new scientist - 33 reasons we can't think clearly about climate change (july 2015) [cpul]

8/18/2019 New Scientist - 33 Reasons We Can't Think Clearly About Climate Change (July 2015) [CPUL]

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33 REASONS WE CAN’TTHINK CLEARLY ABOUT

CLIMATE CHANGE

DEEP THOUGHT The irresistible rise of neural networks

YOUTH DRUGWill anti-aging pill get the green light?

PLUTO’S OTHER FLY-BYChasing the dwarf

planet in a jumbo jet

ALCHEMY MACHINEChemical wizardry at

the click of a mouse

DIAGNOSE THYSELFNow you can be the

doctor in the house

WEEKLY July 11 -17, 2015

No3029 US$5.95 CAN$5.9

Science and technology news www.newscientist.com US jobs in science


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11 July 2015 | NewScientist | 3

OTT Volume 227 No 3029This issue online

newscientist.com/issue/3029

Coming next week…The time traveller’s guide to EarthVisiting our planet’s spectacular past

Say what?Brain-train your way to better hearing

Cover imageChristoffer Relander

28

38

Youth drugon trial

Will anti-aging pillget the green light?

8

M I C H A E L K I R K H A

M

P L A I N P I C T U R E

33 reasons wecan’t thinkclearly aboutclimate change

Diagnosethyself

Now you can be thedoctor in the house

News

On the cover

Features

20 Deep thought

Rise of neural networks

8 Youth drug

Will anti-aging pill get

the green light?

12 Pluto’s other fly-by

Chasing the dwarf

planet in a jumbo jet

34 Alchemy machine

Instant molecule maker

38 Diagnose thyself

Be your own doctor

News6 UPFRONT

GM mosquitoes blitz Brazilian city. North Sea

cod population rebounds. New Zealand joins

space race. Drinking in pregnancy is common

8 THIS WEEK

When do you declare a planet lifeless?

Climate change hits heritage sites. Bonobos

use tools like early humans did. Scent gene

discovery could lead to perfect roses

12 FIELD NOTES

Chasing Pluto’s shadow across the ocean

14 INSIGHT

How to fix the eurozone

16 IN BRIEF Spiders that windsurf. Playing Tetris blocks

trauma flashbacks. Giant balls of plasma lurk

in interstellar space. Brains crumple like paper

Technology19 Deep-diving in an experimental submarine.

The unstoppable rise of neural networks

Opinion24 The climate stage Scientists must step

aside so others can speak, says Fred Pearce

24 Down but not out Paul Younger on the

far-from-settled future of fracking

25 One minute with… David Casarett As a

doctor, I’m on a medical marijuana mission

26 Into the machine Why César Hidalgo

insists that the economy is a computer

Features28 33 reasons we can’t think clearly about

climate change (see above left)

34 Alchemy machine Chemical wizardry

at the click of a mouse38 Diagnose thyself (see left)

CultureLab42 Other selves Time to rethink our view of

non-human animals – and ditch Descartes

43 Sci-Fi London competition The winners

Regulars54 LETTERS Depression and inflammation

56 FEEDBACK Eating glowing lamb

57 THE LAST WORD She smells sea smells

Aperture22 Weird human experiments

Leaders5 Big business is starting to take the climate

seriously. We were the missing part of AI


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L

THE good news: we’ve finallystopped arguing about whetherclimate change is real. The badnews: we’re still arguing overwhat to do about it. And the morewe talk, the warmer the globe gets.

So why do we keep arguing,rather than acting? Largelybecause humans can’t thinkstraight about climate change, a

subject almost unparalleled in itscapacity to breed confusion andinaction (see page 28). Of course,one group does know how tothink about it: climate scientists.But their models and scenarioscan be difficult for laypeople tograsp, and hard to translate intothe practical steps urgentlyneeded to fend off permanent,large-scale losses (see page 10).

When money talksBig business is a powerful voice on climate change. Good

This week, scientists aregathering in Paris – which willin December host the next bigclimate summit – to preparesuggestions for

“an ambitiouspost-2015 governance regime”.Given the dismal lack of progressto date, you would have to be adie-hard optimist to expect thosesuggestions to be taken up by

negotiators at the end of the year.Even those leading the talksseem weary of the merry-go-round. What’s now needed iscontinuous and systematicnegotiation, not intermittentgabfests, says Ségolène Royal, whowill hold the French chair at theDecember summit. “If you treateda business like that, it would havegone bust years ago,” she says.

Perhaps it is just as well,then, that the latest climateactivists mean business – literally.A growing number of companiesand investors have concluded thatclimate change will hit them hard.There is mounting pressure toretreat from companies withlarge carbon exposures. Climatechange, says Paul Polman, CEO of

Unilever, “is no longer just amoral case but an economic one”.Others, from artists to clergy,

are starting to speak up too (seepage 24), but business, above all,has the ear of policy-makers. Thatmight be enough to ignite actionon climate change, and on thatambitious governance regime.After all, when money talks,people tend to listen. ■

The man-machineNEURAL networks – computersdesigned to mimic how our brainswork – have long been consideredone of the most promising routesto artificial intelligence. Butresearchers have been strugglingfor decades to realise the potentialthey know must be there: thenetworks just didn’t live up toexpectations. Now we seemfinally to have figured out whatwas missing all along: us.

The key to building trulycapable neural networks turnsout to be to let them learn frompeople – specifically, from thehuge amounts of data we generatein every instant we spend online.“Deep learning” is now advancingso rapidly that it’s hard to imaginewhere it will stop: there is earnestdiscussion of conscious machines,and their potential to outstrip ourcontrol (see page 20).

But as well as thinking about

how computers can become morehuman, we might do well to thinkabout how humans can work likecomputers. Cold as it sounds, thatwould give valuable perspectiveon our digital age (see page 26).

We have long dreamed of super-smart AIs, and may do so for along time to come if we focussolely on machines. Artificiallyenhanced intelligence is startingto seem more achievable –provided we get to grips with itshuman element. ■

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6 | NewScientist | 11 July 2015

THE hunters become the hunted.On Monday hackers released

what they claim is 400 GB of

internal documents stolenfrom Hacking Team, an Italiancompany that sells surveillance

tools to intelligence agencies.The leaked documents suggest

that Hacking Team marketed itsproducts to a wide range ofgovernments – including a

number of repressive regimes.“The invoices are fascinating,”

says Christopher Soghoian, at theAmerican Civil Liberties Union.“Hacking Team has been sellingits software to governmentslike Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,Sudan, Vietnam and Ethiopia –a number of governments withdocumented histories of abusinghuman rights.”

Soghoian says the documentsshow that government agenciesappear to be able to subscribe for

EBOLA is hanging on. For the pastfive weeks, there have been 20 to27 new cases per week in Guinea

and Sierra Leone, and last weekthere were three new cases inLiberia, which thought it was ridof the disease in early May.

Rich countries meet in NewYork this week to pledge funds forrebuilding the countries’ healthsystems: aid given so far amountsto only two-thirds of the $2.1billion they say they need by 2018.

“This is about getting to zero[cases] and staying at zero,” says

A L E X M U S T A R D / N A T U R E P L . C

O M

Spy firm hacked Ebola end game

OT

“The firm has been sellingsoftware to governmentswith histories of abusinghuman rights”

–Dwarf planet ahead–

–Out of danger, for now–

as little as $50,000 a year, buyinginformation that would let theminstall surveillance programmesremotely onto target computers.

In a statement, company

spokesman Eric Rabe disputedsome of the reports around thehack but confirmed it had takenplace.“We are investigating todetermine the extent of thisattack and specifically what hasbeen taken,” he said.

Edin Omanovic, at PrivacyInternational, said the leakshows that the trade insurveillance technology shouldbe more tightly regulated.

Marie-Paule Kieny of the WorldHealth Organization. Foreignteams fighting Ebola should beharnessed to “reboot” devastatedhealth systems, she says.

Beyond that, the world is at riskfrom future infectious outbreaksunless healthcare improves in28 more countries where thesituation is similar to that in thethree stricken countries beforeEbola hit – making these areasthe most vulnerable. Kieny sayscountries should spend $84 perhead to provide the absoluteminimum care. Before Ebola hit,Guinea, for example, spent only $

A BUSY to-do list can frazzle yourbrain – even if you’re a spacecraft

Last Saturday NASA lost touchwith its New Horizons probe,which is in the final days of itsdecade-long journey to Pluto.About 80 minutes later, missioncontrollers regained contact withthe craft, which had gone into“safe mode”, where it stopscollecting data. The incident was one-off and won’t threaten any ofthe mission’s science, says NASA.

Pluto probe hiccup

N A S A / J O H N S H O P K I N S A P L / S O U T H W E S T R E S E A R C H I N

S T I T U T E

Cod makes a comebackFISH and chips for all! The International

Council for the Exploration of the Sea(ICES) in Copenhagen, Denmark, has

recommended the first major catch

increase for North Sea cod since 2000,

as it says the stock has climbed back

above danger levels.

Also, figures to be released later

this year by Canada’s fisheries ministry

show cod stocks on the Grand Banks

are up for the third year in a row –

although they aren’t out of danger yet.

There’s no mystery to it, say

fisheries experts on both sides of the

Atlantic: fishers stopped killing so

many cod, and the population

recovered, although it took its time.

EU ministers slashed North Sea

catches in 2000, albeit by less than

ICES recommended. Cod also began

maturing sexually at younger ages,

possibly as an evolutionary response

to depletion. Despite this, there wasno clear recovery until 2013, when

the biomass of adult, spawning cod

in that area crossed what ICES

considers the danger threshold of

120,000 tonnes. This was the first

time since 1983.

Meanwhile, cod populations on

the northern Grand Banks remained

low for years after overfishing caused

them to crash, leaving the biomass

of adult fish at only a few per cent of

the level considered safe. But this

started climbing in 2006, then

accelerated. Another substantial

jump is expected this year.

Again, the cause is simple: no

fishing. A 1992 moratorium on cod

fishing on the Grand Banks remains

in effect.


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ARE Kiwis about to fly? NewZealand looks set to become the

first country to host a privatelaunch site for orbital rockets.

Rocket Lab, a firm founded inNew Zealand but now based in theUS, will build the facility onKaitorete Spit near Christchurch,and plans to send the first payloadinto orbit by the end of the year.

Orbital launches from state-owned sites have waiting times ofup to a year and are too costly formany space ventures, says RocketLab CEO Peter Beck. “You prettymuch have to write a cheque for a

billion dollars,” he says. “Whatwould happen if you removeda zero off the end of that?”Rocket Lab is aiming to make

100 launches a year, each costingunder $5 million.

But why New Zealand? From thesouth of the country, Rocket Labwill be able to reach a variety ofvaluable orbital slots, and airtraffic is low so delays will be rare,Beck says.

Lift-off down under

O X I T E C

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

Baby boozers

TIME to sober up? Many pregnantwomen drink alcohol despiteguidelines in most countriesadvising abstinence.

The finding comes from threestudies into the drinking habits of17,244 women in Ireland, the UK,Australia and New Zealand.

In the UK, where women are

advised to avoid drinking alcoholduring early pregnancy, 69 percent of women drank during theirfirst trimester. Of these, 67 percent drank more than 2 units aweek, with 32 per cent bingedrinking during this time.

Co-author Linda O’Keeffe atthe University of Cambridge saysthat this may be because womendon’t know they are pregnant.The rate of binge drinking dropsto 1 per cent in the secondtrimester. ( BMJ Open, DOI:

10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006323).Probably the most reliable

figure for Ireland comes from thesame international study. Thisfound that 80 per cent of womendrank during their first trimester.

Most countries adviseabstinence because there isn’tenough evidence to know if lowlevels of alcohol are safe. UKguidelines have come under firefor saying abstinence is preferredbut that up to four units a week isunlikely to cause harm. –Fight mosquitoes with… mosquitoes–

“The computer was trying todo two things at the same time,”says Glen Fountain of the JohnsHopkins University Applied

Physics Laboratory in Maryland.As it loaded instructions for

the fly-by, New Horizons was alsocompressing old data to makeroom for new observations. Thiscaused its processor to overload,sending the craft into safe mode.

Engineers spent the weekendfixing the problem. “I am quiteconfident that this kind of eventwill not happen again,” saysFountain.

For live coverage of the 14 JulyPluto fly-by, visit bit.ly/NSpluto.

60 SECONDS

Big BP payoutBP has agreed to pay $18.7 billion

over the next 15 to 18 years to cover

damages resulting from the 2010

Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the worst

environmental disaster in US history.

The money will go to the US

government and the five states

affected to help repair damage to

the economy and environment.

Fish oil from seedsNo need to plunder the oceans for

fish oil: it can now be grown in flax-

like camelina plants. The genetically

modified plants contain seven extra

genes from marine plants and

microbes, enabling them to makethe two most beneficial fish oils in

their seeds (Metabolic Engineering

Communications , DOI: 10.1016/j.

meteno.2015.04.002).

Teen pregnancy fixLong-acting contraceptives really

do cut unplanned teen pregnancies,

a programme in Colorado has shown.

State-wide, teen births dropped

40 per cent and abortions 35 per cent

between 2009 and June this year. In

that time 30,000 women were givenlong-acting but reversible

contraceptives such as implants.

ISS gets food at lastEveryone has bad experiences

with delivery companies, but this is

something else. After a string of

failed launches, the International

Space Station was finally resupplied

on Sunday by an uncrewed Russian

Progress craft, delivering water, fuel

and other goodies. “Feels like

Christmas in July,” reported the crew.

SupercentenariansThe world’s oldest man has died

at 112. Born in Fukushima, Japan,

in February 1903, Sakari Momoi

attributed his longevity to lots of

sleep and a varied diet. The title

now passes to another Japanese

man, born a month after Momoi.

The world’s oldest woman lives in

New York and celebrated her

116th birthday on Monday.

GM mozzies fight dengue feverTHE insect assassins have been

launched. Some 6 million genetically

modified mosquitoes have

descended on the Brazilian city of

Piracicaba to fight dengue fever. A

test in Florida is also being discussed.

The mosquitoes are all male and,

when they mate with native females,

they pass on a gene that causes the

larvae to die. The plan is for GM

mozzies to outnumber native males

in the area, gradually shrinking the

population of dengue-transmitting

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

Since the effort started in April,

around half of the larvae in the area

have been sired by GM fathers.

A recent trial in another Brazilian city,

Juazeiro, showed that within six

months the native population had

reduced by 95 per cent – below the

level thought necessary to transmit

disease (PLOS Neglected Tropical

Diseases , doi.org/52p).

“It showed that our method is

more effective than any other at

eradicating the mosquitoes that

transmit disease,” says Hadyn Parry,

chief executive of Oxitec in Abingdon,

UK, which designed the mosquitoes.

Whether a drop in the numbers

of dengue-transmitting mosquitoes

will actually lead to a drop in disease

incidence remains to be seen.

Oxitec is now hoping to win US

Food and Drug Administration

approval for trials in Florida, despite

public opposition. The mosquitoes’

range has spread, and outbreaks of

dengue started there in 2009.

“You pretty much have topay a billion dollars to usea state launch site. What ifyou could remove a zero?”


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Clare Wilson

ANTI-AGEING pills are no longerdrugs of the future – the first trialin people could begin as early asnext year.

Last month, the scientistsbehind the trial began talkswith the US Food and DrugAdministration to hammer outthe practicalities. The trial aimsto test whether a diabetes drugcalled metformin also delaysdeath and age-related conditionssuch as heart disease, cancerand mental decline.

It would be the first timea medicine has been testedspecifically for delaying

ageing in a human trial. “It’s

groundbreaking,” says Sue Peschinof the US-based non-profitorganisation the Alliance for AgingResearch. “It’s significant that theFDA has opened their doors toresearchers about the idea.”

For a long time the field

of lifespan extension has had aflaky reputation, with most ofthe ideas mooted being eitherunappealing or impractical,such as near-starvation diets orsomehow lengthening the tipsof our chromosomes.

Drug regulators do not evenofficially recognise ageing as acondition in need of treatment,which could make it hard to getmedicines approved. But this isn’tan insurmountable problem andrepurposing an existing drug

could help, because we alreadyhave long-term safety data.

Metformin has been used totreat type 2 diabetes for decades.That means the researchers couldgo straight to large-scale testing in

people. New drugs typically haveto be tested on animals first andthen small groups of people. Thisone aims to follow 3000 peoplein their 70s for five years, andpositive results should be enoughfor the FDA to approve it, sayslead researcher Nir Barzilai ofthe Albert Einstein College ofMedicine in New York.

The chief hurdle is a lack offunding, to the tune of $50 million.The American Federation for

Aging Research is supportingthe planning stages, and the teamis in talks with several potentialbackers, including the US NationalInstitutes of Health, so Barzilai isconfident. “We have interest frommultiple sources, so one way oranother this trial is going on,”he says. After all, if the drug isapproved, there is likely to behuge demand for it.

After meeting with the FDA inJune, Barzilai says the regulatorhad only “minor suggestions”

and was supportive in principle.The trial does not actually needFDA permission to go ahead, buttalking to the agency now meansit can be designed to smooth thepath to licensing later on.

To begin the trial, all Barzilaineeds is the go-ahead fromthe various ethics committeesinvolved. He says this should berelatively easy as metformin isseen as such a safe drug.

The compound helps peoplewith diabetes by reducing how

much glucose the liver makes.Its most common side effectsare nausea and diarrhoea, butthese can be lessened by raisingthe dose slowly and taking itwith meals.

Interest in metformin’spossible anti-ageing effects arosebecause diabetics taking the drug

have lower rates of cancer andheart disease and, in one study,lived 15 per cent longer thanpeople without diabetes.

The explanation is unclearas the compound has multipleeffects on cells but one theoryis that it mimics the effects ofcalorie restriction, which delays

T W

The age of the

longevity drugThe first drug designed to give you a longer,healthier life is set to go on trial next year

P L A I N P I C T U R E

“It’s groundbreaking. Thisis the first time a drug hasbeen tested for delayingageing in humans”

NOT JUST FOR OLD PEOPLE

While the first planned test of

metformin as an anti-ageing pill will

be in people over 70, the benefits

might be maximised by starting it

earlier in life.

But there’s a stumbling block in

the way of testing life-extending

drugs in young or middle-aged

people. Because they are likely to

be healthy, it could take decades to

see a drop in their rates of death or

disease. One option is to measuretheir rate of ageing using blood tests

to pick up age-related chemicals like

cholesterol, and measurements such

as blood pressure.

This week, researchers at Duke

University in North Carolina reported

that measuring 10 such biomarkers

was an effective way of assessing

the “biological age” of a group of 100

New Zealanders. Although they were

all 38, the test revealed that their

biological ages ranged from 28 to 61.

“Now we have tools to validate how

well [anti-ageing] therapies work ina much shorter timescale,” says

co-author Daniel Belsky.


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WHEN can we declare the Red Planeta dead planet? Although most efforts

so far have gone toward showing that

other planets could support life, now

is the time to think about the other

side of the coin.

Spacecraft going to other worlds

must follow costly planetary protection

protocols, such as sterilisation, to

avoid contaminating their destination

with Earth microbes, putting any

native life at risk, or bringing

potentially dangerous alien ones back.

But if there’s nothing there, why

bother? We haven’t found life on Mars

yet, and if further missions also turn

up nothing, at some point commercial

space enterprises such as mining

operations or tourism will want to

avoid the costs of sterilisation.

The question has no simple answer,

says Erik Persson, a philosopher at

Lund University in Sweden – but that

doesn’t mean we should dodge it.

Our track record on debating similar

questions on Earth, like the use of

genetically modified crops, is far from

stellar. “On our planet, we usually

have these kinds of discussions too

late, either after the fact or when it’s

about to happen and there are a lot of

feelings,” Persson says. “At that stage,

the discussion might not be as fruitful

as it could be if we start earlier.”

That makes now the best time for

scientists, legal experts and the public

to start thinking about when and how

we might relax planetary protection

protocols if we decide another planet is

lifeless, he says. “When the developers

are on the launch pad, it’s too late,”

he told the Astrobiology Science

Conference in Chicago last month.

So far, most discussions on the

protocols have been about how strict

they should be, not when to end them.

There are mixed feelings: some have

suggested treating Mars as a wildlife

preserve, while others argue that

existing planetary protection rulesare too strict and could even hamper

the hunt for life by making the most

interesting destinations the hardest

to explore. One study also suggested

that microbes would have a hard time

hitching a ride on humans.

But experts in space law haven’t

yet begun to grapple with the issue.

“We’re still trying to figure out how

to implement planetary protection,”

says space law professor Joanne

Gabrynowicz at the University of

Mississippi. “Nobody’s having a

discussion of how to ease it.”

The toughest part of the problem

is that no matter how hard we look

without finding life, the possibility

always remains that we just missed it.

As a result, declaring a planet lifeless

is a value judgement – a question of

where you draw the line and say

“that’s good enough”, Persson says.

Harmful microbes

Even if Mars is truly lifeless, there

may still be good reasons to maintain

protection standards. Stray microbes

from Earth could potentially harm not

just Martian life, but also resources

that human settlers may eventually

want, such as aquifers, says John

Rummel, who served as NASA’s

planetary protection officer for

more than a decade.

The question might be moot if we

don’t tighten existing regulations

first, Rummel adds. “There’s no entity

now in existence that could make that

kind of determination,” he says.

At present, the Outer SpaceTreaty sets guidelines for planetary

protection, but it is up to nations to

ensure that their spacecraft – and any

commercial flights launched within

their territory – comply. In effect, says

Rummel, if one spacefaring nation

relaxes its protection standards for

the sake of commercial ventures,

then the barriers come down for all.

“I think we can do better than that,”

he says. “And you have to do it now,

before there’s serious money on the

table.” Bob Holmes ■

ageing in many animals. Whenfood is scarce, cells shift intoenergy-conserving mode, andthis seems to have knock-oneffects on lifespan.

The proposed metformin trialis not the only sign of progress inthe anti-ageing field. This montha trial in dogs is due to begin of adrug called rapamycin. This isalready used in people to suppressthe immune system, for example,after an organ transplant, but atlower doses it may also mimic

calorie restriction.Unusually, the study’s subjects

are not lab animals but middle-aged pet dogs, partly to reducethe time and expense of a trialinvolving large, long-livedanimals. Team member MattKaeberlein of the University ofWashington in Seattle thinks thatdogs could gain an extra two tofive years of life.

The work will likely be popular,Peschin says: “It’s going to have awarm and fuzzy effect that mice

In this section

■ Chasing Pluto’s shadow across the ocean, page 12

■ How to x the eurozone, page 14

■ The unstoppable rise of neural networks, page 20

studies simply don’t have” –which may help attract moneyfor follow-up work.

According to RichardFaragher of the University ofBrighton, UK, who researches themechanisms of ageing, anotherrecent boost to the field hasbeen the arrival of drug giantNovartis. Last year the firmreported results showing ananti-ageing effect in a drug calledeverolimus, which works in asimilar way to rapamycin.

It was a trial of the medicine’sability to enhance older people’sresponse to flu vaccination –which it did – but it also suggeststhat the drug could prolong life byreducing the normal decline ofthe immune system with age.

Faragher thinks Novartis’sinvolvement shows anti-ageing isa field to be taken seriously. “Weare not trying to be immortal,” hesays. “All we are trying to do ismake sure that we have someextra years without disease.”■

–Better with metformin?–

“We’re still trying to

implement planetaryprotection – nobody isdiscussing how to ease it”

It’s time to decide when todeclare a planet lifeless


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C L O C K W I S E F R O M T H E M A I N I M A G E : Y A D I D L E V Y / E Y E V I N E ; T U I D E R O Y / M I N D E N P I C T U R E S ; P . R

O B L E S G I L / S . M

A D R E / M I N D E N P I C T U R E S ; F . L

A N T I

N G / N G S ; N I G E L P A V I T T / G E T T Y

T W

Climate change hits world’s

outstanding natural areasMichael Slezak

THE climate is no respecterof beauty. Almost one in six ofthe UNESCO world heritage siteslisted for their natural value arealready being battered by thechanging climate. This threatenstheir “outstanding universalvalues” – the features that qualifythem for protection.

This week, UNESCO’s WorldHeritage Committee met in

1. LOS GLACIARESNATIONAL PARK,ARGENTINA

Most of this Andean park’s 47 glaciers

are shrinking as the climate warms,

and wildfires are becoming more

frequent, changing habitats.

These effects are compounded by

introduced species such as cows,

horses, sheep, dogs and cats – and

humans, who are visiting the area in

large numbers.

Bonn, Germany, to decide whetherthe 35 affected sites were beingproperly managed, and if not, whatshould be done.

Climate change is the mostserious potential threat to othernatural world heritage sites, too,says Tim Badman, director of

“There has been a rise insea level and temperature.

Floods and storm tideswash away bird nests”

IUCN’s World Heritage Programme.But, alleviating local pressures,such as logging, could increasethe sites’ resilience.

“Few people are aware ofthe full scales of the damagebeing done as a result of climatechange, including to some ofour planet’s most spectacularnatural areas,” says Inger Andersen,director general of the IUCN.

Here are some of the sitesthat are already feeling the heat. ■


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hammers to smash long bonesand expose food hidden in themarrow cavity. Another crackedthem neatly open lengthwise,a technique previously thoughtto be unique to the humanlineage. One bonobo evensharpened a stick with her teethto fashion a spear – somethingchimpanzees do to huntbushbabies – then jabbed it atRoffman, whom she may haveregarded as an intruder ( American

Journal of Physical Anthropology,doi.org/5z7).

The study shows that bonobosare capable of a wide range of tooluse that puts them at least on apar with chimps, says Roffman.Their foraging techniques

resemble those used by theearliest Stone-Age humans of theOldowan culture. “When you givethem the raw materials, they usethem in correct and context-specific strategies,” Roffman says.

However, captive bonobos,unlike their wild cousins, haveplenty of time to experiment,says Francesco d’Errico of theUniversity of Bordeaux in France.The captive animals’ actions maybear little resemblance to whathappens in the wild. Still, says

d’Errico, it shows the potential isthere and the skill may even comeand go as needed. Roffmansuspects that once researchersstudy bonobos in the southernpart of their range, where food isharder to get, they may find thattool use is common.

If so, tool use in great apesmay be older than we thought,reaching back at least 5 millionyears to the common ancestor ofchimps, bonobos and humans.Bob Holmes ■

“One bonobo sharpeneda stick with her teeth tofashion a spear and jabbedit at the researcher”

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

5. LAKE TURKANANATIONAL PARKS,KENYAThe salty Lake Turkana is a crucial

stopover for migratory birds and a

breeding zone for crocodiles, hippos

and snakes. Drought, evaporation and

increased water use in the rivers that

feed the lake are lowering its level

and increasing its salinity, putting the

animals that rely on it at risk.

3. MONARCHBUTTERFLY BIOSPHERE

RESERVE, MEXICOEvery autumn, millions of monarch

butterflies fly southwards to this site,

turning trees orange and bending

branches under their weight. But their

numbers plummeted to a 20-year low

in the 2013-2014 season, threatening

the reserve’s status. Monarchs face

extreme weather throughout their

range, and fires and storms are

toppling trees, aggravating the

effects of commercial logging.

2. GALAPAGOSISLANDS, ECUADORThe geology and unique wildlife of

these 19 islands inspired CharlesDarwin’s theory of evolution by

natural selection. Warming waters

have already killed half the coral

reefs here and interrupted natural

food chains. On land, the higher

temperatures are favouring

introduced species. A growing

human population and hordes of

tourists are also a threat.

4. WADDEN SEA,GERMANYThis is one of the last remaining

large intertidal ecosystems. It hosts

tidal channels, seagrass meadows,

mussel beds, salt marsh estuaries,

beaches and dunes. Humans have

altered much of the coastline, though,

lowering the site’s resilience to

climate change. There has been a

rise in sea level and temperature, as

well as in flooding of sandbanks and

salt marshes. Floods and storm tides

wash away bird nests.

BONOBOS can be just as handyas chimpanzees. In fact, bonobos’tool-using abilities look a lotlike those of early humans,suggesting that observing themcould teach anthropologists abouthow our own ancestors evolvedsuch skills.

Until now, bonobos havebeen more renowned for theirfree and easy sex lives thantheir abilities with tools.They have never been seen to

forage using tools in the wild,although only a handful of wildpopulations have been studiedbecause of political instability inthe Democratic Republic of theCongo, where they live.

As for those in captivity,Itai Roffman of Haifa Universityin Israel and his colleaguespreviously observed onecaptive bonobo, called Kanzi,using stone tools to crack opena log and extract food. However,

it was possible that Kanzi was alone genius, raised by humansand taught sign language, aswell as once being shown howto use tools.

To find out if other captivebonobos shared Kanzi’s aptitude,Roffman’s team looked to animalsat a zoo in Germany and a bonobosanctuary in Iowa. The teamgave them a series of problemsthat required tools to solve – forexample, showing the bonobosthat food was buried under

rocks, then leaving a tray ofpotential aids such as sticksand antlers nearby.

Two of eight zoo animals andfour of seven in the sanctuarymade use of the tools – in somecases almost immediately. Thebonobos used sticks, rocks andantlers to dig, and also used longsticks as levers to move largerrocks out of the way. Some useddifferent tools in sequence.

In another task, three of thesanctuary animals used rocks as

Bonobos use a range oftools like early humans


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Govert Schilling

THE race is on. In a few hours,Pluto’s shadow will tear acrossEarth’s surface at 25 times thespeed of a bullet. Our task: tomanoeuvre a jumbo jet throughthe night sky so that it crosses theshadow’s path at the point where

we will get the best view of anexceptional astronomical event.And the latest calculationssuggest we are going to fall332 kilometres short.

Ted Dunham of the LowellObservatory in Flagstaff, Arizona,appears worried by the news.“It’s an unexpectedly large shift.”

We are in SOFIA, a convertedBoeing 747SP that is the largestairborne observatory in the world.The refitters have been busy: gone

are the familiar rows of airlineseats and overhead bins, rippedout to make room for a multitudeof computer monitors – and a 2.5-metre telescope. There are noflight attendants, no movies, nofree whisky. I even had to bringmy own food.

SOFIA is flying for a specialreason. Tonight – 29 June – Plutowill pass in front of a star in theconstellation Sagittarius. As itdoes so, the weak starlight thatnormally reaches Earth will fade

and temporarily disappear. Theevent is called an “occultation”.

Astronomers can use thischange in starlight to learn aboutthe pressure and temperatureat various altitudes in Pluto’sextremely thin atmosphere.“These measurements nicelycomplement the observationsthat NASA’s space probe NewHorizons will carry out when itflies past Pluto on 14 July,” saysSOFIA deputy project scientistTom Roellig.

Making the measurementsisn’t easy, though. Earth’s orbitalmotion around the sun will takeus through Pluto’s shadow at highspeed – somewhere in the order of85,000 kilometres per hour. Theoccultation will last 90 seconds.

But SOFIA’s total flight time willbe almost 8.5 hours. We took off

from Christchurch InternationalAirport in New Zealand late in theevening, eventually heading tothe south-west. So far, most of the30-plus scientists and engineerson board have spent the flighttesting and calibrating theirinstruments. I walk around andtake pictures, although the rearof the cabin, where the mostsensitive instruments are located,is forbidden territory.

Calm before the stormNow, as midnight ticks by andSOFIA flies above the oceansomewhere between New Zealandand Antarctica, comes the newsthat has unsettled Dunham.Instrument scientist Jeffrey VanCleve has been in contact withastronomer Amanda Bosh at the

Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology to get the latest fix

on the precise location of the“central line” of the occultation,where astronomers hope toobserve a flash of refractedstarlight at mid-eclipse.

From measurements of Pluto’sposition made just hours ago inArizona and Chile, Bosh calculatedthat the line lies 332 kilometresfurther north than had beenthought. “I hope Amanda is right,”says Dunham.

Mission director Karina Leppikworks out a new flight plan.

Despite network problems, a lostmemory stick and a printer thathas run out of paper, it reachesJeff Wilson, the navigator on theflight deck, in time. SOFIAchanges course.

Next comes what Roellig calls“the calm before the storm”, asSOFIA works its way towards thenew interception point. With littleto do but wait, some people take anap. Leppik plays on her iPad.

A few hours pass, and the

tension increases again. Then, aswe approach 4.53 am, it’s all eyeson the computer screens. Plutoand the star already appear asone blob of light. Then, at thepredicted time, the star starts todim. “Amazing! This is so cool!”exclaim scientists all around me.

The show is soon over – andthe analysis begins. A plot of

brightness measurements madeby the telescope’s guiding camera

shows a beautiful central flash,indicating that SOFIA was smackin the right place. The plot alsoreveals two short-duration blips.

“In principle, they couldindicate the presence of ring arcsaround Pluto,” says Dunham –although he thinks the blips areprobably a spurious artefact.

For 15 minutes or so, I secretlyhold the hope of having witnessethe discovery of a Plutonian ringsystem. But then data from one o

SOFIA’s main instruments comesin, confirming Dunham’s hunchthere are no rings. There isanother surprise, though: apossible sudden temperaturechange at a certain altitude inPluto’s atmosphere. It’s too earlyto know what it might mean, says

MIT astronomer Michael Person.One hundred minutes after theoccultation SOFIA touches backdown at Christchurch airport.“Let’s make some history,” pilotAce Beall had said as we took off.And we have done. But there’smore to follow on 14 July. How I’dlike to be on board New Horizonsduring its Pluto fly-by. ■

Chasing Pluto’sEarthly shadow

L OT O, ove te ot f

N A S A / J I M R

O S S

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

–Telescope to g

“The telescope’s guidingcamera shows a beautifulcentral flash, indicatingwe were in the right place”


15/60

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found that their new flowers hardly

emitted the telltale compounds. In

another experiment, the team crossed

compound-rich Old Blush roses with a

less aromatic variety,Rosa wichurana .Only the progeny that produced the

enzyme had sweet-smelling blooms

(Science , doi.org/5z8).

Baudino thinks the finding could

help breed the perfect rose: one that’s

not only beautiful and long-lasting,

but fragrant, too. Breeders could

quickly cultivate the desired hybrids

T W

“For me a flower thatdoesn’t smell is dead. Thisgene can bring back scentswe lost through breeding”

NOW we can stop and smell the roses

once more. The discovery of a gene

largely responsible for the delicate

scent of the rose could help restore

the fragrance accidentally bred out

of varieties cultivated for beauty.

“In roses used for the cut-flower

market, there is rarely a scent,” says

Sylvie Baudino of the University of

Lyon in Saint-Etienne, France. “We

hope that we can help breeders

restore more fragrances.”

Everything’scoming up roses

with scent gene

Baudino and her team compared

the genomes of two rose varieties:

the strong-smelling Papa Meilland and

the weakly scented Rouge Meilland.

Papa Meilland produces high levels oforganic compounds called

monoterpenes, molecules that create

scents such as mint and citronella.

The petals of the fragrant Papa

Meilland appeared to express one

gene in particular,RhNUDX1, known

in other organisms to produce an

enzyme that helps cells handle stress.

The researchers wondered if this

enzyme could also be responsible for

emitting the rose’s monoterpenes.

They knocked out RhNUDX1 in

another variety of scented rose, and

by testing for signs of the gene in

the plant’s leaves, even before the

rose has flowered.

French perfumer Martin Gras is

excited by the possibilities. “For me,as an old-time perfumer, a flower

that doesn’t smell is dead,” he says.

“RhNUDX1 can bring back what

we lost.”

Natalia Dudareva, at Purdue

University in West Lafayette, Indiana

thinks the discovery could also help

explain how plants communicate wit

each other and pollinators.

“These compounds are not only fo

our pleasure. Maybe one day we will

use this for biological management.”

Aviva Rutkin ■

Debora MacKenzie

EUROPE faces political uncertainty

after the “no” vote in Greece’s bailout

referendum on 5 July. But a group of

mathematicians and economists says

we needn’t have reached this point.

With no reliable way of gauging the

impact of different policy options in the

eurozone, Europe’s leaders were always

doomed to indecision, the researchers

say. They have been working on

computer models that could help, but

their funding – ironically, from the

European Commission – has run out.

The choices for Greece come

down to some mix of austerity – deep

cuts in government spending plus

institutional reform – and debt write-

off. The latter is something that

several leading economists and even

the International Monetary Fund agree

is needed. In voting “no”, the Greek

people rejected further austerity.

Doyne Farmer of the Santa Fe

Institute in New Mexico says leaders

have no way to work out quantitatively

which mix of solutions works best,

so fall back on their own political

ideologies. Deadlock ensues. “Leaders

are flying the economy by the seat of

their pants,” he says.

What might help are agent-based

models (ABMs), which use raw

number-crunching power to simulate

people and institutions that don’t

necessarily behave according to

economists’ assumptions.

“I believe that ABMs have the

potential to analyse the kind of

questions [facing Greece] more than

current mainstream macroeconomic

models,” says Paul De Grauwe of the

Europe can modelits way out of crisis

T ee to London School of Economics.In 2011, the European Commission

launched the complexity research

initiative for systemic instabilities

(CRISIS) in order to developmacroeconomic ABMs. Its simulations

cannot yet encompass whole

countries, but they can model smaller

scenarios involving financial networks

such as that faced in 2013 by Cypriot

banks owed money by Greece.

“The question is, who pays for

such debts?” says Farmer, scientific

coordinator of CRISIS. Their model

showed different policies led to

speedier recovery depending on

overall economic conditions. Letting

a struggling bank be bought out by

other banks worked best in good

times. In bad times, either a tax-

funded bailout or letting the

struggling bank’s depositors lose

their investments worked best.

No single solution was optimal.

ABMs often reveal systemic

economic changes that would

otherwise go unpredicted, says

Domenico Delli Gatti of the Catholic

University in Milan, Italy, also at CRISIS

Expanding the model to whole nation

would make it two or three times mor

complex, says Farmer. But it might

suggest why austerity has apparently

worked in Ireland but may not in Greec

Creating better ABMs could be

a remarkably cheap way to help

stabilise the eurozone. “We’d need

€20 to €30 million and another five

to 10 years,” says Farmer. ■

R E U

T E R S / M A R K O D J U R I C A

–Where next after Greece’s clear “no”?


17/60

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WE’RE honing in on the blobsfrom outer space. In the past threedecades astronomers have seendips in the radio signals fromquasars and pulsars, seeminglycaused by a dark object passing by.

These events don’t all look thesame, so it isn’t clear if they sharea cause. Sometimes differentradio frequencies are delayed bydifferent amounts, while othertimes the radio signal twinkles.

Now Bill Coles of the Universityof California, San Diego, and hiscolleagues have seen both time-delays and twinkles from pulsarsat the same time. That suggeststhe two phenomena may becoming from the same thing –violently turbulent clouds.

“This is an interstellar cloud wayout in the middle of nowhere,” hesays. “It makes a person wonder –what the hell is that out there?”

The blobs would fill thedistance between the Earth’s orbitand the sun, which sounds big butis small in interstellar terms.

To affect radio signals as muchas they do, the blobs must befilled with plasma that is at leasta hundred times denser thannormal interstellar space. Colesthinks they might form atpressure points when two regionsof the thin dust and gas betweenstars brush up against each other(arxiv.org/abs/1506.07948).

L A Y N E M U R D O C H J R /

N B A E V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

Winning formula tells youwhen the game is in the bag

IT’S quite the dilemma. Your team is winning with 10

minutes left in the game. You’re glued to the TV, but really

should get back to work. Do you switch off, confident that

the game is secure, or stay tuned just in case it isn’t?

Now there’s a way to decide. Aaron Clauset of the

University of Colorado, Boulder, and his colleagues

analysed more than a million encounters in basketball,

hockey and American football. They found that much of

the dynamics of these competitive team sports can be

accurately captured by a simple model in which the score

difference randomly moves up or down over time.

“It’s kind of remarkable,” said Clauset. “The emergent

behaviour of these highly trained athletes in a well-

regulated environment is basically equivalent to a

random number generator.”

The researchers used their model to work out the

probability that a lead would be “safe” at any given time.

For an NBA basketball game lasting 48 minutes, they

calculated that a team with a lead of 18 points halfway

through the match will win 90 per cent of the time. At

other times, you can work out the lead that a team needs

to be 90 per cent safe in a basketball game by multiplying

the square root of the remaining seconds by 0.4602.

This is stunningly accurate, says Clauset, considering

the model knows almost nothing about the rules of the

game (Physical Review Letters , doi.org/5zf).

Mystery plasma blobs lurk in deep space

Lazy ants arecareer nonworkers

SOME ants are workers in nameonly. We think of social insectsas hard workers, but many haveindividuals that laze about.

“It’s just the sort of a thingthat anyone who’s ever workedon social insects has noticed:‘Oh look, half of them arestanding around doing nothing’,”says Daniel Charbonneau at theUniversity of Arizona. But no oneknew if the ants were consistentlyinactive or merely taking a break

His team studied 250 workers

from five colonies of Temnothorarugatulus and found almost halfdid no job ( Behavioral Ecology anSociobiology, doi.org/5x9).

Are they just freeloaders?Charbonneau hopes to find out.They could be backup workersor militia, live feed stations orinformation hubs, or perhapssimply the very young or old.“These hypotheses aren’texclusive, so many things couldbe happening [at once],” he says.

Tetris blockstrauma flashbacks

IT’S not just for fun. Tetris canhelp block flashbacks of traumatievents, even after the memory hafixed itself in your mind.

A team based at the Universityof Oxford asked volunteers towatch distressing video footage.A day later, they showed the

volunteers stills from the video toreactivate the memory. Half of thparticipants then played the videgame Tetris.

Over the following week, thisgroup experienced half as manyintrusive memories of the videoas the group that hadn’t playedTetris. Together, the stills andgame appear to reduce the impacof traumatic images, even aftermemories have been fixed by anight’s sleep ( Psychological Science, doi.org/5zc).


19/60


Brains fold likescrewed-up paper

YOUR brain has more in commonwith the contents of your bin than

you might think. The factors shaping

how your brain’s folds form are

the same as those governing a

scrunched-up ball of paper.

Some animals, like rats and

mice, have very smooth brains,

while others, like pigs and people,

have ridges and furrows. Suzana

Herculano-Houzel and her

colleagues at the Federal University

of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil wanted to

work out how these folds form.

For a decade, her team measured

the volume, surface area, thickness,

degree of folding and number of

neurons in the brains of different

species, from marsupials to

primates. Herculano-Houzel then

wondered if brains followed the

same physics that guides crumpled

paper – taking the most stable

configuration with the least

free energy. “I spent the entire

afternoon making crumpled sheets

of paper and measuring them,”

she says. “At the end of the day,

we put it in the formula and tested

it, and it looked beautiful.”

The team found that in both

cases, the number of folds rises

with increased surface area, but

that this is limited by the layer’s

thickness (Science , DOI: 10.1126/

science.aaa9101). Crunching those

two numbers tells you how a given

animal’s brain should look.

Seafaring spiders are skilful sailors

AHOOOOOY sailor! At 5 millimetres

across this is perhaps the world’s

smallest sailor – a species of common

garden spider found across the UK.“It was like an illusion,” says Morito

Hayashi of London’s Natural History

Museum, who first noticed spiders

sailing in the lab. “I was amazed that

these common spiders, found in

everyone’s gardens, had such skilful

sailing behaviour that no one had

noticed before.”

His team found that most of the

325 spiders of 21 species they caught

on islands in ponds and lakes around

Nottingham could sail when placed

on water trays and exposed to a

breeze. Most attempted to catch the

wind and cruise forward by making

“sails” from parts of their bodies.Some pointed two forelegs up in a

V-shape, while others thrust their

abdomen skyward.

Some, like the one pictured above,

also created an anchor by throwing

out strands of silk for attachment to

surfaces (BMC Evolutionary Biology ,

doi.org/5zb). Water was thought to

be the ultimate barrier to spiders

dispersing far, but their sailing skills

may mean they move greater

distances than we thought.

AND... breathe. Twenty-six yearsafter the gene implicated in cystic

fibrosis was found, gene therapyhas been able to help people withthe condition.

Cystic fibrosis is one of themost common genetic diseases,affecting about 70,000 peopleworldwide. Mutations in a singlegene, CFTR, clog the lungs withthick mucus. Despite gruellingphysiotherapy to clear it, lungfunction steadily gets worse,lowering life expectancy toaround 40 years.

Researchers have long tried to

put healthy copies of CFTR intodamaged lung cells, but the

immune system’s defencesscuppered all efforts. A team of80 scientists and clinicians nowseem to have cracked this bysmuggling in the gene insidefatty bubbles called liposomes.

They ran a trial involving116 people, 62 of whom inhaledat least 9 monthly doses of thetherapy while the rest got salinesolution. After 12 months, thosewho received the therapy had onaverage 3.7 per cent better lungfunction than those who did not,

as judged by the volume of airpeople could force out of their

lungs in 1 second (The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, doi.org/52b).

“Although we know that thetherapy isn’t ready to prescribe,I am delighted with the result –it’s better than I expected,” saysDeborah Gill at the University ofOxford. The treatment involvedinhaling a few millilitres ofnebulised liquid each time, shesays. The team is now working todevelop a harmless virus whichthey hope will deliver the therapymore effectively.

Breakthrough at long last for cystic fibrosis gene therapy

Heat is on forsex-change lizard

IF YOU can’t stand the heat, changesex. Male lizards from Australiabecome females in hot weather.

Male central bearded dragons( Pogona vitticeps) have ZZ sexchromosomes; females have ZW.But we know from studies in the

lab that ZZ eggs exposed totemperatures over 32 °C canhatch as females.

Now Clare Holleley at theUniversity of Canberra, Australia,and her team have discovered thatthis happens in the wild too. Of131 lizards they caught, 11 femaleshad ZZ chromosomes.

What’s more, the ZZ femaleslaid almost twice as many eggsas ZW females. All of these eggswould be ZZ, since both themother and father were. “They’ve

lost a whole chromosome in onegeneration,” says Holleley.

The ZZ mothers also passed ona propensity to change sex: theirembryos switch from male tofemale at lower temperaturesthan eggs from ZW mothers. Infact, sex was determined solely bytemperature, not chromosomes.

This means global warmingcould cause the sex switchingto snowball – possibly puttingthe species at greater risk ofextinction ( Nature, doi.org/5zd).

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


20/60

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21/60


TOLOY

“YOU’RE heading in exactly the

wrong direction,” says a faintvoice. These aren’t the wordsyou want to hear when you are125 metres below the sea’s surfaceon the deepest dive to date of anexperimental new submersible.

Just then, the sub’s four electricthrusters stop responding. We arein Seattle’s Elliott Bay, with near-zero visibility, no idea where weare and no way to move. The sub’spilot, Tym Catterson, looks over tome. “Luckily, we have life supportfor three days,” he says with a

smile, pointing to air tanks andcarbon dioxide scrubbers.

The depths of the oceans arestill largely unexplored, mainlybecause of the difficulties gettingdown there. One approach is touse uncrewed subs, called ROVs,but these are specialised andinflexible, making them lesssuited for some missions.

Crewed submersibles can tacklemore tasks, but there are onlyeight deep-diving research subs inthe world, most dating back to the

cold war. And both crewed subs

and ROVs generally require largesupport vessels to winch themin and out of the water, costing$50,000 a day or more.

Stockton Rush, founder andCEO of OceanGate, believes thatthe Cyclops sub I’m riding inwill be able to take a crew of fivebeneath the waves for just a fewthousand dollars, kickstarting anew era of undersea research and

adventure tourism. If, that is,we ever reach the surface again.

The dive started well. Bobbingin Seattle’s marina, the Cyclops(pictured above) looked less like asubmarine than a half-submergedmodule of the International SpaceStation. Its sleek tubular formbristled with cameras, sensorsand the aerodynamic bulge offour electric thrusters. As we

clambered in, Rush admitted the

space references are no accident.“You’re in a spaceship and thisis like going to the moon or Mars,”he says. “Except that here in theocean there are new lifeforms thatpeople have never discovered, andit’s right off our backyard.”

Our mission today isn’t todiscover unknown species but tobe the first people in over 65 yearsto see one of the largest ferries inthe world, the Tacoma, which sankon New Year’s Eve in 1949. That’spossible thanks to the feature that

gives Cyclops its name: a bulboushemisphere of transparent acrylicat the front of the sub that givestwo crew members almost a180-degrees field of vision. Twomore sit behind, resting againsta curved hull that glows with LEDlighting to reduce claustrophobia.

We climb in, seal the hatch andthen Catterson uses a wirelessgames controller to edge us awayfrom the dock. We are attached toOceanGate’s yacht, which tows usout towards the wreck. Getting

“We are 125 metres belowthe sea’s surface when the

thrusters stop. We have novisibility and can’t move”

LOT 1 eow ott y, ette

–Down the hatch–

towed, rather than being winchedon and off a ship, is OceanGate’smoney-saving move. Once GPStells us we are in the right place,

Catterson unhooks us from theyacht, carries out final safetychecks, then pushes the buttonof the sub-phone and says, “Dive,dive, dive.”

The Cyclops tilts its nose downand plunges into the deep. Thesurface light fades and Cattersonflips on a pair of powerful LEDheadlights. We crew members arebusied moving bags of iron ballasttowards the back of the sub. Thisfirst, steel-hulled Cyclops cansafely reach a depth of 500 metres.

Its successor, Cyclops 2, will have acarbon fibre hull and a viewingwindow good for 3000 metres, aswell as manipulator arms and anautopilot. That will put it (almost)in the league of submersibles likeAlvin, which explored the wreckof the Titanic in the 1980s.

There’s a real thrill in seeingthe Tacoma’s wooden spar,smothered in anemones and seaurchins, emerging from the silt.Juvenile salmon and grotesque

ratfish dart among the wreckage.We rest on the seabed while a360-degree sonar system carriesout a 3D scan. It really is an extra-terrestrial experience – no wonderOceanGate expects the Cyclops tobe a hit with travellers. Rush is indiscussions with Richard Bransonto station a Cyclops at his privateCaribbean island, Necker.

But as we drift without power,it’s clear that the Cyclops isn’t yetready for prime time. Of course,we were never in any danger. Rush

reboots the thruster software andwe are moving within minutes.

Soon, this Cyclops begins a tourof undersea treasures in the US,including sunken U-boats fromthe Battle of the Atlantic and thewreck of the USS Macon airshipnear San Francisco. “Our goal isto get as many people as we canunderwater in a crewed sub so theycan understand the challenges,the opportunities and how littlewe know about the underseaenvironment,” says Rush. ■

Dive, dive, dive!Mark Harris was hitching a ride onboard an experimental

submarine when things started to go wrong...


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A T G H E N T

U N I V E R S I T Y

Unconsciously brainyNeural networks are finally fulfilling their magical potential tomake sense of just about anything, says Hal Hodson

I AM watching it have a very odddream – psychedelic visions ofbrain tissue folds, interspersedwith chunks of coral reef. Thedreamer in question is anartificial intelligence, one that

live-streams from a computer onthe ground floor of the Technicumbuilding in Ghent University,Belgium. This vision has beenconjured up after a viewer in thechat sidebar suggests “braincoral” as a topic.

It’s a fun distraction – andthousands of people have loggedon to watch. But beyond that, thebot is a visual demonstration of atechnology that is finally comingof age: neural networks.

The bot is called 317070, a name

it shares with the Twitter handleof its creator, Ghent graduatestudent Jonas Degrave. It is basedon a neural network that canrecognise objects in images,except that Degrave runs it in

reverse. Given static noise, ittweaks its output until it createsimages that tally with whatviewers are requesting online.

The bot’s live-stream pagesays it is “hallucinating”, althoughDegrave says “imagining” is alittle more accurate.

Degrave’s experiment playsoff recent Google research whichaimed to tackle one of the coreissues with neural networks:that no one knows how neuralnetworks come up with their

answers. The images thenetwork creates to satisfysimple instructions can giveus some insights.

Neural networks have beenracing ahead of late. They can

recognise different kinds oftumours in medical images.They have learned to play Super Mario World and can hold theirown in the complex board gameGo, performing as well as amoderately advanced humanwithout planning ahead. Trainedon a database of moves, the

network takes the board layout

as its input and outputs the bestpossible move.These days neural networks

are involved in many of yourinteractions with yoursmartphone or any large internetcompany. “The first one we hadwas in Android phones in 2012when they put in speechrecognition,” says Yoshua Bengioof the University of Montréal inQuebec, Canada. “Now all themajor speech recognitionsoftware uses them.”

In a few short years neuralnetworks have overtakenestablished technologies tobecome the best way toautomatically perform facerecognition, read and understandtext and interpret what’shappening in photographs andvideos. And they are learning itall from us.

Whenever we use the internetor a smartphone, we are almostcertainly contributing data to adeep learning system, one

–Do androids dream of electric squid

“Whenever we use asmartphone, we’re almostcertainly contributing to adeep learning system”


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For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology

probably relying on neuralnetworks that our data helpedtrain in the first place. The mostremarkable property of such

systems is that they can processnew kinds of data without havingto be tinkered with (see “How doneural networks work?”, below).

Google was the first companyto bring a neural network intoour everyday lives. Deluged indata collected through its internetservices, it made sense for thecompany to build one. A lot ofthe cutting-edge work has beendone by UK firm DeepMind afterit was bought by Google, whichis now believed to be using the

firm’s technology in seven of itsproducts.

Free training

Other internet companies likeFacebook also have troves ofdata ripe for a neural network toanalyse: billions of photos offaces, if tagged accurately, can beused to train a powerful facerecognition system. The hallmarkof Google’s and Facebook’s success

is that the actions of ordinaryusers train the networks for free.New hardware has helped too.

“Ten years ago we were usingregular computers and it wasn’tgreat,” says Bengio. “Then werealised we could use graphical

processing units designed forplaying video games and get a20-fold speed-up. Specificallydesigned chips can give you a

100-fold increase.”Neural networks already

underpin state-of-the-art speechand image recognition, and are

now tackling the sonic buildingblocks of speech to improverecognition of less commonlanguages. Bengio thinks the

next frontier will be in human-computer interaction. Neuralnetworks will be the interface,learning and interpreting ourbehaviour and translating it intoinstructions the computer cancarry out efficiently.

Next-generation smartphonescould hold chips customised torun neural networks, puttingadaptable learning systems in ourpockets. Wearables from Fitbitsto the Apple Watch will all feed

data into new AI models that canrecognise healthy behaviour suchas regular exercise, or gaugewalking speed.

The startling progress of neuralnetworks raises other, morephilosophical, questions. Is this

how the first machineconsciousness will be born?Watching 317070’s livestreamalready gives the uncanny sense

that you are looking at a human-like consciousness at work. Eachof its images is unique, generatedthrough a process that even itscreator doesn’t really understand.

But 317070’s dreaming is for itsaudience, not itself. It has no ideathat it is having these dreams, northe capacity to have ideas aboutanything that it is not told tothink about.

John Sullins, a philosopher oftechnology at Sonoma StateUniversity in Rohnert Park,

California, says this is the mark ofconsciousness that our machinesstill lack. “Machines will becomevastly intelligent, but they’relacking this sense of being in theworld,” he says.

Sullins is part of a groupbased at Yale University whichexamines the ethical implicationsof artificial intelligence.Understanding machines’obvious lack of consciousnessallows the group to ask sensible

questions about AI, rather thanindulge in speculation aboutsystems that remain within therealms of fiction, like Skynet intheTerminator films.

The real threat, Sullins says, is“very capable machines that canget out of control doing what weprogrammed them to do”.

For now though, neural nets arebusy winning hearts and mindswith funky, if relatively simple,antics. Last week Google releasedthe source code for its own

generator of bizarre images, notunlike 317070’s. Within hours,the first neural-net-generatedporn image popped up on Twitter.A bizarre tangle with dog facesemerging from the shadows,it has now been deleted.

Back on 317070’s livestream,a brain-melting compositionof buildings floats by, coveredwith volcano-shaped growths.It impresses someone with theusername thestone2: “Nice AI,dude. This is cool as heck.” ■

Given a set of photos, how would you

identify all the ones of a football

match? A programmer could write an

algorithm to looks for typical features

like goalposts, but it’s a lot of work.A neural network does that heavy

lifting for you. The network has

layers of nodes, coded in software,

each with a numerical weighting or

importance, and each with

connections to neighbours that are

also weighted. You train the network

by feeding it data and scoring it on

how well it performs.

For example, the network can

initially find features like the edges

of objects in images, then move on to

recognising objects and even

activities – a ball, a field and players

are likely to indicate a football match.

Each node layer looks for features at

different levels of abstraction. Thegap between its “answer” and the

human one is fed back for it to tweak

its weightings accordingly until it

regularly gets the right answer.

A programmer need adjust only

the number of nodes and layers to

optimise how it captures relevant

features in the data. However, since

it’s impossible to tell exactly how a

neural network does what it does,

this tweaking is a matter of trial

and error.

HOW DO NEURAL NETWORKS WORK?

“Watching the network atwork already gives theuncanny sense that it’s ahuman-like consciousness”

ONE PER CENT

Epic solar flight

Two world records in one go:

120 hours of crewed solar-powered

flight covering 8000 kilometres.

On 3 July, Andre Borschberg

touched down in Hawaii to

complete an epic flight across the

Pacific from Japan in the Solar

Impulse aircraft. The next stop on

the quest to circumnavigate the

globe is Arizona.

“Our communityis what makes

Reddit, Reddit andwe let you downyesterday”

Reddit CEO Ellen Pao apologises

after the sacking of a high-profile

employee led to anger among the

site's moderators. Parts of the site

were shut down in protest.

Paint the world

Tap to add colour. A project from

Microsoft Research teachescomputers what’s in a room with

a touch. Semantic Paint uses a

Kinect depth camera to scan a

room. A tap on an object prompts

the software to fill it in with colour,

and saying what the object is while

touching it teaches the system its

name. Semantic Paint then looks

for - and paints - similar objects in

the room. Labelling like this would

make it easier for robots to

navigate indoors.


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Plugged-in people

HAS the man in the main image been plugged into

a supercomputer or is he undergoing a bizarre

form of torture? In fact it’s neither – he’s takingpart in a study of how sound influences our spatial

awareness, sitting in the midst of multiple arrays

of speakers within a soundproof room at the Ruhr

University Bochum, Germany.

Piquing our curiosity in this way is what

photographer Daniel Stier aims to achieve in his

book Ways of Knowing , which charts some of the

weird and wonderful experiments he has seen.

“I’m trying to make people wonder what’s going

on,” he says. “To get across the wonder of

experimentation.”

Investigations into, from top, exercise

tolerance, transcranial magnetic stimulation

and ergonomics, and the rubber hand illusion

below are all grist to the mill.

The book also ventures deep into fantasy land

with a series of still-life sculptures that recreate

experiments conceived in Stier’s imagination.

“There are similarities between the work of

artists and scientists,” he says. “We both have

open-ended curiosity and do work that might

end up in complete failure.” Clare Wilson

Photographer

Daniel Stier

Ways of Knowing

by Daniel Stier will be published

by YES Editions, ways-of-knowing.com


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OO

Time for a new actMove over climate scientists – we should let artists, lawyers, priestsand playwrights take the stage now, says Fred Pearce

THIS may not be popular. At leastnot in a magazine like this. Buthere goes: scientists should takea back seat from now on in publicdiscussions on climate change.

It’s not that the science doesn’t

matter. But the heavy lifting hasbeen done. The Nobel prize hasbeen won. We know enough to act.And those who persist in believingthat global warming is a myth areunlikely to be convinced byanother dose of data.

What we need are other waysof thinking about our climatefuture that do not have sciencecentre-stage. Too often, the issuegets pigeon-holed as somethingfor researchers to sort out, with

everyone else marginalised.To change that, we need to heara lot more from artists andlawyers, priests and playwrights,economists and engineers,moralists and financiers,and a lot less from the lab.

Two recent interventionshave shown the power ofbroadening the canvas. The popeencyclical on climate change on18 June didn’t say anything newscientifically. But it used a

different language. It raised theethical stakes, and challengedthe often-conservative religiousworld to step up as stewards ofthe planet. And for that reason itmade headlines worldwide.

A week later, a court in theNetherlands broke new ground byordering the Dutch governmentto do more to fight climatechange – rising seas pose aparticular threat to this low-lyingcountry. The legal challenge had

been brought on behalf of 900citizens. Courts in other countriewill hear similar class actionsfrom those whose lives areblighted by climate change.

The divestment movement isgaining strength. It empowers

Down, but not outDespite a new blow, the future of fracking inthe UK is far from settled, says Paul Younger

IT IS a relief to see that thepseudoscientific gobbledygookdeployed against fracking has notprevailed. I say this despite therejection of two high-profileattempts by energy firm Cuadrillato win consent to explore for shalegas in Lancashire, UK.

The reasons given for turningdown the planning applications

are the classic ones used to opposeany development: concerns abouttraffic, noise and visual impact.

This is no surprise. As anengineering geoscientist whoonce assessed applications toensure they were compatible withgroundwater protection, I knowthere are well-defined legalgrounds to reject an application.

These do not include specioustheories on hydrogeology used byanti-fracking protesters whoequate this extraction techniquewith groundwater contamination.

A few decades ago, we had asimilar situation with opencastcoal mining. Every applicationfaced pseudoscientific objections,alleging it would damage therespiratory health of children.Research showed these concernswere unfounded but it did not stopthe same arguments being used.

Then, as now, local authoritiesfound mundane reasons to rejectproposals. But these seldom stooup to dispassionate scrutiny, andsuspect that the same will happen

with fracking. Councillors were soafraid of the backlash at the pollsthat they routinely turned downapplications, forcing the matter tappeal. A government planninginspector would then decide.

That way, councillors can saythey opposed the development,but that the wicked central powerforced it through. Governmentcalmly waits for the ball to landback in its court, at which point itcommitment to fracking will betruly tested and its future decided

“Legal grounds to rejectfracking applications donot include specioustheories on hydrogeology”


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ONE MINUTE INTERVIEW

For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion

ordinary citizens, who have littlesay on global greenhouse gasemissions. It gives us a realisticprospect of forcing our university,

pension fund or bank to ditchcoal or oil investments. Themovement works because it shiftsthe focus away from complexissues and towards simple moraland financial choices.

But we need to hear more fromnon-scientists. We await the greatplay, movie or novel on climatechange. Something to stir thesoul, like John Steinbeck’s TheGrapes of Wrath did during the USDust Bowl era. The right artisticcontribution could be much more

powerful than another reportfrom the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change.

Of course, climate sciencemust continue. But in public, thedominance of scientists on almostevery platform

new scientist - 33 reasons we can't think clearly about climate change (july 2015) [cpul]

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