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PROOF IN THE PUDDING
We put 15 common
kitchen tips to the test
Mystery Greek ape could
be the ancestor of us all
OUT OF EUROPE
CONSCIOUS QUANTUMNESS
WEEKLY
May 27 - June 2, 2017
How to probe the
mind-matter connection
NOWHERE TO HIDE
Invisible nuclear subs still leave a trace
How a tiny bit of missing energy became the biggest problem in the cosmos
SPACE TIME IS LEAKING
No3127
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Science and technology news
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US jobs in science
MIDNIGHT FEAST
Sleep-deprived brains start to eat themselves
Intellectual
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CONTENTS
News
Volume 234 No 3127
This issue online
newscientist.com/issue/3127
Leaders
3
Technology matters in elections, but where
are the big ideas? Consumable science
6
Out of Europe
Mystery Greek ape
could be the ancestor
of all humans
VELIZAR SIMEONOVSKI
News
4
UPFRONT
Cholera hits Yemen. Doomsday seed vault
has a leaky door. Tabby’s star dims
6 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Minesweeping turtle bots. Quantum test of
the mind. Why lack of sleep can lead to brain
disease. Citizens share data to improve
cities. Drought hits Serengeti migration.
Bioelectricity tweak makes worm grow two
heads. Narwhals do science for us. Blood
stem cells made in the lab. Doubled risk of
major coastal floods. Space-time warping
echoes. Space sperm produces pups. Your
brain prefers invented information
16 IN BRIEF
Dust gives away tangled black holes. Beaver
dams keep rivers cool. AI doctors videos
On the cover
28
Space time
is leaking
How a bit of missing
energy became the
biggest cosmic problem
32
Proof in the pudding
Kitchen tips tested
6
Out of Europe
Mystery Greek ancestor
7
Conscious quantum
Probing the mind-matter
connection
37
Nowhere to hide
Invisible nuclear subs
still leave a trace
8
Midnight feast
Brains eat themselves
Analysis
20
A tech manifesto
New Scientist
’s pledges
to ensure technology benefits the people
22 COMMENT
The political parties respond to our pledges
23 INSIGHT
Why governments don’t understand tech
Cover image
Steve Wilson
Aperture
26
Forgotten lab in Tanzania is 70s time capsule
Features
32
Proof in the
pudding
EMILE LOREAUX/PICTURETANK
Features
28
Space time is leaking
(see above left)
32
Proof in the pudding
(see left)
37
Nowhere to hide
Invisible nuclear subs
still leave a trace
40 PEOPLE
The Varian brothers, Silicon Valley pioneers
15 kitchen myths
put to the test
Culture
42
Hearts and minds
Integrating reason and
emotion may be key to a less divisive world
44
Look back
The first moon mission exposed
a key paradox about venturing beyond Earth
Regulars
Coming next week…
Battle of the bulge
What really makes people fat and thin
52
55
56
57
LETTERS
If reality is tough to swallow…
MAKE
Wizard of Oz
style slippers
FEEDBACK
Travel-planning chaos
THE LAST WORD
The hole story
How do children learn language?
New answers to an old debate
27 May 2017 | NewScientist |
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Back to the future
Tech matters in the UK election, but new ideas are in short supply
“THE Britain that is going to
be forged in the white heat of
this revolution will be no place
for restrictive practices or for
outdated measures.” So said
Harold Wilson in 1963, urging
Britons to embrace science and
technology to ensure “the future
greatness of our country”; his
message helped the Labour party
win the 1964 general election.
Half a century on, and the
country once again needs
reassuring of its potential for
greatness. And most of the
parties vying to form the next
government accept that embracing
science and technology could
once again be key to that
greatness as they consider the
shape of the post-Brexit economy.
A pity, then, that the rival party
leaders haven’t expressed that
half as powerfully as Wilson did.
Instead, they have made mostly
uninspired pledges along party
lines. The Conservatives, for
example, say they will make the
country into “the world’s most
dynamic digital economy” with
investment in infrastructure, skills
and start-ups. Labour says it will
look into the potential for “new
jobs and new forms of work – but
also new risks of inequality and
job insecurity”. Both have pledged
to uphold incoming laws on data
protection and increase R&D
spending. Neither expresses
the passion one might hope for,
given the promise and challenges
of technology (see page 20).
Except when it comes to
amassing power, that is.
“Some people say that it is
not for government to regulate
when it comes to technology
and the internet. We disagree,”
says the Tory manifesto. “Our
starting point is that online
rules should reflect those that
govern our lives offline.”
Fair enough, but the reflection
so far has been so simple-minded
as to be at best counterproductive,
and at worst suspect, introducing
prudish censorship and mass
surveillance. Action might well
be needed to curb the excesses of
social media and tech giants, but
restrictive practices and outdated
measures have no place in forging
Britain’s future greatness.
■
Domestic science
WHEN did you last conduct a
complex chemical experiment?
For most of us, the answer is
probably whenever you last spent
any time in a kitchen. Cookery
boils down to applied organic
chemistry, with a sprinkling of
combustion physics and a dollop
of materials science thrown in
(see page 32). But the feats of
chemical engineering that cooks
perform every mealtime –
whether in a billycan over a fire, or
a
sous vide
in a fancy restaurant –
are more often appreciated with
the senses rather than the mind.
That’s been changing since the
advent of molecular gastronomy,
which has brought cultural cachet
to the kinds of work industrial
food scientists do all the time –
albeit that many foodies would
still rather their food came
au
naturel
than highly engineered.
The next big thing in dining
is set to be cross-sensory dining:
altering diners’ perceptions of
how food smells and tastes by
changing factors like its colour,
the lighting and the tableware.
You could think of it as putting
the art of food presentation, long
practised by restauranteurs, on a
more neuroscientific basis, much
as molecular gastronomy riffs off
the chemical basis of cooking.
If it catches on, we may soon learn
that a feast for the senses is really
a feast for the mind too.
■
27 May 2017 | NewScientist |
3
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