New Scientist??

UKRAINE WAR
DISINFORMATION
The fight against
online propaganda
SAVE OUR BUNNIES
Why it’s time to stop thinking
about rabbits as pests
LIFE ON MARS?
Rover ﬁnds tantalizing
haul of organic molecules
WEEKLY March 19 - 25, 2022
How a new kind of gravitational wave could

reveal the secrets of the early universe
No3378 US$6.99 CAN$9.99
PLUS AUSTRALIA’S PINK LAKE / THE MORALS OF SNEEZING /

ORIGINS OF THE MOON / TOADS CLIMB TREES / DIY HAUTE CUISINE
Science and technology news www.newscientist.com
This week’s issue
On the 8 Ukraine war

disinformation
46 Features
cover The fight against “How we
online propaganda
38 Ripples from sense the
the big bang 43 Save our bunnies
How a new kind of Why it’s time to stop thinking world is
gravitational wave
could reveal the secrets
about rabbits as pests
critical for
of the early universe 14 Life on Mars?
Rover finds tantalising haul
pretty much
of organic molecules
19 Australia’s pink lake
everything
27 The morals of sneezing in life”
15 Origins of the moon
Vol 253 No 3378 20 Toads climb trees
Cover image: Ollie Hirst 51 DIY haute cuisine
News Features
10 Food shock 38 Wave after wave
War in Ukraine is fuelling a News Now we have observed dozens
surge in food prices, but there of gravitational waves, we can
is a way to quickly boost supply solve some deep cosmic puzzles
12 Elixir of youth 43 Rabbits in a hole

A clue to young blood’s A mysterious viral disease is
rejuvenating effects putting bunnies in real trouble.
Can they be saved?
16 Covid-19 gamble
Iceland’s new strategy 46 Mimicking touch
targets herd immunity How to create artificial
sensations with chemicals
Views
The back pages
27 Comment
We have a moral duty to 51 The science of cooking
stop the spread of disease, How to master spherification
says Jonathan Goodman
53 Puzzles
28 The columnist Try our crossword, quick quiz
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein and logic puzzle
asks who space belongs to
54 Almost the last word
30 Aperture Why does sticking my tongue
Eye-catching flamingos out help me concentrate?
32 Letters 56 Feedback
Surely there is more to Giant gummy bears and moon
DAVID KLEYN/ALAMY
baby boomer misery? geese: the week in weird
34 Culture 56 Twisteddoodles
Downfall on Netflix makes for New Scientist
a case against Boeing 23 Is de-extinction doomed? Lessons from the Christmas Island rat Picturing the lighter side of life
19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 1

Elsewhere
on New Scientist
Virtual event Newsletter

Video
Why do we love? “UK doctors
Anthropologist Anna Machin
explains the why, how, who
advise
and what of human love.
Using the latest evidence from
smokers
neuroscience, genetics and that, if they
more, she explains how love
evolved as a form of biological can’t quit,
bribery and how we now know
that it is a crucial determining they should
factor in how long and healthy
switch to
DAVID STOCK
our lives are. Join us for this
virtual talk on 5 May at 6pm BST.
vaping”
newscientist.com/events
Astronomer Royal Martin Rees reflects on his life in science
Discovery tour
Discovery tour
Dark and
frozen matter
Prepare to have your mind blown
with a special tour of Europe’s
famous particle physics centre
VALENTIN FLAURAUD/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
CERN. The centre is nestled

near beautiful Geneva and after
visiting this Swiss city, you will
head to Mont Blanc to investigate
receding glaciers. This six-day
holiday will be guided by physicist
Darren Price and journalist Laura
Spinney. Find out more and check
out the available dates online.
newscientist.com/tours Going underground See the smashing science of CERN
Podcast
Weekly
Video Newsletter
This week, the team discuss Martin Rees interview Health Check
whether Russia’s war in Ukraine In a career spanning more than Get reporter Clare Wilson’s
will speed up the pivot to green half a century, Astronomer Royal delightful weekly newsletter Essential guide
energy. Plus we hear about a Martin Rees has contributed covering the world of health
virgin birth that has taken place to some of our most intriguing and fitness delivered free More than 3 billion years in the
in a mouse through the power theories about the universe. to your inbox. In the latest making, the latest New Scientist
of CRISPR gene editing. They also New Scientist’s executive editor edition, she looks at vaping. Essential Guide is a sweeping
cover fears that the Amazon may Richard Webb sat down with Is it to be welcomed as a survey of the history of life on our
soon pass a tipping point that him at his home in Cambridge, safer alternative to smoking planet, the wonders of biodiversity
would turn the whole system UK, to look back at his scientific or should it be avoided today – and the unique threats
into savannah, and the latest life and discuss everything from at all costs? it faces from human activity.
news from two rovers on Mars. black holes to billionaires. newscientist.com/ Available to purchase now.
newscientist.com/nspod youtube.com/newscientist healthcheck shop.newscientist.com
2 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

OU
TN
OW
ESSENTIAL GUIDES
!
ESSENTIAL GUIDE№11
LIFE ON EARTH
It’s a story over 3 billion years in the making. Immerse yourself in our
unique living planet with this latest New Scientist Essential Guide, with topics
from life’s mysterious origins and its evolutionary leaps and missteps to
today’s wondrous biosphere and the unprecedented threats it faces.
BUY IT IN PRINT NOW AT:

SHOP.NEWSCIENTIST.COM/EG11
Buy it digitally via the New Scientist iOS or Google Play App
The leader
Phoney war
The internet is a key battleground between truth and lies about the Ukraine invasion
THE ever-growing threats of cyberwarfare lack of an all-out cyberwar on Ukraine radiation leak from one of Ukraine’s
and online disinformation are now by Russia. As detailed on page 9, we are captured nuclear power plants is unlikely
in the spotlight amid Russia’s invasion yet to see the kinds of crippling digital (see page 7). Any leak caused by bombing
of Ukraine. With the NATO military infrastructure attacks that had been or safety lapses would probably be carried
alliance reluctant to establish a no-fly predicted. In part, this is likely to be by wind into Russia itself, making this an
zone over Ukraine, or engage in any other because, after years of such attacks, undesirable outcome for Russian forces.
actions that could ignite a much wider Ukraine has learned to defend itself. Cyberwarfare and nuclear issues have
conflict, the internet has inevitably been the subject of New Scientist reporting
become a key battleground. “The invasion of Ukraine is for decades. As this issue went to press,
But that isn’t to say there haven’t been characterised by a much larger there was concern that two other threats
surprises. On page 8, one expert expresses wave of false information” we have followed closely over the years –
shock at the volume of online fake news biological and chemical weapons – might
about the war. Clearly, the invasion isn’t However, Russia may also now be be deployed. In spreading disinformation
the first war associated with this issue – hemmed in by the fact that the fate of that the US has been developing biological
researchers and think tanks have also its attempt to occupy Ukraine is tied armaments in Ukraine, the fear is that
monitored online propaganda in other up with the functioning of the country. Russia is setting the stage to use biological
recent conflicts, including in Syria and Taking down communication lines or and chemical weapons. This troubling
Libya – but it is characterised by a much the power grid would make operations development is a reminder that, even
larger wave of false information. harder for Russian forces. in the age of the internet, war is still life
Another surprise has been the apparent For similar reasons, a significant or death for those in the firing line. ❚
PUBLISHING & COMMERCIAL EDITORIAL

Commercial and events director Adrian Newton Chief executive Nina Wright Editor Emily Wilson
Display advertising Executive assistant Lorraine Lodge Executive editor Richard Webb
Team administrator Olivia Abbott Creative director Craig Mackie
Tel +44 (0)203 615 6456 Email displayads@newscientist.com
Sales director Justin Viljoen Finance & operations News
Account manager Matthew Belmoh Chief financial officer Amee Dixon News editor Penny Sarchet
Account manager Simon Matthews Financial controller Taryn Skorjenko Editors Jacob Aron, Sam Wong
Commercial finance manager Charlotte Thabit Assistant news editor Alexandra Thompson
Recruitment advertising Reporters (UK) Michael Le Page, Matthew Sparkes,
Management accountant Dani Duffy
Tel +44 (0)203 615 6458 Email nssales@newscientist.com Management accountant Charlie Robinson Adam Vaughan, Clare Wilson
Recruitment sales manager Viren Vadgama (Aus) Alice Klein
Key account manager Deepak Wagjiani Human resources Trainees Jason Arunn Murugesu, Alex Wilkins
Human resources director Shirley Spencer Interns Chen Ly, Carissa Wong
New Scientist Events HR business partner Katy Le Poidevin
Tel +44 (0)203 615 6554 Email live@newscientist.com Digital
Sales director Jacqui McCarron Digital editor Conrad Quilty-Harper
Head of event production Martin Davies Podcast editor Rowan Hooper
Head of product management (Events, Courses CONTACT US Web team Emily Bates, Matt Hambly,
& Commercial Projects) Henry Gomm newscientist.com/contact Alexander McNamara, David Stock
Marketing manager Emiley Partington General & media enquiries Features
Events and projects executive Georgia Peart US PO Box 80247, Portland, OR 97280 Head of features Catherine de Lange
New Scientist Discovery Tours UK Tel +44 (0)203 615 6500 Editors Abigail Beall, Daniel Cossins,
Director Kevin Currie Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT Anna Demming, Kate Douglas, Alison George,
Australia 58 Gipps Street, Collingwood, Victoria 3066 Joshua Howgego, Helen Thomson
Marketing & Data
Marketing director Jo Adams US Newsstand Tel +1 973 909 5819 Feature writer Graham Lawton
Head of campaign marketing James Nicholson Distributed by Time Inc. Retail, a division of Meredith Culture and Community
Head of customer experience Emma Robinson Corporation, 6 Upper Pond Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054 Comment and culture editor Alison Flood
Head of audience data Rachael Dunderdale Syndication Tribune Content Agency Senior culture editor Liz Else
Data and analytics manager Ebun Rotimi Tel 1-800-346-8798 Email tca-articlesales@tribpub.com Subeditors
Digital marketing manager Craig Walker Subscriptions newscientist.com/subscribe Chief subeditor Eleanor Parsons
Senior customer experience Tel 1 888 822 3242 Bethan Ackerley, Tom Campbell,
marketing manager Esha Bhabuta Email subscriptions.us@newscientist.com Chris Simms, Jon White
Senior marketing executive Sahad Ahmed Post New Scientist, PO Box 3806,
Marketing assistant Charlotte Weeks Design
Chesterfield MO 63006-9953
Art editor Julia Lee
Digital Products Joe Hetzel, Ryan Wills
Digital product development director Laurence Taylor
Head of learning experience Finola Lang © 2022 New Scientist Ltd, England. Picture desk
New Scientist ISSN 0262 4079 is published weekly except Picture editor Helen Benians
Technology for the last week in December by New Scientist Ltd, England. Tim Boddy
Chief operations officer International New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387. New Scientist Limited,
Production
Debora Brooksbank-Taylor 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016
Technology director Tom McQuillan Production manager Joanne Keogh
Maria Moreno Garrido, Dan Pudsey, Amardeep Sian, Robin Burton
Ben Townsend, Piotr Walków Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and New Scientist US
other mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to US Editor Tiffany O’Callaghan
New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA. Editors Timothy Revell, Chelsea Whyte
Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in USA
Reporter Leah Crane
by Fry Communications Inc, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

News focus Ukraine invasion
Satellite photo of the

Chernobyl site taken
on 10 March
operational nuclear power plants.

These are of a newer design than
Chernobyl, known as VVER, that
is safer and easier to operate.
As New Scientist went to press,
the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power
plant, in the south of Ukraine,
is the only one under Russian
control, although forces are
closing in on others. The IAEA
reports that the Russian state
nuclear company Rosatom
now has 11 of its staff on site.
MAXAR/DIGITALGLOBE/GETTY IMAGES
On 12 March, the Ukrainian

nuclear regulator informed
the IAEA that it believed Russia
was planning to take full and
permanent control of the plant,
which was later denied by Russia.
Middleburgh says it is
irresponsible for Russian forces to
Nuclear safety interfere in the operation of these
plants. “It’s like throwing a friend
Ukraine’s nuclear peril your car keys and just expecting

them to know where all the
buttons are,” he says. “As soon
as you start disrupting their safe
Russian forces have threatened safety at nuclear power plants, working practices and the ability
but a serious incident is considered unlikely, says Matthew Sparkes for them to get raw materials
and tools, that’s when incidents
THREE weeks into Russia’s radiation levels, which was put it was impossible to actively cool start happening. Not necessarily
invasion of Ukraine, concerns are down to Russian tanks disturbing ponds containing nuclear waste. radiological incidents, but
growing about the safety of several contaminated dust. Since then, Electrical lines were repaired and people are going to start hurting
nuclear sites across the country. many radiation sensors around power was due to be restored, but themselves. Bad health and safety
But the risk of a serious incident the plant have been offline and the IAEA said on 15 March that the practices start creeping in.”
is thought to be low despite communications between plant lines had again been damaged by While the VVER reactors have
Russian troops having disrupted workers and regulators have been the Russian military. It also warned sophisticated safety systems that
normal safety procedures. Simon sporadic at best. in a statement on 13 March that will be a crucial crutch during any
Middleburgh at Bangor University Scientists who had been staff were no longer carrying out period of upheaval, Middleburgh
in the UK says the circumstances working at the site were unable says the less predictable
are serious and Russia’s actions in to access their laboratories “If they don’t get a handle Chernobyl site is an outlier. “If
regard to nuclear sites in Ukraine because Russian troops controlled on things then I could they don’t get a handle on things,
have been “completely reckless”, the plant. One of these scientists, conceivably see a minor then I could conceivably see a
but that a significant radiation who asked to remain anonymous, leak from Chernobyl” minor leak from Chernobyl. I don’t
release is unlikely. told New Scientist on 14 March think it would be major, but I can
Ukraine is home to Chernobyl, that those staff remaining on repair and maintenance of safety see things going south,” he says.
the site of the infamous 1986 the site were doing their best equipment due to their “physical Russia is strongly motivated to
nuclear disaster, as well as four to maintain safety. and psychological fatigue”. avoid disaster. Prevailing winds
operational nuclear plants and The International Atomic IAEA director general Rafael make it likely that any nuclear
a small reactor used for research. Energy Agency (IAEA) has Mariano Grossi called on Russia to incident in Ukraine would carry
The situation at Chernobyl has complained that workers have allow an international team access the vast majority of the fallout
been tense since the first day of been held in poor conditions to ensure safety. So far Russian east, towards Russia.
the invasion when Russian troops without the chance to be replaced president Vladimir Putin hasn’t The IAEA and Ukraine’s nuclear
seized the site. Scientific monitors by new shifts. A power cut at accepted the request. regulator didn’t respond to a
detected a local increase in Chernobyl on 9 March meant Ukraine also has four request for an interview. ❚

Technology
How to fight disinformation

Researchers and fact checkers are debunking a huge amount of online propaganda
and fake news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reports Chris Stokel-Walker
THE fog of war makes it difficult A protest in Dublin,
enough to know what is going Ireland, against the
on in Ukraine, but deliberate war in Ukraine
disinformation being shared
by the Russian government and trying to do the right thing,
pro-Russia social media users but take information that hasn’t
is tinting our view of events. been verified and mislabel it,
“Tidal waves of disinformation or share things that happened
accompany crisis,” says Joan a while ago,” he says.
Donovan at Harvard University. Debunking some claims can be
For example, the Russian Embassy difficult. “Generally, it’s not easy to
in the UK claimed in social media prove that something is false,” says
posts on 10 March, without Baker. Some of the easiest things
providing credible evidence, to disprove are photos or videos
that a pregnant woman injured that it is claimed show one thing,
in the bombing of a maternity but are falsified or repurposed.
hospital in the Ukrainian city of Take, for instance, footage that
PA IMAGES/ALAMY
Mariupol was an actor. Twitter claims to show an ongoing attack,
and Facebook removed the but is actually from a previous war
posts for being disinformative. or is even a clip from a video game.
TikTok has also struggled with Finding the original version
disinformation, from a falsified There are two basic strategies approach is sensible, tackling that predates the claim can quash
video of a paratrooper parachuting pursued by organisations that disinformation if it breaks out a rumour before it gains ground.
into Ukraine in the early days aim to seek out and debunk of those niche communities into That is often done by image-
of the invasion to Russian disinformation, says Al Baker the mainstream. Social media matching technology, by
influencers all giving the same at Logically, an AI-powered analytics tools such as BuzzSumo, geolocating footage using image
pro-Russia speech in videos. fact-checking organisation in the Meltwater and CrowdTangle – metadata or from details in the
UK. “You can either try to find which is owned by Meta, image. If a road sign in some
disinformation narratives which the owner of Facebook and footage is in Arabic, but the claim
Spot it at the source are emerging or disinformation Instagram – can track the spread is that it is from Kyiv in Ukraine,
“I’m a little shocked how much narratives gaining traction of posts as they are shared by an it is probably from another time
disinformation there is,” says on social media networks you increasing number of people. and place.
Lukas Andriukaitis at the Atlantic would not normally expect them “If we see something suspicious, Truth may be harder to
Council, a US think tank. “It’s to have that sort of traction,” then we can take a deeper look,” discern in other videos. “Twitter
basically a fire hose of fake news.” he says. The fake news is either says Andriukaitis. At the Digital is flooded with amateur video
The Atlantic Council has tracked spotted at the source or as it footage,” says Baker. “One of the
disinformation for years through is beginning to gain ground “I’m a little shocked at compounding factors is this is a
conflicts, including Syria, Libya, in the mainstream. how much disinformation war zone and there’s very little in
the Russian invasion of Crimea Finding disinformation as it is there is. It’s basically a the way of reliable, on-the-ground
and the ongoing war in the created involves trawling through fire hose of fake news” information you can verify
Donbas region of Ukraine, the murkier parts of the digital independently or trust because
but has never seen as much world. “There are elements of Forensic Research Lab, part of it comes from reputable news
disinformation being spread the internet where all people do the Atlantic Council, he and organisations.”
wittingly and unwittingly as today. is share things that are obviously his colleagues scrape data from Despite the challenges involved
However, non-governmental false,” says Baker, pointing to social media and create maps in debunking fake news, it is
organisations, researchers, social groups on messaging app Telegram of potential disinformation essential work. “My research team
media platforms and journalists that are affiliated with QAnon, a spreaders – people known to firmly believes we have a right
are calling out disinformation conspiracy movement that has share inauthentic content. to truth and the public has a right
about the Russian invasion of been described as a cult. “You don’t Inadvertent dissemination to the truth,” says Donovan. “If we
Ukraine as it spreads across the want to spend your time combing of incorrect information is as big give up that right – because social
internet. They do so using a through those channels and a challenge as state-sponsored media as a technology is so chaotic
combination of high-tech tools, debunking every single thing.” attempts to muddy the waters, and exploitable – then it’s only
intuition and plenty of practice. Instead, a more targeted he says. “So many people are going to get worse.” ❚

Cyberwarfare
Why hasn’t Russia waged an

all-out cyberwar against Ukraine?
Matthew Sparkes
AS RUSSIAN forces built up advantage to launch devastating Microsoft and Google, also
near the Ukraine border at attacks on a country in which it gave free tools and licences
the start of this year, tensions has thousands of troops. “We have to Ukrainian organisations,
grew over whether an invasion enough eyes on Russian actors which are being used to spot
would occur. At the same time, to have a pretty fair idea of what and stop attacks.
there were numerous digital is, and what is not, happening. “Maybe Ukrainian cyber
BEATA ZAWRZEL/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

incursions over the border, Broadly speaking, we expected defences are a lot better than
as cyberattacks affected key cyberwarfare to play a bigger part we’d expected,” says Stevens.
Ukrainian infrastructure. in this war,” he says. “But let’s not “Your allies can help you to
In the middle of January, the forget, it’s been playing a very big improve your cyber defences,
so-called WhisperGate attack part for the past seven, eight years and maybe they’re just quite good
took down around 70 Ukrainian in Ukraine, which you could view at repelling some of those attacks.
government websites, and on as the first phase of a war. It’s just When push comes to shove, it may
15 February a cyberattack briefly that when the main, conventional be that the Russians have tried
disrupted two Ukrainian state- phase of military operations stuff, but we’ve either not seen
owned banks. The UK’s National started, it seems to have been them or they’ve been repulsed.”
Cyber Security Centre said days pushed to one side.” Security alert on a mobile The technical security and
later that it already had evidence Russia may be wary of bringing website for the Ukrainian intelligence service of Ukraine
that meant it was “almost certain” down internet connections, bank Oschadbank claimed in a tweet that attempted
the Main Intelligence Directorate, phone networks and power grids distributed denial-of-service
the Russian military’s foreign that its own military will also (DDoS) attacks designed to bring
intelligence agency, was involved.
Malware attacks targeting
Ukrainian institutions and
be relying on, says Stevens.
Ukraine has also had outside
help to stop cyberattacks, and this
70
Ukrainian government websites
down government websites had
been continuous throughout
the war, but had been largely
infrastructure were also launched may have shored-up defences and hit by WhisperGate attack unsuccessful. “The only thing
on 23 February, the day before the limited the effectiveness of any the occupants managed to do was
Russian invasion. These carried
on through the first two days of
hostilities, according to digital
attempts. Two days before the
invasion, the Lithuanian defence
ministry announced that it was
2
Ukrainian state-owned banks
to substitute the front pages at
the sites of some local authorities,”
it said. “We will endure! On the
security firm ESET. While these leading a team of international disrupted by cyberattacks battlefields and in the cyberspace!”
attacks were disruptive, they cyber specialists to help bolster Ukrainian citizens are also
came nowhere near the worst-
case scenario expected by some:
that an all-out cyberwar would
Ukraine’s defences, and the US
and UK have also sent experts to
Ukraine to assist. A host of security
500+
Hackers in a volunteer group
engaged in cyberwarfare with
Russia. One Ukrainian computer
programmer, now working
coincide with a military invasion. companies, as well as tech giants targeting Russian institutions outside the country, told New
“After two weeks of atrocities Scientist that when war broke
in the shape of physical war, the out, he quickly formed a
cyber threat is yet to create the hacktivist group to attack Russia.
impact to businesses and people The hacker, who asked not to
around the world once predicted,” be named, now runs a volunteer
says Jake Moore at ESET. group of more than 500 members
Ukraine has experienced who target Russian institutions
regular cyberattacks since 2014, in DDoS attacks. “There are other
with targets including electronic groups, of course; mine is small
voting machines and the country’s but active and effective,” he says.
power grid. Tim Stevens at King’s “People do it for free, from
ARIS MESSINIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
College London says this may have morning till late evening.”
honed Ukraine’s defensive skills, The international activist
but it may also not be to Russia’s hacker group Anonymous
also claims to be seeing success
People leaving the in attacking Russia, including
city of Irpin, Ukraine, interrupting broadcast television
on 10 March to display anti-war messages. ❚

Economics
How to ease global food shock

The US and Europe could compensate for the loss of Ukraine’s grain exports
by scrapping biofuel mandates, reports Michael Le Page
THE war in Ukraine has already a major effect on food prices.
caused food prices to shoot up as Higher food prices hit those
global markets anticipate a loss of with the lowest incomes the
wheat and maize exports from one hardest, and can contribute to
of the world’s largest producers of political unrest such as the 2011
these crops. But Europe and the US Arab Spring. “Hunger may go
could more than compensate for up significantly,” says Qaim.
the loss of Ukraine’s exports by “It’s profoundly immoral to
diverting crops destined to be try to solve a shortage of energy
made into biofuels into food by creating a shortage of food,”
production instead. This would says Brunner.
bring food prices down and help In general, fuel price rises affect
prevent a major global food shock. those who can afford to drive cars
ANTON PETRUS/GETTY IMAGES
On 9 March, Ukraine banned and fly, whereas people with

most food exports to try to ensure low incomes spend most of their
that its people don’t go hungry as money on food, he says. “You are
Russian forces invade. taking food off the table of people
Food prices were already at the in the slums of Cairo to subsidise
highest levels for 40 years, says rich people driving SUVs.”
Matin Qaim at the University of “It’s a question of what you care
Bonn in Germany. This is for many Ukraine is one of relieve prices immediately,” says about most,” says Searchinger.
reasons, including poor harvests the world’s biggest Jason Hill at the University of Some proponents of bioenergy
because of extreme weather producers of wheat Minnesota in St Paul. “It would have argued that it provides a
driven by global warming. also send a signal that can be buffer that could be removed
Quickly increasing the global change this, says Ariel Brunner acted on immediately by farmers. during food shortages, he says,
supply of food crops is difficult. at Birdlife International. “Because Northern hemisphere farmers and now is the time to use it.
But a large proportion of food the biofuel market is entirely are deciding now what to plant.” “Even that signal of increased
crops isn’t eaten but converted driven by subsidies, you can The US Environmental availability is going to have a
to biofuels. Globally, 10 per cent unplug it literally with the stroke Protection Agency has the power disproportionately beneficial
of all grain is turned into biofuel, of a pen,” he says. to waive the requirement to blend effect on prices,” says Hill. “You
says Qaim. If the US and Europe were to ethanol into fuels, says Hill. “The are going to reduce the potential
decrease their use of ethanol EPA could very quickly send a for catastrophically large market
made from grain by 50 per cent, signal that ethanol is not needed.” responses.”
Blended fuel they would effectively replace Temporarily halting biofuel Many researchers have long
In the US, a third of the maize all of Ukraine’s exports of grain, mandates wouldn’t be popular been calling for a permanent
grown is converted into ethanol Tim Searchinger at Princeton with farmers. The powerful end to biofuel mandates, because
and blended into petrol. Around University has calculated in study after study has shown they
90 million tonnes is used for
ethanol, nearly double the
50 million tonnes exported by
response to a question from
New Scientist.
“This is one of the few really
10%
The share of the world’s grain
don’t reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by much if at all and
in fact often increase them.
Ukraine and Russia, says Qaim. quick things we can do,” says that is used to produce biofuel Charities such as Oxfam have
In the European Union, 12 Brunner. “We are literally campaigned against biofuels,
million tonnes of grain, including burning a hell of a lot of food.” agrobusiness lobby in the US saying that by increasing demand
wheat and maize, is turned into One country has already done is currently demanding the for food crops, they have caused
ethanol, says Qaim, around 7 per just this. On 11 March, the Czech opposite, that biofuel production global food prices to rise, pushing
cent of the bloc’s production. Republic ended its mandate is increased in response to the more people into poverty. Higher
The EU also produces large requiring ethanol to be blended rising oil price, says Hill. demand has also led to more land
quantities of biodiesel. It turns 3.5 with petrol. It did this to reduce However, only 6 per cent of clearance and habitat loss, the
million tonnes of palm oil alone the costs of fuel rather than food, fuel sold at petrol pumps in the main factor driving the decrease
into biodiesel, says Qaim. “That’s but Brunner is calling for other US is ethanol, he says, so changing in biodiversity.
almost the amount of sunflower oil countries to follow suit. this either way isn’t going to “There’s growing recognition
coming out of Ukraine and Russia.” “It absolutely would make have a big effect on global oil of the negative repercussions of
Governments have the power to a difference. It would begin to prices. By contrast, it could have using food for fuel,” says Hill. ❚

News
Ageing Health
Clue to the rejuvenating Even a low level of

light at night may
effects of young blood disrupt blood sugar
Michael Le Page Clare Wilson
YOUNG blood’s revitalising KEEPING the TV or a bedside light

properties could be largely due on overnight could slightly disturb
to packages of RNA and proteins your sleep – enough to disrupt the
that bud off from some cells way bodies normally keep blood
and travel via the blood to other sugar levels within a healthy range.
cells. When researchers injected Previous studies have found that
these cell buds from young mice people who sleep with a light on in
into old ones, it reversed several their bedrooms are more likely to be
signs of ageing, including overweight or have type 2 diabetes.
STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
boosting hair growth and But such research can’t say if it is the
muscle strength and improving light that causes the poor health.
coordination and endurance. Now, a study by Phyllis Zee at the
“What we saw was that Northwestern University Feinberg
the physical performance School of Medicine in Chicago and
of the animals was better,” her colleagues supports the idea
says Consuelo Borrás at the that the connection is causal.
University of Valencia in Spain. Her team asked 20 volunteers
Several animal studies over to spend two nights in a sleep lab.
the past decade have shown that On the first night, all participants
transfusions of young blood can their contents. The proteins A cell releasing slept in a dark room.
have rejuvenating effects, and and RNA that extracellular large numbers of On the second, half slept with a
there are signs this might work vesicles carry can switch genes extracellular vesicles lighting level of 100 lux, equivalent
in people, too. Borrás thinks on or off, and thus alter the to keeping a TV or bedside light
that the particular make-up of behaviour of the cells. The team also plucked the fur on or having a bright street light
extracellular vesicles – tiny bags Recent studies have from a small patch of skin just shining through thin curtains.
of chemicals released by cells in suggested that extracellular before the first injection. After On both mornings, Zee’s team
the bodies of animals – in young vesicles are involved in ageing two weeks, it had completely investigated the volunteers’ blood
blood is largely responsible. in both good and bad ways. regrown in the mice given sugar control using two common
While those from stem cells extracellular vesicles from tests involving insulin, the main
“After injections can boost healing, the contents young mice, but only partially hormone involved in regulating
containing vesicles from of extracellular vesicles change in those given saline solution glucose levels. One measure
young mice, old mice as cells age. Those from (bioRxiv, doi.org/hkqm). combined glucose and insulin
could exercise for longer” senescent cells – older cells However, two months levels after waking up, and the
that can no longer replicate – afterthe injections, the effects other involved giving people
“I don’t know if all the effect is may accelerate ageing. had faded. Borrás and her a dose of glucose and measuring
due to the extracellular vesicles, Borrás and her colleagues colleagues are now giving their insulin response.
but I’m sure that extracellular first obtained fat stem cells mice monthly doses to see People who slept in the dimly
vesicles are important,” she says. from young mice, then derived if this extends lifespan. lit room on their second night
“Yes, I think that is possible,” extracellular vesicles from these Because of the safety had slightly worse blood sugar
says Tony Wyss-Coray stem cells. They injected old mice issues involved in injecting control next morning than after
at Stanford University in with two doses, spaced a week extracellular vesicles into the their first night, when the room
California, whose team first apart, of either extracellular blood, the team is planning a was nearly dark, while those
demonstrated the effect vesicles or a saline solution. human trial that will instead who had spent two nights
of young blood in 2012 in A month later, the motor involve applying them to the under dark conditions had little
experiments that involved coordination and grip strength skin, to see if they can help heal difference in their blood sugar
linking the blood supplies of the mice had improved, pressure sores in older people. control (PNAS, doi.org/hk29).
of young and old mice. and they could exercise for The researchers are However, people should wait
Some extracellular vesicles longer. Those mice given only also trying to pinpoint the to see if the results are repeated
form when the membrane of saline injections showed no specific components in these in a larger trial before considering
a cell pinches in and tiny parts improvements. Neither did vesicles that are responsible changing their sleeping habits,
of the cell bud off. They can mice injected with extracellular for the beneficial effects. says Jim Horne, who until recently
travel through the blood and vesicles from old mice in a There are likely to be several ran a sleep lab at Loughborough
fuse with distant cells, releasing separate test. elements at least. ❚ University in the UK. ❚

Subscriptions
The pursuit of KNOWLEDGE
WORTH
OVER
**
$40 Subscriber
benefits:
51
print editions through
your letter box
365
days of unlimited access
to newscientist.com
400+
INTRODUCTORY OFFER issues in the app (including
the current issue)
TRY 6 RISK-FREE ISSUES 200+
video science talks to
Whatever you are seeking, find it in immerse yourself in
New Scientist. Sign up to our introductory 200+

offer today and receive 6 risk-free issues. interactive puzzles and
crosswords (added weekly)
Visit newscientist.com/pursuit 4
exclusive subscriber-only
Call: +1 888 822 3242, quoting 17783 online events
Offer available on ‘digital’ and ‘digital + print packages’. This is an auto renewing subscription. After your trial period is over, your subscription will step up to the full quarterly rate.
You can cancel anytime in your trial period and no charges will be made. Other offers available. **Value based on weekly newsstand price of $6.99. In the unlikely event that you wish
to cancel your subscription, we offer a 14-day cooling off period after initial payment is made. Subscriber benefits based over an annual period. Offer ends 31st March 2022.
News Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2022
Astrobiology
Organic mineral bonanza on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover has found more potential signs of ancient life
Alex Wilkins
MORE signs of the organic chemistry using an on-board of these molecules. While University, France, who is part
molecules that could have sample-analysis machine. they could indicate biological of the team analysing these
helped sustain life have come to While organic molecules processes – for instance, they can sulphur-bearing compounds.
light on Mars. The molecules were have been found in Gale crater be produced by heating coal or There are several ingredients
well-preserved in the clay minerals before, the Glen Torridon through the activity of bacteria that go into a life-supporting
of Gale crater, a 155-kilometre- region presented the greatest that metabolise energy from environment in addition to
wide suspected former lake. abundance. They also included sulphur – it is more likely that they sulphur organics, such as the
These sulphur-bearing organics several molecules that can are the product of non-biological presence of water with a neutral
were found in the Glen Torridon be found on Earth associated processes such as impacting pH and temperatures similar to
region of the crater, which the with biological processes. meteorites or volcanic activity. those found on Earth’s surface.
Curiosity rover explored from Scientists are now trying “It’s going to take years before Many of these important
2019 to 2021. Kristen Bennett to identify the point of origin we can actually constrain, and preconditions for life as we know
at the US Geological Survey maybe we never will, where this it have been found over the course
Astrogeology Science Center NASA’s Curiosity organic matter is coming from,” of Curiosity’s time in Gale crater.
in Arizona and her colleagues rover landed on Mars says Maëva Millan at Versailles But the clay minerals are of
presented the findings at the in August 2012 Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines particular significance, because
Lunar and Planetary Science they can both preserve evidence
Conference in Texas on 9 March. of organic matter and serve as
“We identified the most evidence itself of previously
clay minerals in a sample thus habitable conditions.
far observed in the mission “Clay minerals are an
and we observed the most important marker for planetary
organics,” says Bennett. “It scientists, because they require
really showed that [Gale crater] water to form,” says Bennett.
was this habitable ancient “If the original goal of the
environment with high organic Curiosity rover was to identify
preservation potential.” habitable environments, and
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS
Curiosity collected and analysed water is a key indicator of a

10 samples from Glen Torridon habitable environment, it
by drilling into the Martian rock follows that clay minerals that
and then heating the extracted are water indicators are a good
material to determine its way to go about that,” she says. ❚
Physics
The slow speed of helicopter’s blades as it moved been previously measured. low-pressure carbon dioxide.
through Mars’s atmosphere after “We have a response time with Higher frequency sounds arrive
sound on Mars has launching from Perseverance. acoustic measurements that is way before the lower ones due to
been measured The laser and microphone faster than what we can achieve the way CO₂ molecules vibrate
aboard Perseverance were precisely with standard and classical air at low and high frequencies.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has synchronised, allowing the team to temperature sensors,” says Chide. “You would receive all the
used its microphones to give us use these recordings to calculate the The work, which was presented low frequencies of my voice a
our first ever measurement of the speed of sound on Mars. It is about at the Lunar and Planetary Science few milliseconds after the high
speed of sound on Mars. 240 metres per second, slower Conference in Texas on 8 March, frequencies… so it would lead
Baptiste Chide at Los Alamos than the 340 metres per second also revealed that sound travels to a kind of distortion of sounds
National Laboratory in New Mexico at which sound travels on Earth. in an unusual way in the Martian that would be quite difficult
and his colleagues recorded sounds The sound of speed on Mars atmosphere, which is primarily to understand,” says Chide.
from Mars’s Jezero crater last year, also varied over small distances, The rover recorded more than
such as the rover’s laser striking which the researchers used to infer “You would receive the 5 hours of sound, which people
rocks, which generates a shock characteristics about the planet’s low and high frequencies are still analysing to learn how
wave. They also captured the atmosphere, such as temperature separately, leading to the atmosphere and temperature
frequency shift of the Ingenuity over small scales, which hadn’t a kind of distortion” change with Martian seasons. ❚ AW

Astrophysics Astronomy
Moon’s emergence
from planet crash
Double-shadowed craters
reconstructed could hold ice on the moon
Alex Wilkins Jonathan O’Callaghan
COMPUTER simulations that Shackleton crater

trace how our moon formed in sits at the moon’s
high resolution may explain the south pole
mystery of why it is so chemically
similar to Earth. of suitable craters that could
The conventional story for the host double-shadowed regions,
moon’s origin is that a primordial ranging in size from 100 to
JORGE MAÑES RUBIO/ESA/ACT/DITISHOE
planet named Theia smashed into 600 metres across, but the team
Earth and spewed molten rock into says there could be many more
space. This debris, primarily made smaller ones, with diameters
up of Theia, then coalesced into of just tens of centimetres.
the moon over a period of tens Margaret Landis at the
of millions of years. University of Colorado Boulder,
While this scenario accounts who wasn’t involved in the
for the moon’s observed angular research, says these colder
momentum, it fails to explain the regions could help us work out
near-identical profile of its isotopes SOME of the moon’s craters may sunlight, with temperatures where water ice or other exotic
to those found on Earth. Isotopes contain “double-shadowed” dropping to -250°C. ices on the moon and other
are atoms of the same element that regions that are so dark they “Their main source of light bodies came from.
differ by the amount of neutrons would be among the coldest is starlight,” says O’Brien, who Temperatures of -170°C
they contain, and the ratio of places in the solar system. presented the work at the “are great to preserve water
different isotopes in a sample The small tilt of the moon – Lunar and Planetary Science ice, but too warm for other
can be used to trace its origin. just 1.5 degrees – as it orbits with Conference in Texas on 7 March. ices like carbon dioxide, or
Jacob Kegerreis at Durham Earth around the sun means “They could be the coldest organic species that might
University in the UK and his that it has hundreds of craters places in the solar system.” be a fingerprint of a comet
colleagues ran more than 400 where direct sunlight never Evidence for these frigid impact”, she says. Such impacts
high-resolution simulations of reaches. We know that inside craters comes from NASA’s could have been a source of
what might have happened when these craters, located near the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Earth’s water.
the early Earth was struck, using moon’s poles, temperatures “It has massive implications
different initial conditions like
impact angle and speed.
Many of the simulations
can drop below -170°C, making
them prime locations for water
ice to collect and optimum
-250˚C
Temperature in lunar craters
for the amount of water that
Earth got from non-Earth
sources,” says Landis.
showed a satellite forming within locations for future human that see no reflected light An upcoming NASA lunar
hours of the impact – much more missions, as astronauts could rover may be able to drive into
quickly than suggested by previous use the ice as a source of water which uses a laser to study some of these regions. Called
research. They produced a moon for their missions. the moon’s surface. Billions VIPER, it is scheduled to arrive
with a similar angular momentum Even though the insides of of pulses have been fired at the at the moon’s south pole in
and isotopic make-up to Earth, these craters don’t receive direct moon for more than a decade, November 2023 and will drive
which means that the moon sunlight, they can be heated says O’Brien, allowing detailed for up to 10 hours at a time
contains more of Earth and less of by sunlight reflecting off their measurements of the lunar into three regions that never
Theia than other models supposed. rims, which can melt some of surface to be made. The team receive direct sunlight. It will
The findings were presented at their more exotic ices, such as used this information to search use a drill and headlights to
the Lunar and Planetary Science carbon dioxide ice. for and examine these double- look for ice, and it may also
Conference in Texas on 10 March. Now, Patrick O’Brien and shadowed craters. discover some of these double-
“It’s interesting that simulations Shane Byrne at the University “They’ve been predicted, but shadowed craters.
in this work lead to more mixing of Arizona in Tucson think we’re the first to actually look “One of our objectives
between the impactor and they have found even darker for them on the moon,” he says. is to locate and observe
proto-Earth than previous work craters that are shielded from For a double-shadowed crater multi-shadowed craters,”
suggested,” says Miki Nakajima this reflected sunlight. These to exist, it must be sufficiently says Anthony Colaprete at
at the University of Rochester in double-shadowed regions deep and set at an angle that NASA’s Ames Research Center,
New York. “This would help explain would be rare, a fraction of wouldn’t allow sunlight to the VIPER mission’s lead
the isotopic similarities between a per cent of the total area of be reflected in. In total, the scientist. “It’s going to be
Earth and the moon.” ❚ craters that don’t receive direct researchers found hundreds pretty awesome.” ❚

News
Coronavirus
Iceland targets herd immunity

The country’s new covid-19 strategy aims for “widespread societal resistance” to the virus,
but most experts think this cannot be achieved, reports Clare Wilson
LIKE some other countries, outbreaks would fizzle out. measures would be required to
Iceland has scrapped its remaining Almost all experts agree this stop its spread. “We are talking
covid-19 restrictions. Unlike other definition of herd immunity about severe restrictions on
nations, however, its health cannot be achieved. In January gatherings, on working from
ministry coupled this move with 2021, hospitals in the Brazilian home, limiting society for a long
a startling announcement: the Amazon collapsed under the time,” says Aspelund. Trying
country will start aiming for strain of covid-19, despite the to achieve zero covid-19 cases
HALLDOR KOLBEINS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

herd immunity. region having had a high infection is no longer possible, she says.
“Widespread societal resistance rate in its first wave. Later that “Not here, for sure.”
to covid-19 is the main route out year, it emerged that nearly
of the epidemic,” the government everyone in Iran had caught the
said in a statement on 23 February. disease at least once, but herd
After omicron
“To achieve this, as many people immunity wasn’t achieved. The threat of another variant
as possible need to be infected Immunity wanes after a emerging is a worry for public
with the virus as the vaccines are person overcomes SARS-CoV-2 health experts. “We don’t know
not enough, even though they or is vaccinated against it. The what comes after omicron,” says
provide good protection against virus has also mutated into new Scientists at a Francois Balloux at University
serious illness.” variants, which somewhat evade covid-19 sequencing College London.
Until now, Iceland has adopted past immunity. lab in Reykjavik If the next variant is more
a “zero covid” strategy, which has Nevertheless, a past infection virulent and people retain some
contributed to it having one of may reduce the risk of becoming population have had two vaccine of their immunity, then previously
seriously ill with a different doses, helping to keep the number overcoming omicron would be an
“We just don’t know enough variant. This is the population- of deaths low. advantage, says Balloux. Recent
about the long-term level immunity that Iceland However, while younger people studies suggest the best protection
impact of infection. hopes to harness, says Gudrun are at reduced risk of coronavirus comes from being fully vaccinated
You’re asking for trouble” Aspelund at the country’s complications, they can still and having had an infection,
Directorate of Health. Individuals develop long covid, says Christina dubbed hybrid immunity.
the world’s lowest covid-19 death aren’t advised to deliberately Pagel at University College London. Yet no one knows if omicron
rates. The country has recorded get infected and are encouraged “We just don’t know enough about immunity will protect against
just 79 covid-19 deaths since to test and isolate, she says. the long-term impact,” she says. a future variant. “There’s no
the start of the pandemic in The lifting of restrictions “You’re asking for trouble.” guarantee it’s going to provide
a population of 366,000. was partially driven by growing But the government felt it similar protection in a few
On 25 February, Iceland lifted confidence in omicron’s reduced had little choice, says Aspelund. months’ time to whatever the
all its remaining restrictions, severity compared with previous As well as being milder, omicron next variant happens to be,” says
allowing an unlimited number variants, says Aspelund. In is more transmissible than Neil Mabbott at the University
of people to gather indoors and addition, 80 per cent of the previous variants, so extreme of Edinburgh, UK.
fully opening its border. Since Ultimately, Iceland’s lifting
then, official government of restrictions is similar to that
statistics show that daily case in other European countries, says
numbers of covid-19 have fallen Balloux. In early January, England
from 4862 to 2656 on 11 March. reported more than 147,000 daily
The phrase herd immunity is cases. After falling considerably,
controversial in itself. It has no set cases started rising at the end
definition, but is often associated of February, corresponding with
with allowing the SARS-CoV-2 restrictions ending on 24 February.
SIGGA ELLA/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
coronavirus to spread while Aspelund is clear that

vulnerable people shield. When the government doesn’t want
the virus has infected most of to encourage infections. “We
the population, the hope is that are not telling people to go
and have a covid party, but
Customers sit outside how we look at it here is that
a restaurant in Reykjavik it is inevitable that people are
in July 2020 going to get it,” she says. ❚

Events
ONLINE EVENT
BIG THINKERS SERIES
CLAUDIA DE RHAM
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
ABOUT GRAVITY
Thursday 31 March 2022 6 -7pm BST/1-2pm EDT and on-demand
Gravity is the familiar force that keeps our
feet firmly on the ground - and explains the
orbits of the planets in the solar system and
the whole structure of our universe, too.
That much we know, but there’s much about
gravity that remains a mystery. In this talk,
Professor Claudia de Rham will explore how
much we actually know about this most
fundamental of phenomena - and how much
more is left to uncover.
For more information and to book your place visit:

newscientist.com/gravityevent
BIG THINKER SERIES

CLAUDIA DE RHAM
News
Microbiology
Pink lake mystery solved

DNA sequencing identifies microbes that colour Australian landmark
Alice Klein
THE reason for the bubblegum

pink colour of a remote lake in
Western Australia has long been
a mystery, but new research
suggests it is caused by a mix
of colourful microbes.
Lake Hillier on Middle Island in
Australia is about eight times saltier
than the ocean. Scott Tighe at the
University of Vermont in Burlington
and his colleagues analysed water
and sediment samples using
metagenomics to sequences all the
DNA in the environmental samples.
They found that the lake
contains almost 500 types of
extremophiles – organisms that
thrive in extreme environments –
including bacteria, archaea, algae
and viruses (bioRxiv, doi.org/hkmh).
TOURISM WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Many of them produce purple,

red and orange pigments known
as carotenoids, which may
provide some protection against
extreme saltiness and provide
the water’s colour, says Tighe. ❚
Technology
Crash-avoiding drones can fly in mines

PROTOTYPE drones that are “If the robot crashes in the Inspired by the flexible
capable of navigating dangerous middle of a passage, which is exoskeletons of insects, they
and unpredictable environments really [narrow], then all the other designed the CogniFly, a small,
could prove to be valuable for robots that come afterwards will autonomous drone weighing
search-and-rescue teams. be blocked and cannot proceed around 250 grams that can survive
RMF-Owl, a drone created by in their navigation, so we wanted repeated high-impact collisions
Paolo De Petris at the Norwegian to avoid that,” says De Petris. (arxiv.org/abs/2103.04423).
University of Science and The flying drone weighs about “We were doing experiments
Technology and his colleagues, 1.5 kilograms and has a resilient and mostly we were crashing
made its debut while winning carbon-foam frame in case its The RMF-Owl uses laser [the drone] against the floor,
a competition hosted by the collision-avoidance system mapping and algorithms so we needed something to
US Defense Advanced Research fails. However, no such failure to dodge collisions absorb the crash landings,”
Projects Agency. This involved occurred during its tests says Azambuja.
navigating around a mine and (arxiv.org/abs/2202.11055). and by generating their own map The team has designed a shell
performing rescue-related tasks. “It’s an impressive capability,” and moving within their map.” that absorbs landing impacts like
The drone, which dodges says Raphael Zufferey at the Swiss Ricardo de Azambuja at a cricket’s legs, with the drone
collisions by using laser mapping Federal Institute of Technology Montreal Polytechnic in Canada being built from 3D-printed parts
DE PETRIS ET AL.
and onboard algorithms, can in Lausanne. “They travel quite and his colleagues, meanwhile, and having flexible joints. It could
also work with other flying and a long distance inside of a mine have taken a different approach be used in cave exploration. ❚
walking robots as part of a team. without having any collisions to avoiding drone crashes. Alex Wilkins

News
Animal behaviour Technology
Common toads
surprise biologists
A simple maths trick makes
by climbing trees training AI more efficient
Michael Le Page Matthew Sparkes
THE common toad doesn’t look like ARTIFICIAL intelligence is working back to the beginning AI researchers: the increasingly
a good climber, yet citizen surveys growing ever more capable to calculate the gradient. high demands of computation.
suggest that the amphibians often at increasingly complex tasks, Atılım Güneş Baydin at the “It’s a very, very important
climb trees to hide in hollows. but it is intensive to develop. University of Oxford and his thing to solve, because it’s the
“The people who do surveying A more efficient technique colleagues have now taken bottleneck of machine learning
for bats were like, ‘Oh yeah, we do could save up to half the time, this two-stage process, known algorithms,” says Corbett.
find toads from time to time’. But energy and computing power as back-propagation, and Cutting-edge AI research
needed to train an AI model. reduced it to just one, where an relies on vast models with
The European Deep learning models are approximation of the gradient hundreds of billions of
common toad typically composed of a huge close enough to be effective is parameters. Training these can
(Bufo bufo) grid of artificial neurons linked calculated during the first pass, occupy huge supercomputers
by “weights” – computer code making the second redundant. for weeks or months at a time.
that takes an input and passes In theory, it could slash the time One of the largest neural
HENRY ANDREWS
on a changed output – that needed to train AI models in networks currently operating,

represent synapses linking the Megatron-Turing Natural
nobody working with toads knows

real neurons. By tinkering with
these weights over thousands or
millions of trials, it is possible to
50%
Potential savings in time, energy
Language Generation model,
has 530 billion parameters and
was trained on Nvidia’s Selene
this,” says Silviu Petrovan at the gradually train a model to carry and computing power to train AI supercomputer, which has
University of Cambridge. out a task, such as identifying 560 powerful servers and 4480
The finding emerged from a person from a picture of half. The team ran numerous high-end graphics cards, each
a dormouse monitoring scheme their face or digitising text tests with back-propagation and costing thousands of pounds
run by the People’s Trust for from an image of handwriting. their new approach, each for the when bought commercially.
Endangered Species (PTES) in the This training usually relies on same number of iterations, and Despite the huge power of
UK. The nesting boxes are typically an iterative process of passing found that the performance that machine, it took more than
placed at least a metre above data in, assessing the quality of of the AI was comparable a month to train the model.
the ground on tree trunks, so the output and then calculating (arxiv.org/abs/2202.08587). Güneş Baydin says the best-
small animals can only get into a gradient that informs how Andrew Corbett at the case scenario is that this new
them by climbing the trees. In the weights should be altered University of Exeter, UK, says approach slashes the time taken
2016, a volunteer monitoring the to improve performance. This that calculating the gradient to train AI models in half, but
nesting boxes found a toad in one involves passing data from one in the forward pass is “a simple that is far from guaranteed. He
and asked why it was there. side of the neural network to the mathematical trick” but has says time will tell what results
Petrovan and his team couldn’t other, via every link in the chain the potential to solve one of other researchers see when it is
find any published reports of toads of artificial neurons, and then the largest problems facing tested across a range of models.
climbing trees, so they asked other “You can run one iteration
volunteers with the PTES dormouse of optimisation faster with
scheme if they had seen any our algorithm, but it doesn’t
amphibians. Sure enough, some automatically mean you can
had kept records of finding toads, get the same result twice as fast,
even though they hadn’t been because there are other things
asked to (bioRxiv, doi.org/hkqg). involved,” he says. “It might
Petrovan also looked at the do a worse job than the
animals found in tree hollows as back-propagation algorithm
recorded by another UK initiative, in some cases, and it might need
the Bat Tree Habitat Key project. more iterations to achieve the
Altogether, his team has now same quality of training. And
found around 50 reports of if that happens, maybe it can
YUICHIRO CHINO/GETTY IMAGES
amphibians in trees, almost all of end up like losing all your

them common toads (Bufo bufo). competition advantage.” ❚
Why toads climb trees isn’t
clear, but it may help them Back-propagation is
avoid predators and parasites, an intensive technique
says Petrovan. ❚ used to train AI models

Discovery
Tours
7 days | 23 August and 6 September 2022
Ancient caves, human

origins: Northern Spain
Step back in time more than 40,000 years Highlights
to discover how our ancestors lived, played
- Private visits to the caves of Las Monedas and
and worked. See one of the oldest known cave
El Castillo to see close-up the cave paintings
paintings in the world at El Castillo and
from up to 40,000 years ago.
experience the wonders of Las Monedas,
La Peña Cave, El Pindal and Tito Bustillo in - Talks and walking seminars with New Scientist
small groups by torchlight. writers and editors.
Plus historic towns and several museums, - Tours to El Pindal, Tito Bustillo, El Buxu
including the Altamira Cave Museum and the and La Peña caves.
Guggenheim. - The replica cave of Altamira and it’s museum.
Accompanied by New Scientist writers
- Visit the beautiful cities of Bilbao and Santander
and editors plus local archaeological experts.
plus historic towns Santilla and Oviedo.
You’ll enjoy specialist talks, admire astonishing
wall paintings and immerse yourself in the - Explore the Archaeological Museum of
BO N O
beauty of northern Spain. Santander and Museo de Evolución Humana.

OK W
IN
These seven days will give you extraordinary - Topped off with the Guggenheim Museum
G
insight into our forebears. and tuition in tasting Rioja wine.
In partnership with Intrepid Travel

For more information visit
newscientist.com/tours
or email tours@newscientist.com ABTA No.88888
Newsletter
Health Check
Get the most essential health, diet and fitness
news in your inbox every week
Hundreds of new studies about our physical and mental well-
being are published every week, but the results can be conflicting
and confusing. Our weekly newsletter gives you the health and
fitness news you can really trust – more important now than ever.
Get a digest of the week’s most essential health stories, Clare

Wilson
including the latest covid-19 news, in your inbox every Saturday,
carefully curated by New Scientist health reporter Clare Wilson.
Keep up to date with the latest biomedical science and sign up for free at:
newscientist.com/healthcheck
Our family of newsletters newscientist.com/newsletter
The Weekly The Daily Fix The Planet Launchpad Lost in Space-time Our Human Story Wild Wild Life
News
Palaeogenetics
Extinct species will stay extinct

An effort to reconstruct the genome of the Christmas Island rat suggests we will
never be able to resurrect lost animals just as they were, finds Michael Le Page
IT IS impossible to bring extinct Gilbert has no plans to try to
animals back to life in their resurrect the Christmas Island rat.
original form, according to a The team studied it only as a way
BBELOW: JOSEPH SMIT/PD RIGHT:SALEHUDDINLOKMAN/GETTY IMAGES
study of the extinct Christmas of exploring what is possible. But

Island rat. Even though he isn’t opposed to de-extinction.
researchers were able to recover It is feasible to create animals
a very high-quality genome from that can perform the same role
preserved specimens, they couldn’t in ecosystems as extinct ones,
recreate many key genes, meaning he says. “If you’re happy with
any resurrected animal would the end product, awesome.”
differ in some crucial ways. “This paper nicely shows that
“You may be missing what’s the more evolutionary distance
most important for the extinct there is between the extinct
form,” says Thomas Gilbert at species [and living relatives],
the University of Copenhagen the more of the genome won’t
in Denmark. “If you think you be correctly assembled,” says
are going to create a mammoth Beth Shapiro at the University
that’s exactly like the mammoth Christmas Island of California, Santa Cruz.
that went extinct, well, you are and the extinct “Does this mean that we will
not really.” Christmas Island rat never, ever be able to reconstruct a
A few research groups are trying genome using gene editing that is
to resurrect extinct animals by 100 per cent identical to a specific
sequencing the DNA in preserved extinct organism? Yes,” she says.
samples, then editing the genome “But that is not surprising, and
of a close living relative to make nor does it mean that Colossal
it like that of the extinct species. will never be able to create an
These teams include Colossal, the Indian Ocean, before it went With the Christmas Island Arctic-adapted elephant that some
a biosciences company that wants extinct in the early 20th century. rat, the team was able to recreate might call a mammoth or that the
to create a woolly mammoth, and The researchers were able to near-complete versions of around TIGRR lab won’t be able to create
the TIGRR lab at the University reassemble most of the pieces half of its genes. These include a marsupial that has physical and
of Melbourne, Australia, which of its DNA by using the genome genes related to its hair and behavioural traits that reflect the
aims to bring back the thylacine, of the related Norway brown rat ears, suggesting that it would evolution of the Tasmanian tiger.”
or Tasmanian tiger. Last week, (Rattus norvegicus) as a guide, be possible to create an animal “The goal of de-extinction has
Colossal announced that it has but they couldn’t assemble all with the long black hair and round always been to create functional
raised US$75 million in funding, of them. “Every bit of DNA that ears characteristic of this species. equivalents,” says Ben Novak
which it will spend on further we could recover, we got,” says However, many other genes, at Revive & Restore, a US
developing the technologies Gilbert. “There’s a 5 per cent including those involved in the conservation non-profit
needed for de-extinction. fraction we can’t make sense of.” rat’s immune system and its organisation whose initiatives
Crucially, it is the parts of the sense of smell, could only be include efforts to resurrect
“The most important extinct animal’s genome that differ partially reconstructed (Current the passenger pigeon and the
pieces of the jigsaw most from the living relatives Biology, doi.org/hkpf). heath hen. “De-extinction is
puzzle are the parts that that are the hardest to match The Christmas Island rat is about restoring nature, not
can’t be put back together” and reassemble. This 5 per cent thought to have been wiped out individual species.”
includes the genes that have been by a disease carried by the Norway If resurrected animals turn
The fundamental problem evolving the fastest, which are the rat, so it might actually be an out to have key traits missing, it
is that old DNA breaks up into ones that make closely related advantage for a resurrected animal might still be possible to restore
lots of tiny pieces that are species different to each other. to have Norway rat immune genes. those traits by taking genes from
impossible to completely In other words, the most However, smell plays a key role in other living or extinct relatives,
reassemble, says Gilbert. important pieces of the jigsaw behaviours such as finding food, says Novak. “Ultimately, the paper
The Christmas Island rat puzzle are the parts that can’t avoiding predators and choosing changes nothing about how
(Rattus macleari) – also known be put back together, because mates, says Gilbert, so a recreated de-extinction works in practice
as Maclear’s rat – was once those areas of the guide picture Christmas Island rat might behave or how the world’s four projects
found on Christmas Island in have been lost. differently to the original species. are proceeding.” ❚

News In brief
Artificial intelligence
AI can help historians

restore ancient Greek texts
AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence the texts and then compared
algorithm developed as part of a Ithaca’s predictions for this “missing”
collaboration between historians text with the actual inscriptions.
and UK-based AI firm DeepMind Next, the team used a data set
can help restore ancient Greek of nearly 8000 well-studied
texts with 72 per cent accuracy. inscriptions to test Ithaca’s
Ancient inscriptions can often performance. On its own, Ithaca
be damaged or moved from their could restore texts with 62 per cent
original location. When recovering accuracy; in comparison, historians
them, historians have three main alone restored text with around
goals: restoring the text, and 25 per cent accuracy. However,
working out exactly when and when historians took Ithaca’s top
where it was written. Thea 20 most likely reconstructions for a
Sommerschield at Ca’ Foscari given text and used them to inform
University of Venice in Italy and her their own work, they could restore
colleagues worked with researchers the text with 72 per cent accuracy.
at DeepMind to train an AI, called Ithaca could also predict where
MAZUR TRAVEL/SHUTTERSTOCK
Ithaca, to carry out all three tasks. in the Mediterranean a text was
To train Ithaca, the team used written 71 per cent of the time
around 60,000 ancient Greek texts and could date them to within
from across the Mediterranean that 30 years of their date of creation,
are already well-studied. The team as established by historians (Nature,
masked some of the characters in doi.org/hkpg). Carissa Wong
Medicine Technology
But the molecular pumps Alice Haynes, now at Saarland

Electric field aids are sensitive to electrical fields. ‘Breathing’ pillow University in Saarbrücken,
kidneys kept on ice Ruisheng Liu at the University helps reduce anxiety Germany, and her colleagues
of South Florida in Tampa and developed a prototype pillow
ELECTRICITY can help keep his team have found that putting A HUGGABLE pillow that mimics that expands and deflates like
biological tissues functioning electrodes on the surface of a breathing reduced anxiety as human lungs (pictured).
while stored on ice, a finding that kidney and applying an oscillating effectively as guided meditation To test it, the team asked a group
could help boost the number of field can restart the cells’ pumps. in people who were about to take of 129 volunteers to complete a
successful kidney transplants. To test the approach, the team a mathematics test. questionnaire that measured
The approach seems effective gave 10 mice a kidney transplant Interactive tactile devices, such their anxiety level before and
in mice given transplants and after storing the organs in cold as Paro the cuddly seal robot, have after they were told they would
in human kidneys stored for 24 saline before implantation. Seven previously been linked to reduced need to complete a maths test.
hours – although it hasn’t yet been mice were given kidneys that had anxiety, potentially providing Next, 45 of the volunteers
tried on organs put inside people. received the electrical treatment, near-immediate relief without hugged the prototype pillow
Kidney transplants can be life- and these mice had a more than medication. To better understand across their chest and torso for
saving, but some kidneys don’t 50 per cent better kidney function the potential of these devices, just over 8 minutes, while 40 of
function well after the surgery than the three mice that received the participants listened to a
because they are damaged from untreated kidneys. guided meditation and the
lack of oxygen during transport. The team also tested the remaining 44 sat and did nothing,
Low oxygen stops kidney cells approach in five pairs of human acting as the experiment’s control
making enough of a compound kidneys that had been donated group. The volunteers’ anxiety
called adenosine triphosphate but couldn’t be used. One of each was then measured again.
(ATP), which normally powers a pair had four electrodes placed on Hugging the pillow was
molecular pump on their surface it while they were all stored on ice found to reduce pre-test anxiety
that keeps sodium levels low and for 24 hours. Afterwards, the cells by the same amount as guided
potassium levels high inside cells. of the treated kidneys had less meditation, while the control
DR. ALICE HAYNES
The shutdown causes the cells to damage than the untreated ones group’s anxiety increased ahead of
swell and damages many of their (Science Translational Medicine, the test (PLoS One, doi.org/hkpp).
enzymes and other biochemicals. doi.org/hkpx). Clare Wilson Carissa Wong

New Scientist Daily
Get the latest scientific discoveries in your inbox
newscientist.com/sign-up
Biology
Really brief
and lifestyle factors – determines microbiome, cardiovascular
Your organs may the pace of the ageing process. system, immune system,
age at different rates Now, work by Brian Kennedy metabolic system and sex
at the National University of hormone system.
SUNPHOL SORAKUL/GETTY IMAGES
SOME organs and body systems Singapore and his colleagues They found that the biological
can age faster than others. supports the idea that the various age of a person’s cardiovascular
Tracking the biological age of organs and systems in the body system correlated the most with
different parts of the body could can age at different rates within their age in years, while that of
help doctors predict the onset the same individual. the gut microbiome showed
of disease more accurately. The researchers collected stool the weakest link.
We already knew that the and blood samples from about The team also found that the
condition of cells in the body 480 people aged between 20 and biological age of the liver could
Trees protect each can give someone a biological 45 and measured a total of 403 be used to predict who had non-
other in high winds age that is older or younger biological features in each person. alcoholic fatty liver disease – a risk
than their age measured in years. They used these biomarkers to factor for type 2 diabetes – and the
Tightly packed cedar In other words, cell condition – assess the biological age of the condition’s severity (Cell Reports,
trees growing in Japan which varies depending on genetic individual’s kidneys, liver, gut doi.org/gpm26t). Carissa Wong
withstood the strong winds
of a typhoon that toppled Health Palaeontology
loosely packed cedars.
This may be because
crowded trees dissipate Fossil gharial solves
energy by colliding with crocodile mystery
nearby trees. The finding
may help forest managers A NEWLY identified crocodile-like
(Science Advances, animal that lived in China 3000
doi.org/gpn4cg). years ago helps make sense of
BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM INTERNATIONAL GMBH/TT/SPL
the evolution of crocodiles and

Vaping need not their relatives.
lead to smoking Chinese researchers discovered
the animal’s bones in the 1960s
The number of young and 1970s, but they were
people in England who misidentified as a living species,
vape has risen to about says Masaya Iijima at Clemson
5 per cent over the past University in South Carolina.
11 years. But the number Iijima and his colleagues have now
of smokers in this age studied four of the specimens and
group has fallen from determined it was a gharial, part
30 to 25 per cent, which Recurring UTIs may be of the crocodilian group that also
suggests vaping isn’t includes crocodiles and alligators.
acting as a “gateway” that prevented with an antiseptic The team named it Hanyusuchus
encourages young people sinensis (Proceedings of the Royal
to try smoking (Addiction, AN ANTISEPTIC drug that inhibits Every day for 12 months, 102 of Society B, doi.org/hkpr).
doi.org/hkmp). the growth of bacteria in urine the participants took an antibiotic, The Chinese gharial clarifies
(pictured) may be as effective as while the remaining 103 were a mystery about crocodilians.
Static electricity to antibiotics in preventing recurring given a methenamine hippurate pill. Genetic evidence shows that
clean solar panels urinary tract infections (UTIs). Over the year, those in the antibiotic alligators split from the others
UK guidelines recommend a group had 0.89 UTI episodes on first, and crocodiles and gharials
Solar panels in the desert daily low-dose antibiotic to prevent average, compared with 1.38 separated from each other later.
can be kept clean using recurrent UTIs. However, long-term episodes among those taking the That is odd because crocodiles and
static electricity. Even in use of these drugs raises the risk of antiseptic (The BMJ, doi.org/hkpk). alligators more closely resemble
low humidity, dust adsorbs antibiotic resistance. The antiseptic “If we want to reduce the use of each other than gharials. But the
some water and becomes methenamine hippurate has antibiotics to combat antimicrobial Chinese gharial is intermediate
a conductor. By applying shown promise for UTI prevention, resistance, then trials like this in body shape between gharials
electric fields around the but the evidence is inconclusive. provide clinicians and patients and the other two groups.
solar panel, the dust can be To learn more, Chris Harding at a credible non-antibiotic option “There was a huge gap
made to fall off the panel’s the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals for prevention,” says Harding. between the gharial and the rest
surface (Science Advances, NHS Foundation Trust in the UK and However, the long-term safety of of the crocodilians,” says Iijima.
doi.org/gpnvs4). his colleagues studied 205 women methenamine hippurate is unclear. “Our specimens fit in the gap.”
who had, on average, six UTIs a year. Jason Arunn Murugesu Michael Marshall

Views
The columnist Aperture Letters Culture Culture columnist
Chanda Prescod- Dazzling photos Surely there is Downfall on Netflix Should the stars
Weinstein asks who of eye-catching more to baby makes a case against be our destination,
space belongs to p28 flamingos p30 boomer misery? p32 Boeing p34 asks Simon Ings p36
Comment
What’s in a sneeze?
As covid-19 restrictions end, there is a moral duty to adjust our
attitudes towards the spread of disease, says Jonathan Goodman
A
FEW weeks ago, my that this perpetuates the spread
partner and I went out of infections. This makes each of
for dinner at a local us indirectly responsible for the
restaurant. Shortly after we deaths of hundreds of thousands
arrived, a couple sat down of people a year worldwide.
at the table next to us, and it One explanation may be that
quickly became apparent that we have lived with respiratory
they were both sick. One sneezed viruses, including those that cause
and coughed more or less the common cold, for so long that
continuously over the following we don’t typically regard them
hour; the other kept sniffling, as a major threat. Any perceived
and – in what felt like a personal wisdom against socialising during
assault on my sensibilities – the cold season, then, might be
dropped a used tissue on the floor. ignored by people who regard
Personal hygiene is linked with contact with others as more
a wide array of reactions. Most important than the risk they
people are now taught at school might pass on an infection.
that you should cover your Now that many of the mask
nose and mouth when you and isolation regulations linked
sneeze – preferably with your to covid-19 are being shelved,
elbow, according to the US we should rethink this outlook.
Centers for Disease Control and With the continual risk that
Prevention. There is, however, a new variant of covid-19 will
enormous variation in whether arise, we need to take personal
people actually follow this responsibility and distance
guidance. Research carried out in socially prescribed rules, which transmission in 1854. Over time, ourselves when sick, avoiding
2009 in New Zealand showed that, many of us don’t follow. and as social groups grew larger mixing both at work and socially.
during an influenza outbreak, Now, as some countries across and more complex, humans Allowing the coronavirus to
more than a quarter of people the world lighten or eliminate have changed how they live, circulate freely raises the risk
didn’t cover their mouth or nose covid-19 restrictions, it falls on accordingly. Rather than instinct that it will develop mutations,
at all when coughing or sneezing. the public to consciously redefine guiding us, we learned from allowing it to escape vaccines.
In contrast, there is little the social norms around the our elders, in a process known Coughing and sneezing
variation in how people react transmission of infectious as cultural transmission, in public should be reviled.
when encountering a used nappy diseases. Coughing and sneezing how to prevent the spread of Without effective laws, it falls
abandoned in a public place. in public can kill, just as exposing dangerous infectious diseases. to individuals to protect the
The bacteria that travel in human people to human waste can. This pattern of adopting and health of those around us. ❚
waste and the airborne particles We should, therefore, react passing on social conventions
released by coughing and with similar disapprobation. has been hugely beneficial for
sneezing – as we all know only Throughout history, human us. It seems strange, then,
too well from covid-19 – are both behaviour has adapted in that when faced with diseases
MICHELLE D’URBANO
linked to disease transmission. response to disease. We learned that are extremely infectious

Yet only with the nappy do we how to avoid cholera, for example, and potentially deadly, such Jonathan Goodman is at the Leverhulme
tend to be disgusted. With the when John Snow discovered as covid-19, many of us cough and Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies,
coughs and sneezes, there are its waterborne mechanism of splutter in public – despite the fact University of Cambridge, UK

Views Columnist
Field notes from space-time
Who is space for? Billionaires fuelling a new space race are

having a big say in what happens to the night sky. But space
belongs to everyone, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
W
HEN I was a kid, only I am under no illusions about of the space economy. I think
a few governments why NASA came into existence. that most of the attendees
could afford to send I know it is a product of the cold came in concerned about the
people into space. By and large, war between the US government opportunities space provides
this continues to be true. Though and the government of the Soviet for economic growth – plans are
much has been made of the Union. I make a point of saying already afoot to mine the moon
billionaire space race, what often this was a conflict between two and asteroids, for example.
goes unsaid is that the likes of governments because everyday There were a few sceptics like
SpaceX and Blue Origin relied on people were caught in the middle, me who were concerned that
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein enormous investment from the with little say over the power plays accelerating human expansion
is an assistant professor US government, through NASA, of their leaders. In different ways, into space will exacerbate colonial
of physics and astronomy, to advance the experiments that people on both sides of the Iron logics and already growing
and a core faculty member would allow them to launch Curtain weathered a terrifying economic inequalities. What right
in women’s studies at the civilian astronauts. time, filled with extraordinary do we have to exploit other planets
University of New Hampshire. Such public-private amounts of propaganda and a the way we have exploited Earth?
Her research in theoretical partnerships aren’t entirely new. militarised space race that each In two days of conversation, I
physics focuses on cosmology, Corporate actors have always nation’s leadership articulated was the only person I heard bring
neutron stars and particles played a role in US spacefaring as proof of political supremacy. up the importance of labour rights
beyond the standard model efforts: military contractors like advocates having a say in how
Lockheed Martin and Northrop “I’m concerned that it all pans out. There was little
Grumman have long had a human expansion acknowledgement of billionaires’
seat at NASA’s table, providing dependence on public finance, on
into space will
launch rockets and spacecraft the taxes paid by workers across
Chanda’s week development. One thing that has exacerbate colonial the US that helped to launch their
What I’m reading changed, however, is the people logics and growing commercial space-flight ventures.
I have been rereading involved. These days, NASA is inequalities” One person told me that a
one of my favourite working alongside companies particular billionaire, some of
novels, Kiese Laymon’s with fewer ties to the defence Part of the propaganda I grew whose workers are currently suing
Long Division. industry, companies that also up with was that the US was a real because of alleged workplace
happen to be strongly identified democracy. The United States racism, was entitled to everything
What I’m watching with billionaires – especially is, in theory, a democracy where he had because he had earned it.
Wow, do I have opinions Richard Branson, Elon Musk the people can have a say in what I said my concern wasn’t with
about the new season and Jeff Bezos. NASA does. I say in theory because, merit – I mean fine, give him an
of Love Is Blind! This has triggered a new to quote Langston Hughes, award – but rather how we can
personality-driven space race “America never was America to create the conditions where
What I’m working on and, with it, a re-evaluation of the me.” As a settler colonial nation everyone has what they need.
I’m helping to lead power dynamics. Increasingly, that built its wealth through You might think that has
a national particle the public conversation seems dispossession and slavery and nothing to do with space. But
physics planning to assume that government followed those acts up with a long I think space is part of what we
process here in the US. organisations like NASA are no and ongoing campaign to deny need. Every human community
longer leaders in space. Instead, many citizens the right to vote, has a long-standing relationship
NASA has been relegated to the idea that the US is a democracy with the night sky. It is part of
client (for getting astronauts to can seem a bit laughable. who we are. The problem is that,
the International Space Station), But an interesting idea arises right now, very few of us have a say
funding source and launch out of the false narrative that the in what happens to the night sky,
management support. My US is a true democracy: a space how humans get to space or what
own understanding is that this agency for the people, by the we do there. That has to change.
transformation in attitudes isn’t people. This week, I have been Instead of giving space up to
an accident, but rather began thinking about this possibility billionaires, maybe we should
intentionally under the George W. a lot because I have recently all be working to make good on
This column appears Bush administration in particular. been at a two-day workshop the idea of a space agency that
monthly. Up next week: The goal? The commercialisation that brought interested parties supports humans living in good
Graham Lawton of space, the next capitalist frontier. together to discuss the future relations with each other. ❚

IM
NE OV
PR
W ED
AN AP
D P
App
Launch into science discovery

with our brand new app
We’re delighted to announce our new and improved app,
available on iOS and Android smartphone or tablet devices
→ Live feed of the latest news

→ Latest issue available to download every Thursday
→ Curate a playlist of articles to listen offline
→ Play videos at the touch of a button
→ Browse and book our series of events
→ Enable notifications for breaking news stories
Download our app now
To login, tap the Account icon in your app (top right

corner) and then ‘Sign in’. Enter the email address
and password associated with your subscription.
If you don’t have an account registered, you can do
this at newscientist.com/activate.
Need help? Contact us

subscriptions.us@newscientist.com
1 888 822 3242
(Mon-Fri 7.30-7pm CST)
Views Aperture

In the pink
Photographer
Claudio Contreras Koob
THESE dazzling photos showcase

one of the world’s most distinctive
birds: the flamingo. Taken by
biologist and photographer
Claudio Contreras Koob, the
images are a selection from
his new photography book,
Flamingo, which captures the
lives of colonies in the Yucatán
peninsula in Mexico.
An aerial view of Yucatán’s
flamingos is shown in the near-
left image. The Ría Lagartos
delta, located at the northern edge
of the peninsula, and the Celestun
estuary, which is a few hundred
kilometres to the west, provide
wetlands that are an ideal habitat
for these wading birds. Shallow
waters make these estuaries
excellent for nesting and feeding.
The region sustains some of
the world’s largest populations
of flamingos.
In the top far-left photo, a
flamingo chick peeks out from
the bright pink-orange plumage
of its parent, while the images
below it show a lone adult and
one of the peninsula’s crowded
nesting sites. Flamingo mud nests
must be continuously maintained
to ensure rising water doesn’t
wash away any eggs. ❚
Gege Li

Views Your letters
Editor’s pick as a Pollyanna with a relentlessly defining health and disability too challenge, such as the coronavirus,
sunny disposition, I am never narrowly, and particularly missing might cause the immune system
lonely or depressed. out the role of cats for people who to become overwhelmed. At that
Surely there is more to
I offer the following lessons to have ongoing mental health issues point, any latent infection would
baby boomer misery add to Laurie Santos’s free online or are neurodivergent. Many such have a chance to manifest.
5 March, p 21 course that Robson mentions: adults, especially if single, are
From Pam Lunn, enjoy your own company; use aware they can’t manage the day
I’m ready to catch the
Kenilworth, Warwickshire, UK your imagination, be creative, to day needs of a dog, but having
You report research that concludes be a maker; enjoy the creativity a cat can provide a furry friend. slugs, but what then?
baby boomers are the “unhappiest of others – writing, music, films, I often tell people that “my cats 5 March, p 48
generation” because of “greater art, plays and so on. are the people I come home to”. From Jane Pearn,
competition” in a large cohort. There seems to be evidence that Selkirk, Scottish Borders, UK
This raises the question: can cohort cat ownership by people with After reading your interview with
Solar doesn’t need to
size really be the only cause? What poor mental health has a “slug hunter” Rory Mc Donnell,
about the intergenerational and cover fields with panels beneficial effect on their lives I’m all set to trot outside with
epigenetic changes from two Letters, 5 March because of their commitment bread dough to catch the little
world wars? These would relate From Georgina Skipper, to and relationship with their cat. blighters. But if it works as well as
to the effects of stress and social, Weymouth, Dorset, UK It would be interesting to see it did for Mc Donnell, I’m picturing
economic and nutritional shifts. In reference to the circular some research into the benefits heaving balls of live and happily
A large proportion of the economy, Geoff Russell of feline companionship for single feasting slugs and snails.
baby boom generation had paraphrases that “for every adults, and particularly those He talks about “terminating”
grandparents affected by the complex problem there is an with already existing conditions, more than 18,000 snails. My
first world war. The parents of answer that is clear, simple and whether physical, neurological, question is: how? Instruction
the boomers were born to, and wrong”. He says this applies to or psychological. part two needed, please.
raised by, those people; then they mass solar power, in part due
themselves were affected by the to its land requirements.
It might be wise to temper A good book is as good
second world war. These parents This ignores a clear and simple
then gave birth to and raised the application of solar panels – on long covid cure hopes as self-transcendence
boomers. Can all of this be ignored? the 50 per cent of pitched roofs in 26 February, p 38 5 March, p 44
countries such as the UK that face From Stephanie Woodcock, From Anne Goodall,
south-east to south-west. There is Carnon Downs, Cornwall, UK Churchdown, Gloucestershire, UK
Could a slight change avoid
already a system to feed surplus It may turn out to be premature Regarding your look at the
reliance on Russian fuels? solar electricity into the grid in to think that many treatments benefits of self-transcendence.
5 March, p 9 productive periods, and with will become available for Simply losing yourself in a good
From Zoe Farren, better batteries, more houses can long covid a year after the book can be a benefit in this world
Windermere, Cumbria, UK become self-sufficient. There is no immunological toolkit has been of constant outside stimuli.
Further to coverage of energy need for vast solar panel arrays. applied to studying the condition.
issues related to the Russian If current research doesn’t yield From Peter Brooker,
invasion of Ukraine. Less than the hoped-for answers, then paths London, UK
The many unsung health
10 per cent of the oil and gas used forward become elusive. People Is it the case that transcendental
in the UK seems to be imported benefits of owning cats with similar conditions, such as experiences could counteract the
from Russia, and the figures are 5 March, p 23 myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), depression and anxiety generated
smaller in the US. From Ametrine Lavender, also called chronic fatigue in most people by the reports
Is it too simplistic to suggest Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, UK syndrome, have come to know of daily horrors in Ukraine?
that if everyone in these countries In your article “Dogs trump cats this only too well.
cut use of oil and gas by a minor in helping people stay fit as they We should consider the idea
London cabbies seem to be
degree, there would be no need age”, the conclusion appears to be that a latent infection, carried
to import from Russia, no need that walking a dog regularly has undetected and capable of evading able to gain new brain cells
to court questionable regimes for benefits in reducing future ill and confusing the immune 26 February, p 16
supplies, and no need to revive health, but that having cats has system, is involved in long covid. From Charles McDowall, Bristol, UK
the case for fracking in the UK? no ongoing health benefits. Were this to be the case, then The idea that adults can’t grow
I suggest the researchers are any additional serious health new brain cells clashes with some
empirical evidence. In particular,
Advice from a Pollyanna
reports of trainee London taxi
on keeping up spirits Want to get in touch? drivers developing enlarged
22 January, p 38 Send letters to letters@newscientist.com; geographical capability with a
From Bonita Ely, Sydney, Australia see terms at newscientist.com/letters corresponding rise in brain size
Following up on David Robson’s Letters sent to New Scientist, Northcliffe House, when learning “the knowledge”, a
article “The pursuit of happiness”, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT will be delayed taxing test of navigating the city. ❚

Jobs
Recruit the
brightest minds
in science
At New Scientist Jobs, we can help you to reach,
engage and attract the highest-quality job applicants,
wherever they are. Over 157,000 people* come to
our site every month looking for their dream job and
ideal employer – which could be you!
newscientistjobs.com
*Source: Google Analysis Jan-Dec 2021
Views Culture
Flying into disaster

When we fasten our seatbelts, we put our trust in aviation companies to keep
us safe. But what if they are more interested in profit, asks Elle Hunt
Film
Downfall: The Case
Against Boeing
Rory Kennedy
Netflix
AS STORM Eunice buffeted much

of the UK last month, a surprising
focal point emerged: the live
webcam stream of arrivals at
London Heathrow Airport. At one
point, 200,000 viewers tuned in
to watch passenger planes struggle
against the wind to land safely.
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
This mixture of fascination

and fear typifies our relationship
with flying. It feels risky, but
we don’t really expect a crash.
Downfall: The Case Against
Boeing, directed by Rory Kennedy The Boeing 737 Max had at this omission seems justified. Administration did nothing,
and new to Netflix after a positive a dangerous flaw in its Dennis Tajer at the Allied Pilots but many countries grounded
reception at Sundance in January, flight control system Association calls it “disrespectful”, the 737 Max planes, and put
opens with the usual reassurances adding: “You want to know as pressure on then US president
about the safety of air travel: and the premier aeroplane much about your airplane as Donald Trump to take action.
tens of thousands of flights pass manufacturer in the US. possible.” The subsequent government
without incident daily all over the The black box of the Lion Air In the fallout, Boeing, having investigation found “repeated
world. Many of these use Boeing flight revealed a failure of the previously enjoyed its position and serious failures” by Boeing.
planes, a fact that, until recently, “angle-of-attack” sensor that as the pilots’ advocate, briefed In November 2021, the airline
was considered to be a good thing. measures the angle of the nose journalists against Lion Air and admitted total responsibility
Trust in the company was such of the plane while in flight. the flight’s pilot, Bhavye Suneja, for the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
that there was a phrase in the Simulations and testimony saying (to quote Pasztor) that Boeing’s contribution to the
aviation industry: “If it ain’t from pilots paint a sickening “an American pilot would never film is limited to a supplied
Boeing, I ain’t going.” picture of the desperate battle statement in corporate-ese at
Then, in October 2018, all that to regain control of the aircraft. “Simulations paint the end. Combined with the
changed. A Lion Air flight crashed Boeing traced this to a a sickening picture depth of research, this lack of
into the sea with 189 people on software failure: an erroneous participation makes the film
of the desperate battle
board, minutes after departing activation of the Maneuvering seem like a damning report
from Jakarta in Indonesia. All Characteristics Augmentation to regain control rather than a one-sided one.
passengers and crew were killed. System (MCAS), new to the 737 of the aircraft” Downfall is a brisk,
Five months later, an Ethiopian Max. Pilots could have switched level-headed account of a
Airlines plane crashed in similar it off, had they known it existed. have gotten into this kind company’s colossal failing,
circumstances, and with a But Boeing hadn’t told them it of a situation”. The testimony and the lengths that it will go to
similarly tragic outcome. The was a feature of the updated 737, of Suneja’s widow stands in preserve reputation and profit
type of plane in both cases was let alone trained them on it. dignified contrast to this. margins, even at the expense
a 737 Max, a recently released The former Wall Street Journal “I knew my husband. I knew of safety. But what makes it
update of the Boeing 737. reporter Andy Pasztor, who acts as how he flew,” she says. memorable viewing is the
These crashes brought to an end the audience’s guide through the After the first crash, while reminder of the trust we need
the safest period for commercial story, says a senior executive at a software fix was in the works, when we take to the skies. ❚
flying in the history of aviation. Boeing told him that the airline 737 Maxes continued to fly.
It also cast doubt on Boeing’s “didn’t want to overwhelm” pilots. Then came the Ethiopian Airlines Elle Hunt is a freelance writer
reputation as a model of safety The anger of pilots and unions crash. The US Federal Aviation based in Norfolk, UK

Don’t miss
Keeping up appearances
Living an online life can be a dream come true, but it is
all too often a nightmare, finds Chris Stokel-Walker
on a budget, to the surgeons that is particularly powerful, and Read

perform Brazilian butt lifts, a begins to tackle wider problems Don’t Trust Your Gut
Book
risky procedure where fat is entrenched in social media. says data scientist Seth
Get Rich or Lie Trying: taken from other parts of the Elsewhere in the book, the bigger Stephens-Davidowitz.
Ambition and deceit in the body and injected into the buttocks. picture is lacking, however. We know, You probably know less
new influencer economy At times, Brown hurtles through for example, that the drive to achieve than you think about
Symeon Brown
first-person stories so fast that physical “perfection” is an issue, how to be healthy and
Atlantic Books
there is hardly a chance to blink. and research has made clear both happy. So, it may be time
Those he highlights as exploiting the role that social media platforms to ignore your instincts
THE influencer economy, fuelled social media – or being exploited play in perpetuating this and the and try self-help by data.
by the ability of social media to by it – sometimes pass by too effects of such ideals on mental and Out on 9 June.
instantly reach millions of people, quickly for us to remember who physical health. Yet Brown spends
has changed the way we work, rest they are or why we should care. surprisingly little time questioning
and play. For some, the rise of this It feels a bit like the relentless what can be done about the broken
new way to make a living has been hamster wheel of the algorithms bodies and livelihoods left behind
a boon – demolishing gatekeepers, that drive social media platforms, in the race to get famous on social
minting a new era of celebrities and the whole experience can media, or even who is to blame.
and making millionaires of people become a bit discombobulating. The book does a much better
who might otherwise be trapped At times, you struggle to see job of highlighting just how perilous
in a dead-end job. who to feel sorrier for: the young living a life designed to go viral
But this has been far from a woman cajoled into performing can be – and how quickly the thing Visit
uniformly good thing for society. a sex act on camera, or the man that made you famous can become Rooted Beings can
As Channel 4 News journalist who is paid to receive insults passé. It raises important questions teach us a lot about how
Symeon Brown uncovers in online. Sometimes, they blur into a about the value we place on to connect with each
Get Rich or Lie Trying, the seedy catalogue of horrors that becomes superficial appearances, and how other, according to this
side of social media can be difficult to unpick and reflect on. social media all too often encourages exhibition on plants and
as harmful as it is helpful. The book’s stronger sections are us to sacrifice thinking deeply fungi. Work from the
Brown’s reporting sees him those that bring the action closer in favour of a neat sound bite. botanical archives will
go back to the streets of London to home and address some deeper, Overall, Get Rich or Lie Trying is be shown alongside
where he grew up to hear from more systemic issues. A chapter on well worth reading – but, like social new art at London’s
school friends who have fallen how social media’s unique voice media, at times it would do well to Wellcome Collection
prey to pyramid schemes dressed is often driven by authentic Black go deeper and dwell a little longer. ❚ from 24 March.
up as online cryptocurrency voices that are then co-opted
investments. He also heads to and copied by richer, white Chris Stokel-Walker is a journalist
Los Angeles, where he meets entrepreneurs without qualms based in Newcastle, UK
nipped and tucked influencers
seeking the perfect body, often
ruining their health in the process.
Get Rich or Lie Trying is a
A GREAT SEAWEED DAY: GUT WEED (ULVA INTESTINALIS), INGELA IHRMAN
chastening read, clearly showing

that the lowlights of online fame
are as depressing as its highlights Read
are inspiring. Brown races through The Flight of the
the influencer economy and the Aphrodite is a thrilling
different industries it touches, new sci-fiction novel
from the sweatshops churning from S. J. Morden about
out poor-quality clothing to ensure an eventful mission to
that scrolling teenagers can keep Jupiter’s moons. Ship
GETTY IMAGES/WESTEND61
up with the latest red carpet looks and crew are already
at breaking point and
Lights, glamour, followers – and then it seems they have
unrealistic expectations about uninvited company.
fame, fortune and happiness

Views Culture
The film column
Reach for the stars We have made a mess of Earth, but does that mean we should
head for space and have another go? There are many reasons not to, and not all
of them come down to technical difficulties, finds Simon Ings
Interstellar travel will

need human ingenuity,
and a lot of patience
These issues will only grow with

more extreme distances travelled.
Interstellar travel will require a
ship capable of supporting entire
generations of humans. Lapierre’s
Simon Ings is a novelist and testimony, says Werner Herzog’s
science writer. Follow him on narration, suggests that any such
Instagram at @simon_ings mission will be plagued with
“strife, crime and depravity”.
In that case, we might be better
off staying put. This, surprisingly,
is the advice of a cleric from the
Valley of the Dawn community
DISCOVERY INC.
in Planaltina, Brazil, who believe

they receive energies from visiting
extraterrestrials from the Capella
star system. These apparently
HOW will people copulate in Meanwhile, in the Negev desert advise against interstellar travel,
space? How much antimatter in Israel, citizen scientists from the which I’m sure NASA would be
Film
would it take to get to Proxima Austrian Space Forum are putting interested to hear.
Last Exit: Space
Centauri b? How much skin a not-too-sophisticated-looking Last Exit: Space suffers from its
Rudolph Herzog
would each of us need if we could Mars spacesuit through its paces. wide-eyed, catch-all approach to
Discovery+
somehow bioengineer humans As well as looking at the the subject; I found the lack of
to photosynthesise? These are just technical barriers to moving off- critical analysis frustrating. We are
Simon also some of the challenges examined planet, the film ponders whether regaled with tales of “the human
recommends... by documentary-maker Rudolph it is a good idea in the first place. pioneering spirit”, as though
Film
Herzog in Last Exit: Space, a Among the naysayers is space humans were destined to explore
Apollo 11 (2019) peculiar dash through humanity’s and become somewhat less than
Todd Douglas Miller
ambition to colonise space. “The possible future human when not exploring. This
Assembled from archive A traditional documentary is an opinion not established fact.
footage and uncluttered living conditions on
might look for answers via the Many human cultures have made
by narration or interviews, press offices of the European
Mars are compared to a great success of staying put.
this account of the first Space Agency or NASA. Not so working in an Amazon Set in false opposition to this
crewed journey to the fulfilment centre” are an astonishing assortment
Rudolph Herzog, whose father,
moon provides a unique of dystopian fantasies: space
fellow film-maker Werner Herzog,
and original view of the
narrated and executive-produced anthropologist Taylor Genovese, corporations will control our
moon landings.
this film. Instead, the film zooms who compares the possible future water! Space corporations will
in on those who are dedicated to living conditions on Mars to control our air!
Book
solving the conundrums of space working in an Amazon fulfilment Astronaut Mike Foale and
The Space Barons travel, one challenge at a time. centre. Judith Lapierre, the sole astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz
Christian Davenport
The result is a charming, yet female crew member of the provide the documentary with
Public Affairs
unfocused and slightly odd, take Sphinx-99 isolation experiment in small but penetrating moments of
Exclusive interviews and reason. Space is an additional field
on space exploration. In Denmark, the late 1990s, describes how this
years of research lend ballast
we meet volunteers at the non- study in close-proximity living of human endeavour, they point
to this clear-eyed account out, not an escape route from a
profit organisation Copenhagen ended with her alleging sexual
of the often overheated wrecked home planet. “Do we
Suborbitals who are crowdfunding harassment against another crew
and overhyped private need to seek our destiny among
to build a full-size rocket to send member. It does beg the question,
space sector. the stars?”, asks the documentary
the world’s first amateur astronaut if we can’t get along on Earth, what
into space. chance do we have in space? early on. Let’s hope not. ❚

For Recruitment Advertising please email nssales@newscientist.com or call 020 7611 1269
Features Cover story
Wave after wave

By observing dozens of gravitational waves – and
spotting completely new kinds – we are solving some
of the universe’s deepest puzzles, reports Stuart Clark
I
N A darkened room in Sweden, beneath fresh details of how stars die and explaining several kilometres away. The path the beams
a chandelier and surrounded by dozens long-standing mysteries about the cosmic take is the same length, so any slight difference
of gilt-framed portraits, journalists are population of black holes. What’s more, we in when they arrive back at the origin indicates
listening as a phone connection is established seem to be on the cusp of detecting a whole a change in the space they have traversed –
with Rainer Weiss. It is October 2017 and Weiss new kind of gravitational wave, one that a sign of a gravitational wave swooshing
has just been awarded the Nobel prize in could tune us in to the frequency of some through Earth, stretching and squashing space.
physics for spearheading the detection of deeply mysterious objects we think were Detecting these ripples isn’t easy, given that
gravitational waves, along with Kip Thorne forged in the aftermath of the big bang. gravitational waves change space by much less
and Barry Barish. The pomp and ceremony than the width of a subatomic particle. But the
was a fitting finale to the quest to detect these LIGO team succeeded. These days, there are
elusive waves, which had been predicted by Giant pebbles another three similar detectors: Virgo in Italy,
Albert Einstein more than 100 years earlier. Imagine dropping a pebble into a pond and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector
In truth, though, it was as much a beginning watching the ripples spread out in concentric (KAGRA) in Japan and GEO600 in Germany.
as an ending. If the traditional astronomy circles. A gravitational wave is a bit like this, The most useful thing about this
of telescopes is like seeing the cosmos, then except instead of a pebble, we have massive, groundbreaking work is that it gives us
gravitational wave astronomy is akin to hearing moving objects like black holes, and instead a window on black holes, objects that are
it. The discovery of these ripples in space-time of water, the ripples are in space-time itself and otherwise tricky to study. Unlike stars or
had effectively given astronomers a new sense. propagate in three dimensions. These waves planets, black holes don’t directly give out
In that room crowded with reporters, a were one of the last unverified predictions of or reflect light. But they do sometimes crash
journalist from Swedish television took the Einstein’s general theory of relativity. That is into each other, creating waves in the fabric
mic and asked Weiss what kind of things why Weiss and many other physicists banded of space-time. “Gravitational wave detectors
we might be able to learn. “Well,” he began, together decades ago to try to snare them. are doing something truly unique,” says
“there’s a huge amount of things to find out.” To do so, they built two gigantic instruments astrophysicist Thankful Cromartie at Cornell
Less than five years later, and with scores in the US that are collectively known as the University in New York. “You’re sensitive to
of gravitational waves now detected, we are Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave a whole bunch of different kinds of events.”
starting to see what he meant. These waves Observatory, or LIGO. These detectors each At first, there was a thrill in just hearing the
OLLIE HIRST
are providing us with a rich picture of the fire two precision lasers in different directions “chirp” of colliding black holes. But researchers
universe’s most exotic objects, showing us from a central starting point at mirrors that are from LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA released >

another batch of results in November 2021,
which brought the total number of observed
“At first, there another black hole or a neutron star, we can’t be
sure which – that weighed in at 2.6 solar masses,
waves to 90. With so many gravitational waves
now in the bag, we are in a new era, one in
was a thrill in squarely within the mass gap. A third sighting
from LIGO caught a black hole eating a 2.1-solar-
which we can answer questions about how
the universe works on the grandest scales.
just hearing mass neutron star. Meanwhile, Cromartie and
her colleagues spotted a neutron star that was
Perhaps more than any other class of celestial
object, black holes mark out the history of the
the ‘chirp’ 2.19 solar masses using radio telescopes.
Katerina Chatziioannou at the California
cosmos. They come in a variety of sizes and
are formed in different ways over the life of the
of colliding Institute of Technology, who is part of the
LIGO collaboration, says these detections are
universe. There are stellar black holes, which
are born when giant stars die and have masses
black holes” telling us that the mass gap is an observational
bias. LIGO is better at detecting more massive
from several times to tens of times that of the objects. “We’re very good at seeing black holes
sun. Then there are supermassive black holes, of 30 solar masses, but less good at seeing black
which can be anywhere from a few million to holes of five solar masses,” she says. Mass-gap
a billion solar masses. These live in the centres objects are out there, it seems, they are just
of galaxies and are thought to have formed as hard to spot. LIGO is currently being upgraded
smaller black holes merged. such that it will be more sensitive to lighter
objects when it switches back on later this year.
There are also surprises in the latest data
Thimbleful of neutrons when it comes to the most gigantic stellar
Our understanding of how these types of black
hole grow and relate to each other is, however,
riddled with confusion. One major puzzle is
the mass gap between the smallest black holes
and the largest neutron stars. Neutron stars
are the collapsed cores of dead stars and the
second most dense objects in the universe;
a thimbleful of neutron star weighs hundreds
of millions of tonnes. It is thought that these
stars can reach a point of such density that they
collapse into a black hole. If this is true, then
the lightest black holes should have about the
same mass as the heaviest neutron stars.
But that isn’t what we see. Even before LIGO,
we had ways of estimating the mass of black
holes and neutron stars. These suggested that
the heaviest neutron stars got no heavier than
about twice the mass of the sun, while the
lightest black holes were no lighter than about
five solar masses. In 2010, Feryal Özel at the
University of Arizona called attention to the
paucity of objects of two to five stellar masses,
sparking debate about whether we had seriously
misunderstood neutron stars. In the first few
years after LIGO was switched on, we still didn’t
see anything definitive in this “mass gap”.
But with the data released in November, that
has changed (see “Mind the gap”, right). There
have now been at least two events in which
a black hole swallowed some smaller object –

OUT OF THIS
WORLD
One reason detecting gravitational
waves on Earth is so tricky is that
our planet throbs beneath our feet.
When you are trying to detect the
unimaginably tiny squashing and
squeezing of space caused by
colliding black holes, the last thing
you want is any seismic vibrations in
the ground shaking the equipment.
That is why the European Space
Agency (ESA) has hatched a plan to
get away from those bad vibrations
by putting a gravitational wave
detector in space. Known as the
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna,
EADS ASTRIUM
or LISA, the mission is staggering
in ambition. It will work according
to the same principles as the Laser
Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory on Earth (see main
story), but instead of timing the path black holes. The heaviest stars yet discovered The LISA detector will
of laser beams on the ground, LISA are more than 200 times the mass of the sun. aim to detect gravitational
will fire lasers from one free-floating But when one of these stars dies, we think the waves in space
craft to two others, each exactly explosion is so powerful that nothing is left,
2.5 million kilometres away. not even a black hole. In fact, according to and because the orbital speeds would be low,
As the lasers bounce between our best understanding of these events, no the waves would have lower frequencies than
these spacecraft, they will register black hole heavier than about 45 solar masses those observed up until now. A LIGO-style
the minuscule changes in their should be created from a supernova, no matter detector would never be sensitive enough
relative position caused by passing how massive the star was. to see them – unless it was put in space (see
gravitational waves. While LIGO But LIGO is detecting black holes that “Out of this world”, left).
is designed to snare the waves tip the scales at 60 solar masses and beyond. But there is another way. Even before they
produced by black holes of about Even accounting for the bias of the detector merge, orbiting supermassive black holes give
30 solar masses, LISA should be towards heavy objects, there are more of these out weak gravitational waves. Individually,
capable of seeing much longer monsters than expected. This might be telling these are insignificant, but when combined
waves from larger black holes: us that we have misunderstood supernovae, with those being given out by all other such
ones with hundreds of thousands or or perhaps that black holes grow to such sizes black hole pairs across the universe, they add
even millions of solar masses each. by merging with each other. up to an incessant, infinitesimal burbling of
We know the technology Using gravitational waves to study the space-time that criss-crosses the cosmos. It is
works because ESA launched a supermassive black holes – the ones that are known as the gravitational wave background.
demonstration mission in 2015 millions of times heavier than the sun – could This background is actually a million or more
called LISA Pathfinder. It was a great tell us more about cosmic history. Today, one times “louder” than the LIGO signals, but a full
success. Still, we will have to wait of these behemoths sits at the centre of pretty wave undulation lasts for years. Detecting it
a while for LISA to come online – much every galaxy, providing the gravity would mean measuring an oscillation that is
it is scheduled to launch in 2037. gluing its stars together. To get to their still far less than the width of an atom and takes
present sizes, older, smaller galaxies and place over the course of years. “The nature
their supermassive black holes must have of the signal itself is very different,” says Joe
merged. But we have never been able to peer Simon at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
far enough back in time to see this happen. Simon and Cromartie are part of the
These colliding supermassive black holes North American Nanohertz Observatory
would have given off gravitational waves. But for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav)
the actual collisions are expected to be rare, project, which aims to measure this signal. >

New Scientist audio
You can now listen to many articles – look for the
headphones icon in our app newscientist.com/app
Radio telescopes, such as

the Green Bank Observatory in
West Virginia, can observe pulsars
universe in computers, each with different

populations of giant black holes and varying
merger rates, and see what kind of gravitational
background signal should be produced. By
comparing the models and the real data, we
should be able to deduce a lot about the kinds
of black holes out there in the cosmos.
The most exciting prospect would be if
the computer models couldn’t be made to
fit the data. This might mean that we will
be forced to invoke another type of black
hole entirely to balance the books.
In some interpretations of the big bang,
fluctuations in the density of space in the first
seconds of the universe could have produced
tiny black holes. It is far from certain whether
JEE SEYMOUR IMAGES
these so-called primordial black holes existed,

or if they are still out there. But if they are,
they provide an elegant solution to several
problems in cosmology. Most appealingly,
they could be the secret identity of dark
matter, the invisible stuff thought to be
NANOGrav uses conventional radio telescopes
to monitor fast-spinning neutron stars called “With so many guiding the motion of galaxies.
According to Suvodip Mukherjee at the
pulsars. As they rotate, pulsars send out regular
beams of radio waves into space, like a gravitational Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada,
the gravitational wave background could
lighthouse, which serve as extremely stable
clocks. NANOGrav has been timing signals waves spotted, provide us with the first concrete evidence
of primordial black holes. “I find this
from dozens of pulsars across the sky for a
decade. Any tiny discrepancies in when the we can start possibility very fascinating,” says Mukherjee.
He and his colleague Joseph Silk at Johns
flashes arrive here could be a sign of the ripples
of the gravitational wave background. answering the Hopkins University in Maryland recently
showed that it should be possible to
Black hole revelations

big questions” distinguish regular and primordial black
holes in the gravitational wave background.
First, though, we must unambiguously
About a year ago, the NANOGrav researchers detect the background signal. To that end,
announced an analysis of almost 13 years of the NANOGrav team is analysing another
data for 45 pulsars. In it, they saw hints of a three years of data from almost 60 pulsars.
signal that could be the background. They This should tell us for sure whether we are
haven’t yet resolved the signal well enough seeing the gravitational wave background.
to be sure, but the NANOGrav team has since But as our first detection of gravitational
combined its data with that of two similar waves taught us, that will be only the
pulsar timing arrays in Europe and Australia beginning. “It’s not going to end once
to form the International Pulsar Timing Array we say we’ve detected the gravitational
collaboration. This triumvirate announced wave background,” says Cromartie.
in January that in the combined data set, “That’s when our science really starts.” ❚
the signal stayed put, providing a stronger
suggestion that this is no false alarm.
Even if this is the real deal, it won’t Stuart Clark is a consultant for
be possible to deduce anything about New Scientist. His latest book
individual supermassive black holes. Instead, is Beneath the Night (Faber)
astronomers would model versions of the

Features
Save our bunnies

A mysterious viral disease is putting rabbits
in a real hole. Can they get out of it,
asks Graham Lawton
M
R MCGREGOR’s only desire was to Natural England. “They need our help.” three to four months and have frequent litters
keep Peter and his pesky playmates The European rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus, of up to six kits. A breeding pair can produce
off his vegetable patch – and, if he evolved around half a million years ago. It was 40 kits a year, and fertile males roam widely
got lucky, to make a pie out of them, according once widespread across Europe, including the (see “Rabbit rules”, page 45). In the 19th and
to Beatrix Potter. Meanwhile Elmer Fudd’s British Isles, before being penned into Iberia by early 20th centuries, developments such as the
fervent wish was to put a bullet through his the last ice age. Their global expansion began planting of winter fodder crops for livestock
arch-nemesis, Bugs. in the 1st century BC with the Romans, who and the slaughter of natural predators also
Popular culture depicts a certain domesticated rabbits for food and fur and boosted populations, making rabbits a
antagonism between human and rabbit, spread them back across their former range. serious agricultural pest in many parts.
while often emphasising the bunnies’ role as Some say the Romans reintroduced the With shotguns, ferrets, traps and poisons
sassy survivors. But having already seen off rabbit to Britain, others point to the Normans. proving to be ineffective, and fences simply
one huge existential threat in the past century, It was definitely the British who brought them burrowed under, thoughts turned to a more
the viral disease myxomatosis, rabbits now to Australia in 1859 and New Zealand in the dastardly method of control: biological
face another horrendous adversary, rabbit 1860s. A small colony established in the US in warfare. In the 1950s, through a mixture of
haemorrhagic disease virus, or RHDV. At the 1875 to control weeds quickly expanded across accident and intention, myxomatosis was
same time, we have come to realise that rabbits North America. The European rabbit is now unleashed, almost entirely wiping out rabbit
BEN HALL/NATUREPL
aren’t just fast-breeding agricultural pests, but one of the most widespread species on Earth, populations, first in Australia and then in
key to many healthy, functioning ecosystems living on every continent except Antarctica. Europe (see “Myxomageddon”, page 44).
worldwide. “Rabbits are in a lot of trouble,” That is partly because rabbits breed like, well, Only then did we realise how much we
says Pip Mountjoy at UK government agency rabbits. Females are reproductively mature at missed them. It turns out that rabbits are >

both a keystone species and an ecosystem Puffins on the island of
engineer crucial to maintaining entire Skokholm, UK, benefit
sensitive food webs and habitats. On the from rabbit burrowing
island of Skokholm off Pembrokeshire, UK,
for example, scene of an early myxomatosis Britain’s rabbits for half a century. But many
trial, rabbit burrows provide nesting sites for landscapes in places like the UK are intensively
puffins and shearwaters. Many airborne and managed, so what is “natural” is debatable.
GRAHAM RACHER/ALAMY
land-based predators rely on rabbits for food, In areas like the Breckland, rabbits have taken
while their relentless grazing and burrowing over from native herbivores that are no longer
maintains semi-open “mosaic” habitats rich in present, such as wild boar, says Mountjoy.
wildlife. One example is the Breckland in East The new threat of RHDV was identified in
Anglia, UK, a Special Area of Conservation that China in 1984. It kills 80 to 90 per cent of its
features the country’s only active, constantly victims like a bunny-boiling Ebola. Victims
moving inland sand dunes and rare wildlife, extinct in the country, its caterpillars starved bleed from the mouth and nose, convulse,
including the prostrate perennial knawel, a by a lack of the red ants that once thrived in fall into a coma and die. The first wave of the
plant found nowhere else in the world. rabbit-grazed grasslands and fed them. Similar disease spread rapidly into Europe. Spain
Following rabbits’ near-elimination in the shifts were seen in Australian wildlife, with recorded its first case in 1988. Soon more
UK, some farmers rejoiced at increased crop declines in many bird and marsupial species. than 60 per cent of Iberia’s wild rabbits
yields. But plant communities became less It might seem counter-intuitive that an succumbed, pushing their natural predators,
diverse and rabbit-eaters, such as buzzards, introduced species can also be a keystone the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial
stoats and peregrines, suffered heavy losses. species, says Diana Bell at the University of East eagle, closer to extinction.
In 1979, the large blue butterfly went locally Anglia in Norwich, UK, who has been studying A new wave of a related disease, RHDV2,
Myxomageddon
The devastating lethality of Charles Martin, by then in semi- almost all of south-eastern Australia’s
myxomatosis on the European retirement at the University of estimated 100 million rabbits had
rabbit was first noted in 1896, Cambridge, UK, introduced the virus already kicked the bucket.
when bacteriologist Giuseppe into two colonies of rabbits in enclosed It was a similar story with a
Sanarelli at the Uruguayan Institute paddocks, and wiped out the lot. Field European outbreak that began when
of Hygiene in Montevideo watched trials followed on Skokholm, an island French bacteriologist and landowner
in horror as almost his entire colony off the coast of Pembrokeshire, UK, Paul-Félix Armand-Delille deliberately
of imported experimental rabbits that had become overrun with rabbits, and illegally released two rabbits he
succumbed to an unknown disease. as well as in Australia, but they flopped. had infected onto his estate in France
Necropsies revealed the cause of In 1950, however, CSIRO released in 1952. The disease rapidly spread
death as tumours in multiple organs, infected rabbits into the Murray valley across western Europe and into the
hence the name: a myxoma is a type in south-east Australia. These died British Isles. There is a widespread
of connective tissue tumour. without significantly spreading the belief that the disease was deliberately
Sanarelli thought mosquitoes disease: myxomatosis can be caught introduced into the UK, but it appears
were implicated because rabbits kept though close rabbit-to-rabbit contact, it wasn’t: according to a 1956 article
indoors didn’t catch the disease. After but ill rabbits tend to socially isolate. by a senior official at the country’s
failing to find a bacterial cause, he also Later that year, however, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
surmised it must be viral. He was right: myxomatosis suddenly erupted, and Food, it was much discussed,
myxomatosis is caused by a poxvirus spreading fast and with almost total but never approved. The first case,
carried by mosquitoes and other biting lethality in the rabbit populations it recorded in Kent in 1953, probably
insects that normally infects South encountered. The turnaround was hopped across the channel naturally.
American cottontail rabbits benignly. put down to the Australian summer Deliberate spread of myxomatosis was
In the early 1930s, the Australian of 1950 to 1951 being very wet, criminalised in the UK in 1954, but this
Council for Scientific and Industrial meaning myxomatosis-carrying was too late: more than 99 per cent of
Research (later CSIRO) hit on the idea mosquitoes bred in areas normally rabbits that encountered the disease
of using myxomatosis for biological too dry for them. When the outbreak in the UK died, a carnage they are still
control. In 1934, former employee fizzled out in 1951, it was because recovering from (see main story).

struck in 2010 and caused further “massive Rabbit grazing
declines”, says Miguel Delibes-Mateos at maintains rich
the Institute for Advanced Social Studies in “mosaic” habitats
Córdoba, Spain. Between 2012 and 2014, the such as in the
rabbit population in the Doñana National Park Breckland, UK
in Andalucía, Spain, once a rabbit stronghold,
fell by more than 80 per cent. Across Iberia,
declines of 60 to 70 per cent have been closely
mirrored by falls in lynx and eagles. The UK
Breeding Bird Survey, which also records
mammals, shows a 64 per cent decline in wild
rabbit populations between 1996 and 2018.
The origin of the RHDVs remains unknown,
says Kevin Dalton at the University of Oviedo,
Spain. Like myxomatosis, they might have
jumped species, or they could have arisen
from recombination events, where two
viruses mash up their genomes. But their
effects have been enough for the International
JIM CLARK/ALAMY
Union for Conservation of Nature to reclassify
the European rabbit from “vulnerable” to
“endangered” in Spain. As recently as 1996,
it was in the “least concern” category.
Conservation efforts so far have largely
failed, in part because many people still within 40 metres of an occupied warren
consider rabbits a common pest and fair game.
“Why would a species that you kill 6 million of
Rabbit rules provide enough cover for rabbits to expand
their earthworks. In a two-year experiment,
a year by hunting need conservation?”, says more than 40 per cent of her brush piles ended
Carlos Rouco at the University of Córdoba. Rabbit society is “really complex”, says up with a warren underneath and more than
Around 500,000 rabbits are released each Diana Bell at the University of East 90 per cent showed signs of rabbit activity.
year in Spain and France in an attempt to halt Anglia in the UK. They live in groups of This simple, low-tech but effective intervention
their decline, but more than 90 per cent die up to 20 individuals, which cooperate could be used in any rabbit-dependent habitat,
from predation, disease and stress. to defend their territory, but fight like she says. Rouco and Delibes-Mateos suggest
There are some glimmers of hope. In rabbits in a sack for dominance over it. something similar could make previously
some areas of Spain, 60 per cent of rabbits The prize for being alpha female is unsuccessful restocking efforts more effective.
now have antibodies to RHDV2. And not all of control of the group’s breeding rights; Other interventions would be more general
Iberia’s rabbits are struggling. There are two for alpha males, it is access to females. habitat restoration, although there is little
subspecies – Oryctolagus cuniculus cuniculus Once weaned, male offspring money around for that, and to stop keeping
and O. c. algirus, which diverged around leavethe warren to spread their domestic rabbits in close proximity to wild
2 million years ago – that each occupy their wild oats. Females stay put in the ones. Otherwise, however, it seems we have
own halves of the Iberian peninsula, divided by territory, forming a matriarchal little choice but to let evolution run its course
a diagonal line running north-west to south- society of mothers, daughters, and hope the virus becomes less deadly.
east. They coexist along the border, but don’t sisters, grandmothers and aunts Some point out that the current huge drops
interbreed; Delibes-Mateos has proposed that led by the dominant female. She in rabbit numbers are measured against
they should be recognised as separate species. rules the warren with a rod of iron, the 1950s, when populations were possibly
The big declines are in the O. c. algirus zone to often killing her subordinates’ kits artificially inflated. Overall, it is clear rabbits
the south, which is also where the lynx and by dragging them into the open to are in a hole, says Rouco – but then again,
eagles live. To the north, O. c. cuniculus is stable be picked off by predators. they have bounced back before. “I’m 95 per
or even increasing. Exactly why isn’t known, But the top job is often up for grabs: cent confident they won’t go extinct,”
says Delibes-Mateos, but finding out could be while wild rabbits can live to nine, he says. Here’s hopping. ❚
a route to stabilising populations in the south. average life expectancy is only about
One way to help colonies seems to be to four years. “In Spain, they have more
increase their size, perhaps because rabbits than 30 predators,” says Carlos Graham Lawton is a feature writer
then have more exposure to the virus as kits Rouco at the University of Córdoba. for New Scientist. His latest book is
and develop immunity. In Breckland, Bell has Corre, conejo, corre! Mustn’t Grumble
found that piles of brush placed strategically

Features
Mimicking touch

Chemical stimulants helped us piece together how and nociceptors for sensing pain.” Why not
try to make the most of all of them? This
our sense of touch works. Now, they are providing way, says Lu, you could put people into
simulations of dangerous situations, like
a new way of creating artificial sensations, burning buildings, to train them in what
finds Victoria Woollaston to expect without any physical danger.
The idea for chemical haptics began
not with touch, but with different senses
altogether. Lu’s colleague at Chicago, Jas
Brooks, was interested in the way chemicals
add to the richness of daily life, particularly
through smell and taste. Brooks designed a
headset that released chemicals like mint and
pepper into the nose’s trigeminal nerve, a large
In a technology dubbed chemical haptics, tract of neural fibres that carries pain, touch
they have built a wearable device that, when and temperature information to the brain.
placed on the skin, can cause the wearer to When people wore the headset in a virtual
experience a range of sensations – hot or cold, reality environment, pumping menthol
numb or tingly – on demand. Its uses could into their nose made them feel cooler, and
include creating intensely realistic virtual capsaicin made them feel warm. Not only
worlds for gamers to explore or for training were the users experiencing a smell they
firefighters. But will we ever be able to associated with a cold feeling, like mint, but
fully replicate the experience of touching the trigeminal nerve was also telling their
something real, and what might we lose if we brains the room was a different temperature.
can’t? Amid growing talk about metaverses, When Lu joined the lab, she wondered
such questions are increasingly important. whether there might be a way to bypass the
“How we sense the world around us is nose and go directly to the skin. “I realised
critical for pretty much everything in life,” there were a lot of other chemicals that can
Y
OU open a door and it hits you – a flare says Thomas Perlmann, a biologist at the achieve different sensations on the skin,”
of warmth on your skin. You brace Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. she says. “Then our team began looking at
yourself to go inside, battling smoke The word haptics officially means anything all other chemically induced sensations that
and heat. Flames flicker around you as you related to the sense of touch. Today, it is mostly have been studied, expanding beyond just
make your way through a burning building. used as a shorthand for haptic technology, the hot and cold.” She started reading about
You find what you came for and escape. devices we use in daily life that help replicate a work that had been done decades earlier.
Outside, it is so cold you start to shiver, touch feeling using force, vibrations or motion.
while your hands and feet go numb. On your phone, your home button may not be
But then you remove your headset and it all a physical button at all, but made to feel that A library of touch
stops. You just finished an incredibly realistic way using a vibration. Next time your device In the early 1990s, David Julius at the
training exercise. None of those sensations is switched off, see if you can still press it. University of California, San Francisco,
were caused by changes in your surroundings, But the applications for haptics go beyond wanted to find an alternative type of painkiller
although they felt real. Instead, chemicals phone buttons. Haptic devices have been to the opioids that were starting to become
carefully selected to mimic different feelings used to help people who have had a stroke widespread in the US. But first, he realised,
were pumped onto your skin. to regain feeling in their arms and provide he had to learn more about how we feel pain.
Such stimulants have long been useful realistic feedback to medics practising CPR. He and his team wanted to understand
for understanding touch, the most complex In 2019, researchers in Hong Kong used tiny the signalling pathways that underpin
of all human senses. In the 1990s, studies motors to create a virtual skin to “hug” our sense of touch.
of capsaicin, an extract of chilli peppers, relatives across the world. As a starting point, they created a library
and menthol, found in peppermint, helped The limit with these devices, though, is they containing millions of DNA fragments, each
us pin down how our bodies react to hot and only make use of one type of touch – pressure. corresponding to genes expressed in the
cold conditions. Now, Jasmine Lu and her Our skin can feel so much more than that. “Our neurons linked with pain, heat and touch.
AVE CALVAR/UNSPLASH
colleagues at the University of Chicago are sense of touch is mediated by various receptors Julius knew capsaicin made skin feel hot and
using this knowledge to create chemically in our skin,” says Lu. “We have thermoreceptors burning. They spent years trying out thousands
induced sensations, to make virtual for sensing hot and cold, mechanoreceptors of fragments to see which ones caused
environments astonishingly realistic. for sensing vibration, pressure and force, receptors in our cells to respond to capsaicin. >

EMOTIONAL
TOUCH
Touch a burning hot iron and
you will immediately know
After a long search, in 1997, they finally
identified a protein called TRPV1. Receptors “How we sense
to pull your hand away. This
sense, called discriminative
for this protein are found in cell membranes,
mostly in nociceptive neurons in our skin. the world is
touch, is communicated to the
brain using nerves known as
These are nerve cells responsible for feeling a
certain kind of pain. TRPV1 alerts the brain to critical for
A fibres, which provide almost
instantaneous information.
both physical and chemical stimuli, such as
burning capsaicin and higher temperatures – pretty much
But there’s another group of
nerve fibres, called C fibres,
anything above 43°C. In response to these
triggers, TRPV1 opens an ion channel that everything
that act more slowly, taking
around a second to carry
sends electrical signals to the brain.
Julius and others went on to spend decades in life”
a signal from your foot, examining the intricate web of receptors,
say, to your brain. These other neurons, proteins and ion channels that
communicate different together give us the complex and varying
types of pain, such as sense of touch we experience. Ardem
throbs and aches, rather Patapoutian at the Scripps Research Institute “But now, I was thinking of how to more directly
than stings or burns. in San Diego, California, was one of the key interact with the specific [cellular] channels that
In the late 1990s, Åke researchers, helping to discover the way we regulate the perception of these sensations.”
Vallbo at the University feel cold sensations and pressure on the skin In 2021, Julius and Patapoutian were
of Gothenburg, Sweden, (see “Under pressure”, opposite). This work awarded the Nobel prize in medicine for their
discovered a specific type of was vital in getting us closer to a complete work. On the same day, Lu and her team
C fibre called C-tactile or CT understanding of the sense of touch. published their paper introducing chemical
fibre. “It’s a lovely nerve,” says When Lu read about Julius and Patapoutian’s haptics. “It was actually quite a coincidence,”
Francis McGlone at Liverpool work, it made her reconsider the way her lab she says. “Their work on detailing the receptors
John Moores University in the was using stimuli. “Before, I had just imagined that correspond to these sensations of hot,
UK. “It responds to exactly the doing it externally – creating heat, providing cold and pain is foundational to our approach.”
velocity of stroking you would force feedback, generating vibrations,” she says. In their paper, Lu and her team used
say is nice.” The CT fibres only chemicals ranging from sanshool, a component
responded to slow, gentle Devices worn on the of spicy Sichuan pepper, to create a tingling
touch – 5 centimetres per skin can create more feeling, to capsaicin, to mimic warmth. Menthol
second – and they are only realistic virtual worlds was used for cold, while a local anaesthetic,
found on hairy skin. The type
of touch that triggers the
CT nerve is called affective
touch, because it is used
to create social bonds.
Not getting enough of this
kind of touch has been linked
to depression and anxiety.
McGlone and his team
published a study in which
they stroked rats every day
for 10 minutes. One group
was stroked at the speed the
CT fibres respond to, while
the animals in another group
HUMAN COMPUTER INTEGRATION LAB/UCHICAGO
were stroked six times faster.

Then, they were put through
situations that would provoke
mild stress. The rats that had
been slowly stroked didn’t
respond to the stress. Whether
this works in people is yet to
be seen, but McGlone says
initial results are promising.

lidocaine, numbed the skin. Each was pumped
through a wearable device to the skin.
The results were presented at the User
Interface Software and Technology conference
in 2021. In a video of a virtual reality scenario,
HUMAN COMPUTER INTEGRATION LAB/UCHICAGO

someone wearing the chemical haptic system
is seen escaping from a nuclear power plant
on the brink of meltdown. With sparks flying,
sanshool is pumped into channels on the arm
and face to create a feeling of tingling, as if they
were hitting the skin. When the person tries
to unlock a door using an arm-worn interface,
it fails, and lidocaine numbs the area, giving
the impression they have lost the use of the
limb. As the door to the reactor opens and
heat rises, capsaicin flows onto the skin
to simulate the warmth coming from a fire, development. “Honestly, it scares me,” says A new haptic system pumps
and when they exit the power plant and Francis McGlone, a neuroscientist at Liverpool chemicals onto the skin to
enter a snowy scene, menthol is released onto John Moores University in the UK. He has provide virtual sensations
their cheeks to mimic the feel of a cold wind. spent decades studying the social importance
While this is the cutting edge, the chemical of touch to humans (see “Emotional touch”, mediated by touch,” she says. It also lies at the
pathways involved in touch have been left) and believes virtual reality will never be heart of our social development. “Touch has a
exploited in various ways before. Medical able to replicate this. “We know that this digital power unlike that of the other senses,” she says.
creams use concentrated levels of minty world is going to take over,” he says, “but we Lu is quick to stress that her work with
wintergreen oil to create a thermal reaction need to find ways to ameliorate the negative chemical haptics is not, and in her view never
on the skin that helps relieve pain. Some consequences of not having physical contact.” will be, a replacement for real touch. “Touch
skincare products use capsaicin to promote “Touch is a matter of life and death,” says is a really complex sense, which is why using
blood circulation, and mouthwashes use Katerina Fotopoulou at University College touch to interact with our world in real life
menthol to generate a fresh sensation. But London. Compared with other mammals, is such a wonderful experience,” she says.
such chemicals have never before been used humans can do very little when we are born. Instead, she sees it enhancing digital
in conjunction with virtual worlds. “Our very survival in those early days relies experiences. “I don’t tend to think of VR
Not everyone is excited about this on caregiving from our parents and all of this is as a vehicle for escaping our reality, but as
a medium that can empower us to do and
experience things we can’t normally.”
And while chemical haptics can replicate
some sensations, others elude it. “I can’t
UNDER PRESSURE simulate the softness or texture of my cat’s fur
when I pet her,” says Lu. This is why she and her
After finding a protein that word for “pressure”. likened to our body’s GPS. team see the most important applications of VR
helps our bodies sense cold They found that when People without PIEZO2 in being experiences and sensations that augment
(see main story), Ardem they are silenced, it renders the nerve cells that supply rather than substitute our day-to-day lives.
Patapoutian at the Scripps tissues incapable of feeling muscles and tendons tend Chemical haptics was made possible thanks
Research Institute in force and reduces their to lack coordination and to decades of research using natural stimulants.
California didn’t stop there. ability to feel pain. The genes can end up in a wheelchair. Next, Lu wants to create new molecules, to
To study how we feel code for proteins that form PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 channels see how they react. If all goes well, it could
pressure, Patapoutian and ion channels that open in regulate important even lead to more discoveries about our most
his colleague Bertrand Coste response to mechanical physiological processes, complex sense. “This is the first exploration of
designed a new experiment. pressure on the skin and including blood pressure, generating skin sensations using an interactive
After spending the best part internal membranes. They respiration and bladder device that dispenses chemicals,” she says.
of a year and a half switching help our bodies detect blood control, while PIEZO2 plays “We don’t know how far this can go.” ❚
off sensory genes one by pressure, bladder pressure a role in pain-sensing
one, Coste identified two and breathing. But they play neurons. Researchers are
genes that control our body’s a much bigger role too. now thinking about targeting Victoria Woollaston is a
sensitivity to pressure. The Proprioception is the force-sensing proteins freelance journalist based
pair called these PIEZO1 sense of self-movement and with medicines to treat, in Buckinghamshire, UK
and PIEZO2, from the Greek bodily location, sometimes for example, chronic pain.

50 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022 To advertise here please email Ryan.Buczman@mailmetromedia.co.uk or call 020 3615 1151
The back pages
Puzzles Almost the last word Tom Gauld for Feedback Twisteddoodles
Try our crossword, Why does sticking New Scientist Giant gummy bears for New Scientist
quick quiz and my tongue out help A cartoonist’s take and moon geese: Picturing the lighter
logic puzzle p53 me concentrate? p54 on the world p55 the week in weird p56 side of life p56
The science of cooking
Conquer your spheres

A hallmark of top-tier modernist cuisine, spherification is
nevertheless a technique you can try at home, says Sam Wong
IF YOU eat at fancy places, you may

have encountered orbs of sauce
or puree, held inside a membrane,
that burst in your mouth. Making
them involves a little chemistry,
but it can be done at home.
Now a staple of modernist
cuisine, the spherification
technique was patented in 1942 by
Sam Wong is assistant news food scientist William Peschardt
editor and self-appointed and later popularised by chef
chief gourmand at Ferran Adrià at El Bulli restaurant
New Scientist. Follow in north-east Spain in the 2000s.
him @samwong1 To try it, you need two special
ingredients that can be ordered
What you need online. One is a salt called sodium
ZHANNA TRETIAKOVA/ALAMY
250 millilitres of mango juice alginate, which comes from brown
5 grams of calcium lactate algae. Alginate is formed of
5 grams of sodium alginate polymers made of chains of sugar
1 litre of water molecules with negative charges.
Blender or hand mixer These polymers can link together
Hemisphere-shaped to form a gel, but to do that, they
tablespoon measure need help from ions with a double mango juice hit a problem: when let it sit so any air bubbles escape.
positive charge. Sodium ions I mixed in the sodium alginate, To make mango spheres,
have a single positive charge, it instantly formed a gel. Mangoes dissolve the calcium lactate in the
so they stick to the negative parts contain little calcium, but perhaps mango juice. Fill a hemisphere-
of the alginate, but can’t pull two another mineral was causing the shaped tablespoon measure and
polymers together. problem. This method can also tip it into the alginate bath. Use a
The second ingredient is fail if the liquid is too acidic. spoon to rotate the sphere as the
calcium lactate, another salt, Luckily, there is an alternative gel sets. After 1 minute, take it out
this time containing calcium technique: reverse spherification. of the alginate bath with a strainer
ions. Their double positive Here, calcium lactate is mixed and put it into a water bath.
charge means they can attract with the flavoured liquid, which is You can also use a pipette,
two alginate polymers at the same dropped into a solution of sodium syringe or squeezy bottle to make
time, forming the cross links we alginate. This results in a thicker small drops that form caviar-like
need to turn the liquid into a gel. membrane, but it should work spheres, but this is trickier because
The original spherification with almost any edible liquid. the spheres tend to stick together.
method involves dissolving the If you live somewhere with hard The membrane is permeable, so
sodium alginate in the flavoured water, like London, your tap water if you want to make the spheres in
liquid, then immersing drops could turn to jelly on contact with advance, store them in mango juice
The science of cooking or spoonfuls into a solution of the alginate, so use bottled water so the flavour doesn’t escape. ❚
appears every four weeks calcium lactate. A gel skin should for the alginate bath if you have to.
quickly form on the outside, Sodium alginate dissolves These articles are
Next week trapping the liquid in the sphere. poorly, so create your solution posted each week at
Stargazing at home My attempt to do this with with a blender or hand mixer, then newscientist.com/maker

AL
FRE UBS
LS
E F CRIB
OR ER
Subscriber
S
Event
ONLINE EVENT
SPACE:
YOUR QUESTIONS
ANSWERED
30 March 6-7pm BST and on-demand
We’re entering a new era in space exploration, PANEL INCLUDES:
where intriguing questions abound. What’s going on Abigail Beall
with the new race to the moon and Mars – and who New Scientist feature editor
and author of The Art of
will win it? Is there life in the outer solar system, or Urban Astronomy
on nearby exoplanets? What will the newly launched
James Webb Space Telescope reveal about our Leah Crane
New Scientist space and
galaxy and the wider cosmos? physics reporter
Joshua Howgego
Join a panel of New Scientist staff as they New Scientist feature editor
discuss these questions and more in our ﬁrst
Richard Webb
exclusive subscriber event of 2022 – with the Host, New Scientist
agenda set by you, the audience. executive editor
Scan me to register
To register to watch live or on-demand and
submit questions to the panel visit
newscientist.com/marchevent2
You will need your 8 digit subscriber number which can
be found on our customer service and event emails.
The back pages Puzzles
Cryptic crossword #79 Set by Wingding Quick quiz #143

1 Males of which group of animals
Scribble experience “musth”?
zone
2 Which chemical element has
the atomic number 33?
3 Where in the solar system are

the volcanoes Olympus Mons
and Ascraeus Mons?
4 Which mass extinction came first:

the Permian-Triassic, the Devonian
or the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction?
5 In the human spine, how many vertebrae

are typically found in the sacrum?
Answers on page 55
Puzzle
Answers and set by Derek Couzens
the next quick #159 Express coffee
crossword
next week
ACROSS DOWN A B
1 Bird that’s a novice (6) 1 Run, walk and hike (6)
4 Bird with alien food pipe (6) 2 Zero carbon supported by Cambridge C
D
9 Ancient city may clean lake advocate of simple theories (5)
every now and then (7) 3 Pollution is eradicated, to some extent,
10 Bird with new headgear (5) by air purifying device (7)
11 Young animals given medicine first 5 Terribly cruel and sore (5)
in research buildings (5) 6 Assign great importance to feline
12 Publicity for machine learning sensory organs in speech (7) The streets of New Addleton are set out
on Irish TV – I’m gripped! (7) 7 Somewhat smitten, reclusive mammal (6) in a rectangular grid. Seven coffee vendors
13 Son trusted dad would be moving, 8 Spread tastes same after mixing (the circles in the diagram above) have
like the night sky (4-7) with iodine (11) stalls at metro stations and want to set
18 Painters of Central Park birds 14 Bird with obsession ditches up a central depot to collect supplies from
eating sulphur (7) male for moon (7) each morning. They want to minimise
20 Show of displeasure from 15 Undisciplined soldiers left out report (7) their combined cycling distance from
South Carolina bird (5) 16 Force taken out of lightning strikes (6) stall to depot. Pat has four candidates
22 Bird with concave wings in the future (5) 17 Student feeding bird gets for the depot location: A, B, C and D.
23 A little bit of insect in tin (7) frightened reaction (6)
24 Expensive bird with lubricant (6) 19 Smooth, solid vegetable (5) “Are you sure one of those four is optimal?”
25 Pull bird in front of church (6) 21 Rise of nitrogen agriculture asks Shahin. “I suppose we could work out
shortened part of body (5) the total vendor-depot distance for every
point on the grid.”
“No need, I can tell you the best place just

by looking at the diagram,” announces Kim.
Which location does Kim recommend

Our crosswords are now solvable online and why is she so confident?
newscientist.com/crosswords
Solution next week

The back pages Almost the last word
Why has the lichen

Sticking it out
grown more in certain
Why does sticking my tongue out areas of this sign?
seem to help me concentrate?
Chemical Atlas by Edward
Gillian Forrester Livingston Youmans, which
Birkbeck, University of London, UK was published in 1856.
It isn’t so much that sticking
your tongue out helps you to David Muir
concentrate, rather it is something Edinburgh, UK
that most people naturally do When you light a candle, the flame
when engaging in fine manual melts the wax to form a pool at the
motor actions, such as threading base of the wick. This liquid rises
a needle. through capillary action up the
We think this behaviour has a wick to the flame, where the wax
long evolutionary history. When is vaporised. The hydrocarbon
humans became bipedal, around wax molecules burn to make
4 million years ago, our hands carbon dioxide and water
became busy with competing if enough oxygen is present.
JANE AYTO
activities like manipulating These products are invisible.
tools and communication When a candle is extinguished,
gestures. We also think that This week’s new questions the smoke comprises wax vapour,
the modern human language intermediate breakdown products
system originated from a visually Lichen this sign Why are the lichens distributed in this and unburned carbon, altogether
based gestural communication way on this road sign? The surfaces have the same texture, a very combustible fuel. This can
system incorporating the hands, just different colours. Jane Ayto, Plymouth, UK be demonstrated by snuffing out
face and posture. a candle, then putting a flame
These competing hand actions Planetary fly-through Would it be possible to fly to the rising smoke and watching
created problems if we wanted to a spaceship through the centre of a gas giant planet? the flame shoot down the smoke
simultaneously communicate and Bob Yelland, Alton, Hampshire, UK to relight the wick.
act, for example when teaching During decades of noisy
competitions in science classes,
“Hand and mouth they are using with their fingers. professional snooker players, who I have watched pupils make
actions are closely Most children stick out their twitch the middle finger of their flames jump down smoke
tongues when making fine motor “bridge” hand while concentrating columns up to 6 centimetres
linked, and the hand actions. Adults probably on lining up a shot. It really stands long, given careful flame-snuffing,
mouth mirrors hand still make these tongue actions out once you notice it. still air and the right wick.
actions during fine too, but social pressures teach us
motor activities” to keep our mouths closed so our Burn out David Jackson
tongues aren’t visibly hanging out. Gosport, Hampshire, UK
someone to make or use a tool. Why does a candle make My preferred way of putting out
This may have created a pressure Contee Seely more smoke just after it a candle is to lick my thumb and
for our communication system Berkeley, California, US has been extinguished? forefinger then pinch out the
to move from gestures to another Sticking out one’s tongue and flame. This prevents the plume
signalling channel: the voice. wiggling it seems to stimulate Philip Bradfield of white “smoke”, which is actually
Neuroscientific evidence backs a part of the brain that can make Edinburgh, UK condensing paraffin wax.
this up, showing that our hand a difference in one’s mental state. The plume visible after If a candle wick gets too long in
behaviour for tool use engages Doing this almost unfailingly extinguishing a candle flame is a the flame, some wax gets drawn
the same brain regions used in clears headaches from the stream of unburned fuel particles up into the cooler part of the
speech. Behavioural evidence back of my head. rather than smoke. It is powered flame where there is insufficient
also shows that these two motor by the residual heat of the wick. oxygen for complete combustion.
systems are closely linked and Drew Barlow This can be tested by collecting This results in black carbon
that the mouth mirrors hand Kerikeri, New Zealand the stream on absorbent paper. smoke above the flame.
action when engaging in fine I have noticed a similar There is a delightful poster In days gone by, wicks were
motor movements. phenomenon with many of candle combustion in The regularly trimmed with small
Experiments show that when scissors to prevent this, but
people are asked to pick up large Want to send us a question or answer? they are now specially woven
objects and then smaller ones, Email us at lastword@newscientist.com so that they bend over and
their mouth will open and close Questions should be about everyday science phenomena trim themselves by burning
in proportion to the grip size Full terms and conditions at newscientist.com/lw-terms off in the flame edge.

Tom Gauld Answers
for New Scientist
Quick quiz #143
Answers
1 Elephants
2 Arsenic
3 Mars
4 The Devonian extinction
5 Five
Quick crossword
#103 Answers
ACROSS 1 Bubble, 4 Bit
depth, 9 Twitch, 10 Lollipop,
12 Medusoid, 13 Larynx,
15 Nape, 16 Hypocapnia,
19 Metabolism, 20 Area,
23 Tomtit, 25 Heath hen,
27 Godzilla, 28 Minute,
29 Numbness, 30 Emetic
DOWN 1 Bitumen, 2 Blind spot,

3 Locust, 5 Iron, 6 Delta ray,
7/17 Poppy Northcutt, 8 Hypoxia,
11 Bicycle, 14 Monster,
18 Obsidian, 19 Mutagen,
Iron mussel In hot water
21 Apnoeic, 22 Atrium,
Exploring slate mines in north Wales, I am right-handed and I find it 24 Modem, 26 Plus
UK, my son and I often find structures difficult to accurately judge the
that resemble a mussel or similar temperature of bathwater with
bivalve on rusting iron metalwork my left hand. Why? (continued) #158 League
(pictured). What’s going on? of nations
Neville Owen Solution
David Aldridge Melbourne, Australia
University of Cambridge, UK of time out of water to graze Some years ago, while England vs Scotland and Wales vs
This looks very much like a on exposed surfaces. investigating how best to protect Ireland were the last two matches.
member of Ancylus, a genus gas industry workers from the
of freshwater limpets. So this Chris Daniel ignition of escaped gas, it became First up were Ireland vs England
could be a gastropod (snail) Glan Conwy, Conwy, UK clear that our skin can be thought and France vs Wales. So Scotland
rather than a bivalve. Similar shell-like objects have of as a thermal flux sensor rather played every round after that.
Snails are part of the Mollusca been found in abandoned mines than just a thermometer. This is Wales were at home for the third
phylum. Molluscs lay down shell in the Pyrenees mountains. why hot steel feels hotter than hot set of matches. And since home/
material continuously and can These objects can be formed charcoal at the same temperature. away alternated, Wales missed
produce rings that mark daily when bacteria are deposited on When exposed to hot, or cold, round two, meaning Ireland and
patterns, annual patterns and the surface of steel pipes from water, you can get used to it. This France were away that round.
even disturbance events, just which fungal filaments grow by happens as the body responds and So Scotland and England must
like tree rings. sequestering mainly iron ions moves more blood to the exposed have been at home, and Scotland
Mollusc shells are also very from the surrounding water region, thereby dispersing more played Ireland and England faced
good at absorbing metals, which and depositing them as fibre-like heat so the thermal skin sensors France. Following through, we get:
would give rise to the rusty iron oxide crystals. get less signal. If you find it easier Round 3: W vs E and F vs S
coating from the surrounding Such growths build up in to judge water temperature with Round 4: I vs F and S vs W
ironwork seen in the picture. layers to form symmetrical one of your hands, it may be due Round 5: E vs S and W vs I
Given the high humidity clam-like shapes. This interplay to a difference in blood flow to
found in some disused mines, between microbes and the the dominant hand because of These were the actual 1975 Five
it is plausible that the snails iron-rich water is known as greater use of that hand, leading Nations rugby contest fixtures.
can spend prolonged periods biomineralisation. to better blood circulation. ❚

The back pages Feedback
Hybrid learning Twisteddoodles for New Scientist It celebrates the announcement

of 2 gigawatts of wind power
A man in a hide jerkin and capacity to be installed off the
disposable face mask sits knapping Australian state’s coast in the
flints against the backdrop of coming 10 years, or as the tweet
an unaccountably large, bright has it in an accompanying picture:
red tractor. Rounding a corner, “SH**LOADS OF POWER.
a 3-metre-high luminous yellow SH**LOADS OF JOBS”.
grinning gummy bear suddenly Clue: it wasn’t “shed”. We idly
looms over us, from which we wonder if this is now a unit of
flee through a door into a side power and how many horses
room where Greater Manchester it would take to produce it.
mayor Andy Burnham is talking Around 2.7 million, we make it.
soulfully about 100 per cent They would be a truly magnificent
renewable trams. sight riding in the waves, although
Not Feedback’s latest cheese we do wonder whether any of this
dream – although close – but sure counts as clean energy.
signs we were on the shop floor
at New Scientist Live Manchester,
Butt out
as part of our drive to bring the
office stationery cupboard to you. While our back was turned,
Like many people, Feedback we also discover that a portion
currently finds being in real places of Twitter declared 1 to 8 March
with real people a discombobulating InverteButt Week in celebration
experience that requires several of the backsides of creatures
deep-breathing exercises and us without backbones.
remembering to wear something We doubt the world truly needed
on our bottom half. Many attendees this, but then again, with past
in Manchester weren’t actually in headlines in this august publication
Manchester, but watching it all from Got a story for Feedback? such as “Comb jelly videos are
the safety of their own underpants Send it to feedback@newscientist.com or New Scientist, rewriting the history of your anus”,
at home, which brings its own Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT perhaps people in glass houses
challenges, it turns out. When digital Consideration of items sent in the post will be delayed shouldn’t throw… slugs.
attendees complain that the main This leads us to delve rather more
stage is freezing, getting someone deeply than we might otherwise
to turn up the thermostat in the hall Godwin, in which the protagonist Authority titling a talk “Nuclear have done into the lifestyle and
doesn’t cut it. Lesson learned as flies to the moon in a chariot Fusion: Forever 30 years away”. morphology of the bristle worm
the boundaries between the virtual towed by moon geese. We would Still, we learn that a gummy bear Ramisyllis multicaudata, a detailed
and physical worlds slowly melt, take this option, which strikes us is about the same size as a uranium study of which, published last year,
as indeed the people in the hall did. as classier than the unspeakably fuel pellet, that one fuel pellet seems to have been a prime mover
vulgar rockets favoured by today’s produces enough power to drive of InverteButt Week. The worm
The truth is out there billionaire class. an electric car 20,000 miles and so lives, with delightful specificity,
We also now know the current a 3-metre-high gummy bear would within sponges in Darwin Harbour,
“Don’t think of a black hole as location of the first sandwich in make enough electricity to power northern Australia. Its single head
a Hoover, think of it as a couch space, what an industrial vacuum 2 million electric cars for a year in is buried deep within the sponge,
cushion”. Astrophysicist Becky does to a marshmallow and how the UK. This makes us happy. but its body randomly branches
Smethurst – Dr Becky to her to make a rocket with half an out into up to 1000 rear ends
legion of YouTube fans – won the Alka-Seltzer and a 35-millimetre Blowing in the wind that poke hopefully out of it.
prize for the most unexpected film canister. That’s definitely one The gut is continuous throughout
metaphor of the event, her point not to try at home. For anyone Meanwhile, out in the real world, all these branches, yet doesn’t
being that you are less likely to tempted, all the talks are available the real world was still going on. seem to process any food, leading
get sucked into a black hole than in the metaverse. The gummy bear is possibly a to speculation that the worm has
to lose your car keys down the side more appropriate unit of power “adopted a fungal lifestyle”.
of one. Or something like that. Going nuclear for a family magazine than that This sounds pleasingly louche,
Meanwhile, we were delighted contained in a tweet from the like flying with the moon geese.
to learn from Dallas Campbell The 3-metre-high mutant gummy Victorian Trades Hall Council Even more fun is that, when it
and Suzie Imber’s talk on how to bear was, it turns out, advertising that Paul Campbell forwards comes to reproduction, new
leave Earth about the 1638 book the benefits of nuclear power. us following our session on heads – complete with brains
The Man in the Moone, written by Feedback regards this as brave, “how big is a gigawatt?” in and eyes – start forming and bud
Church of English bishop Francis as we also do the UK Atomic Energy last week’s Feedback. off from the worm’s butts. Cute. ❚

Podcast
The New Scientist

Weekly podcast
Our weekly podcast has become the must-listen science show,
bringing you the most important, surprising or just plain weird
events and discoveries of the week. Hosted by New Scientist’s
Rowan Hooper, new episodes are out each Friday.
PODCAST OF THE YEAR
Follow us on Twitter @newscientistpod

New Scientist??

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

New Scientist??

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

New Scientist??

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is the pink lake in Australia?

What is the pink lake in Australia?

What does the study of Ramisyllis multicaudata worm tell us?

What does the study of Ramisyllis multicaudata worm tell us?

UKRAINE WAR

How a new kind of gravitational wave could

No3378 US$6.99 CAN$9.99

PLUS AUSTRALIA’S PINK LAKE / THE MORALS OF SNEEZING /

On the 8 Ukraine war

12 Elixir of youth 43 Rabbits in a hole

baby boomer misery? geese: the week in weird

19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 1

Virtual event Newsletter

CERN. The centre is nestled

2 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

BUY IT IN PRINT NOW AT:

PUBLISHING & COMMERCIAL EDITORIAL

19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 5

Satellite photo of the

operational nuclear power plants.

On 12 March, the Ukrainian

Ukraine’s nuclear peril your car keys and just expecting

19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 7

How to fight disinformation

8 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

Why hasn’t Russia waged an

BEATA ZAWRZEL/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 9

How to ease global food shock

On 9 March, Ukraine banned and fly, whereas people with

10 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

Clue to the rejuvenating Even a low level of

YOUNG blood’s revitalising KEEPING the TV or a bedside light

12 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

The pursuit of KNOWLEDGE

New Scientist. Sign up to our introductory 200+

Organic mineral bonanza on Mars

Curiosity collected and analysed water is a key indicator of a

14 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

COMPUTER simulations that Shackleton crater

19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 15

Iceland targets herd immunity

HALLDOR KOLBEINS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

coronavirus to spread while Aspelund is clear that

16 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

For more information and to book your place visit:

BIG THINKER SERIES

Pink lake mystery solved

THE reason for the bubblegum

Many of them produce purple,

Crash-avoiding drones can fly in mines

19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 19

on a changed output – that needed to train AI models in networks currently operating,

nobody working with toads knows

amphibians in trees, almost all of end up like losing all your

20 | New Scientist | 19 March 2022

7 days | 23 August and 6 September 2022

Ancient caves, human

beauty of northern Spain. Santander and Museo de Evolución Humana.

insight into our forebears. and tuition in tasting Rioja wine.