《大学英语》课程综合教程教学资源（外刊选读）New Scientist 2015-09

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12 September 2015 | NewScientist | 3 CONTENTS Volume 227 No 3038 This issue online newscientist.com/issue/3038 Coming next week. Out with the old Flushing away the cells that age you Imaginary worlds Crazy planets we haven’t discovered. yet Cover image Pop Chart Lab 28 36 New ancient human found Stunning fossils promise to rewrite prehistory 8 BSIP/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES LEE BERGER ET AL. The other periodic table The chemistry we see isn’t even the half of it Good vibrations The surprise comeback of music therapy News On the cover Features 8 A new ancient human Fossil rewrites prehistory 36 Good vibrations Music therapy comeback 32 Squidvaders! Shrinking kraken take over the Pacific 10 Refugee crisis What the numbers and evidence really say News 6 UPFRONT Did hormone treatment spread Alzheimer’s? Rich nations rack up massive climate debt 8 THIS WEEK Spider galaxies seen eating cosmic gas. Catching cancer early with tumour traps 10 SPECIAL REPORT: REFUGEES Why accepting refugees makes economic sense. How tech is helping people travel – and settle. The mental and physical toll 16 IN BRIEF Faster trains cause traffic jams. Hawks’ force field protects hummingbirds Technology 18 How the tech behind bitcoin is going to takeover the world. Therapist in your pocket Opinion 24 Liberate science Donald Braben on what stifling radical research does to economies 25 One minute with. Margot Hirsch Let’s use technology to make guns safer 26 Digital suffering Can software simulations feel real pain, asks Anders Sandberg Features 28 The other periodic table (see above left) 32 Squidvaders! Strange shrinking kraken take over the Pacific 36 Good vibrations (see left) CultureLab 40 All the world’s a lab Can the theatre take on science’s big ideas? PLUS: From humanity’s cyber end to its salvation 42 All ife is here Making evolution exciting Regulars 53 LETTERS I speak, therefore I am? 56 FEEDBACK Political beasts 57 THE LAST WORD Dung addicts Aperture 22 Underwater rainbow glistens on coral reef Leader 5 In the discussion over refugees entering Europe, evidence is sorely lacking

12 September 2015 | NewScientist | 5 LEADER THE shocking photos of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian refugee drowned and washed up on a Turkish beach, will go down in history as the moment that Europe’s “migrant crisis” was recognised for what it is: a humanitarian tragedy. The sudden lurch in public and media sentiment – and subsequent backtracking by political leaders – was very welcome. But it also emphasised how the situation has been handled: by politicking and knee-jerk reaction rather than rational policymaking. Human migration is a complex issue that touches the West’s rawest nerves – immigration, radicalisation, inequality, economic security, national identity, and autonomy versus international cooperation. That makes it hard to deal with effectively. But efforts have also been complicated in many countries by anti-immigration parties spreading misinformation about those burning issues. When politics takes precedence over facts, tragedies tend to happen. We can, and must, do better. The key word is “misinformation”. Complex issues require nations to respond in an informed and sophisticated way, bringing all the available evidence to bear, acting on it – and explaining it to A crisis, not a drama Discussion over refugees is dominated by fiction, not facts reluctant electorates if needed. By these criteria, Europe has failed miserably (see page 10). For example, the prevailing narrative has it that Europe is experiencing an unprecedented influx of both economic migrants and refugees. The numbers suggest otherwise: according to authoritative research, labour migration into Western Europe has been falling steadily since 2007. And while refugee numbers have been climbing since the Arab Spring of 2010, they have still not reached 1992 levels, when millions of people fled the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia. These are just the raw numbers. When it comes to more complex analyses, there are also surprises. For example, a study published last year found that, since 2000, immigrants in the UK paid more into government coffers than they took out in benefits. That was true both for migrants from Europe and elsewhere. They even managed this during a time of government deficits, when by definition the native majority was a net drain on public resources. That research illuminates only one aspect of how immigrants affect societies, but it is not the only example of how knee-jerk assumptions about human migration often crumble under proper scrutiny. Such counterintuitive facts and figures are well known in the smallish circle of social scientists who research them, but are barely visible in the wider debate. That urgently needs to change because, like it or not, the present crisis is just the start. Those same experts agree that large-scale migration will be a defining issues of this century, driven by population growth, political instability and climate change, and enabled by increased global connectivity, both physical and digital. We cannot stop it by building fences or turning away boats. So we had better get a handle on it now. This is not just an issue for Europe. Other countries, notably the Gulf states, Brazil, Australia, the US and Canada – the country little Alan’s family was trying to get to – also have migration issues. We can all expect much more of the same in the future. If our leaders carry on making it up as they go along without recourse to evidence, they really will have a crisis on their hands. ■ LASZLO BALOGH/REUTERS “Large-scale human migration will be one of the defining issues of the 21st century” LOCATIONS USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Please direct telephone enquiries to our UK office +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 © 2015 Reed Business Information Ltd, England. New Scientist ISSN 0262 4079 is published weekly except for the last week in December by Reed Business Information Ltd, England. New Scientist at Reed Business Information, c/o Schnell Publishing Co. Inc., 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA and other mailing offices. 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6 | NewScientist | 12 September 2015 CAN Alzheimer’s disease spread between people? Possibly, through a medical procedure banned in 1985 – but some say the evidence is too circumstantial. John Collinge of University College London and his colleagues looked at the brains of eight people who had been injected with human growth hormone as children. The hormone had come from dead donors – but they had been harbouring CreutzfeldtJakob Disease (CJD). The eight recipients contracted CJD via the hormone and later died. Now, fresh autopsies on their brains have revealed that six also had amyloid plaques similar to those seen in Alzheimer’s – even though they had died between the ages of 36 and 51, long before the disease typically develops. Collinge believes molecules seeding the plaques were passed IF YOU live in the US or Australia, you owe more than US$12,000. If you’re in the UK, it’s about $4000. These are climate debts, worked out by Damon Matthews at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He sees those who pollute more than their fair share – that is, above the global average – as being in “emissions debt”. Between 1990 and 2013, the US, for example, emitted an excess of 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person (Nature Climate Change, doi.org/7jb). That’s about as much REUTERS/MUHAMMAD HAMED Alzheimer’s find You owe the planet UPFRONT “There is no definitive evidence that Alzheimer’s can be transmitted between humans” –Supersized henge– –The Hajj takes place later this month– to the recipients via the donated growth hormone, saying the donors must have been developing Alzheimer’s as well as CJD (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature15369). David Irwin of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia – whose work suggests Alzheimer’s can’t be transmitted – is doubtful. Collinge couldn’t analyse samples of the growth hormone to see if it contains the molecules. “There remains no definitive evidence that clinical manifestations of Alzheimer’s can be transmitted between humans,” says Irwin. as is produced by driving a family car from Los Angeles to New York and back 150 times. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that each tonne of CO2 produced today has a social cost of about $40, so the debt per person is $12,000. “It is important to acknowledge and own up to how much we in the developed world have overcontributed to historical climate change,” says Matthews. He hopes the work will inform any future talks over how much rich nations should pay poor ones to adapt to climate change. MOVE over, Stonehenge, we have found “Superhenge”. An even more massive stone monument has lain hidden for thousands of years just a short walk away from the famous prehistoric site. The newly discovered remains are at a site called Durrington Walls, already well known to archaeologists. Here, a bank and inner ditch were built around a natural depression, creating a horseshoe-shaped structure New Stonehenge FOR ARCHAEO/REX SHUTTERSTOCK Pilgrims warned of MERS THIS month 2 million Muslims are expected to converge on Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the Hajj. Already there, though, is the MERS virus, prompting concerns that pilgrims risk catching and spreading the disease. MERS emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012, and new cases continue to be reported. Of the 1500 cases so far, three quarters have been in the country, with more than 500 deaths, including three in Riyadh last weekend. The concern is that pilgrims will pick up the coronavirus that causes the disease when they travel to Mecca, and unknowingly spread it to their country of origin. The disease has an incubation period of up to two weeks before symptoms become apparent. Earlier this year, MERS was brought to South Korea, where it infected 185 people, resulting in 36 deaths. “The current outbreak is occurring close to the start of the Hajj, and many pilgrims will return to countries with weak surveillance and health systems,” warned the World Health Organization last week. Saudi Arabia itself is thought to be well prepared. “They have agents on the ground and clinics devoted specifically to MERS,” says WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier. “The authorities are on extremely high alert for the Hajj.” He says pilgrims should avoid close contact with people who have flu-like symptoms, report any symptoms immediately, and avoid contact with camels, the main reservoir for the virus identified so far

12 September 2015 | NewScientist | 7 ALWAYS dreamed of being a fossil hunter? Now’s your chance – and you don’t have to leave home. A citizen science project called FossilFinder is asking volunteers to look through high-resolution photos of the Turkana basin in Kenya taken from drones and kites, with the hope that they will spot newly exposed fossils before they erode away. Many early human fossils have been found in the region. The first photos, of a fossil hotspot to the east of Lake Turkana, cover only a tiny part of it. The project was set up by the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya and the University of Bradford, UK, to get a better understanding of the geology and the past environment by identifying where fossils are found and what kind of fossils are present. There is, of course, a chance that you could be the first to spot the bones of one of our distant relatives – any promising-looking finds will be followed up on the ground. Dinosaur fans will have to wait, however: there are currently no plans to post pictures of rocks dating back to the dinosaur era. Bone-spotting club FRANS LANTING/MINT IMAGES/SPL For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news Soggy rockets HOUSTON, we’ll have a problem. The effects of climate change could mean rocket launch sites will soon be underwater, NASA has warned. The space agency has launch pads and research centres dotted along the US coast, and more than two-thirds of its infrastructure is at elevations that are within 5 metres of sea level. This is because launching near the ocean is much safer than over land. But their proximity to the water has put many sites at risk of flooding due to rising seas. “Some are more at risk than others,” said NASA climatologist Cynthia Rosenzweig in a recent NASA report. “But sea level rise is a very real challenge for all of the centres along the coast.” Models suggest that sea levels at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the launch site for the moon landings and countless space shuttle missions, will rise by as much as 20 centimetres by the 2050s – or triple that if ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica continue to melt. NASA plans to redesign or move vulnerable buildings and improve sea defences to hold back the rising tides. But eventually, some launch sites may have to be abandoned. –A big fat source of mercury– about half a kilometre wide. It resembles an arena, and some think that is exactly what it was. Now the mystery has deepened: remote sensing surveys have revealed that around 4500 years ago giant stones were arranged along the ground where the bank now is. Around 30 stones up to 4.5 metres long are buried there, and the surveys suggest there were at least 90 originally. It appears the stones were deliberately toppled and buried when the bank was built around Durrington Walls, for reasons that are unclear. There are no plans as yet to excavate the stones. 60 SECONDS ‘Blue bastard’ is real The seafarers’ tales were true. An elusive “kissing” fish so hard to catch that anglers in Australia call it “blue bastard” has been documented – and its nickname has stuck . Its Latin name is Plectorhinchus caeruleonothus: Caeruleo is blue, nothus is bastard. The kissing is caused by rival males locking jaws during a fight (Zootaxa, doi.org/7h9). Fat lot of good Believing your weight is determined by your genes is bad for your health. A study of 8000 people found that those who agreed most strongly that some people are just born fat and can’t do much to change it were more likely to eat unhealthily and less likely to exercise. They were also more likely to be overweight and have high blood sugar (Health Education and Behavior, DOI: 10.1177/1090198115602266). All aboard the Starliner Aerospace firm Boeing has revealed the official name of its upcoming spacecraft, formerly known by the less evocative moniker CST-100. The Starliner capsule is designed to ferry astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station, and will begin test flights in 2017. Name that storm Brits love talking about the weather – now they can name it too. The Met Office is teaming up with its Irish equivalent, Met Eireann, to crowdsource names for storms that could have a medium or high impact. The US already names storms in a bid to raise awareness of their risks. Mum knows best Even astronauts have to call their parents sometimes. Andreas Mogensen, the first Dane in space, spoke to his mother via video link after arriving at the International Space Station last week. She urged him to call when he was back on Earth. “Yeah, yeah, I promise,” he replied. Moulting seals shed mercury too SEAL fur may be toxic. Mercury is building up even in pristine areas, and it’s coming from an unexpected source — moulting elephant seals. Industrial pollution can release mercury into the environment, where it may end up as an organic compound called methylmercury. This is taken up by bacteria, and it builds up in organisms much higher up the food chain, including top predators such as elephant seals. But it doesn’t end there. “Elephant seals undergo a catastrophic moult,” says Jennifer Cossaboon of San Diego State University in California. “It comes off in big sheets of fur and the top few layers of skin.” Cossaboon has traced mercury in California’s coastal Año Nuevo State Park to moulting seals. She calculates that each year seals in the US and Mexico release a similar amount of methylmercury as enters San Francisco bay. Around 40 per cent of California, the most populous US state, drains into the bay, including areas of heavy industry (PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1506520112). It isn’t yet clear if methylmercury in the seal’s coats can work its way back into the food chain, but if it can, then hair and feathers shed from other species may be releasing mercury into food webs, too. “We’re opening the methylmercury era,” says Amina Schartup of Harvard University. “We’re going to uncover more and more things that we didn’t realise were out there

8 | NewScientist | 12 September 2015 Colin Barras ONE thousand four hundred bones, 140 teeth, belonging to at least 15 individual skeletons – and that’s just what was recovered in a single short field session. The early human fossil record isn’t normally this rich. For a century, palaeoanthropologists have generally learned to make do with slim pickings – part of a face here, a jawbone fragment there. Now, from the depths of a cave in South Africa, has come a monster cache of hominin bones from a previously unknown early species of our own genus, Homo. “It’s unique,” says Fred Spoor at University College London, who has seen casts of some of the finds. The sheer number of bones and their location hint at something even more astonishing: the bodies they belonged to appear to have been left deliberately in the cave. This has never been seen before in such a primitive human, and could have big implications for understanding the origins of modern human behaviour (see “Did ancient hominins bury their dead?”, opposite). The first signs that something unusual was unfolding came in October 2013, when Lee Berger at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, advertised for people with good archaeological skills and a lack of claustrophobia to come forward. The successful applicants flew to South Africa a few weeks later to help remove hominin bones and teeth from the cramped Dinaledi chamber in a cave system a few tens of kilometres from Johannesburg (see diagram, opposite). There are still thousands more remains in the cave, according to Berger. “Once we realised the full potential, we decided the best thing to do was to lock down the site, and engage the entire community to make a decision on what to do there next,” he says. But what has been recovered so far tells an extraordinary tale. The species the bones belonged to had a unique mix of characteristics. Look at its pelvis or shoulders, says Berger, and you would think it was an apelike Australopithecus, which appeared in Africa about 4 million years ago and is thought to be an ancestor of Homo. But look at its foot and you could think it belonged to our species, which appeared just 200,000 years ago. Its skull, though, makes clear that the brain was less than half the size of ours, and more like that of some species of Homo that lived about 2 million years ago. “It doesn’t look a lot like us,” says Berger. Even so, he and his colleagues think that, on balance, the features of the skull, hands and teeth mean the new species probably does belong in our genus. They have named it Homo naledi (eLife, DOI: 10.7554/ eLife.09560). Its anatomy suggests it is one of the earliest members of our genus to evolve, but frustratingly, we don’t yet know exactly how old THIS WEEK Deep cave yields a new human The copious remains of Homo naledi shake up our view of our past LEE BERGER ET AL.2015 “ It may not be that closely related to us, but could have had a cognitive ability essentially equal to ours” –It’s an anatomical mosaic–

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