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TOO MUCH INFORMATION STRESS AND THE CITY
BEYOND FRYING PANS
A
lot of knowledge is
Fewer worries,
The ways Earthlings
WEEKLY January16- 22, 2010
YOUDIDN'T
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US$5.95 CAN$5.95 No2743
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Science and technology news
www.NewScientist.com
US jobs in science
a dangerous thing
less cancer
profit from space
EMOTIONS
"
CO NTE NTS
Volume
205
No
2743
NEWS
3 EDITORIAL
How to treat health inequality
4 UPFRONT
Tracking marine invaders, Waron salt
6 SPECIAL REPORT
Griminner-city life may make tumours more
deadly and worsen health inequalities
10 THIS WEEK
Neural "entanglement" could explain memories,
How Mexican megacrystals formed, Planets
2,0,
Solarsystem on fire explains carbon deficit
Dubious source for IPCC claim
12 IN BRIEF
"Most beautiful" math structure
seen in lab, Why alpha-male baboons allow
subordinates sex treats
1S TECHNOLOGY
Securing your touch screen, LCDs offer clues for
hot superconductors, Nanotube transistors cut
down to size
COVER STORY
Strange
feelings
Emotions you
didn't know
you had
Cover image
Christos Magganas
It came from
outer space
OPINION
20 Global force
Copenhagen left many despairing
of science everbecoming central to policy, but
there's a new plan afoot says Lorna Cassleton
20 Chilling stupidity
It'scrazyto claimthat a
cold snap disproves global warming, says
Michael Le Page
21 One minute with ... Herve This
From a cheese
souffle to the creation of molecular gastronomy
22 LETTERS
Managing the commons, Benefits of
genetic modification
24 The House of Wisdom
Quantum physicistJim
AI-Khal iii looks forward to a new Islamic science
Cool new
technologies
that sprang from
space research
FEATURES
26 Emotions you didn't know you had
(see right)
30 Who killed the Maples?
A pairof new nuclear
reactors lie idle instead of supplying the world
with vital medical isotopes, What's gone wrong?
34 It came from outer space
(see right)
38 Too much information
There's a new addiction
intown, and you're almost certainly hooked
Coming next week
Over here!
How should we broadcast
our existence to the stars?
REGULARS
22 ENIGMA
40 BOOKS & ARTS
Patriotic hackers and cyber-wars, Wild in thecity,
Airbus hero? The man who showed smoking kills
48 FEEDBACK
Zero zeroand thejumbo graveyard
49 THE LAST WORD
Butterfly high
42 JOBS & CAREERS
Stress in the city
Chicago's toughest neighbourhoods
suggest a new way to reduce health
inequalities in the
US
PLUS Nanoscale lasers point
to computer revolution
USA
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Information
16 Januay 2010 I NewScientist 11
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MARTHA GRAHAM
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owe a huge debt
to
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who, des
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positively elderly age of
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it her entire life without experiencing
interpretive dance.
the arts
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Graham brought her dance
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style into the 20th century
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RADIN'
with her percussive, angular movement style She was
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one of
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EDITORIAL
The health gaps
that shame us all
conducted by Michael Marmot of University
College London. What's exciting about the
Chicago project is that it both probes the
mechanisms involved in a specific disease and
suggests precise remedies. There are drugs
that may starve tumours of nutrients and
community coordinators could be employed
to help reduce social isolation. Encouraged by
the US National Institutes of Health, similar
projects are springing up to study other
pockets of poor health, in populations
ranging from urban black men to poor white
women in rural Appalachia.
To realise the full potential of such projects,
Sifting climate facts
from speculation
We can reduce the health
inequalities that divide rich fom
poor and black from white
IT WAS a dramatic declaration: glaciers across
much of the Himalayas may be gone by 2035.
WhenNew Scientist heard this comment from
a leading Indian glaciologist, we reported it.
That was in 1999. The claim later appeared in
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change's most recent report-and it turns out
that our article is the primary published source.
The glaciologist has never submitted what
he says was a speculative comment for peer
review -and most of his peers strongly
dispute it. So how could such speculation have
become an IPCC "finding" which has, moreover,
recently been defended by the panel's
chairman? We are entitled to an explanation,
before rumour and doubt compound the
damage to the image of climate science already
inflicted by the leaked "climategate" emails
.
•
HERE is a shaming statistic: divide the US
by race, sex and county of residence, and
differences in average life expectancy across
the various groups can exceed 30 years. The
most disadvantaged look like denizens of a
poor African country: a boy born on aNative
American reservation in Jackson County,
South Dakota, for example, will be lucky to
reach his 60th birthday. A typical child in
Senegal can expect to live longer than that.
America is not alone in this res pect. While
the picture is less extreme in other rich
nations, health inequalities based on race, sex
and class exist in most societies -and are only
partly explained by access to healthcare.
But fresh insights and solutions may soon
be at hand. An innovative project in Chicago to
unite sociology and biology is blazing the trail,
after discovering that social isolation and fear
of crime can help to explain the alarmingly
high death rate from breast cancer among the
city's black women. Living in these conditions
seems to make tumours more aggressive by
changing gene activity, so that cancer cells can
use nutrients more effectively (see page 6).
We are already familiar with the lethal
effect of stress on people clinging to the
bottom rungs of the societal ladder, thanks to
pioneering studies of British civil servants
"Social isolation and fear of crime
make tumours more aggressive
by changing gene activity"
biologists and sociologists will have to start
treating one other with a new respect and
learn how to collaborate outside their comfort
zones. Too many biomedical researchers
still take the arrogant view that sociology is a
"soft science"with little that's serious to say
about health. And too many sociologists reject
any biological angle -fearing that their
expertise will be swept aside and that
this approach will be used to bolster
discredited theories of eugenics, or crude
race-based medicine.
It's time to drop these outdated attitudes
and work together for the good of society's
most deprived members. More important,
it's time to use this fusion of biology and
sociology to inform public policy. This
endeavour has huge implications, not least
in cutting the wide health gaps between blacks
and whites, rich and poor.
•
Emotional outreach
THOSE of you who recoil when told you need
to" share your feelings more" will be dismayed
to hear that our emotional repertoire may
extend beyond the six already known to be
universally felt and recognised in our faces (see
page 26). As if joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise
and disgust weren't enough, the repressed
now face the prospect of pride, confusion,
elevation and more. No doubt the self-help
industry will be qUick to latch on to the fresh
opportunities to torment those who prefer
to gloat, boggle or feel uplifted in silence
.
•
What's hot on NewScientist.com
SPACE
Milky Way's dark
D
matter is turned on its side
See how the halo of dark matter
around our galaxy may be shaped like
a squashed beach ball. It's also twisted
relative to the galactic plane - but
why it's like this is a mystey
CULTURELAB
How is the
internet changing the way you
think?
Foritsannual question, the
Edge website thisyear asks whether
the internet has formed a sort of
collective consciousness. We round
up the responses
TECHNOLOGY
Quantum computer
idea that theywere too dim-witted to
takes on chemistry
Conventional compete with modern humans
computers struggleto model the
complex interactions of atoms in a
chemical reaction. But a quantum
computer might be ideal forthe
job - and one has already taken the
firststepby simulating the behaviour
of a hydrogen molecule
A host of new ideas were
unveiled atCES, the world's largest
consumer electronics meeting.
Seeourselection, which takes in
transparent laptop screens, robot
seal pups and much more
ZOOLOGGER
The many
personalities of Siamese fighting
fish
The first of our weekly profiles
of extraordinary animals presents a
beast so aggressive itwill attack its
own reflection
MUSIC
Songs in the key of life
Why do tunes in a majorkey sound
cheerful, while minor keys sound
gloomy? Theanswer may liein the
way the pattern of tones mirrors
human speech
BLOG
Neanderthals were
metrosexuals
Evidence that
Neanderthals used jewellery and
cosmetics provides another blowtothe
To comment onlineaboutany of
thestories in this issue, visit the
article at
newscientist.com
16
January 20091 NewScientist 13
I
GALLERY
Gadgets galore
•
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