching experience, is required. Candidates should have
and advanced imaging techniques. MBL’s initiative in coastal
demonstrated experience robotics and related subareas. At least
ecosystems ecology complements other strategic initiatives at
2 years’ experience in teaching at the college/university level is
MBL involving microbiome research, the development of aquatic
recommended. Excellent written and oral communication skills are
organisms as new research tools, and advanced imaging and
required. Industrial experience is desirable, but not required.
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WR GLYHUVLW\$OO TXDOL¿HG DSSOLFDQWV ZLOO UHFHLYH FRQVLGHUDWLRQ IRU references. A sample syllabus from a previously taught class is optional
employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national but recommended.
origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation or protected Salary Grade: FAC
veteran status.
Additional Information:
4XDOL¿FDWLRQV Northeastern University is an equal opportunity employer, seeking to
Applicants must hold a Ph.D. (or equivalent advanced degree) recruit and support a broadly diverse community of faculty and staff.
LQ D UHOHYDQW ¿HOG 7KH VXFFHVVIXO FDQGLGDWH ZLOO GHPRQVWUDWH Northeastern values and celebrates diversity in all its forms and strives
an interest in collaborative, interdisciplinary work, as well as a WR IRVWHU DQ LQFOXVLYH FXOWXUH EXLOW RQ UHVSHFW WKDW DI¿UPV LQWHUJURXS
strong potential for establishing a vigorous extramurally supported relations and builds cohesion.
research program that can complement existing areas of strength. $OO TXDOL¿HG DSSOLFDQWV DUH HQFRXUDJHG WR DSSO\ DQG ZLOO UHFHLYH
consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color,
Applications should be submitted at https://academicjobsonline.
national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability status, or any
org/ajo/jobs/15843
other characteristic protected by applicable law.
Applications received by March 15 will receive full consideration; To learn more about Northeastern University’s commitment and support
KRZHYHU DSSOLFDWLRQV ZLOO EH DFFHSWHG XQWLO WKH SRVLWLRQ LV ¿OOHG of diversity and inclusion, please see www.northeastern.edu/diversity
Inquiries about the position should be directed to Dr. Anne Giblin,
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newscientistjobs.com 22 February 2020 | New Scientist| 49

The back pages

Puzzles Feedback Twisteddoodles Almost the last word The Q&A
A cryptic crossword, A case of nominative for New Scientist Mulberry juice stains Elisabeth Bik, science
plus the quick quiz contradeterminism: A cartoonist’s take and cold fingers: sleuth, on research
and puzzle p52 the week in weird p53 on the world p53 readers respond p54 and cheating p56
Science of cooking Week 8
Make a better batter

Texture, bubbles and browning: Sam Wong uncovers
the science of perfect pancakes
SHROVE Tuesday, which this year

falls on 25 February, is marked
in some countries by making
pancakes. At their simplest, they
use a batter of flour, eggs and
milk. This works well for thin,
crepe-style pancakes. But I’m
going to make fluffy US-style
pancakes, which need a thicker
Sam Wong is social media batter – and bubbles.
editor at New Scientist. As pancakes cook, starch
Follow him @samwong1 granules in the flour absorb water,
swell and burst. Starch molecules
stick to each other, turning the
What you need
JAMES WINSPEAR
batter into a soft solid. Flour also
300 grams plain flour contains proteins that, in the
1 teaspoon of baking powder presence of water, link together
Half a teaspoon of sodium in a network of long chains. We
bicarbonate call this gluten. Along with egg
1 teaspoon of salt proteins, gluten contributes to the Science of cooking online
1 tablespoon of sugar structure of a pancake. But unlike All projects are posted at
2 eggs a bread dough, we want to limit newscientist.com/cooking Email: cooking@newscientist.com
600 millilitres buttermilk gluten development in the batter
60 grams melted butter to keep the texture of the pancake
Maple syrup tender rather than chewy. That is instead of or as well as baking resulting pancake. If you see dark
why it should be made quickly, powder – in this recipe we add spots on the pancake, it might
For next week with minimal stirring. both. If you don’t have buttermilk, mean the bicarb needs mixing
Large jar Baking powder is one way to you can substitute it with ordinary more thoroughly into the batter.
Cabbage produce bubbles. It contains an milk with a tablespoon of lemon To make my pancakes, mix all
Spring onion alkali – sodium bicarbonate (or juice for every 250 millilitres. the dry ingredients together. In
Salt, garlic, ginger, chilli bicarb) – along with an acid The batter’s pH also influences another bowl, beat the eggs and
(usually potassium bitartrate) and how quickly the pancake browns add the buttermilk and melted
Next in the series some starch to absorb moisture. as it cooks. We encountered this butter. Then mix the two together
1 Caramelising onions Add liquid, and the acid and alkali principle in an earlier column and drop a ladleful into a lightly
2 Making cheese can react together, producing when caramelising onions. In oiled pan on a medium heat. Cook
3 Science of crispiness carbon dioxide. The reaction is pancakes, too, alkaline conditions until nicely browned on both
4 Tofu and Sichuan pepper helped along by heat when the speed up the Maillard reactions sides, and serve with maple syrup.
5 Gravlax and curing batter hits the frying pan. Batters between amino acids and sugars If you add blueberries to the
6 Tempering chocolate containing baking powder should that give us the brown colour and batter and they turn green, your
7 Umami and flavour be cooked straight away, otherwise delicious flavour we’re looking for. mix is too alkaline. Anthocyanin
8 Perfect pancakes the gas will escape before cooking. In his book The Food Lab, J. Kenji and related pigments in fruit are
9 Kimchi/fermentation Alternatively, you can include López-Alt demonstrates this by sensitive to pH and change colour
Create a tasty acidic ingredients, such as cooking five batches of pancakes in alkaline environments (for
microbial ecosystem buttermilk or sour cream, then with different amounts of bicarb. more on these fruit pigments
10 Sourdough bread add sodium bicarbonate, either The more there is, the darker the see Almost the last word, page 54). ❚

The back pages Puzzles
Cryptic crossword #25 Set by Sparticle Quick quiz #39 Puzzle set by Zoe Mensch
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The back pages Feedback
Named Ron on a cave floor without moving

for seven years?
Twisteddoodles for New Scientist
We have been such good little LO: Stick around long enough
Feedbacks over the past few and I’ll make it eight.
weeks that the powers that be NS: The comedian Tim Minchin
have allowed us to indulge in a tweeted that you might in fact be
little illicit nominative determinism, a depressed salamander, and that
so long as we keep it quick and open before accusing you of laziness
the windows after we’re finished. we should check our privilege.
Annie Brown writes in with the Do you think that’s fair?
following newspaper clippings, LO: Why – is it overflowing?
one from The Guardian, noting that NS: Is what overflowing?
“Australia’s biggest wheat farmer, LO: My privy ledge. It’s hard to
Ron Greentree, faces more charges lie down for seven years without
of illegal land clearing”, and another generating a spot of run-off.
from The Sydney Morning Herald on NS: Changing the subject
the same topic: “In his limited spare as adroitly as we are now
time, Mr Greentree pursues a family changing position, do you
passion for the woodchop.” have any hobbies?
Annie isn’t sure what the opposite LO: Yes.
of nominative determinism is, but NS: Do any of them not involve
says this must surely qualify. Well prolonged naps on the floor of
Annie, we have an answer for you. a damp cave?
A quick search of the Feedback LO: No, although I am considering
archives reveals it to be nominative capitalising on my new-found
contradeterminism. fame by launching a lifestyle
brand.
NS: Finally, what would you say
Olm sweet olm to the Twitter user who joked
A few weeks ago, New Scientist that it was only natural to axolotl What’s more, it is absolutely also have noted the rise of
published a story about a questions? indisputable that it contains nonsense words such as “ur”, but
cave-dwelling olm in Bosnia LO: And you call me lazy. 14 words. And as a little light who are we to doubt their vibe.
and Herzegovina that appeared mathematics will verify, 14 words There are all sorts of
not to have moved in seven years. go into 4 minutes and 1 second explanations for this morose
An olm is a sort of translucent
Stay in ur lane quite a few times indeed. trend. Perhaps people are
salamander with a highly Feedback’s capacity for musical We have absolutely no hesitation genuinely getting more miserable.
instagrammable face, and so the appreciation ranks somewhere in describing this as a bona fide Or perhaps people were always
internet was naturally transfixed. below that of your average olm. But sound of the summer. Provided the this miserable, and musicians
Many of our readers identified even we found ourselves bopping summer is a person who does sums have only now realised there is
with the lazy little thing and its along this week to a track released and that person is Elon Musk. money to be made in catering
desire to carve out a moment to by a little-known artist called Elon to their gloom.
itself amid the bustle of modern Musk. Musk, we gather from a light Or, perhaps perhaps (this is the
life. So Feedback was keen to get perusal of the web, moonlights as
La vie en rose technically correct way of stacking
in touch with it to see what it something of a tech entrepreneur. On which note (aha), our eye was perhapses, incidentally*), modern
made of the fuss. His true calling, however, is as a caught by a story in The Times lyrics preface words like “hate” and
After weeks of looking, we professional megamixologist, if the charting the glumification of “pain” with other words like “let’s
eventually managed to track the success of Don’t Doubt ur Vibe is popular songs. An analysis of not” and “I feel no”, which makes
olm down, in the exact same spot to be believed. Not only did Don’t lyrics dating from 1965 to 2015 everything all right again. ❚
where it was last seen… Doubt ur Vibe make the SoundCloud revealed a decline in cheery words
top 10 for an unspecific period of such as “love” and “joy” and a rise *OK, this isn’t technically correct.
New Scientist: Are you the time, but it did so with the noted in gloomy words such as “hate” The ever-vigilant New Scientist
lazy olm? drawback of being almost and “pain”. subeditors allowed us to keep this
Lazy olm: Who’s asking? impossible to listen to. Had the researchers extended in only if we added a disclaimer
NS: New Scientist. Whether you would describe their analysis to 2020, they might immediately afterwards.
LO: Never heard of you. the electric car pioneer’s oeuvre as
NS: That’s hardly surprising, is battery acid house or future garage,
it, it’s not like you get out much. what cannot be denied is that the Got a story for Feedback?
LO: Fair enough. What do you song is 4 minutes and 1 second Send it to New Scientist, 25 Bedford Street,
want, anyway? I’m busy. long. On that, we think even the London WC2E 9ES or you can email us at
NS: Doing what? Lying down sternest critic would agree. feedback@newscientist.com

The back pages Almost the last word
How do you silence those

Unripe mulberries
catchy tunes that go round
Why does the juice of unripe, and round in your head?
red mulberries remove the
stains on your hands from to diminished dexterity in cold
ripe, black mulberries? conditions. There are receptors in
the forearm muscles, which detect
Mulberries and milk muscle position, but these aren’t
affected by ambient temperature,
If you dip fabric stained by mulberry due to their location deep within
juice briefly in boiling milk, the the forearm muscles themselves.
stain is instantly removed. How Second, not all of the muscles
YAY MEDIA AS/ALAMY

does this very old and largely that move the hand are found
forgotten remedy work? in the forearm. Many muscles
required for precise finger
David Muir movements are intrinsic to the
Edinburgh, UK hand, and it is feasible that their
In answer to both questions, This week’s new questions function could be impaired by
the purple, blue and red colours temperature extremes. However,
in many fruits are due to pigments Let it go Why, when we hear some tunes, do they stick in our the first explanation is probably
called anthocyanins. These heads for days on end? How do earworms get in, and what the most relevant.
chemicals are pH-sensitive is the best way to get rid of them? Clare Wilson, London, UK
and will change or lose colour Pam Lunn
depending on the acidity of Lend a hand Is there any evolutionary advantage to Kenilworth, Warwickshire, UK
their environment. humans being right or left-handed? Does handedness The question, printed on
The stain-removing capacity exist in other animals? Hugh Cartwright, Victoria, Canada 18 January, was, coincidentally,
of unripe mulberries and milk is answered on page 14 of the same
due to their acidity. Unripe fruits issue, “Arm heater keeps your
are more acidic than ripe ones, of water, proteins and other This means that our brain can hands warm without gloves”:
hence their sour taste. Milk is also biomolecules) but the pigment send out the correct signals to our “much of the problem is due to
acidic. The acidity in mulberries molecules in each are different. muscles but the feedback through the body shutting down blood
is due to citric and ascorbic acids Perhaps the red molecules bind the cold nerves in our fingers and flow to peripheral areas.”
and that in milk to lactic acid. less strongly to skin, or are more hands is impaired.
I suspect that the mulberry water soluble. Applying red The brain relies on this Geraint Jones
stains are acting as a pH-indicator mulberry juice to a dark feedback to tell it if an action Holywell, Flintshire, UK
rather like phenolphthalein, which mulberry stain therefore applies has had the desired effect. If the We fumble because low external
many will have encountered in more of the solvent, mixing it cold has numbed the nerves in temperature causes the body to
school chemistry lessons. It is back into a solution and making our hands then the brain can’t restrict blood flow to the hands.
intensely coloured in some it easier to wash off. get the same quality of feedback, The network of tiny capillaries
solutions, but turns colourless A similar principle applies to the resulting in clumsy movements in the hand constrict to reduce
when the pH falls. Lowering the idea of using white wine to remove and fumbling fingers. blood flow. If you then warm your
pH doesn’t remove the stain, red wine stains. As alcohol is the fingers quickly, the capillaries
but does remove the colour. solvent in this case, a stronger Steve Jacques rapidly swell once more. The pain
The same principle can provide drink is even better and so red University of Leicester Medical then is quite an uncomfortable
entertainment after cooking red wine stains are best removed School, UK experience. Warming up the
cabbage. Any purple waste water with colourless spirits like vodka. There are two relevant effects, forearms ensures an adequate
can be turned a variety of colours one concerning sensation in the return of pre-warmed blood to
when samples are mixed with Fumbling fingers hands and the second concerning the hands/fingers and increases
kitchen chemicals of different pH, the muscles of the hand. dexterity in gloveless fingers.
such as vinegar and baking soda. Given that the muscles that work our First, temperature can affect To prove this works, cool both
fingers are in our forearms, why do the activity of receptors in the hands, then warm one forearm.
Lewis O’Shaughnessy we fumble when we have cold, bare skin, hence it may be the case Test the dexterity of both hands.
London, UK hands, but warm, clothed arms? that cold hands have impaired Repeat the process with the
Any colouring agent, whether it sensation, which will contribute other arm. ❚
is fruit juice, paint or ink, contains Thomas Fox
two parts: a pigment and a solvent, Fortrose, Highland, UK
which carries the pigment and The main reason is that, although Want to send us a question or answer?
eventually evaporates. Red and the muscles that control our Email us at lastword@newscientist.com
black mulberries presumably fingers are in our arms, the Questions should be about everyday science phenomena
contain the same solvent (a mix touch receptors are in our fingers. Full terms and conditions at newscientist.com/lw-terms

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The back pages Q&A

How do people react to you pointing out
their mistakes?
When I started in 2014, I was met with a lot of
scepticism. Not many people, including journal
editors and people at the institutions I wrote
to, believed that scientists could be cheating.
The majority of papers that I reported in 2014
and 2015 have not been corrected or retracted.
But that attitude has been slowly changing.
Did you have to overcome any particular

challenges to get where you are today?
Yes. I quit my paid job in industry to be able to do
Elisabeth Bik is a full-time scientific this full time. And not unexpectedly, many authors
sleuth. Using only her eyes, she scans do not appreciate it when I flag their papers due to
thousands of academic papers to duplicated images or other problems.
detect signs of wrongdoing. But her If you could send a message back to yourself
as a kid, what would you say?
“Some images
efforts to make things right are often
met with resistance, she says
Don’t worry that you are that weird, nerdy kid who look fine at first
wants to become an ornithologist at age 8, although
you might end up studying microbes instead. but then I see
So, what do you do?
I scan the biomedical literature for scientific papers Is there a discovery or achievement you wish
duplications
with duplicated images. There are several causes of you’d made yourself? and suddenly
I realise the
duplicates, ranging from honest errors to sloppy I have always been intrigued by Barry Marshall and
data management or deliberate intention to Robin Warren’s discovery that Helicobacter bacteria
mislead. If I find papers with image or other
concerns, I write to the editors of the journal or
cause gastric ulcers. It is such a great illustration of
how hard it can be to study microorganisms – not
whole image is
to the affiliated institutions. all of them can be grown easily in the lab. Marshall
ended up drinking an H. pylori culture to prove
photoshopped”
What's wrong with duplicates? they were right.
The duplicated images fall into three broad
categories. There is the simple duplication, in which If you could have a conversation with any
the whole photo is inserted twice within the same scientist living or dead, who would it be?
paper. This type is the most likely to be an honest Robert Koch, who discovered the Vibrio bacterium
mistake. The second category is a duplicated photo that causes cholera. I read one of his papers from the
that has been mirrored, flipped, rotated, shifted or 1800s and it is brilliant. I would also like to hear
stretched. These duplications are less likely to be Rosalind Franklin’s side of the story about the
errors, and more likely to have been done discovery of the structure of DNA.
intentionally. Thirdly, images that contain
duplicated cells or bands within the same photo are
the most likely to have been manipulated. Do you have an unexpected hobby, and
if so, please will you tell us about it?
Are the duplications hard to spot? I love gardening, such as pruning shrubs or
Some images in scientific papers look fine at first repairing sprinkler installations. I also collect
glance, but then I start to see duplicated parts, and tortoise and turtle figurines.
suddenly I realise that the whole image is
photoshopped. Some of these manipulated photos
are so elaborate that you wonder why the authors What’s the best thing you’ve read or seen
didn’t just perform the experiment instead. in the past 12 months?
Bad Blood, John Carreyrou’s book about the now-
How did you end up doing this? discredited tech firm Theranos. I was headhunted
I started out looking for papers containing to work there, and I am glad I turned that down.
plagiarised text. After a year of doing that, I
discovered some papers with duplicated images, How useful will your skills be after
and decided to perform a systematic scan of the the apocalypse?
biomedical literature. This quickly grew into a study I would be good at detecting zombie clones... ❚
with colleagues of over 20,000 papers, with about
4 per cent containing problematic images. We Elisabeth Bik’s blog is ScienceIntegrityDigest.com
estimate that about half of these duplications are @MicrobiomDigest #ImageForensics
done with the intention to mislead. BRIAN HAGIWARA/GETTY IMAGES

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