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EINSTEIN’S GENIUS

KILLER FLU

HUMAN ORIGINS

DISCOVERTHE yEAR IN ScIENcE

Science, Technology, and The Future

ASTRONOMY Alien Super-Earths, Dawn of the Galaxies

EVOLUTION Dino-Mummy, First Animal on Land

MEDICINE Vaccine Phobia, Gene Therapy Triumphant

BRAIN Depression Cure, Reading the Mind

PHYSICS Black Holes in the Lab, Fixing Traffic with Math

PLUS The biggest news in energy, environment, technology, and more.

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JANUARY/FebRUARY 2010

DiSplAY UNTil Feb 8, 2010

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contents

YEAR INSCIENCE2 0 0 9

J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 0

THE TOP TEN STORIES Vaccine phobia becomes a

public-health threat 18, NASA braces for course

correction 20, Meet your new ancestor 22, Stem

cell science takes off 23, Interview: astronomer

Alan Dressler 24, Swine � u outbreak sweeps the

globe 26, The graphene revolution 27, Earth-like

worlds come into view 28, Experimental power

plant takes the CO2 out 30, Interview: economist

George Loewenstein 32.

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A special report on 100 astonishing discoveries from the past year—the ideas and breakthroughs that are reshaping our understanding of the world.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Mail 6

Contributors 7

Editor’s Note 8

Vital Signs 10

An elderly couple visit

their doctor to � nd out

which one of them has

Alzheimer’s.

By H. Lee Kagan

The Brain 14

Neuroscientists begin

to � gure out how we

experience fear.

By Carl Zimmer

20 Things

You Didn’t Know About

Dwarf Planets 96

By Andrew Moseman

AND AMONG THE REST BIOLOGY Cut calories and extend your life 39,

The smell of fear 66, Chimps plan ahead 70 SPACE Water on the moon

35, A space-junk collision 54, Venus’s secret past 66 EVOLUTION The

next stage in Darwin’s revolution 50, An ancient croc-eating super-

snake 62, The world’s oldest octopuses 77 ASTRONOMY Twin black

holes 53, Titan: cloudy with a chance of storms 57, Jupiter takes a hit 72

ENVIRONMENT Arctic scientist Mark Serreze 60, Species relocation 80

MEDICINE Hope for HIV vaccine 34, Craig Venter’s synthetic biology 40,

Cancer genes go to court 55 ENERGY Smart grid powers up 48,

Building the sun in the lab 68, Microbial batteries 82 MIND Brain shock

therapy 38, Decoding the Jefferson cipher 64 ANTHROPOLOGY Ancient

� utes 54, Lake Huron hides Ancient civilization 82 PHYSICS Black hole

in a lab 70 TECHNOLOGY Theory-generating computer 39 EARTH Origins

of oxygen 77 OBITUARIES 86 . . . and a complete index on page 88.

On the Cover

Corot-7b, a rocky

exoplanet, suggests

that Earth-like worlds

may be common around

other stars. Insets, from

left: Einstein cogitating,

humans evolving, a

swine fl u virus lurking.

The space shuttle

Endeavor, docked with

the International Space

Station, crosses the face

of the sun.

DISCOVER ON THE

WEB Videos, breaking

news, and more

—the latest is online at

discovermagazine.com

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A towering pillar of gas and dust enshrouds newborn stars in the Carina nebula,

captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s new Wide Field Camera in July.

From our home on Earth, we look out into the distances and strive to imagine the sort of world

into which we were born…. The search will continue. The urge is older than history. It is not satisfi ed

and it will not be suppressed.

‘‘—Edwin P. Hubble

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BLOGS.DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

RECENTLY ON

80BEATS

Solar Cars

Race Across

the Australian

Outback

Eliza Strickland brings you

a remarkable slide show

of solar-powered vehicles

competing on a 1,860-mile

course.

Weirdest Science Stories of the Yeardiscovermagazine.com/web/disco2k9

Niftiest New Robotsdiscovermagazine.com/web/robo2k9

RECENTLY ON

THE

INTERSECTION

Evangelicals

and Scientists

Team Up to

Save the Planet

Chris Mooney discusses

the new book A Climate

for Change: Global Warm-

ing Facts for Faith-Based

Decisions.

RECENTLY ON

THE LOOM

I Am Shiva,

Destroyer of

Proteins

Carl Zimmer sheds light

on the science of autophagy,

or how our cells destroy

themselves to live again.

RECENTLY ON

BAD

ASTRONOMY

NASA

Launches an

iPhone App

Phil Plait examines NASA’s

of� cial app, which contains

information on missions,

pictures, videos, and more.

BAD ASTRONOMY’S Top Astronomy Pictures of 2009

discovermagazine.com/web/astro2k9

C H E C K O U T

WEB EXCLUSIVE The German Village That Went Off the GridA small town in Saxony has � gured out how to run entirely on biomass—creating an energy surplus.

discovermagazine.com/web/germanvillage

Humans vs. Animals: Our Fiercest Battles With Invasive SpeciesFrom Burmese pythons to Galápagos goats, these animals are threatening a hostile takeover of the

planet unless we can � nd ways to stop them.

discovermagazine.com/web/invasivesmackdown

PHOTO GALLERY

Treating Disease With Nature’s Deadliest ToxinsDrug companies and scientists are

turning biology’s weapons into lifesaving treatments.

discovermagazine.com/web/deadliestmedicines

WEB EXCLUSIVE Will Nanoparticle Drugs Change the Way We Take Medicine?Researchers are now using tiny, drug-carrying balls of sugar to deliver medication

in novel—and highly useful—ways.

discovermagazine.com/web/nanoparticlemeds

PHOTO GALLERY The NASA School of ArtFor 50 years, artists have had up-close, insider access to the

space program. Here are the results.

discovermagazine.com/web/NASAartschool

THE YEAR IN SCIENCESPECIAL YEAR-END FEATURES ON DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

(DON’T PEEK BEFORE NEW YEAR’S EVE!)

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J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 0

Hints: 1. These plates cover a shy, high-maintenance creature. 2. It hails from the Amazon, but you won’t have much trouble fi nding it elsewhere. 3. It is fl at and round—hence its name. For the answer, see the March issue or visit discovermagazine.com/web/whatisthis. Last month’s answer: page 91.

W H A T I S T H I S ?

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EDITORIAL

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Mail

Darwin and His Discontents

I have enjoyed the straightforward, clearly

written articles in DISCOVER for years, but

never before have I laughed out loud while

being informed on an important scienti� c

topic. Bruno Maddox’s “Deconstructing

Darwin” [November, page 38] was fascinat-

ing in its attempt to show Charles Darwin

as a scientist of incredible vision and forti-

tude but also as a man with human foibles.

Informative writing is always welcome, but

to be able to enjoy some of the nimblest

prose I’ve read in a long time in the process

was an unexpected treat. It’s as if Dave

Barry suddenly jumped over to serious sci-

ence. What a blast! Cathy Anderson

Tampa, FL

Maddox’s article substantially reduces the

quality of your magazine. Portions of the

article were demeaning to Darwin, spe-

ci� cally the comments about his “dumb

beard” and “dumb theories.” I would also

like to know who keeps calling the theory

“Darwinism” instead of evolution. As an

anthropologist, I never used the term in

my college classes. Maddox gets his his-

tory wrong too. The concept of evolution

was in the air for some time prior to the

publication of On the Origin of Species;

Darwin never “created” it. Maddox has

constructed a straw man that glori� es his

writing and so-called wit at the expense of

a great scientist. John L. Mori

Morton, IL

In “Deconstructing Darwin,” Charles

Darwin is brought “back down to earth”

in hopes of elevating his theory. However,

Darwin was a man, and as such one can-

not expect perfection. Attempting to make

him more human just seems to degrade

his theory. Instead of focusing on the man,

we should be focusing more on educating

those who have yet to accept evolution.

If the proper facts were brought to the

people, it wouldn’t matter whether Darwin

was cast as a simple person or the great

bearded man. Philip Hlasny

Mississauga, Ontario

Human-Neanderthal Relations

“Brothers in Arms” [November, page 46]

suggests that humans cannibalized Nean-

derthals because Neanderthal remains

show scars made by human tools. But

there may be other explanations. A Nean-

derthal could have gotten the short end of

the stick in a � ght over territory or a kill, or

a trade meeting between nomadic groups

could have gone bad. Brandon C. Nuttall

Frankfort, KY

Given humans’ well-known propensity

to view other, different-looking humans

with hatred and disgust, it would be

utterly surprising if early humans reacted

to Neanderthals with anything other

than fear and loathing. I think it’s highly

probable that our ancestors exterminated

them, or at the very least outcompeted

them for resources, and felt no remorse at

their disappearance. Steve Weston

Cottonwood, MN

History tells us that when cultures meet,

they both murder and marry each other,

so probably the few Neanderthals got

blended with the many humans. If they

could mate, though, doesn’t that mean

they were really the same species? Were

Neanderthals really just a race, a biological

variety of humans? Jim Heldberg

Paci� ca, CA

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that

the lack of Neanderthal DNA in the current

gene pool implies only that there were no

fertile offspring from any human/Neander-

thal mating? Given our present-day sexual

habits, I would think it highly likely that

such mating occurred whenever the two

populations met. John Phoenix

Fredericksburg, VA

The editors respond:

Whether or not Neanderthals and humans

were of the same species—a question that

hinges partly on the defi nition of “species”

—closely related organisms, such as

wolves, coyotes, and dogs, can often

produce fertile offspring. Differences in the

number of chromosomes can lead to infer-

tile progeny (like mules, the product of don-

keys and horses), but scientists are unsure

whether Neanderthals had 23 chromosome

pairs like us or 24 like the great apes.

Give W Some Stem Cell Credit

In “The Super Cell” [November, page

30], the author suggests that the Bush

administration’s barring of federal funds for

embryonic stem cell research negatively

impacted progress. Yet in the very next

paragraph she expounds on break-

throughs for obtaining stem cells without

human embryos involved—“even with the

restrictions in place.” A fair article would

have acknowledged that the removal of

federal funds for human embryonic stem

cell research might have spurred these

valuable advances. Scott Anderson

Centennial, CO

Send e-mail to editorial@discovermagazine.com.

Address letters to DISCOVER, 90 Fifth Avenue,

New York, NY 10011. Include your full name,

address, and daytime phone number.

ERRATA

On page 33 of “The Super Cell” in

the November issue, we misstated

President Bush’s funding restrictions

for embryonic stem cell research.

Funding was permitted, but only for

studying existing cell lines.

On page 59 of “Seeing the Forest

for the Lichens” in the November

issue, we misstated the location

of the Ozark Plateau. It stretches into

the eastern edge of Oklahoma,

not the western edge.

6 | DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

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contributors THE TOP 100 SCIENCE STORIES OF 2009

MICHAEL ABRAMS, a freelance writer in New York, is the author of Birdmen, Batmen and Skyfl yers.

MARCIA BARTUSIAK is a professor of science writing at MIT and author of � ve books. Her latest is The Day We Found the Universe.

ALLISON BOND, a science and medical writer living in New York, has also written for Scientifi c Ameri-can Mind and Popular Science.

JANE BOSVELD, a contributing editor to DISCOVER, is studying for a certi� cate in botany from the New York Botanical Garden.

DARLENE F. CAVALIER is the founder of ScienceCheerleader.com and an advocate for public engagement in science.

JANET FANG is a DISCOVER intern who studies natural history and uses marine geochemistry to research the paleoclimate of Africa.

DOUGLAS FOX is a freelance writer whose work has also appeared in New Scientist, Popular Mechanics, and the 2009 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology.

FRED GUTERL, former deputy editor of Newsweek International, recently joined DISCOVER as a senior editor.

ADAM HADHAZY is a science writer whose work has also appeared in Popular Mechanics and on Scientifi c American’s Web site.

MONICA HEGER is a Brooklyn-based writer whose work has also appeared in IEEE Spectrum and USA Today’s Science Fair blog.

JEREMY JACQUOT, a graduate student at the University of Southern California, also writes for Popular Mechanics and The Huffi ngton Post.

SAM KISSINGER is a former DISCOVER intern who is now � ghting childhood illiteracy in Central Arizona.

LINDSEY KONKEL is a freelance journalist who has also written for Popular Science, Natural History, and OnEarth.

JEREMY LABRECQUE is a freelance science writer based in Montreal who also studies spatial patterns in rheumatic diseases.

MICHAEL D. LEMONICK, who was a science writer at Time for more than 20 years, recently joined the staff of Climate Central.

JEANNE LENZER is a frequent contributor to the British Medical Journal who also writes for The Atlantic, Slate, and The Scientist.

HEATHER MAYER is a DISCOVER intern who has reported on health, science, and other topics for CNN.com, Health.com, and the Associated Press.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN is a former senior editor at Psychology Today and is a contributing editor to DISCOVER.

CYRUS MOULTON has also written for the Island Journal and The Huffi ngton Post.

JILL NEIMARK, who covers science and medicine, received the Autism Society of America award in 2007.

STEPHEN ORNES is a Nashville-based writer who also writes for CR Magazine, Technology Review, and Science News for Kids.

ALINE REYNOLDS is a DISCOVER intern who also writes for Manhattan Media newspapers and Dan’s Papers.

JOCELYN RICE is a science writer in Kansas whose work also appears in Technology Review, CR Magazine, and Popular Mechanics.

JESSICA RUVINSKY is a former editor at DISCOVER who has also written for Science, The Economist, and U.S. News & World Report.

NAYANAH SIVA is a freelance journalist based in London whose work also appears in The Lancet, Nature Medicine, and Science.

ELIZABETH SVOBODA is a Popular Science contributing editor based in San Jose, California.

MEGAN TALKINGTON recently began her career in science journalism after working as a researcher studying ribosomes and viruses.

CARL ZIMMER, a contributing editor to DISCOVER, also writes for The New York Times. His latest book is The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution.

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Editor’s Note

force is causing the expansion of the universe to acceler-

ate, controlling the fate of the entire cosmos. By current

reckoning, dark energy outweighs conventional matter (the

stuff that you and I are made of) by about 15 to 1. At the

other end of the scale, biologists had not yet sequenced

the human genome. Efforts to treat disease with gene

therapy had barely begun; the idea of creating synthetic life,

as Craig Venter is now preparing to do, back then seemed

more like something from the imagination of Mary Shelley.

All of this calls to mind Shakespeare’s oft-quoted words,

in which Hamlet addresses his friend Horatio: “There

are more things in heaven and earth,” he says, “than are

dreamt of in your philosophy.” Time and again we think we

have reached a near-� nal understanding of the world, but

then along comes an out-of-the-blue result that shakes

up our intellectual order all over again. Time and again we

think we have � nally hit an unanswerable question, but then

along comes a clever new experiment that exposes the

hubris of thinking we are the ones who have � nally reached

science’s outermost limits.

But there is also another kind of humility I feel looking

back through the old pages of DISCOVER. For every story

that makes me shake my head in amusement at how little

we knew in 1998, there are others—many others—that

highlight just how slow and incremental the discovery

process is. Efforts to � nd a cure for AIDS. Debates about

the shape and signi� cance of the human evolutionary tree.

The quest to understand the deeper meaning of quantum

physics. The hunt for life on Mars.

As I kept reading I thought of another, very different

Shakespeare quote, this one from A Midsummer Night’s

Dream: “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains/

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend/More than cool

reason ever comprehends.” In the popular stereotype, sci-

entists land solidly, solely on the side of cool reason. Their

actions say otherwise. Anthropologists spend lifetimes

chipping away at African outcrops in hopes of gleaning

a little more information about the origin of our species.

Medical researchers invest years developing vaccines, and

then years more proving that they are safe. The engineers

who labored on Apollo will most likely never live to see

humans set foot on Mars, yet many of them continue to

work tirelessly toward that goal.

These are not acts of cool reason alone. They embody

love and, in truth, more than a bit of madness. And we are all

the better off for it. Read on and I hope you will marvel—as

I constantly do—at what is possible when the world’s great

rational minds embrace a little of their fantastical side.

Corey S. Powell

In the 12 years I

have been at DISCOVER, the scientifi c understanding of

the world has undergone staggering transformations.

A look back through our annual top 100 lists richly illus-

trates those changes. In January 1998 human embry-

onic stem cells had not yet been isolated. There are no

stories about brain-scan studies in that issue, since the

key technology—functional magnetic resonance imag-

ing, or fMRI—was still in its infancy. Also absent: news

about planets orbiting other stars, since only a handful

of them were known at the time.

More sobering are the truly fundamental discoveries that

have taken place in the intervening dozen years. Just

days after the 1998 issue hit newsstands, astronomers

announced the � rst evidence of dark energy. This invisible

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In October DISCOVER teamed up with Shell

and the Stevens Institute of Technology to

explore the future of energy. The resulting

panel discussion, titled “Fossil Fuels in the

Year 2050,” was moderated by DISCOVER’s

editor in chief, Corey S. Powell, and

held on the Stevens campus in Hoboken,

New Jersey.

MIT visiting scientist Richard Sears,

formerly a geophysicist with Shell, out-

lined the challenge ahead. “In the hour

that we’re sitting here tonight, the world

will go through about 150 million gallons

of crude oil, 14 billion cubic feet of natural

gas, and almost 2 billion pounds of coal,”

he said. “Anything that we talk about

moving to in 2050 is going to have to

replace energy use at that scale.”

The panel went on to discuss emerging

technologies such as carbon sequestra-

tion and an interactive, “smart” energy

distribution system. “The smart grid

and some related considerations—

perhaps the o� -peak powering of electric

vehicles—give us an opportunity to

stabilize our power plants, how they

interact with the demand side, and

achieve higher e� ciencies in power pro-

duction,” said Anthony Cugini, director

of the O� ce of Research and Devel-

opment at the National Energy and

Technology Laboratory. “It will have a

signi� cant impact.”

Renewable energy sources will be

important, but “revolutionary devel-

opments do not happen overnight,”

cautioned Turgay Ertekin, a professor

of petroleum and natural gas engi-

neering at Penn State. “We have to look

at all of the possibilities—from nuclear

energy to hydroelectric power to solar

energy —and then make sure that they

take their proper places in the world’s

overall energy budget.”

And Paul Winstanley, director of

energy initiatives at Stevens, empha-

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Vital Signs by H. Lee Kagan

It was near the end of a routine of� ce visit when my patient, Sam,

told me he needed to talk to me about his wife. I closed his chart

and gave him my full attention. “Ruth’s just not the same,” he said.

“She tells me the same thing three times. She forgets when we have

plans to go somewhere. I don’t know, but I think she might have that

Alzheimer’s disease.” Concern and frustration were evident in his

voice. “Can you check her out the next time she’s in here?” I shook

his hand and promised I would.

I had known Sam and Ruth, both in their late seventies, for more

than two decades, and apart from the usual in� rmities of the golden

years, they had managed to dodge serious illness. I saw them both

regularly, and neither one had struck me as having suffered a signi� -

cant decline in intellectual functioning. But it wouldn’t be unusual for

early dementia to sneak in under the radar. Its � rst symptoms may

be subtle and impossible to distinguish from the normal decline in

memory that occurs with aging.

If you ask people over 60 what they dread most, dementia is almost

always in the top three on their list of health concerns. After all, it is

memory that makes us who we are; without it we are forever trapped

in the moment, with no window on the past or the future.

There is some discussion among experts over what exactly consti-

tutes early dementia, but they generally agree that it includes both a

decline in memory (learning and recalling new information like “Where

did I put those keys?” or “What did we do yesterday?”) and a decline

in at least one other area of intellectual functioning. Among those

areas are language (breadth of vocabulary, complexity of sentences),

calculation (balancing a checkbook, � guring a tip), judgment (Is this a

legitimate bill or a mail scam?), and visual-spatial orientation (becom-

ing disoriented while walking or driving). Faulty memory alone is not

enough to diagnose dementia, and the cognitive impairment must be

a decline from a previously higher level of functioning.

Two weeks later as I entered the exam room and opened Ruth’s

chart, I found the note I had written to remind myself to check

her memory. Mindful of her husband’s concerns, I asked her

how things were going.

“Dr. Kagan,” she said, “I’m worried about Sam.”

I waited for more and watched as she frowned.

“I think he might have Alzheimer’s.”

I couldn’t help smiling to myself. After 50 years, is this where

marital bickering had brought them? “What makes you think

that?” I asked.

“Well, I say things and he keeps correcting me. And then he

gets angry. He’s so short-tempered lately. It’s not like him.”

I told her I would look into it the next time I saw her husband.

After reviewing her vital signs and performing a basic physical

exam, I proceeded to test her. Extensive formal testing tools exist

to evaluate memory, but most clinicians rely on the Mini-Mental

Status Exam (MMSE) in their of� ces to screen for dementia. The

test takes just a few minutes and is commonly used for detect-

ing cognitive impairment. It includes a series of questions that

test orientation to place and time, recall, calculation, reading,

and executive function—carrying out a complex task, such as

copying a drawing of two overlapping pentagons.

Amused through much of the testing, Ruth offered an excuse

or a dismissive laugh whenever she failed on some component

of the exam. She was unable to recall any of three named objects

after three minutes. She struggled with simple math and was unable

to spell the word world backward. When we were done, her score was

well below normal, placing her in the early dementia range. Depres-

sion in some cases may mimic dementia, especially when patients

become withdrawn and disengaged, but Ruth showed no evidence of

that melancholic state. A careful neurological examination disclosed

no abnormalities to suggest prior strokes or other disorders, such as

Parkinson’s disease, that may be associated with dementia.

I sent Ruth to have blood drawn and then walked over to my secre-

tary, Carina. I asked her to schedule Ruth for an MRI of the brain.

“What’s the indication?” Carina asked. The radiologists would want

to know what I was looking for.

“Put ‘Evaluate dementia’ on the request.”

She nodded and mumbled, “Oh, that explains her cookies.”

“Her cookies? What about her cookies?” I began to wonder if one

of us was in need of a dementia workup, too.

Carina reminded me that for years Ruth, a kindhearted woman, had

been bringing home-baked cookies to every appointment. Known

After 50 years together, it should be easy to recognize signs that your spouse has Alzheimer’s. But sometimes dementia expresses itself in truly confounding ways.

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DISCOVERNational Science Foundation

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E-mail events@discovermagazine.com for more information

Watch for full coverage online at discovermagazine.com

Carnegie Mellon University

January 28, 2010, at 7

A roundtable discussion of the future of the machine: How will robots transform industry, health care, and warfare? And will they ever be our equals?

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among my staff as the Cookie Lady, she always made sure everyone

got his or her own little bag. But for the past year, whenever Ruth

came in the staff would politely wait for her to leave and then deposit

the cookies in the trash. “They’re terrible,” she said, “but no one wants

to say anything to her. Too bad. They used to be good.”

After Ruth left I tried one of her dry, tasteless cookies and agreed

that they would not have earned anyone the affectionate nickname

Cookie Lady. I saw it as one more example of how she had changed.

I made sure that her MRI got scheduled.

Within a week I had all of Ruth’s results back. Her scan showed mild

brain atrophy, or shrinkage, a common but very nonspeci� c � nding in

older people. There was no tumor, no evidence of a past stroke, and

no � uid accumulation. Her lab tests showed no metabolic derange-

ments or any de� ciencies, such as inadequate amounts of thyroid

hormone or vitamin B12, that can cause symptoms of dementia.

Based on her impaired cognitive functions and the absence of any

other explanation, I concluded that, unfortunately, Sam was right.

His wife had early Alzheimer’s disease. The diagnosis is a clinical

one, meaning there is no speci� c test, either analyzing the blood or

imaging the brain, that can identify the disease. Indeed, the only way

to con� rm Alzheimer’s conclusively is to biopsy the brain. But this

invasive and risky test is seldom done because the diagnosis can be

reliably established on clinical grounds alone.

That same week I saw Sam in my of� ce and, as I had promised

Ruth, evaluated him. He had no problem with the MMSE, and there

were no neurological abnormalities. What he did have, however, was

a wife of more than half a century who had begun to slip away from

him mentally. It frightened him and left him feeling frustrated and help-

less. He had responded by becoming short-tempered and demand-

ing. But being short-tempered and demanding is not dementia.

Ruth had correctly observed a distinct change in her spouse, and

with her limited capacities she had decided that the problem lay with

him, speculating that he might have early dementia. “He keeps cor-

recting me,” she had complained, demonstrating no insight into her

own diminished mental faculties. Sam, in turn, was showing how

Alzheimer’s disease affects more than the person who has it.

In fact, Ruth’s marked lack of insight into her de� cits is character-

istic of true dementia. Patients forget what they don’t know and so

gain no self-awareness. The corollary is that patients who come to

me worried that they might have Alzheimer’s generally do not. (There

are exceptions, of course.) Alzheimer’s is the illness that is most often

brought to a doctor’s attention by family members and friends rather

than by the patients themselves.

There is currently no way to reverse Alzheimer’s disease. There are,

however, drugs that can treat its symptoms. I prescribed these medi-

cations for Ruth after having a lengthy discussion with her and her

husband about the nature of the illness and what they could expect

down the road. I also suggested an Alzheimer’s support group for

Sam to help him gain some understanding of how his wife’s disease

was affecting him. There was no way to predict the tempo of Ruth’s ill-

ness, but her general health was good, and I told them that a program

of physical activity and mental engagement would work in her favor.

They left my of� ce hand in hand. I was con� dent that after 50 years

they would � nd a way through this, too.

Vital Signs

H. Lee Kagan is an internist in Los Angeles. The cases described in Vital

Signs are real, but patients’ names and other details have been changed.

DV0110VITAL2A_WC 12 11/13/09 1:31:13 PM

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The Brain by Carl ZimmerAre you a man or a mouse? No matter how you answer, you experience fear the same way in your brain.

Fear: See also dread, panic, terror, fright, trepidation, anxiety,

worry, phobia, disquietude, angst, foreboding, the creeps, the

jitters, the heebie-jeebies, freaking out.

Any halfway decent thesaurus will provide a long list of syn-

onyms for fear, and yet they are not very good substitutes. No

one would confuse having the creeps with being terri� ed. It is

strange that we have so many words for fear, when fear is such

a unitary, primal feeling. Perhaps all those synonyms are just lin-

guistic inventions. Perhaps, if we looked inside our brains, we

would just � nd plain old fear.

That is certainly how things seemed in the early 1900s, when

scientists began studying how we come to be scared of things.

They built on Ivan Pavlov’s classic experiments on dogs, in which

Pavlov would ring a bell before giving his dogs food. Eventually

they learned to associate the bell with food and began to salivate in

anticipation. Psychologists set up experiments to see if the same

kind of learning could instill fear as well. The implicit assumption

was that fear, like hunger, was a simple provoked response.

In one of the most famous (and infamous) of these experiments,

American psychologist John Watson decided to see if he could

teach an 11-month-old baby named Albert to become scared of

arbitrary things. He presented Albert with a rat, and every time the

baby reached out to touch it, Watson hit a steel bar with a ham-

mer, producing a horrendous clang. After several rounds with the

rat and the bar, Watson then brought out the rat on its own. “The

instant the rat was shown, the baby began to cry,” Watson wrote

in a 1920 report. “Almost instantly he turned sharply to the left, fell

over on his left side, raised himself on all fours and began to crawl

away so rapidly that he was caught with dif� culty before reaching

the edge of the table.”

The “little Albert” study, besides being cruel, was badly

designed. Watson did not control it carefully to rule out a wide

range of possible interpretations. In later decades, other scientists

got much more rigorous in their study of fear, in many cases turn-

ing to rats rather than people as their test subjects. In a typical

experiment, a rat was placed in a cage with a light. At � rst the light

came on a few times so the animal could get accustomed to it.

Later the scientists would turn on the light and then give the rats

a little electric shock. After a few rounds, the rats would respond

fearfully to the light, even if no shock came.

Further research revealed that the amygdala—an almond-shaped

cluster of neurons deep within the brain—plays a pivotal role in the

fear-association response in rats. Brain researchers discovered that

the amygdala orchestrates human fear as well. The sight of a loaded

gun, for example, triggers activity in this part of the brain. People

with an injured amygdala have dampened emotional responses and

so do not learn to fear new things through association. Science had

identi� ed a nexus of fear, it seemed.

Although this line of research yielded some major insights, it had

an obvious shortcoming. In the real world, rats don’t spend their

lives in cages waiting for lights to turn on; these experiments don’t

capture the complex role that fear plays in a wild rat’s life.

In the 1980s Caroline and Robert Blanchard, working together

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at the University of Hawaii, carried out a pioneering study on

the natural history of fear. They put wild rats in cages and then

brought cats gradually closer to them. At each stage, they care-

fully observed how the rats reacted. The Blanchards found

that the rats responded to each kind of threat with a distinct

set of behaviors.

The � rst kind of behavior is a reaction to a potential threat, in

which a predator isn’t visible but there is good reason to worry

that it might be nearby. A rat might walk into a meadow that looks

free of predators, for example, but that reeks of fresh cat urine. In

such a case, a rat will generally explore the meadow cautiously,

assessing the risk of staying there. A second, more concrete type

of threat arises if a rat spots a cat at the other side of the meadow.

The rat will freeze and then make a choice about what to do next.

It may slink away, or it may remain immobile in hopes that the cat

will eventually wander away without noticing it. Finally, the most

active threat: The cat glances over, notices something, and walks

toward the rat to investigate. At this point, the rat will � ee if it has

an escape route. If the cat gets close, the rat will choose either to

� ght or to run for its life.

Dean Mobbs, a neuroscientist

at the Medical Research Council in

Cambridge, England, wondered if

humans have similarly layered fear

responses. He and his colleagues

were not about to send people into

tiger-infested meadows, so they

designed a clever alternative: They

programmed a survival-themed video game that subjects could

play while lying in an fMRI scanner. The game is similar to Pac-

man. You see yourself as a triangle in a maze and press keys to

maneuver through it. At some point a circle appears. This is a

virtual predator being guided by an arti� cial intelligence program

to seek you out. If the predator captures you, you receive a small

electric shock on the back of your hand.

This deceptively minimalist predator-prey game triggers some

remarkably intense feelings. Mobbs measured the skin conduc-

tance of his players by rigging them up to a device similar to a lie

detector. He found that when the predator was bearing down on

players, they often experienced the same changes to their skin

as those seen in people having panic attacks. Mobbs unleashed

two kinds of predators on his players, a less adept one that was

easy to escape, and a smarter one that was more likely to capture

its victim. When people were chased by the better predator, they

showed a stronger panic response in their skin, and they also

crashed into the walls of the maze more often.

Meanwhile, striking changes were happening inside the brains

of the players. The predators would � rst appear on the far side

of the maze. While they remained at a distance, the same brain

regions tended to become active in the players, a network that

included parts of the amygdala as well as some other structures in

the front of the brain. But when the predator was closing in, those

brain regions shut down and a network of previously quiet regions

farther back in the midbrain became active.

Mobbs’s results mesh nicely not only with the work of the

Blanchards but also with some other, more recent studies of rat

neurology. For example, one of the midbrain regions that Mobbs

and his colleagues observed becoming active in humans when

a “predator” was close is an area called the periaqueductal gray

region. This area showed higher activity in the people who

crashed into the walls more often, providing further evidence that

it plays an important role in panic. Researchers have explored the

anatomy of fear more directly in rats; by manipulating different

areas of the rat brain, they are able to alter parts of the stan-

dard fear-driven sequence of behavior. When neuroscientists put

electrodes into the periaqueductal gray region of rat brains and

stimulated the neurons there, the creatures immediately started

to run and jump uncontrollably.

Fear, the new results suggest, is not a single thing after all. Rath-

er, it is a complex, ever-changing strategy mammal brains deploy

in order to cope with danger. When a predator is off in the distance,

its prey—whether rat or human—powers up a forebrain network.

The network primes the body, raising the heartbeat and preparing

it for fast action. At the same time, the forebrain network sharpens

the brain’s attention to the outside world, evaluating threats, moni-

toring subtle changes, and running through possible responses.

Another important job it performs is keeping the midbrain network

shut down so that, instead of � eeing at top speed, a prey ani-

mal keeps very still at � rst. As the predator gets closer, however,

the forebrain’s grip on the midbrain loosens. Now the midbrain

becomes active, orchestrating a powerful, quick response: � ght or

� ight. At the same time it shuts down the slower, more deliberative

forebrain. This is no time for thinking.

It may be unsettling to � nd that our brains work so much like a

rat’s. But the amygdala and the periaqueductal gray are ancient

parts of the brain, dating back hundreds of millions of years. Our

small hominid ancestors probably faced the same kinds of threats

that baboons do today from leopards, eagles, and other predators.

Even after we evolved the ability to use weapons and became

predators ourselves, this ancient brain circuit still offered a useful

defense against members of our own species.

Unfortunately, our exquisitely sophisticated brains may make

this predator-defense circuit vulnerable to mis� ring. Instead of

monitoring just the threats right in front of us, we can also imagine

threats that do not exist. Feeding this imagination into the early-

warning system may lead to crippling chronic anxiety. In other

cases, people may not be able to keep their periaqueductal gray

and other midbrain regions under control. As we perceive preda-

tors getting closer, our brains normally make the switch from the

forebrain to the midbrain regions. People who suffer panic dis-

orders may misjudge threats, seeing them as far more imminent

than they really are.

To test these possibilities, Mobbs and his colleagues are begin-

ning to study people who suffer from fear-related disorders as they

play the predator game. Such work may not uncover a biological

distinction between angst and the heebie-jeebies, but it may show

how much better we can understand ourselves—and tame our inner

demons—once we appreciate the many dimensions of fear.

Fear, the new results suggest, is not a single thing after all. It is a complex, ever-changing strategy

mammal brains deploy in order to cope with danger.

The Brain by Carl Zimmer

16 | DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

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1The question will not go away:

Do vaccines cause autism?

Some 1 million to 1.5 million

adults and children in the

United States have received

autism diagnoses, and there is

no clear insight into its causes.

What surprises many scientists

is that their � ndings against a

vaccine connection keep fail-

ing to quell the debate, giving

the antivaccine movement the

potential to become a genuine

public-health problem.

In February the U.S. Court

of Federal Claims attempted

to provide some clarity, ruling

that a widely used vaccine

and a vaccine preservative,

both targets of concern over

the past decade, do not cause

autism spectrum disorders.

That decision put a stamp

of approval on what multiple

peer-reviewed studies have

concluded for years: The MMR

(measles-mumps-rubella)

vaccine and the mercury

additive thimerosal (which

was removed from nearly all

vaccines by 2001) are not

responsible for the rise in

autism diagnoses. “I think

the tide clearly turned this

year, and the court decision,

more than anything else, was

responsible,” says Paul Of� t,

a pediatrician at the Children’s

Hospital of Philadelphia and

a vocal vaccine advocate. “It

showed that good science

does win in the end.”

Environmental attor-

ney Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

responded to the ruling by

Y E A R I N S C I E N C E 2 0 0 9

THE

DISCOVERIESTHAT ARECHANGING

THE WORLD

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VACCINE PHOBIA BECOMES A PUBLIC-HEALTH THREAT

comparing government-spon-

sored vaccine safety studies to

cigarette research conducted

by Big Tobacco. In the ruling’s

wake, conspiracy theories

and false claims continued to

dominate some autism Internet

forums, while television shows

featured lengthy interviews

with antivaccine stalwarts.

Fueling all this confusion

is the complicated nature

of autism, which encom-

passes a range of neurologi-

cal disorders characterized

by “social impairments,

communication dif� culties,

and restricted, repetitive,

and stereotyped patterns of

behavior,” according to the

National Institutes of Health

(NIH). Those symptoms

usually appear at around

18 months of age, precisely

when children receive many

of their vaccinations.

In October Michael D. Kogan

of the U.S. Department of

Health and Human Ser-

vices (HHS) and colleagues

announced that about 1 of

every 91 American children

has a disorder on the autism

spectrum. A 2008 study

by the California Depart-

ment of Public Health found

that the number of chil-

dren receiving services for

autism in the state has risen

steadily, despite a decrease

to trace levels of mercury

in their inoculations. Many

experts attribute the growing

prevalence to new diagnosis

guidelines and increased

awareness among doctors.

Meanwhile, the reluctance

of some parents to immunize

their children can lead to the

return of vaccine-preventable

diseases such as a measles,

which broke out this past

summer in Brooklyn, New

York. According to Christo-

pher Zimmerman, medical

director of the New York

City Health Department’s

Bureau of Immunization, the

virus spread quickly among

children who were not fully

vaccinated, including those

whose parents put off the

shots because of concern

about the autism-vaccine link.

“Measles can be a serious

and life-threatening disease,”

he says. “Parents are putting

their children at risk by not

vaccinating on time.” Across

the United States, reported

measles cases shot up from

43 in 2007 to 140 in 2008,

and more than 90 percent of

those reported in 2008 were

among children who were

unvaccinated or had unknown

vaccination status.

In the midst of the ongoing

controversy, scientists have

made notable progress in

understanding autism. A May

study in Nature found that 65

percent of autistic children

M E D I C I N E·

share a set of mutations that

may regulate genes known

to in� uence communication

among brain cells. Many sci-

entists say that environmental

exposures, perhaps even in

the womb, may activate such

genetic vulnerabilities. Over the

past three years the NIH has

spent about $100 million annu-

ally on autism research. One

possible trigger it has studied

exhaustively and dismissed:

vaccines. “Exploring the broad

question of vaccines and

autism is not fruitful. The ques-

tions have been answered,”

says University of Utah pedia-

trician Andrew Pavia, chairman

of the vaccine-safety working

group at HHS.

Pavia nevertheless believes

it would be worth further

investigating a link between

vaccines and autism once

speci� c biological pathways

are identi� ed. To that end,

his committee recommends

researching whether some

children, including those who

may be genetically predis-

posed to autism, are at higher

risk following certain vaccina-

tions but in numbers too small

to have shown up in previously.

“There are some who sug-

gest that scientists shouldn’t

bring up vaccines and autism

in the same breath, but I think

we should keep an open mind

until we understand the biol-

ogy better,” Pavia says. Of� t

disagrees. The evidence has

spoken, he argues, and pur-

suing additional research only

For years some families of

autistic adults and children have

blamed a mercury preservative

in vaccines for the disorder.

wastes resources and gives

false hope. “Parents are being

horribly misled by leaving the

door open,” he says.

One positive side effect of

the media frenzy is that autism

science is � nally getting its

due. In September the NIH

committed nearly $100 million

in additional funding from the

stimulus package to study-

ing autism. Scientists also

hope to gain crucial insights

into autism’s risk factors from

several large new studies,

including the federally funded

Early Autism Risk Longitudinal

Investigation, which will enroll

1,200 mothers of autistic

children at the start of a sub-

sequent pregnancy and then

track the newborn child’s � rst

three years of development.

“This issue will not go

away until there is a clear

cause,” Of� t says. “But the

important story you never

hear is that the research is

evolving very quickly.”

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 | 19

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AT

K. IN

SE

T: N

AS

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C

2S P A C EÚ

T E X T B Y F R E D G U T E R L

Norman Augustine is a

well-known critic of wasteful

government programs. As for-

mer CEO of Lockheed Martin,

he is also a grizzled veteran

of the aerospace industry.

That explains why the Obama

administration chose Augus-

tine to head a commission on

the future of NASA’s human

space� ight program—and

why the space agency was so

shaken by his conclusion.

NASA “appears to be on

an unsustainable trajectory,”

Augustine and company

began their report. Its plan to

return to the moon by 2020 is

out of the question. To keep

the International Space Station

aloft past 2016 (the program’s

premature end date) and

maintain a viable human space

exploration program, NASA

will have to scrape up another

$3 billion per year—hard to

imagine in a time of trillion-

dollar de� cits. “The choice is

to lower aspirations or increase

the budget,” says John Logs-

don, a space policy expert at

George Washington University.

One way to cut costs,

cautiously endorsed by

Augustine’s commission, is to

give private � rms a bigger role

in providing launch services.

Contractors like Lockheed

Martin and Boeing have

always built the hardware, but

NASA has kept close watch

on each step in design and

construction. That method

worked for the Apollo program,

but it has been a disaster ever

since. For instance, the space

shuttle, originally intended to

provide cheap and reliable

transport to low Earth orbit,

has turned out to be roughly

1,000 times more dangerous

and 100 times more costly to

launch than � rst promised.

In classic bureaucratic style,

NASA diluted the original idea

by trying to make the shuttle

all things to all people: a satel-

lite launcher for the military

as well as a pickup truck to

space for the civilian program.

Private companies, the

panel’s reasoning goes, would

be better at reining in costs

and keeping their eye on the

ball. In addition, NASA would

not have to pay the huge

up-front costs of development

and construction. Instead, it

would give seed money to

private � rms and guarantee

a market for their services.

NASA has already begun to

work this way in the develop-

ment of a cargo vessel for the

space station. (When the shut-

tle is mothballed, currently set

for the end of 2010, NASA will

have to rely on Russia’s Soyuz

spaceship to get astronauts to

the station.) The agency has

given small grants to SpaceX,

the aerospace � rm founded

by PayPal mogul Elon Musk,

and Orbital Sciences, a � rm

that builds missile-defense

systems; each company is

developing its own launchers

and capsules.

Pursuing this path would

mark a huge change in NASA’s

way of doing business. It

would mean entrusting the

safety of its crew to third

parties. In terms of hardware,

though, it would be a cinch.

SpaceX and Orbital rockets

could accommodate astro-

nauts with minor modi� ca-

tions. And scrapping NASA’s

new Ares I booster program

could save billions of dollars

over the next few years. “We

think this is the time to create

a market for commercial � rms

to transport both cargo and

humans between the Earth

and low Earth orbit,” Augustine

said at a press conference

accompanying the report’s

release. “NASA would be bet-

ter served to spend its money

on going beyond Earth orbit

rather than running a trucking

service to low Earth orbit.”

That would free the agency

to focus resources on the Ares

V rocket—now on the drawing

board—or another heavy-lift

rocket that could carry crews

into deep space. Mars is “the

NASA BRACES FOR COURSE CORRECTION

Ground test and

artist’s mock-up

(inset) of NASA’s

Ares I rocket,

which is fi ve

years behind

schedule. It may

be replaced with

private rockets.

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ultimate destination” for

human exploration, but the

commission recommends

� rst tackling more attain-

able yet exciting intermedi-

ate goals, such as visiting

asteroids and the two small

Martian moons.

If NASA cannot � nd a

way to squeeze more out

of its budget, it will have to

deep-six some programs.

A big question mark is the

fate of the space station.

Terminating the program

early in 2016, as currently

scheduled, would help

release NASA from its

� scal straitjacket, but it

would “signi� cantly impair

U.S. ability to develop and

lead future international

space� ight partnerships”

while wasting 25 years of

investment, Augustine’s

group warns. Europe, in

particular, would not take a

cancellation kindly, having

already committed billions

of euros for the Columbus

space-station module. And

the robotic exploration pro-

gram is already providing a

big bang for NASA’s buck,

discovering hidden water

on the moon, possible signs

of life on Mars, and tropical

storms on Titan just in the

past year (see pages 35,

38, and 57, respectively).

Cutting future unmanned

missions would cause

uproar among the scienti� c

community while freeing up

only modest funds.

NASA is in a tough spot.

But from necessity, it is

poised to reinvent itself.

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CR

ED

IT

A N T H R O P O L O G YL

T E X T B Y J I L L N E I M A R K

Anthropologists are suddenly

tearing up their long-held origin

tale—that modern humans

evolved from hunched, proto-

human apes roaming the

wide-open savannas of old.

The discovery of a 4.4-mil-

lion-year-old hominid named

Ardipithecus ramidus (fondly

shortened to “Ardi”) suggests

that for a stretch during the

early Pliocene, our ancestors

instead lived in lush wood-

lands and walked on two feet.

In fact, Ardi’s unexpected traits

put to rest the whole idea of a

chimplike missing link at the

root of the human family tree.

Ardi and fossil bones from

at least 35 other children and

adults were uncovered in the

Afar desert in Ethiopia by

the Middle Awash research

group. Toiling in volcanic ash,

the group collected fossil-

ized remains of more than

6,000 creatures ranging from

antelopes to bats, as well as

seeds and geologic samples.

“This gave us a series of

fantastic, high-resolution

snapshots across an ancient

landscape—a true picture of

what Ardi’s habitat was like,”

says University of California

at Berkeley paleoanthropolo-

gist Tim White, a codirector of

the team. “It tells us that long

before hominids developed

tools or big brains or ranged

3MEET YOUR NEW ANCESTOR

the open savanna, they were

walking upright.” The evi-

dence suggests Ardipithecus

is ancestral to the early homi-

nid Australopithecus, widely

considered a forerunner of our

own genus, Homo.

White’s � ndings, published

alongside related articles from

more than 40 researchers,

appeared in a special issue of

Science in October. Together

they present the picture of a

fantastical, mosaic hominid

—one with pelvis and feet

adapted for walking but with a

divergent big toe splayed out

like those of modern apes for

climbing and grasping. She

had a small brain, about the

size of a chimp’s but posi-

tioned more like a human’s.

Most striking, Ardi’s upper

canine teeth were close in size

to those of modern humans.

Analysis of tooth enamel sug-

gests Ardi ate nuts, fruits, and

tubers, supplemented by small

mammals and bird eggs.

“How does one account

for this strange creature?”

White asks. In one of the

other Science papers, noted

biological anthropologist C.

Owen Lovejoy of Kent State

University speculates that

pair-bonding may have been

the trigger. Perhaps females

began to prefer males who

could walk, gather food, and

carry it home, he suggests.

Of course, given the conten-

tious nature of the � eld, some

experts insist the jury is still

out on Ardi’s evolutionary role.

But to White, the evidence

overwhelmingly places her

at “the � rst phase of human

evolution.” Move over, Lucy.

Ardi may just be the hominid

� nd of this century.

Ardi weighed

about 110

pounds and

stood four

feet high. Her

hand was

longer than

a human’s,

but her gait

probably

resembled

our own.

T. W

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B I O L O G Y q

4

T E X T B Y M O N I C A H E G E R

For eight years, stem

cell researchers chafed at

restrictions limiting govern-

ment funding to a handful of

preexisting cell lines. Then

on March 9, 2009, President

Obama signed an executive

order freeing federal funds for

work on any type of stem cell,

including cells derived from

unused embryos at in vitro

fertilization clinics. Stem cell

research, already in high gear,

has taken off since then.

The � rst clinical trial using

embryonic stem cells to treat

paralysis was approved by

the Food and Drug Admin-

istration even before the

new order. At the same

time, other researchers have

found ways to bypass the

embryo, spurred in part by

the earlier restrictions. Recent

studies have shown how to

reprogram adult cells into

non-embryonic stem cell

lines called induced pluripo-

tent stem cells—“pluri potent”

meaning that they could

give rise to almost any cat-

egory of cell.

• In January, the FDA gave

the biotech company Geron a

green light for the � rst human

clinical trial of a paralysis

treatment using embryonic

stem cells. The trial is based

on work from University of

California at Irvine neuro-

scientist Hans Keirstead,

who enabled paralyzed rats

to walk again by coaxing

embryonic stem cells to dif-

ferentiate into the spinal cord

cells that the rats had lost

during injury.

• In March, a University of

Wisconsin team repro-

grammed skin � broblasts

into embryonic stem cells

without incorporating the viral

or other foreign DNA that can

lead to complications like

cancer. Instead of manipulat-

ing the cells with a virus, as

other researchers had done,

the Wisconsin team used so-

called circular DNA, loops of

DNA that exist outside of the

primary genome. “When the

cells proliferate, they lose the

circular DNA naturally because

it’s not very stable,” says Jun-

ying Yu of Cellular Dynamics,

coauthor of the study.

• This summer, three separate

teams of researchers—two

in China, one in California—

reported the birth of healthy

mice generated solely from

induced pluripotent cells. The

most proli� c cell line, made at

the Scripps Research Institute

in La Jolla, produced live baby

mice 13 percent of the time.

• Combining stem cells with

gene therapy, an international

collaboration announced the

success of a pilot study to

treat X-linked adrenoleuko-

dystrophy (ALD), a fatal brain

disease caused by a mutation

of the gene coding for the

ALD protein. As reported

in Science in November,

the researchers removed

patients’ bone marrow (which

contained stem cells with the

damaged gene) and repaired

the cells with healthy genes

delivered by a retrovirus. After

bone marrow containing the

STEM CELL SCIENCE TAKES OFF

defective gene was eradi-

cated with chemotherapy,

stem cells with the healthy

gene were transplanted back

into the patients, and the

progression of the disease

was stopped.

The ultimate goal is to

produce pluripotent cells

by purely chemical means

within the body to regenerate

damaged parts and to treat

disease.

A colony of

induced pluripotent

stem cells used

to treat Fanconi

anemia.

PH

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DV0110SECI11A6B11_WC 23 11/13/09 8:48:35 PM

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What’s so interesting about

the Lyman-alpha blobs?

I would call them building

blocks of galaxies, mostly gas

and stars. That’s where the

Lyman-alpha radiation comes

from: the glowing hydrogen

gas that’s being lit up by the

young stars that are in these

building blocks. The question

we are trying to get at is, as

you go fainter, how many more

of them are there? It turns out

that the number of objects

goes up steeply: When you go

a factor of 10 fainter, you see

100 times as many objects.

When we study these early

objects, what do we learn?

We know a lot about our

galaxy today—chemical abun-

dance, how it has been built

up over time. There’s a “fossil

record” in our galaxy of what

happened. But it would be

great to see a movie of what

was going on deep in the past.

In astronomy, we can do that.

We can look back and observe

the universe at that time.

How much do we know

about conditions in the very

early universe?

At the beginning there was so

much energy that electrons

and protons went their own

way. Then, 400,000 years after

the Big Bang, the universe

cooled to the point where

hydrogen gas could exist.

From that point it was electri-

cally neutral, until something

came along to light it up.

People used to think, well,

maybe quasars did it, but there

just weren’t enough of them

around. Then they said maybe

it was young galaxies.

So now you think the fi rst

galaxies sculpted the

cosmos, paving the way for

more galaxies to evolve?

We’ve now found about 50 of

these very, very faint building

blocks of galaxies. We have a

big enough sample to say we

know how common they are.

Astronomer ALAN DRESSLER

Sets Off on the Trail of the

First Galaxies in the Universe

text by FRED GUTERL photograph by SPENCER LOWELL

Why are you interested in

what happened 12 billion

years ago?

Our research program started

with galaxies: Why are there

so many different types, what

are their histories, and how

did we get the structures we

see today—spiral, elliptical,

and so forth? Why are they

so different? We have a very

tentative grasp on that.

How did your Carnegie col-

league fi nd Himiko?

The technique by which we’re

seeing this is Lyman-alpha

emission. The light comes out

in the ultraviolet, then there’s

this big redshift [as the light

is stretched by the expan-

sion of the universe], which

puts it in the more detectable,

far-red part of the spectrum.

Himiko came out of a survey of

What did the universe look like in its toddler years? To fi nd out,

astronomer Alan Dressler of the Carnegie Institution of Wash-

ington and his team are training some of the world’s largest

telescopes on a small swath of sky in the constellation Sextans.

Their aim is to detect “Lyman-alpha emitters,” distant gas clouds

enclosing primordial stars. The blobs hail from a crucial moment

when those fi rst stars fl ooded the cosmos with energy, setting

off a chain of events that led to the formation of modern galaxies.

Last year Dressler’s colleague Masami Ouchi found the king of

the blobs: Nicknamed Himiko, it is 55,000 light-years in diameter,

making it the largest object ever seen so early in the universe.

Dressler spoke with DISCOVER about what it all means.

Lyman-alpha objects. Out of all

those things that Masami was

doing, this rather extraordinary

object stood out.

What is Himiko?

I don’t know. I don’t think we

have a good explanation for

it—and that was what was

interesting about it. It is a

unique object in terms of size

and output, which is not the

way my scienti� c inclinations

tend to go. What we’ve really

been trying to do is to � nd the

more typical galaxies from the

era about a billion years after

the Big Bang. To do that, we

have to tune up an instrument

and expose it for 20 hours

under extraordinary conditions.

My colleague Crystal Martin

and I are trying to push a factor

of 10 times fainter than what

people had been doing.

I N T E R V I E W±

5

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It looks like there are enough

of them to explain why the uni-

verse went from being neutral

to being full of ionized gas.

What are you trying to

understand now about these

galactic building blocks?

We’re trying to � gure out how

massive they are, how they

spin, what their structures and

compositions are, so we’ll

know how the � rst heavy ele-

ments started to come about.

And then we’ll start to under-

stand the crazy diversity of

modern galaxies?

Yes. The interaction among

these building blocks deter-

mines what shape a galaxy

takes. The universe started off

smooth, and then it began to

get lumpy. Our best bet is that

in the places where the density

of the blobs is highest, they

merge together very early and

form stars more rapidly, creat-

ing elliptical galaxies. In the

places that are less dense the

building blocks take longer to

develop; those come together

later and make spirals.

What’s next—will you look

even further back in time?

No. You don’t really want to

look further. You want a more

complete picture of the aver-

age time, rather than always

going for the big, “Oh, I’ve

got the most distant object in

the universe.” That’s kind of

meaningless, actually.

Because not much was hap-

pening that early?

If you’ve got a picture of your

child at 6 months, you’re

not going to learn a lot from

another one from when she

was 5 months and 13 days.

What you want to see is when

things are changing. Astrono-

mers are always selling the idea

that we’ve pushed further than

ever before, but it’s a bit of a

fraud. We’ve seen something,

but it’s very sketchy. What

we’re mostly aiming toward is

to get a picture of how ordinary

galaxies come about.

What’s next?

We have pushed Magellan

[the 6.5-meter telescope in

Chile] as much as we could.

I am working toward using

the James Webb Space

Telescope—the Hubble

replacement that should be

up by 2014—to look at the

formation of galaxies in much

greater detail. We’ll get a � rst

look at galaxies forming in the

� rst billion years.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 | 25

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When swine fl u emerged

in Mexico last April, it was

dubbed a “killer virus”

because of its apparent high

mortality rate. By mid-June

the � u had spread to 73 other

countries, infecting 30,000

people and prompting the

World Health Organization to

issue its highest warning, a

Phase 6 pandemic alert. In

the United States, concern

took off in late August, when

the President’s Council of

Advisors on Science and

Technology said the virus

could infect up to 150

million Americans and kill

30,000 to 90,000. And then,

on October 23, President

Obama declared swine � u a

national emergency, noting

that “the potential exists for

the pandemic to overburden

health-care resources in

some localities.”

The current strain of swine

� u, formally known as the

2009 H1N1 � u, is a mutated

cousin of the 1918 Span-

ish � u, which affected both

humans and pigs. That virus

took 50 million to 100 million

lives worldwide, according

to Jeffery Taubenberger, the

pathologist who sequenced

its entire genome.

Fears that this year’s virus

would behave like its 1918

relative were heightened

when two characteristics of

the new � u were noted as

similar to the earlier pan-

6SWINE FLU OUTBREAKSWEEPS THE GLOBE

demic. First, cases of swine

� u broke out before the usual

� u season; and second, a

disproportionate number of

young people were reported

to be sickened by it.

By September � ve pharma-

ceutical companies had prom-

ised to produce 250 million

doses of 2009 H1N1 vaccines,

and experts assured the public

that these inoculations were

safe. But as of the � rst week

of November, only 26 million

doses had been distributed to

hospitals and doctors’ of� ces.

Nancy Cox, head of the

� u division at the Centers

T E X T B Y J E A N N E L E N Z E R

for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), says that

her group is preparing for the

worst. “In certain situations

such as 1918, there was a

rather mild spring season of

disease followed by a much

more severe fall wave,” she

says. “There’s a seasonality

component that caused the

virus to spread more rapidly

and more deeply into the

population.”

An estimated 22 mil-

lion American citizens were

infected with the new H1N1

virus in the months before

Obama declared the national

emergency, according to the

CDC, and about 4,000 of

those people died. Each year

seasonal � u kills approxi-

mately 35,000 people in the

United States alone. Without

extensive immunization,

the H1N1 � u is on track to

surpass that toll, says Dean

Blumberg, associate profes-

sor of pediatric infectious

disease at the University of

California at Davis Children’s

Hospital. Because this virus

is so novel, few people

are protected by preexist-

ing immunity. “Pretty much

everyone is going to get it,”

Blumberg says, “so we’re

expecting more deaths and

complications.”

A Mexico City subway

in the midst of the H1N1

outbreak last May.

M E D I C I N E·

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7THE GRAPHENEREVOLUTION

Under a transmission electron microscope it looks deceptively

simple: a grid of hexa gons resembling a volleyball net or a section of

chicken wire. But graphene, a form of carbon that can be produced

in sheets only one atom thick, seems poised to shake up the world

of electronics. Within � ve years, it could begin powering faster and

better transistors, computer chips, and LCD screens, according to

researchers who are smitten with this new supermaterial.

Graphene’s standout trait is its uncanny facility with electrons,

which can travel much more quickly through it than they can

through silicon. As a result, graphene-based computer chips

could be thousands of times as ef� cient as existing ones. “What

limits conductivity in a normal material is that electrons will scat-

ter,” says Michael Strano, a chemical engineer at MIT. “But with

graphene the electrons can travel very long distances without

scattering. It’s like the thinnest, most stable electrical conducting

framework you can think of.”

In 2009 another MIT researcher, Tomas Palacios, devised a

graphene chip that doubles the frequency of an electromagnetic

signal. Using multiple chips could make the outgoing signal many

times higher in frequency than the original. Because frequency

determines the clock speed of the chip, boosting it enables faster T E X T B Y E L I Z A B E T H S V O B O D A

transfer of data through the chip. Graphene’s extreme thinness

means that it is also practically transparent, making it ideal for

transmitting signals in devices containing solar cells or LEDs.

The big limitation of graphene is that it is not a true semicon-

ductor. Unlike silicon, it cannot be switched on and off to create

circuits, which will limit its use in electronics. “In mainstream

digital applications, you will not see graphene displace silicon,”

Columbia University electrical engineer Ken Shepard insists. But

other researchers are already expanding graphene’s capabilities.

In June materials scientist Feng Wang of the University of Califor-

nia at Berkeley announced a method to tune the material electri-

cally to give it switching properties. That would enable graphene

to form extremely small, fast transistors.

Even without switching, Strano thinks graphene will � nd many

uses—as a � exible conductor in thin-� lm batteries or roll-up LCD

screens, for instance. “I’m most excited about the applications

we have yet to discover,” he says. “Graphene is an out-of-the-box

material, so we shouldn’t try to hammer it into existing boxes.”

T E C H N O L O G YÔ

Graphene’s atom-thin sheets,

shown here in an artist’s

rendering, let electrons pass

through rapidly.

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EARTH-LIKE WORLDS

COME INTO VIEWIn the race to fi nd planets around other stars, the grand

prize would be to � nd a world like Earth orbiting a star like

the sun—and astronomers closed in on that trophy in 2009.

The � rst known exoplanets were huge and gassy. Then in

February a European group led by Alain Léger of the Institut

d’Astrophysique Spatiale in Paris and Daniel Rouan of the

Paris Observatory used the Corot space observatory to � nd

a planet less than twice the diameter of Earth, the smallest

con� rmed exoplanet ever seen.

Actually, “seen” is misleading. What Corot detected was the

subtle, repeated dimming of the star Corot-7, 500 light-years

away in the constellation Monoceros. This dimming, the team

concluded, was caused by a planet orbiting so that it passed

directly between the parent star and Earth, a so-called transit.

“They’ve gone to great lengths to rule out any other explana-

tions,” says David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian

Center for Astrophysics, a friendly rival of the Corot scientists.

The amount of dimming—less than one-thirtieth of a percent

—tells the astronomers that their new world, provisionally

named Corot-7b, is about 15,000 miles wide. Its “year” is just

20.4 hours long because it orbits so close to its star, with day-

time temperatures nearing 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. By Sep-

tember, Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory had weighed

Corot-7b. Using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet

Searcher, or HARPS, at the European Southern Observatory

in Chile, his team measured the planet’s gravitational in� uence

on its parent star. The verdict: The planet is � ve times the mass

of Earth and has about the same density, suggesting it is made

of rock. In raw form, the new planet resembles our own world.

Other enticing discoveries soon followed. Planet hunter

Michel Mayor of Geneva University trained HARPS on the near-

by star Gliese 581, 20 light-years away, and in April reported

that it, too, has a little planet, possibly smaller than Corot-7b.

The same set of observations indicated that another of Gliese

581’s planets—this one seven times the mass of Earth—orbits

at the right distance for liquid water, making it the � rst alien

world that could plausibly support life. In October the HARPS

scientists announced that about 40 percent of the sunlike stars

they have examined have small, potentially Earth-like com-

panions. Also that month, Queloz’s team described a second

super-Earth circling Corot-7. “Low-mass planets are every-

where, basically,” Mayor’s coworker Stephane Udry declared.

And the real jackpot may not be far off. In March NASA’s

Kepler satellite went into an unusual, Earth-trailing orbit looking

for transiting planets. Its telescope is bigger than Corot’s, its orbit

is more stable, and it is slated to scan 100,000 stars, while Corot

is limited to 12,000. “If other Earths are out there,” says Kepler

team member Charbonneau, “we’re going to � nd them.”

T E X T B Y M I C H A E L D . L E M O N I C K

An artist’s vision of a

boiling lava sea covering

the rocky planet Corot-7b. ES

O/L

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ALC

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9

Coal is a dirty business, one

of the leading sources of car-

bon emissions in the United

States. But coal is also a big

business, generating 51 per-

cent of the nation’s electricity.

With that in mind, in June the

Obama administration revived

FutureGen, an advanced-tech-

nology coal-� red power plant

axed by the previous adminis-

tration in 2008. By burying

60 percent of its carbon diox-

ide emissions deep under-

ground, the 275-megawatt

FutureGen plant, to be built in

Mattoon, Illinois, seeks to show

that coal can be, if not exactly

clean, then at least cleaner.

Once FutureGen is up and

running—now scheduled to

happen in 2014—the carbon

dioxide gas it produces will

be siphoned off, compressed

T E X T B Y E L I Z A S T R I C K L A N D

into a near-liquid state, and

piped at least a mile down into

porous sandstone capped by

a layer of impermeable shale.

Engineers will essentially be

trying to duplicate the geologic

circumstances that trapped

natural gas deposits under-

ground for millions of years.

Energy Secretary Steven

Chu has called FutureGen “a

� agship facility” that will dem-

onstrate how to capture and

store carbon on a commercial

scale; that technology would

allow us to rein in greenhouse-

gas emissions while still burn-

ing coal. The project could

also help spur other proposals

E N E R G Yp

for sequestering human-

generated carbon (see above).

But FutureGen has drawn

criticism from left and right.

Some environmentalists say

America should shift from coal-

generated electricity entirely;

others believe the goal of cap-

turing 60 percent of emissions

is too modest. Meanwhile,

some � scal conservatives

disapprove of spending so

much money (the Department

of Energy has committed

$1 billion) on an unproven

technology for an established

industry. Their nickname for

the behind-schedule and over-

budget project: NeverGen.

EXPERIMENTAL POWER PLANT TAKES THE CO2 OUT

H o w t o S ta s h t h e C a r b o n

1. CAPTURE IT AT THE SOURCE

A coal-fi red power plant in Spremberg, Germany, is using the

same carbon capture and storage method planned for Future-

Gen. Engineers are having no trouble capturing the carbon diox-

ide, but efforts to store it in underground rock formations in

eastern Germany have run into local opposition.

2. GRAB IT WITH ARTIFICIAL TREES

To corral widely dispersed CO2 emissions from cars, “artifi cial

trees”—towers fi lled with carbon-absorbing materials—could line

roadways, pulling the gas from the air and compressing it into

a storable form. Several companies, including Global Research

Technologies in Tucson, are testing prototypes.

3. BURY IT UNDER THE SEA

Some research groups have tried fertilizing the ocean with

iron to encourage massive plankton blooms that suck carbon

dioxide from the air. When the plankton dies and sinks to the

seafl oor, it should bury the carbon, but early results have not

been impressive. Proposals to pump CO2 directly to the ocean

bottom also seem unlikely to move forward, as the piped-in

carbon could have nasty environmental consequences.

4. TURN IT INTO CHARCOAL

Wood or other biomass heated slowly in a chamber without

oxygen will transform into charcoal that does not decompose

for thousands of years. In addition to locking away carbon, this

“biochar” makes a good fertilizer. Carbonscape in New Zealand

and a few other companies are now working on economical

biochar-producing ovens.

5. TURN IT INTO ROCK

Certain types of minerals naturally combine with carbon diox-

ide. In the right locations, CO2 injected into the ground at high

pressure would react with those minerals to form stable car-

bonate rock. This approach is currently being tested in Oman

and at other sites around the world.

FR

AN

S L

AN

TIN

G/C

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deal with immediate threats.

It’s not very good at deal-

ing with gradually unfolding

threats, like in� ating market

bubbles or global climate

change. The smiling Bernie

Madoff doesn’t seem scary,

even though he should. He’s

giving impossible returns year

after year, but it’s not the kind

of thing that triggers fear.

Why are some people far

more likely than others to

buy into a bubble?

Pessimists take longer to get

persuaded that there really is

a boom. Some sit out the

whole boom-and-bust cycle

and feel relieved at the end,

but others capitulate at a late

stage, with results that rein-

force their pessimism. Another

part of the answer lies in differ-

ences in tastes for taking risks.

Some people can’t sleep at

night if they take on too much

real estate debt. Others seem

utterly undisturbed by � nancial

risk or even thrive on it.

Why do people charge things

they can’t pay off?

Credit cards have pernicious

psychological properties. It

doesn’t feel like you’re spend-

ing money. You’re just swiping

the card; you’re not giving

anything up. In research with

Stanford psychologist Brian

Knutson; Scott Rick, now at

the University of Michigan

business school; and oth-

ers, we scanned people’s

brains and saw that regions

responsible for feeling pain

activate when people confront

prices they feel are too high.

When we use a credit card, it

anesthetizes the pain of pay-

ing because it doesn’t feel like

we’re spending money. Anoth-

er nasty feature of credit cards

is that it doesn’t feel like you

are taking on debt, because

there’s always the possibility

of paying it off at the end of

the month. How many people

who end the year with $1,000

of revolving debt on their card

would have agreed to take out

a $1,000 loan to fund miscel-

laneous purchases? Very few.

Some say high executive pay

is needed to stimulate top

performance, but you found

something very different.

Our belief was that very high

levels of executive compensa-

tion couldn’t be justi� ed on a

motivational basis. We gave

subjects seven different tasks,

some of which were simple

but effort-dependent, like

adding strings of numbers. For

mundane tasks, high incen-

tives motivate people in an

almost unlimited fashion. But

with tasks that require creative

solutions, as well as with ath-

letic endeavors, people actu-

ally started to do badly when

compensation was increased.

When stakes are high, the

brain tends to narrow its focus.

This impairs performance on

Economist GEORGE LOEWENSTEINexplains the psychology behind the current fi nancial meltdown—and how we can overcome our dark side.

text by KATHLEEN MCGOWAN photograph by ETHAN HILL

Is the central insight of

behavioral economics that

people don’t always act in

their own best interest?

Absolutely. Behavioral eco-

nomics provides a framework

for explaining why people

behave in a self-destructive

fashion. It’s more realistic

about human behavior.

The economic collapse

was in part precipitated by

people taking on mortgages

they couldn’t afford. They

stood to lose a lot of money.

What makes people do that?

It points to a very important

property of the human brain:

We are not dispassionate infor-

mation processors. If we want

to believe something, we’re

amazingly adept at persuading

ourselves that what we want to

believe is true. People thought

Classical economics is based on the premise that people act

rationally, making logical decisions about how and why they

spend their money. But a year that brought economic panic and

the worst downturn since the Great Depression showed how

wrong that assumption can be. Often we are self-defeating, irra-

tional, and just plain foolish. More complete explanations of why

people act the way they do are provided by behavioral econom-

ics, an emerging fi eld that incorporates insights from cognitive

and social psychology and neuroscience. George Loewenstein,

Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology at

Carnegie Mellon University and a leader in this fi eld, spoke to

DISCOVER about why smart people sometimes act so dumb.

housing prices would always

rise. That’s particularly amaz-

ing because in the 1990s we

had a stock market bubble and

bust, and during the bubble,

commentators had been say-

ing that the old rules of stock

valuation don’t apply. Less

than 10 years later, people

became convinced again

that an asset—in this case,

housing—would inde� nitely go

up in value, and commenta-

tors were again saying the old

rules don’t apply. That tells you

about the failure to generalize.

Another part of the explana-

tion has to do with a kind of

herd mentality. There is an

instinctual feeling of safety in

numbers.

Why don’t we perceive these

kinds of looming problems?

Our fear system evolved to

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the types of creative tasks that

involve expansive thinking,

such as drawing novel con-

nections between disparate

things. People can also

become too focused on how

much money they stand to

gain or lose, to the detriment of

focusing on the task itself.

But shouldn’t we reward

ambition—the “greed is

good” argument?

We view greed as a form of

desperation. Hypermotivation,

we call it. Greed is actually

the antithesis of self-interest,

because you’re so motivated

to achieve some goal that you

do it at the expense of other

things that might be more

important to you: values you

cherish or your own long-term

self-interest.

We think that the reason

is a phenomenon called loss

aversion. In a lot of competi-

tive situations, people look at

others whom they perceive

to be at a higher level, which

forms their reference. They

feel themselves to be in the

domain of losses, and they are

desperate to get out. Much

cheating, it seems, occurs

not because people just want

more but because they feel “in

a hole” that they can get out

of only by cheating.

How can we outwit our own

self-destructive tendencies?

In the last several years,

behavioral economics has

started to offer solutions for

a wide range of problems:

obesity, addiction, failure to

take medications, even global

climate change. People are

very shortsighted; they have

what behavioral economists

call “present bias prefer-

ence.” Nowadays there are

a lot of wellness programs in

which people are incentivized

to engage in exercise and

other healthy behaviors. Small

incentives can have a large

impact on behavior if they are

immediate, because they play

on present bias preferences.

Or take what is called the

default effect: People tend

to be lazy decision makers,

taking the path of least resis-

tance. And defaults are often

unhealthy: At McDonald’s, for

example, if you order a combo

meal, the default includes a

soda. We did � eld research at

a fast-food restaurant showing

that if you make the healthy

options just slightly more

convenient—for example, with

an “express menu” that has

healthy options but requires

turning the page to see the full

menu—you can get people

to eat more healthily. You can

use laziness to help people.

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11 The Age of Genetic Medicine BeginsIn 2009 gene therapy rebounded from years of high-

pro� le failures—including unexpected deaths and

cancers—to produce startling triumphs. By fixing

defects written into patients’ DNA, medical researchers

treated two serious genetic disorders. “At last we are

on the brink of ful� lling the promises that gene therapy

made two decades ago,” says geneticist Fabio Can-

dotti of the National Institutes of Health.

In February molecular biologist Alessandro Aiuti of

the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy

in Milan reported that his team had cured nine of ten

infants born with bubble baby disease, a devastating

disorder caused by a single defective gene. Newborns

with the condition, also known as severe combined

immunode� ciency disease, lack a functioning immune

system. Aiuti and his team harvested stem cells from the

infants and then infected those cells with an engineered

virus carrying healthy copies of the missing gene. When

the modified stem cells were injected back into the

newborns, they spawned a normal immune system.

Candotti has reported similar success establishing a

functioning immune system in two bubble babies.

Just months earlier, molecular geneticist and physi-

cian Jean Bennett and her husband, retinal surgeon

Albert Maguire of the University of Pennsylvania School

of Medicine, reported that gene therapy had improved

vision in a teenage boy with Leber congenital amau-

rosis (LCA). A mutation in any of 13 genes causes this

rare condition, which progressively leads to blindness.

Bennett and her team injected a benign virus carrying a

corrected copy of the gene into the boy’s retina, where

it helped the eye make rods and cones. Even receiv-

ing only modest doses, other young patients given a

working version of the gene in one eye were also able

to see better. In a phase 1 clinical trial, published in The

Lancet, all the children involved gained enough vision

to walk independently. “The results are better than any-

thing I could have dreamed of,” Bennett says.

The remarkable turnaround in gene therapy is largely

due to scientists’ increasingly re� ned ability to engineer

the viruses used to deliver healthy genes to the cells

that need them. Using new viruses and better tech-

niques, gene therapists have begun tackling cancer and

HIV. Clinical trials are under way on both. JILL NEIMARK

12 Oldest Animal Fossils UncoveredThe origin of animals has long perplexed scientists.

DNA studies of creatures living today suggest that

their common ancestor appeared nearly 800 million

years ago, yet the fossil record contains no clear

evidence of animals more than 555 million years

old. Two new discoveries are starting to resolve

that apparent con� ict. Together they push the fossil

record of animals back another 300 million years.

In a study published in Nature in February,

researchers reported � nding a steroid compound

(called 24-isopropylcholestane) in 675-million-year-

old stone cores, drilled from former seabeds up to

three miles beneath the deserts of Oman. Sponges

are the only organisms known to produce appre-

ciable amounts of this steroid, and geochemist Gor-

don Love of the University of California at Riverside

interprets the chemical signature as evidence that

spongelike animals had evolved by then.

Another team reported in Geology in May that

they had found meshlike patterns suggestive of

sponges in 850-million-year-old rocks. They turned

up in an ancient reef built by cyanobacteria, says

Fritz Neuweiler of Laval University in Quebec. The

earth’s early oceans initially contained little oxygen,

but cyanobacteria produce it as a by-product of

photosynthesis. “Here we have a local oxygenated

environment,” Neuweiler says, “and this would have

supported these early animals.” DOUGLAS FOX

13 Hope for HIV VaccineAn international team of

researchers announced in Sep-

tember that for the � rst time, an

AIDS vaccine has demonstrat-

ed some real ability to prevent

HIV infections in a large clinical

trial, reducing the odds of infec-

tion by about 31 percent.

The trial followed more than

16,000 people (who initially

tested HIV-free) for three and a

half years. They received either

a combination of two potential

vaccines or placebo shots. By

the end, 74 placebo recipients

had acquired HIV infections,

compared with 51 vaccinated

individuals. The trial report,

published in October, included

alternative analyses that put the

vaccine’s effectiveness slightly

lower, at around 26 percent,

leading some to question the

reliability of the results. The

researchers reply that all of the

analyses consistently support a

modest protective effect.

AIDS researcher Jay Levy at

the University of California at

San Francisco � nds the results

encouraging, but notes that the

vaccines seemed to have no

effect on the amount of virus in

the bloodstream of people who

contracted HIV during the study.

Nelson Michael of the U.S.

Military HIV Research Program,

which helped run the trial, is

more optimistic: “We’ve shown

that this 26-year global effort

has not been in vain.” NAYANAH SIVA

Top: LCA eye prior to therapy. Bottom: Healthy eye.

CLO

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INC

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These sponges from the Eocene may

resemble the earth’s fi rst animals.

MEDICINE || EVOLUTION || MIND || SPACE

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It is our closest neighbor

in space, yet the moon con-

tinues to surprise us as new

lunar missions overturn old

ideas about Earth’s satellite.

In October NASA inten-

tionally crashed the 2.8-ton

upper stage of a Centaur

rocket into a crater near the

lunar south pole. Four minutes

later, the Lunar Crater Observa-

tion and Sensing Spacecraft

(LCROSS) followed, analyzing the

dust kicked up by the impact. NASA

anticipated a debris plume 30 miles

high, which should have been visible

from Earth with a 10-inch telescope. The

smashup proved more whimper than bang for

amateur observers, but LCROSS team members

were thrilled. “We got wonderful measurements from

all phases of the impact: the fl ash, the ejecta plume, and the

resulting crater formed by Centaur,” says LCROSS principal

investigator Anthony Colaprete of NASA’s Ames Research

Center. He and colleagues are still analyzing the data

from ultraviolet, visual, and infrared spectroscopy

to measure the chemical composition of the lunar

material. “We’re looking for water vapor or ice, as

well as hydrocarbons and other volatiles,” he says.

The LCROSS results will fl esh out the surprise

announcements in September that three other

spacecraft—India’s Chandrayaan-1 and NASA’s

Deep Impact and Cassini—detected traces

of water on the moon’s surface by studying

refl ected infrared light from the sun. The water’s

origins are unclear. One possibility is that hydro-

gen ions from the solar wind bond with oxygen

in the lunar soil, says University of Maryland

astronomer Jessica Sunshine, deputy principal

investigator on Deep Impact. Results like these belie

the moon’s image as an inert rock, Colaprete says. “It

is an active, breathing body.”

The moon might have more water deposited by icy

comets landing in cold, permanently shadowed craters

at the south pole. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO),

circling the moon at an altitude of 31 miles, recently sent back

the fi rst global temperature maps of the surface (at right). Some

of those craters dip to around –400 degrees Fahrenheit, the coldest

places ever measured in the solar system. LRO’s neutron detector

suggests the presence of water in deep freeze there. The orbiter is also

measuring radiation, looking for good spots for future exploration, and

mapping the moon’s topography to 100-meter resolution. JENNIFER BARONE

The Moon: Cold, Wet, and Breathing

15 Model Solves Fundamental Packing ProblemThe county-fair challenge of guessing how many gum balls are

in a jar is far more than just a game for kids; understanding how

objects pack into a particular volume is a fundamental problem

of physics and engineering. A team of physicists at New York

University recently loosened the problem a bit, producing a simple

model that predicts the arrangement of randomly packed spherical

particles, even when the objects are of different sizes.

Theorists had previously calculated that each particle touches

an average of six neighbors, and that packed spheres of uniform

size � ll about 64 percent of the total available space. Jasna Brujic

and colleagues experimentally veri� ed both of those claims using a

three-dimensional microscope—which examines many horizontal

layers of a sample and then stacks those images to create a 3-D

image—to analyze oil droplets tightly packed in water. The

physicists also studied how changing the mix of droplet

sizes affects their arrangement.

“If you give us the distribution of particle sizes, we

can tell you about their geometry,” Brujic says. The

research, published in Nature in July, could inspire bet-

ter ways to stock vending machines, prepare products

for shipping, grind drugs for pills, and extract petro-

leum from porous rocks. But so far Brujic has modeled

only spheres; contestants dealing with gumdrops or

M&M’s will have to wait for future studies. STEPHEN ORNES

14 Intact Tissue Found in DinosaurWhen scientists uncovered a

68-million-year-old Tyranno-

saurus rex fossil in Montana

sandstone in 2000, they never

expected to � nd traces of

tissue. So when paleontolo-

gist Mary Schweitzer’s initial

analysis of the fossil showed

delicately preserved collagen

protein, skepticism reigned.

But in May, Schweitzer, of

North Carolina State Univer-

sity, replicated the results

and also announced a bigger

� nd: a collection of even

larger protein fragments

from an 80-million-year-old

duck-billed dinosaur called

Brachylophosaurus canaden-

sis. The fragments revealed

more evidence of collagen

and suggested the presence

of two proteins—laminin and

elastin—found in the blood

vessels of animals.

“This type of preservation

isn’t supposed to be pos-

sible,” Schweitzer says, “but

here it is.” Her new discovery

addressed many issues raised

by critics of the T. rex work.

For instance, her team adopt-

ed painstaking tactics to avoid

contamination. In the lab, they

used sterilized tools to sample

the sandstone-encrusted

thighbone, and specimens

were quickly sealed in jars.

“Obtaining amino acid

sequence data can show

where extinct animals � t in the

tree of life,” she says. “It’s a

work in progress, but molecu-

lar paleontology might show

us how dinosaurs are related

to each other and even provide

some physiological insights if

we’re really lucky.” AMY BARTH

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MEDICINE || MIND || TECHNOLOGY

1817 The Common Cold IsDecodedIf knowing your enemy

is half the battle, we may

yet defeat the common

cold. A paper published

last April in Science

detailed how geneticists

sequenced the RNA

from 100 strains of

rhinovirus—all the known

types of the leading

cause of the cold.

Pulmonologist

Stephen Liggett of the

University of Maryland

School of Medicine

says his team found

regions of the genome

that are similar across

all strains. Those

sequences, presumably

essential to survival, are

prime targets for new

drugs. Equally notable

are the bits of RNA

that differ, which may

explain why some bugs

are nastier than others.

Rhinoviruses can

instigate asthma or

trigger severe wheezing

episodes in asthmatics,

but it is unclear whether

only certain strains of the

virus are to blame. Look-

ing at large numbers of

rhinovirus genomes may

provide answers. “Just

saying it’s rhinovirus is

not suf� cient, because

there is so much diver-

sity,” Liggett says.

And don’t throw out

your tissues just yet: No

one knows how to defeat

any of the strains, and

Liggett’s group believes

there are many more to

be identi� ed. The team

is now sequencing 3,000

samples collected from

patients at the University

of Wisconsin at Madison.

MEGAN TALKINGTON

Magnetic resonance imaging, or

MRI, has become a powerful tool

for evaluating brain anatomy, but a

newer incarnation of the technol-

ogy called fMRI (the f stands for

functional ) can probe even more

deeply. In studies published over

the past year, neuroscientists

have shown that fMRI can peel

away the secrets of emotion and

thought; in fact, some of their fi nd-

ings are almost like mind reading.

w Using fMRI, New York Uni-

versity neuroscientist Elizabeth

Phelps has identifi ed two brain

regions—the amygdala and the

posterior cingulate cortex, asso-

ciated with emotional learning

and decision making—that are

crucial in forming fi rst impres-

sions. “Even when we only briefl y

encounter others, these regions

are activated,” Phelps says.

w At Georgetown University

Medical Center, a team used fMRI

to study how we mentally encode

music. When we hear a sequence

of familiar songs, our brains show

high levels of activity during the

silence between tracks, indicat-

ing anticipation. When we hear

music we do not know, our brains

are relatively inactive because

we cannot anticipate the song.

The prefrontal cortex, premotor

cortex, and basal ganglia, which

signal the body to act and move,

seem to direct this response.

w Other fMRI studies show how

the brain discerns true state-

ments from false ones . According

to researchers at the University

of Lisbon and at Vita-Salute in

Milan, false statements activate a

section of the brain’s frontal polar

cortex, which is related to prob-

lem solving. True statements trig-

ger the left inferior parietal cortex

and the caudate nucleus, areas of

the brain related to memory.

w The work closest to mind

reading comes from Demis Has-

sabis and Eleanor Maguire at

University College London, who

scanned subjects who were navi-

gating a virtual reality simulation.

Just from the pattern of activity in

the hippocampus—a part of the

brain instrumental to our ability to

navigate—the researchers could

determine where each subject

was located within the simula-

tion. “Different spatial positions

are associated with different pat-

terns of activity in the hippocam-

pus,” Maguire says. JANE BOSVELD

Rise of the Mind Readers

19 New Battery Tech Could Transform the CarLast year the car battery turned glamorous: Hybrid

hysteria invigorated the faltering auto industry, and

General Motors touted its upcoming plug-in hybrid,

the Chevy Volt, at every opportunity. For decades

researchers have labored to make batteries smaller,

cheaper, and more ef� cient. At last some of those proj-

ects are yielding encouraging results.

The latest electric vehicles use lithium-ion batter-

ies, in which lithium ions move from anode to cathode

(negative to positive), transforming chemical energy

into electric current. These batteries are smaller, light-

er, and more robust than their nickel-based or lead-

acid predecessors. IBM announced in June that it is

pursuing a new kind of lithium battery that uses the

surrounding air as a cathode, making it even lighter

and more compact than existing designs.

Traditional lead-acid batteries (like the one that starts

your car) produce energy for as little as one-tenth the

cost of lithium batteries, but they wear out more quickly

and are heavy . Blended battery packs, pioneered this

year by Indy Power Systems of Noblesville, Indiana,

strike a balance. Software switches between lead-acid

and lithium-ion batteries, offering a transitional technol-

ogy until lithium energy storage gets cheaper.

Engineers are also � nding ways to shorten recharg-

ing times. In March an MIT team unveiled technol-

ogy that could theoretically charge an electric car in

� ve minutes rather than the eight hours that is typi-

cal today. MIT’s battery contains a vast number of

microscopic particles that have a lithium center and a

glassy phosphate coating. The coating allows lithium

ions, which travel quickly in the core of the battery

but slowly at the surface, to maintain their speed and

to be shed quickly. “The coating allows the lithium to

get to the right place on the phosphate very fast,”

says Gerbrand Ceder of the MIT team. “We � xed the

bottleneck at the surface.” One company has already

licensed the technology. JOCELYN RICE

3D

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How Has Christianity Changed over 2,000 Years?

1-800-TEACH-12www.TEACH12.com/6disc

ACT NOW!

1. The Diversity of Early Christianity 2. Christians Who Would Be Jews 3. Christians Who Refuse To Be Jews 4. Early Gnostic Christianity— Our Sources 5. Early Christian Gnosticism— An Overview 6. The Gnostic Gospel of Truth7. Gnostics Explain Themselves 8. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas 9. Thomas’ Gnostic Teachings 10. Infancy Gospels 11. The Gospel of Peter 12. The Secret Gospel of Mark

13. The Acts of John 14. The Acts of Thomas 15. The Acts of Paul and Thecla 16. Forgeries in the Name of Paul 17. The Epistle of Barnabas 18. The Apocalypse of Peter 19. The Rise of Early Christian Orthodoxy 20. Beginnings of the Canon 21. Formation of the New Testament Canon 22. Interpretation of Scripture 23. Orthodox Corruption of Scripture 24. Early Christian Creeds

Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over AuthenticationTaught by Professor Bart D. Ehrman, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Lecture Titles

Order Today! Offer Expires Friday, February 12, 2010

Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over AuthenticationCourse No. 659324 lectures (30 minutes/lecture)

DVDs $254.95 NOW $69.95+ $10 Shipping, Processing, and Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee

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In the first centuries after Christ, there was no “official” New Tes-tament. Instead, early Christians read and fervently followed a wide variety of scriptures—many more than we have today.

Relying on these writings, Christians held beliefs that today would be considered bizarre. Some believed that there were 2, 12, or as many as 30 gods. Some thought that a malicious deity, rather than the true God, created the world. Some maintained that Christ’s death and resurrection had nothing to do with salvation while oth-ers insisted that Christ never really died at all.

What did these “other” scriptures say? Do they exist today? How could such outlandish ideas ever be considered Christian? If such beliefs were once common, why do they no longer exist? These are just a few of the many provocative questions that arise from Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication, an insightful 24-lecture course taught by Pro-fessor Bart D. Ehrman, the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author and editor of 17 books, including The New York Times best-seller Misquoting Jesus.

This course is one of The Great Courses®, a noncredit, recorded college lecture series from The Teaching Company®. Award-win-ning professors of a wide array of subjects in the sciences and the liberal arts have made more than 300 college-level courses that are available now on our website.

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21

MIND || ASTRONOMY || ENVIRONMENT || TECHNOLOGY || ANTHROPOLOGY || BIOLOGY

20 Can a Shock to the Brain Cure Depression?For years, deep-brain stimulation—

in which a neurosurgeon drills a hole

in the skull and inserts an electrode

far into a patient’s brain tissue—was

considered a radical treatment,

reserved for the most severe cases

of Parkinson’s disease. Now neurol-

ogists are exploring the treatment for

disorders ranging from depression to

Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2009 two clinical trials began

testing deep-brain stimulation

(DBS) to ease intractable depres-

sion. The process was given a green

light by the Food and Drug Admin-

istration to treat the worst cases of

obsessive-compulsive disorder after

a small pilot study showed promis-

ing results. Mount Sinai School of

Medicine neurologist Giulio Pasinetti

is in the early stages of testing DBS

for Alzheimer’s disease, and neuro-

surgeon Bomin Sun of the Center of

Functional Neurosurgery at Shanghai

Jiao Tong University is harnessing it

to treat anorexia.

Across a range of disorders,

deep-brain stimulation works much

the same way: A pacemaker-like

device in the chest transmits a signal

to the implanted electrode via wires

that run underneath the scalp. The

device is thought to modulate elec-

trical activity in the circuitry of the

dysfunctional brain, explains Oxford

University neurosurgeon Tipu Aziz,

who is exploring DBS as a treatment

for cluster headaches.

The new studies build on work by

Emory University neurologist Helen

Mayberg. In 2005 she showed

that direct modulation of specific

brain circuits could help severely

depressed patients who had not

responded to other treatments. “The

concept of tuning brain circuits is a

new strategy,” she says. Neuroimag-

ing can pinpoint regions of dysfunc-

tional brain activity, making it pos-

sible to understand the underlying

biology of a disorder and correct

abnormal rhythms of the brain.

KATHLEEN MCGOWAN

22 Clear-Cutting Has a High CostFor people living in poverty

in the Amazon, cutting down

the rain forest often appears

to be the only way to thrive

economically—� rst by selling

the lumber, later by farming and

ranching on the land. A study

published in Science in June

indicates otherwise. Despite

gaining some temporary bene-

� ts, communities that clear-cut

their forests end up no better

off than those who do not.

Ana Rodrigues of the

Centre for Functional and

Evolutionary Ecology in

France and her colleagues

found that Amazonian towns

in the midst of a deforestation

Fresh Hints of Life on Mars For scientists hunting for life on Mars, the new buzzword is

methane. In 2003 a group studying the Red Planet saw the spec-

tral signal of methane gas, often a sign of biological activity on

Earth. Since then, Michael Mumma, director of NASA’s God-

dard Center for Astrobiology, has monitored Mars closely.

In January he announced his results: Broad plumes of

methane emanate from the planet’s surface, “funda-

mentally changing our understanding of Mars.”

To track the methane, Mumma dispatched

observers to NASA’s InfraRed Telescope Facility

and the W. M. Keck Observatory, both in Hawaii.

The astronomers expected to fi nd the gas spread

uniformly. Instead they detected localized clouds

that appeared only at certain times—once in

2003 and again in 2005, during the Martian

northern summer and southern spring. “We have

found plumes that exist only in warmer periods,

when methane is released along with water,”

says physicist Robert Novak of Iona College in New

Rochelle, New York. The variability of the methane

suggests that the gas may be spewed by an ongoing

geologic process like volcanism, or possibly through the

metabolic activity of microbes. If underground life is the

source, methane might be released during the warmer months

as the ice melts. “If life existed on Mars, it would break down

chemically and methane would be a product,” Novak says.

Mumma remains cautious: “We wouldn’t dare say we’ve detected biol-

ogy.” But the search is on. In 2011 NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory will touch

down to sniff out evidence for methane, other organics, and life. HEATHER MAYER

binge initially see higher life

expectancies, literacy rates,

and incomes. But once the

local forest is gone, income

from timber typically dries up,

the researchers believe; many

farms and cattle ranches are

abandoned after a few years

because the nutrient-poor soil

rapidly becomes depleted.

“The current development

strategy results in a lose-lose-

lose situation,” Rodrigues

says. It destroys the rain forest

habitat, fails to alleviate pov-

erty, and contributes to global

warming by eliminating trees

that would absorb and store

carbon dioxide. “The challenge

now is to create a development

path that is win-win-win.” One

possibility, Rodrigues suggests,

could be to create a provision in

the next international climate-

change treaty requiring wealthy

countries with high carbon

emissions to pay Brazilians for

the environmental bene� ts of

keeping their forests standing.

ELIZA STRICKLAND

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To stave off aging, Americans spend billions of dollars every

year on supplements, gyms, even therapists. But a report

released in July suggests that the secret to a longer life may

simply involve a new twist on an old adage: Watch what you eat.

A study of adult rhesus macaques showed that the mon-

keys were one-third as likely to die from age-related diseases

if they consumed 30 percent fewer calories than they did

in their regular diet. Previous, well-publicized research had

shown that restricting calories can increase the life span of

creatures ranging from fruit fl ies to dogs, for reasons still

unclear. But the latest trial, led by geriatrics expert Richard

Weindruch at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Cen-

ter and published in Science, is the fi rst to show that caloric

restriction can improve survival in primates.

This kind of research takes enormous patience. Weindruch

has spent 20 years studying his monkeys. In that time, the dieting

ones have shown reductions in diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular

disease, and even brain atrophy. They are also visibly fl uffi er and

sturdier compared with their fully fed counterparts. “Slowing the

aging process through calorie restriction spills over to primates

and probably people,” Weindruch says.

Pharmaceutical companies are

now seeking a drug that mim-

ics the benefi ts of a restrictive

diet without the sacrifi ce. In

July an independent team

reported in Nature that rapa-

mycin, an immune-suppress-

ing drug, increases longevity

in elderly mice by up to 38

percent. At the Jackson Labo-

ratory in Maine, gerontologist

David Harrison and his team

chose to test rapamycin,

which is already approved

for use in procedures such

as kidney transplants,

because previous

research showed that the

drug increases the life span of

fl ies and may reduce cancer in

mammals. “We’re not claiming

to achieve immortality,” Har-

rison says, “but rapamycin is a

step toward expanding healthy

life span by about 10 years.”

AMY BARTH

24 World’s First Grain Silos Discovered in JordanIn June archaeologist Ian Kuijt at the

University of Notre Dame and colleagues

reported that they had uncovered the

world’s earliest known granaries, locat-

ed at the Dhra archaeological site on the

shore of the Dead Sea in Jordan. In a

paper published in Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences, the team

describes food storage structures dating

back 11,000 years, a millennium before

humans were thought to have domesti-

cated crops. Analysis of grains from the

2523 Computer Learns to Reason Like Isaac NewtonDescribing the basic laws of physics occupied Sir Isaac Newton for decades.

In April scientists unveiled a computer program that can analyze data and

independently derive those fundamental physical laws within a matter of hours.

This program could relieve major logjams in scienti� c research. Modern instru-

ments like space observatories, particle colliders, and gene chips produce vast

amounts of data, and mining that data is a slow, laborious process. Smart soft-

ware—a synthetic scientist, in essence—could greatly speed it up.

Cornell University roboticist Hod Lipson and his Ph.D. student Michael

Schmidt developed their system to analyze data from the kinds of mechanics

experiments that college students encounter in introductory physics courses:

observing the motion of a swinging pendulum or of two weights bouncing on

connected springs, for instance. An automatic camera fed data directly to

their computer program, which then tried millions of mathematical expres-

sions to identify which ones held true from one experiment to the next. Using

an evolutionary algorithm, the program randomly varied the winning equations

to match the data more closely. In this way it “discovered” a handful of natural

laws, including conservation of energy and momentum. Complex experiments

required as much as 40 hours, simple ones as little as 10 minutes.

The Cornell program “won’t replace scientists anytime soon,” Schmidt says.

“But it will let them look in a more ef� cient way at what might be interesting.” Gene

chips, for instance, can measure the expression of thousands of genes at a time,

but the important question is how one gene regulates others within that incred-

ibly complex web of relationships. Smart software could rapidly � ag interesting

patterns—such as the way that levels of one protein depend on six others—so that

researchers could then follow up with targeted experiments. DOUGLAS FOX

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Skip a Meal, Extend Your Life?

site suggests that settlers there stored a

mix of wild and cultivated barley, along

with an early variety of wheat.

“The surprise is not only that they were

storing food but that they were storing it

in such a sophisticated way,” Kuijt says.

The granary � oors at Dhra were elevated,

most likely to keep out mice and to pre-

vent spoilage from dampness; they were

also slightly sloped, perhaps for drain-

age. By providing a buffer against famine

and allowing larger groups of people to

settle together, these storehouses may

have fostered the cultural transition from

bands of hunter-gatherers to complex,

cohesive societies.

“Stored food can be used as a form

of social currency,” Kuijt notes. “It liter-

ally changes everything.” LINDSEY KONKEL

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used, so we have de� ned

a separate � eld that we call

synthetic genomics—the

digitization of biology using

only DNA and RNA. You start

by sequencing genomes and

putting their digital code into

a computer. Then you use

the computer to take that

information and design new

life-forms.

How do you build a life-

form? Throw in some mito-

chondria here and some

ribosomes there, surround

it all with a membrane—

and voilà?

We started down that road,

but now we are coming from

the other end. We’re starting

with the accomplishments of

three and a half billion years

of evolution by using what

we call the software of life:

DNA. Our software builds

its own hardware. By writing

new software, we can come

up with totally new species.

It would be as if once you

put new software in your

computer, somehow a whole

new machine would material-

ize. We’re software engineers

rather than construction

workers.

But the DNA software works

only if you can use it to piece

together an actual genome

outside the machine, right?

The initial challenge there

was straightforward: Could

we construct pieces of DNA

large enough to make up

a chromosome? When we

looked in the literature, the

answer was no. DNA syn-

thesizers, which have been

around for 30 years, made

only short pieces. That was

the basis of all the work we’d

done in DNA sequencing.

When you get beyond 20 or

30 nucleotides [the “letters”

of DNA—each gene is made

of hundreds or thousands of

nucleotides], the error rate

gets larger and larger.

So making larger sections

of DNA required a different

approach?

Right. In 2003 we made our

� rst synthetic virus, and it

was 100 percent accurate.

We did it by taking viral DNA

and putting it in a cell, in

this case E. coli. The E. coli

was able to read the genetic

code and make proteins that

self-assembled to form the

virus. At that point we knew

we could accurately make

DNA pieces of 5,000 base

pairs, the size of the small

viruses. The goal was to make

a 600,000-base-pair bacterial

chromosome. We thought

we could do that by putting

serial pieces together, but

solving the chemistry was a

huge challenge. We exhaust-

ed the genetics of E. coli and

found we could grow these text by PAMELA WEINTRAUB photography by MACKENZIE STROH

2J. CRAIG VENTER on biology’s next leap: digitally designed life-forms that could produce novel drugs, renewable fuels, and plentiful food for tomorrow’s world.

Here you are talking about

constructing life, but you

started out in deconstruc-

tion: charting the human

genome, piece by piece.

Actually, I started out smaller,

studying the adrenaline

receptor. I was looking at one

protein and its single gene for

a decade. Then, in the late

1980s, I was drawn to the

idea of the whole genome,

and I stopped everything

and switched my lab over. I

had the � rst automatic DNA

sequencer. It was the ultimate

J. Craig Venter keeps riding the cusp of each new wave in biol-

ogy. When researchers started analyzing genes, he launched

the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), decoding the

genome of a bacterium for the fi rst time in 1992. When the

government announced its plan to map the human genome,

he claimed he would do it fi rst—and then he delivered results

in 2001, years ahead of schedule. Armed with a deep under-

standing of how DNA works, Venter is now moving on to an

even more extraordinary project. Starting with the stunning

genetic diversity that exists in the wild, he is aiming to build

custom-designed organisms that could produce clean ener-

gy, help feed the planet, and treat cancer. Venter has already

transferred the genome of one species into the cell body of

another. This past year he reached a major milestone, using

the machinery of yeast to manufacture a genome from scratch.

When he combines the steps—perhaps next year—he will

have crafted a truly synthetic organism. Senior editor Pamela

Weintraub discussed the implications of these efforts with

Venter in DISCOVER’s editorial offi ces.

in reductionist biology—

getting down to the genetic

code, interpreting what it

meant, including all 6 billion

letters of my own genome.

Only by understanding things

at that level can we turn

around and go the other way.

In your latest work you are

trying to create “synthetic

life.” What is that?

It’s a catchy phrase that

people have begun using to

replace “molecular biology.”

The term has been over-

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large pieces of synthetic DNA

only by harnessing yeast.

What made you realize that

yeast could help you?

We’d been studying Deinococ-

cus radiodurans, the Conan

the Barbarian of bacteria. You

can expose it to more than

3 million rads of radiation and

it won’t be killed. Its chromo-

somes get blown apart into

hundreds of small pieces, but

then over 12 or 24 hours it

reassembles its DNA exactly

as it was before. We were

trying to capture that system

when we discovered that yeast

does the same thing, only not

with radiation: Yeast can take

the pieces of DNA that we

make and do the assembly

work for us.

Last August you reported

cloning the entire genome

of a bacterium, Mycoplasma

mycoides. What’s next?

Now we add the yeast centro-

mere [the section of yeast DNA

involved in reconstruction]

to the DNA of the organisms

we are synthesizing. It’s like a

jigsaw puzzle. We throw in the

pieces and the yeast compo-

nent automatically assembles

them the right way. It thinks it’s

just assembling and repairing

one of its own chromosomes.

Then you have to boot up

the genome in a living cell to

generate the hardware, the

life-form itself. How will you

do that?

In one of our most important

experiments, we took the DNA

from one bacterial cell and

treated it with harsh enzymes

to destroy any proteins. We

found that if we transplanted

that naked DNA into another

bacterial species, along with

associated restriction enzymes

[molecular scissors that cut

DNA in speci� c places], the

cell’s original DNA would be

destroyed. The transplanted

DNA would take over instead.

So now we had the cell of one

species containing the DNA

of another species. In a short

time, all the original proteins

disappeared, and we ended

up with a cell that had totally

transformed from one species

into another.

So you have transplanted

a natural genome, and you

have created a synthetic

one. How close are you

to combining these steps,

transferring a synthetic

genome so it takes over a

foreign cell?

I now joke that I predict it’s

going to happen this year,

but I’ve done that for the last

two years. It’s a technicality

in one respect because what

we’re showing is that DNA

is DNA. But truly being able

to make a working synthetic

genome—I think it’s a proof

that’s important.

Once we have the power to

create new life-forms, how

will we benefi t?

We could synthesize cells that

use carbon dioxide and make

other things from it. If this desk

and that plastic chair protector

were made from CO2, it would

solve the problem of how to

sequester CO2 from the atmo-

sphere and would totally solve

the question of paper versus

plastic. You’d absolutely want

plastic bags if they could be

made from carbon dioxide and

not from oil.

What else could we do?

We could solve the problem of

fuel production. In theory, we

could replace fuel that comes

out of the ground with things

made from carbon dioxide on

a new scale. We could make

small-scale microbial fuel cells

that use human waste to make

drinking water, electricity, or

both. Could algae be used for

food? Imagine using algae to

make arti� cial steaks. Look at

all the bacteria in the oceans;

they have far more sophisticat-

ed chemicals than our chem-

istry industry can produce. A

lot of these are antibacterial or

antiviral compounds, because

that’s how bacteria protect

themselves in the environment.

If we’re ever going to have a

chance of using these com-

pounds, we’re going to have to

make them synthetically.

What about safeguards and

risks? As with computer

hacking, some people are

itching to do these “bio-

logical hacking” experiments

with synthetic life in their

basements and backyards.

You can buy a DNA synthe-

sizer off eBay, and an enter-

prising person could build a

DNA synthesizer from plans

they can get off the Internet.

We don’t try to downplay the

risk. Because these tools are

so powerful, somebody could,

just by ordering a handful of

chemicals, pretty cheaply

make viruses that could cause

a lot of damage or death to a

large number of people. We

don’t want kids trying to be the

� rst one on their block to build

a virus, so I think there should

be laws for simple screening.

The synthetic DNA companies

that make these products

should be required to screen

them against a list of infectious

agents. It would be easy to

screen someone trying to copy

Ebola, for example. A lot of

the companies do it voluntarily

now, but they don’t all do it,

and on a global basis they

defi nitely don’t all do it. Maybe

we can’t prevent somebody

really dedicated to doing harm,

but we can prevent the frivo-

lous uses of this technology.

Could synthetic biol-

ogy extend all the way to

humans? Could we use the

technology to make better

versions of ourselves?

We have no clue of how to do

it now. We’re still struggling

with the smallest bacterial

cell, in which we don’t know

what even one-� fth of the

genes do. We do not have

the computing power on the

planet to make a synthetic

human genome. We don’t

have any way of collecting the

data to do it right now. So the

notion of trying to change our

genome, I � nd at this stage

of our knowledge almost an

immoral discussion. It would

have to be blind human

experimentation, not caring

what the outcome would be.

But one day we’ll know

more—what then?

History will view these � rst

synthetic genomes as a bright

dividing line, just like the line

before and after the reading

of the genetic code. Through

these experiments we have

been able to write the genetic

code while we’re continuing to

read it more and more quickly.

Advances in biology should

continue at a phenomenal,

exponential pace. We could

learn more next year than we

learned in the entire prior his-

tory of science. Twenty years

from now, the things we’re

doing now will look frighten-

ingly primitive. My view of

humanity is that we will � nd

it irresistible to try to use

these technologies to change

ourselves. I confess, I think

we’ll do it, but perhaps not we

ourselves.

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BIOLOGY || SPACE || MIND || ENVIRONMENT || MEDICINE

29 Another Baby Boom Hits Rich NationsPopulation dynamics are

more complex than we

thought. Fertility rates generally

decline as development rises,

and this has indeed been hap-

pening in most industrialized

nations. Birthrates in Italy, Ger-

many, and Japan, for instance,

have dipped to 1.3 children

or fewer per woman. But

recently a team of sociologists

in the United States and Italy

revealed a twist in this pattern.

When development—mea-

sured by income, education,

and life span—improves past

a certain point, they � nd, fer-

tility picks up again. The study

was published in August in the

journal Nature.

The anticipated boost in fer-

tility rates is not large enough

to alter projections that the

global population will level

off by midcentury, says study

coauthor Hans-Peter Kohler,

a sociologist at the University

of Pennsylvania. In fact, birth-

rates in most highly developed

countries are still too low to

maintain the national popula-

tion. (The United States is an

exception, with fertility rates

near the replacement level of

2.1 births per woman.) But

the new analysis may provide

some relief for nations that

fear they soon will not have

enough middle-aged workers

to support their growing elderly

population.

The researchers are now

investigating why a wide

range of developed coun-

tries, despite their differing

social structures, appear to

be experiencing a similar and

unexpected uptick in birth-

rates. “There is clearly not a

one-size-� ts-all set of institu-

tions and policies that facili-

tate higher fertility,” Kohler

says. MEGAN TALKINGTON

Three preliminary fl ybys of Mercury by NASA’s Mes-

senger spacecraft have given scientists a vast amount

of new information about the solar system’s small-

est, hottest planet. The only other spacecraft to visit

Mercury—Mariner 10, which swung past in 1974 and

1975—left nearly half of the surface unseen. Messenger’s

new maps � ll in most of the gaps and show that about 40

percent of the landscape has been shaped by volcanism,

indicating widespread geologic activity in Mercury’s past.

Peering down into impact craters, the probe’s cameras

have seen evidence that the planet was shaped by sev-

eral massive � oods of lava billions of years ago.

The most recent flyby, this past September, also

clari� ed why Mercury still has a slight atmosphere even

though its gravity is too weak to maintain one for long.

Powerful solar winds press through Mercury’s magnetic

� eld to blast away material from the planet’s surface.

That material replenishes the atmosphere as it continu-

ously drifts away into space. Sodium is prominent in

the atmosphere at the poles (where the solar wind pen-

etrates most easily), suggesting that the surface there

contains sodium-rich rocks. Nearer the equator calcium

predominates, and magnesium is everywhere.

All of this is just a preview of the full Messenger mis-

sion that begins in March 2011, when the spacecraft

will settle into orbit for at least a year of continuous,

close-up observations. At that point, the trickle of data

on Mercury will become a � ood. “It has been wonder-

ful,” says principal investigator Sean Solomon of the

Carnegie Institution of Washington, “but this is just

the beginning.” MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

28Probe Shows Mercury’s Hidden Face

27 Genetic Disease Cured With Two MomsMitochondria are the powerhouses

that provide our bodies’ cells with

the energy they need to function.

So when mitochondrial genes go

awry, the result is hereditary disor-

ders that wreak havoc on organs

with high energy requirements, like

the brain and the heart. In Septem-

ber, researchers announced that

they had demonstrated a way to

replace defective mitochondria with

healthy ones. Moreover, they were

able to perform the repair before an

egg cell was even fertilized.

Geneticist Shoukhrat Mitalipov of

Oregon Health and Science Univer-

sity and his team took the nucleus

out of an egg from a macaque

monkey, removing almost all of the

genetic material but leaving the mi-

tochondria and their DNA. The re-

searchers then injected the nucleus

of an egg from a second macaque,

fertilized the cell with sperm, and

implanted it in the second monkey’s

womb. The technique has yielded

four healthy babies. The same

procedure could be used to trans-

plant DNA from a human egg with

mitochondrial disorders into one

with healthy mitochondria.

“This offers real treatment for

many diseases,” Mitalipov says.

“And not in 20 years. It can be

used now to prevent thousands of

birth defects.” The process would

yield a baby with two biological

mothers, raising prickly legal and

ethical questions. But Mitalipov

points out that only 37 mitochon-

drial genes would be replaced; the

25,000 nuclear genes that make

up an embryo’s DNA and de� ne all

of a person’s external traits would

remain unchanged. AMY BARTH

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Sunbaked Mercury, captured by Messenger during the spacecraft’s September fl yby, reveals previously unseen craters and lava fl ows.

A mitochondrion

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30 Hunters Accelerate the Pace of EvolutionHumans are powerful agents of evolu-

tionary change: Wild animals and plants

that are hunted or harvested evolve three

times as quickly as they would naturally,

according to a study from the University

of California at Santa Cruz. In our quest

to bag the biggest and the best, we intro-

duce selective pressures that favor less

desirable creatures, such as those with

smaller bodies or less majestic horns.

Hunting also gives a competitive advan-

tage to animals that have babies when

they are younger, before they become

tempting targets for humans.

A team led by biologist Chris Dari-

mont combed through data on dozens

of species—predominantly � sh but also

bighorn sheep, caribou, marine inver-

tebrates, and two plants. (“Hunters

also want the biggest ginseng,” Dari-

mont says.) Animals that are routinely

subject to pursuit are, on average, 20

percent smaller and reproduce at a

25 percent younger age than what would

be expected without human in� uence,

the researchers determined. Predation

is not the only way that people affect

populations. Creatures that are exposed

to environmental in� uences like pollution

also experience accelerated evolution,

although the effect is less dramatic.

The resulting changes have ripple

effects, Darimont notes. Smaller and

earlier breeders often produce fewer

offspring, for instance. “Size really

matters,” he says. “If a harvested ani-

mal keeps shrinking, it may no longer

be prey to its predator. The whole food

web can be altered.” AMY BARTH

32 Fake DNA Fools Crime LabDNA evidence has become a stan-

dard forensic tool because it can

pinpoint one individual out of mil-

lions. But the Israeli company

Nucleix has shown that it is

distressingly simple to make a

phony DNA � ngerprint.

In Nucleix’s experiment,

researchers took a small

bit of DNA (which can be

collected from an object like

a cigarette butt) from a test

subject, replicated it millions

of times over, and used it to

build an arti� cial DNA sequence.

They then added the built-up DNA

to blood that had been processed to

remove the original, DNA-containing white

blood cells. When analyzed by a leading foren-

sics lab, the mixture was indistinguishable from

real blood and natural genetic material. Going a

step further, the researchers fabricated arti� cial

DNA using only sequence data and added it to a

saliva sample. This fake also passed inspection.

Although the experiment was done entirely

with commercial technology, DNA expert Larry

Kobilinsky of John Jay College of Criminal

Justice in New York doubts that most criminals

would have the skills to pull it off. Just in case,

though, Nucleix has developed a test that can

screen for fake DNA. BOONSRI DICKINSON

31 Sun’s Changes Have Surprise Effects on Earth’s WeatherScientists have long suspected that the sun affects climate on Earth, but that

connection has proved hard to pin down. Researchers recently demonstrated that

the 11-year cycle of solar activity in� uences weather in the tropical Paci� c Ocean.

Even then the exact cause remained obscure, since the sun’s brightness varies by

just one-tenth of a percent. Two studies from 2009 are � lling in the gaps.

In August an international team led by Gerald Meehl, a climatologist with the

National Center for Atmospheric Research, announced that the sun’s outsize

in� uence results from its combined effects on our atmosphere and oceans. When

the sun is at its most intense, ozone in the stratosphere absorbs more ultraviolet

energy, making areas near the equator warmer than usual. The added heat changes

wind patterns, bringing more rain to the western tropics. At the same time, the

extra sunlight causes more evaporation off the ocean, which adds to downpours

in the western tropics. Simulations that modeled just one of these effects failed to

match the real world. Meehl saw that the two mechanisms “feed off each other,

producing a stronger response than either can alone.” His results should help

climatologists predict monsoons in Asia and overall climate in North America and

might someday allow them to estimate seasonal rainfall years in advance.

Meanwhile, Henrik Svensmark of the Technical University of Denmark and his

colleagues are exploring a broader climate impact of solar activity. He believes

that cosmic rays—energetic subatomic particles from outer space—help seed

cloud-forming water droplets in the lower atmosphere. During peak solar activ-

ity, eruptions from the sun spew out huge clouds of plasma that shield Earth from

those cosmic rays. After examining cloud cover and cosmic ray � uxes, Svensmark

concluded that declines in cosmic rays lead to fewer clouds, implying that an

active sun could lead to warmer surface temperatures. Following the strong est

solar eruptions, he found that the sky lost 7 percent of its cloud water. Many sci-

entists doubt the signi� cance of these cosmic ray effects, but Svensmark sees the

question as ripe for investigation. “The sun is doing natural experiments on Earth’s

atmosphere, giving us the opportunity to test these ideas,” he says. JANET FANG

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EVOLUTION || TECHNOLOGY || MEDICINE

It might seem that biologists

have already canvassed every

bit of our planet. In reality, by

tapping the latest genetic and

molecular techniques they are

identifying new species at an

unprecedented pace. To draw

attention to this fast-growing

catalog of biodiversity, the Arizo-

na State University International

Institute for Species Exploration

created a top 10 list of the most

amazing species discovered in

2009, including:

Tahina spectabilis: A palm

native to northwest Madagascar,

the species is so huge that single

trees can be spotted via Google

Earth. The plant’s trunk grows

to 60 feet high and its leaves to

more than 15 feet across. After

30 to 50 years, the palm pro-

duces hundreds of fl owers that

drain its nutrients completely,

causing it to die in a few months.

Fewer than 100 specimens have

been found, but the plant is now

being cultivated.

Phobaeticus chani: The world’s

longest stick insect, measuring

two feet from antennae to tail,

was discovered in Borneo, Malay-

sia. This creature resembles a

small branch with six twiggy legs.

Hippocampus satomiae: This

pygmy sea horse, which lives off

the coast of Derawan Island in

Borneo, is the smallest of its kind,

about half an inch long.

Leptotyphlops carlae: Also

among the incredibly small is the

world’s most minuscule snake:

Found in Barbados, it measures

only four inches long.

Coffea charrieriana: Producing

the fi rst known coffee bean that

is naturally caffeine free, this

plant from Cameroon could lead

Blast of Biodiversityin the last 15 years are yoked to

local ecosystems and likely to

become extinct. One capuchin

monkey inhabits only a single

200-hectare slice of forest ringed

by sugar plantations.

People rely on biodiversity, too.

The earth’s dazzling biological

cornucopia helps regulate carbon

dioxide levels, protects crops and

humans from pests and disease,

recycles nutrients, and holds a

still largely unfathomable genetic

bounty. “The human economy is

a wholly owned subsidiary of the

economy of nature,” Ehrlich says.

JILL NEIMARK

3 to commercial coffee trees that

produce their own decaf.

The exaggerated nature of the

newfound species illustrates the

rich and complicated ways in

which organisms adapt to their

unique environments.

Many plants, insects, and

vertebrate animals are com-

pletely dependent on endangered

ecosystems. A March 2009

study by biologist Paul Ehrlich of

Stanford University and biologist

Gerardo Ceballos of the National

Autonomous University of Mexico

found that 81 percent of the 408

new mammal species discovered

Clockwise from top left: Leaf and

fl owers of the giant palm Tahina

spectabilis, and the tiny snake

Leptotyphlops carlae. Both species

were discovered in 2009.

TH

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34 Computers Go QuantumAtomic-scale computers that

exploit the bizarre rules of quan-

tum physics have the potential

to process enormous quanti-

ties of data far more quickly

than today’s devices. In June,

researchers at Yale University

announced progress toward

this goal, creating the � rst quan-

tum processor that is built into a

conventional silicon chip.

Quantum computers pro-

cess information using bits that

behave like atoms, so even the

slightest disturbance would ruin

the process. Previous experi-

ments had required complicat-

ed lasers or magnets to keep

the system stable, but the Yale

team’s processor was designed

into computer chips. With one

calculation, the device solved a

math problem that would take

an ordinary computer as many

as four steps. The key difference

is that quantum bits can take on

fuzzy values: not just 1 or 0, but

in some sense everything in

between at the same time.

While the Yale research

focuses on hardware, a team

from MIT and the University

of Bristol in England is � nding

better ways to use quantum

computations. In October the

group described a new algo-

rithm that could rapidly solve

the complex linear equations at

the heart of many key process-

es, including image processing

and gene analysis.

Turning the Yale experi-

ment into a useful computer

will require adding many more

quantum bits and managing

how those bits interact. “It just

seems so difficult to make a

large-scale quantum comput-

er,” says Steven Girvin, a Yale

physicist who coauthored the

� ndings. “But � ve years ago I

never thought we’d be where

we are now.” ANDREW GRANT

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36 Diarrhea Vaccine Could Save MillionsNearly 1.5 million children,

the vast majority of them in

the developing world, die of

diarrheal diseases each year.

In April, Mahdi Saeed, an epi-

demiologist at Michigan State

University, announced a new

vaccine that could substan-

tially reduce that number.

Although vaccines already

exist for some causes of diar-

rhea, � nding a � x for entero-

toxigenic E. coli, the leading

bacterial cause of diarrhea

in children in the developing

world, has proved to be dif� -

cult. The toxin produced by E.

coli is too small to be recog-

nized effectively by the human

immune system, meaning that

one round of infection does

not provide immunity against

future exposure.

As a result, a person can

experience multiple bouts

of diarrhea, which can lead

to dehydration, malnutrition,

and even death. Children are

especially vulnerable because

they have a higher density of

chemical receptors susceptible

to the E. coli toxin than adults

do. That toxin is also a leading

cause of traveler’s diarrhea,

which annually affects millions

of visitors to developing coun-

tries around the world.

In order to alert the

immune system to the pres-

ence of the tiny toxin mol-

ecule, Saeed attached it to a

larger molecule that did not

alter its properties. Trials in

mice showed that this piggy-

back approach increased the

ability of the immune system

to recognize the toxin.

A separate set of trials in

rabbits, which concluded

in April, demonstrated that

the doubled-up molecule

provoked the animals’

immune system to produce

antibodies. And when these

antibodies were tested in

mice, researchers found that

they made the mice immune

to the effects of E. coli.

The new vaccine, 25 years

in the making, could proceed

to human clinical trials by the

beginning of 2010, accord-

ing to Saeed, who has been

studying E. coli toxin since he

was in graduate school. A vac-

cine could also reduce E. coli

deaths among farm animals.

“E. coli is a killer,” Saeed

says. “A vaccine would be a

true lifesaver for children in

the developing world.”

LINDSEY KONKEL

Micrograph

of E. coli,

a leading

cause of

diarrhea.

Pääbo and a

Nean derthal

skeleton.

35 Neanderthals Get PersonalDid humans and Neanderthals

ever lie under the moon, mak-

ing love? Could Neanderthals

talk? Do we have any of their

genes? We diverged from our

hominid cousins as long as

400,000 years ago, and by

30,000 years ago they were

gone, leaving the particulars of

any intertwined history seem-

ingly lost forever.

We are beginning to revisit

those ancient days, however,

due to a draft of the Nean-

derthal genome created by

Svante Pääbo and colleagues

at the Max Planck Institute for

Evolutionary Anthropology in

Leipzig, Germany. The draft,

announced in February, covers

about 63 percent of the roughly

3.2 billion base pairs in the

Neanderthal genome. Pääbo

created it by sequencing DNA

from fragments of bone (most

of it from the Vindija cave in

Croatia) to get 3 billion Nean-

derthal base pairs essentially

uncontaminated by human

DNA or by microbes.

To perform this stunning feat,

Pääbo and his team used new,

high-throughput DNA technolo-

gies—developed in part by the

companies 454 Life Sciences

and Illumina—to analyze hun-

dreds of thousands and even

millions of DNA fragments at

the same time.

With the ability to sequence

DNA at warp speed, the re -

searchers could � nally decon-

struct the genomic relationship

between Neanderthals and

modern humans. Although

our DNA sequences are more

than 99.5 percent identical,

our genetic cousins did not

contribute any mitochondrial

DNA to us, and probably little

genetic material overall. (It is

still possible that we donated

genes to them, however.) “We

are now analyzing whether

there was any interbreeding”

at all, Pääbo says.

In studying the reconstructed

genome, he learned that, like

modern humans, Neander-

thals may have used the spo-

ken word. Indeed, they have

two mutations in a language-

associated gene called FOXP2,

mutations that are not found in

chimpanzees. Such changes

seem to be associated with

vocalization. “From the data we

have so far, there is no reason

to assume that Neanderthals

could not speak like we do,”

Pääbo concludes.

What lies ahead? Pääbo

will continue sequencing Nean-

derthal DNA until he has a

genome that is similar in com-

pletion and quality to the exist-

ing map of the chimpanzee

genome. Ultimately, comparing

Neanderthals, humans, and

chimpanzees will help us find

“those few genetic changes that

are crucial for modern human

behavior and ability,” he says,

and that reveal what makes us

uniquely human. JILL NEIMARK

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ENERGY || MEDICINE

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39 Math Could Fix Traffi c JamsDuring rush hour, maddening traf� c jams can

arise without an obvious cause. In May mechani-

cal engineer Morris Flynn of the University of

Alberta produced a model that shows how these

“jamitons,” or phantom jams, develop.

Traf� c jams have been represented mathemat-

ically as waves of alternating heavy and light car

density. When Flynn analyzed these equations,

he noted striking similarities to the detonation

waves that radiate outward from an explosion. As

in a detonation, jamitons divide the surrounding

space into upstream and downstream regions.

Downstream drivers are the ones caught in the

congestion; upstream drivers are the ones who

are unaware of the jam they are about to hit.

Improving data flow could provide an easy

37Algae Make Clean, Renewable Diesel FuelWhen researchers conceived of

turning algae into diesel fuel three

decades ago, the idea sounded

like something out of the old

sci-� movie Soylent Green. But in

July, ExxonMobil teamed up with

biologist Craig Venter’s Synthetic

Genomics to take algae biofuel to

the marketplace. ExxonMobil has

invested $600 million to design bet-

ter strains of algae and to convert

them into fuel. Meanwhile, several

start-up companies—including

Aurora Biofuels and Solix Biofuels

—have built pilot plants that prove

it is possible to brew algae-derived

diesel fuel in large quantities. “At

the beginning we’d tell people, ‘I

know this sounds crazy,’ ” says

Bryan Willson, a Colorado State

University engineer and cofounder

of Solix Biofuels. “But with the

ExxonMobil investment, algae is

entering the mainstream.”

Traditional biofuel crops such

as soybeans yield 50 to 150

gallons of fuel per planted acre

per year, but Solix’s facility near

Durango, Colorado, is producing

more than 2,000. The centerpiece

is a sealed growth chamber, or

photo-bioreactor, made from

a clear polymer to let sunlight

through; inside is a strain of algae

selected for its high rate of oil

production. (Closed reactors are

less susceptible to contamination

by outside algae than are open-

pond systems.) After the algae are

harvested, their oils are extracted

and re� ned into renewable diesel.

Besides sunlight, the algae require

little more than carbon dioxide

from nearby power plants, so

operating expenses should be low.

Willson predicts his company’s

algae fuel (and its coproducts,

which are to be sold for animal

feed) will be cost-competitive with

petroleum diesel within � ve years.

“It represents a large-scale solu-

tion to a global problem,” he says.

ELIZABETH SVOBODA

This may go down as the year when all the

talk about creating a next-generation “smart

grid” turned into action. The basic technology

that transports electricity around the United

States is more than a century old. So in Octo-

ber, spurred by concern over the cost and

reliability of the present system, President

Obama announced $3.4 billion of economic

stimulus funds for smart grid projects and

almost $5 billion more in private investment.

“We’ve paid attention to individual compo-

nents of the power system for so long, but

now we have to look at the system itself,”

says Dan Kammen, director of the Renew-

able and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at

the University of California at Berkeley.

These smart grid proposals would create

a flexible, interactive relationship between

energy producers and consumers. “The grid

needs to evolve from one-way wires and

cables to something where each power line

would send power in either direction—to or

from homes, businesses, or industry,” Kam-

men says. “We need the marriage of energy

technology and information technology.”

The stimulus package will fund 100 proj-

ects nationwide, ranging from the installation

of smart meters in homes so that customers

can manage their energy use to the improve-

ment of power substations and transformers.

Utilities could monitor demand in real time

and adjust supply accordingly. Customers

could track their consumption and opt to buy

more energy during off-peak hours, when it

is cheaper and more plentiful. A grid that can

store and redirect large quantities of power

will also be crucial if the United States gener-

ates more than about one-� fth of its power

from renewables such as wind or solar, which

deliver an intermittent supply of electricity.

Ford announced in August that its planned

plug-in hybrid vehicles would be able to

communicate with a smart grid. The batter-

ies in these vehicles could serve as backup

storage, soaking up excess energy at night

and giving it back when demand surges.

“If we can monitor and understand what’s

going on at all times, then we can reap the

reward we want,” Kammen says. “And that

is reliable, green power.” ANDREW GRANT

A Smart Makeover for the Electrical Grid

38

fix. “Since many cars are outfitted with GPS,

you could interactively convey this information

to drivers,” Flynn says. Drivers approaching

a forming jam could then slow down well in

advance, lowering traf� c density: “It reduces

the severity of a jam, and it reduces the likeli-

hood of accidents in the jam.” STEPHEN ORNES

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The barreleye fi sh has eyes that gaze upward right through a transparent shield

covering its head. This year ecologists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

studied the fi rst-ever underwater video of the strange fi sh. They also managed to recover

one alive and get a good look at that shield, which may protect its eyes as it steals

prey from stinging jellyfi sh. JANET FANG

40 Quantum Freakiness Leaks Into the Big WorldIf the rules of the tiny quantum world applied to

ordinary objects, all sorts of strange things could

happen: An object like a car or a person might be in

two places at once, or two clocks could “entangle,”

moving in synchrony as if they were physically con-

joined even when miles apart. In June researchers at

the National Institute of Standards and Technology

(NIST) reported on their effort to see how far quantum

behavior can be extended into the everyday realm.

First they coaxed a pair of beryllium ions to

entangle, such that their physical properties remained

bound together even when they were far apart. To

do this, the scientists � ashed lasers at a frequency

that encouraged the ions to adopt complementary

spin. Next the team split up the beryllium duo so that

each was now matched with a magnesium ion, and

those new pairs were moved to separate areas. The

heavier magnesium ions helped cool and slow down

42 Infection as It HappensOne of the challenges

in � ghting infectious

disease is that re-

searchers cannot watch

individual pathogens

inside living animals.

Did the drug kill the mi-

crobes? Did pathogens

escape to the brain?

Now imaging tech-

niques are providing

answers by following

microbes on the move.

An approach de-

scribed in PLoS Patho-

gens in July allowed

British researchers

to peer inside fruit � y

embryos to track � uo-

rescent versions of the

bacterium Photorhab-

dus asymbiotica. Using

high-resolution confocal

microscopy, the scien-

tists discovered that the

microorganism thwarts

the immune system by

emitting a toxin and im-

mobilizing hemocytes,

cells that would nor-

mally kill it. Meanwhile,

at the Scripps Research

Institute and New York

University, researchers

looked inside mouse

skulls to learn how viral

meningitis can cause

seizure. By recording

moving images of

the cells using two-

photon microscopy,

they discovered an

unexpected class

of immune cells

that damage ves-

sels in the brain. Also

at NYU, researchers

are capturing images

of � uorescent Lyme

disease spirochetes

moving into the brain,

hoping to chart infec-

tion and document the

moment of cure.

MEGAN TALKINGTON

Strange Gaze of the See-through Fish

the beryllium ions. Now the researchers could use

lasers to transfer the entangled state of the beryllium

ions to the motion of the new beryllium-magnesium

pairs. Those pairs began to form two separate oscil-

lating systems, analogous to a swinging pendulum or

a vibrating weight on a spring. “We were motivated

by pure curiosity to look at mechanical oscillators;

no one had ever entangled them before,” says David

Hanneke, a member of the NIST team.

The experiment will help scientists explore why

small objects follow the weird rules of quantum

mechanics but large ones do not—one of the great-

est enigmas in physics. In this case, sets of oscillat-

ing ions can be made to act as if they are connected,

even though equivalent human-scale objects, like

pendulums and springs, “certainly don’t behave in

this entangled way,” Hanneke says. “So where does

the breakdown happen? It’s somewhere between

four ions and a pendulum clock.” ELIZABETH SVOBODA

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EVOLUTION

Charles Darwin would have

turned 200 in 2009, the same

year his book On the Origin of

Species celebrated its 150th

anniversary. Today, with the

perspective of time, Darwin’s

theory of evolution by natural

selection looks as impressive

as ever. In fact, the double

anniversary year saw progress

on fronts that Darwin could

never have anticipated, bring-

ing new insights into the origin

of life—a topic that contrib-

uted to his panic attacks,

heart palpitations, and, as he

wrote, “for 25 years extreme

spasmodic daily and nightly

� atulence.” One can only

dream of what riches await in

the biology textbooks of 2159.

1. Evolution happens on the

inside, too. The battle for sur-

vival is waged not just between

the big dogs but within the

dog itself, as individual genes

jockey for prominence. From

the moment of conception, a

father’s genes favor offspring

that are large, strong, and

aggressive (the better to court

the ladies), while the mother’s

genes incline toward smaller

progeny that will be less of a

burden, making it easier for

her to live on and procreate.

Darwin’s NexGenome-versus-genome

warfare produces kids that are

somewhere in between.

Not all genetic con� icts are

resolved so neatly. In � our bee-

tles, babies that do not inherit

the sel� sh genetic element

known as Medea succumb to

a toxin while developing in the

egg. Some unborn mice suffer

the same fate. Such spiteful

genes have become wide-

spread not by helping � our

beetles and mice survive but

by eliminating individuals that

do not carry the killer’s code.

“There are two ways of winning

a race,” says Caltech biologist

Bruce Hay. “Either you can be

better than everyone else, or

you can whack the other guys

on the legs.”

Hay is trying to harness the

power of such genetic cheat-

ers, enlisting them in the � ght

against malaria. He created a

Medea-like DNA element that

spreads through experimental

fruit � ies like wild� re, permeat-

ing an entire population within

10 generations. This year

he and his team have been

working on encoding immune-

system boosters into those

Medea genes, which could

then be inserted into male

mosquitoes. If it works, the

modi� ed mosquitoes should

quickly replace competitors

who do not carry the new

genes; the enhanced immune

systems of the new mosqui-

toes, in turn, would resist the

spread of the malaria parasite.

2. Identity is not written just

in the genes. According to

modern evolutionary theory,

there is no way that what we

eat, do, and encounter can

override the basic rules of

inheritance: What is in the

genes stays in the genes. That

single rule secured Darwin’s

place in the science books.

But now biologists are � nding

that nature can break those

rules. This year Eva Jablonka,

a theoretical biologist at Tel

Aviv University, published a

compendium of more than

100 hereditary changes that

are not carried in the DNA

sequence. This “epigenetic”

inheritance spans bacteria,

fungi, plants, and animals.

For example, rats exposed

to certain fungicides during

pregnancy give birth to male

progeny with lower sperm

counts and an increased

chance of developing diabetes

and cancer. In each gen-

eration that follows, none

of which were exposed to

fungicides directly, the male

offspring continue to suffer the

same fate. Jablonka argues

that environmental expo-

sures—toxic substances, diet,

and even stress—can affect

the genome (see page 62). In

extremely high-stress cases,

they could possibly rearrange

it enough to create new spe-

cies. Eventually, she says,

“evolution will have to yield.”

3. Mutations reveal surpris-

ing branches on the tree of

life. Darwin would have been

dumbfounded to � nd that

our genes are littered with

changes that have no effect on

our form or function. Mutations

give rise to new genes, but

only some of those produce

discernible changes that

improve (or reduce) � tness.

Many of them do nothing

much at all. Those do-nothing

mutations are a major force for

discovery today, because they

accumulate at a measurable

rate. Generally, the more silent

mutations two species have

in common, the more closely

related they are. If you could

just sequence all the genes in

all the organisms in the world,

in principle you could uncover

the complete tree of life.

That is what evolutionary

biologist Casey Dunn of Brown

University is trying to do, and

his initial � ndings are con-

founding expectations. Dunn

compared the genomes of

71 animal species and found

that the common ances-

tor of all the animals on the

planet may not have been as

simple as a sponge, as previ-

ously thought. Instead, Dunn

identi� ed the more complex

comb jelly� sh—a carnivorous

ocean drifter—as the earliest

to diverge from the animal

family tree. The idea that the

simplest organism may not

have come � rst upends the

popular notion of an evolution-

ary march toward complexity.

This past year Dunn has been

busy expanding his revamped

family tree, starting with Acoe-

lomorpha, a � atworm that was

long considered one of the

most dif� cult animals to put

in its evolutionary place. With

the help of a supercomputer,

Dunn’s team showed that the

worm is a product of the � rst

split among bilateral animals

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Revolution

Transmission

electron micrograph

of infl uenza virus.

more than half a billion years

ago—a discovery that will

help biologists understand the

origins of the digestive and

nervous systems.

4. The “missing link” is not

missing. In October paleon-

tologists unveiled the earliest

known skeleton of a potential

human ancestor, the 4.4-

million-year-old Ardipithecus

ramidus, known as Ardi, and

it was not what anyone was

expecting (see page 22).

Behaving more like modern

monkeys than like chimps,

Ardi walked on two feet with

opposable toes and scam-

pered through the branches

on all fours. This � nd suggests

that what made us human

was the social switch

from aggressive

male to attentive

mate, says C. Owen

Lovejoy, an anato-

mist at Kent State

University. By the

time Ardi appeared,

our ancestors had

stopped � ghting over

mates—as sug-

gested by the small

canines and wood-

land diet of the male

Ardipithecus—and

started providing for

their females and

offspring instead.

Walking upright,

according to Lovejoy,

is an adaptation to

carrying food through

the forest as gifts for

potential mates.

Not everyone

agrees. “The whole

profession of

paleoanthropology

is undergoing a big

bout of indigestion

right now because

they’ve had a lot of

material dropped

on them,” says

Ian Tattersall, an

anthropologist at the

American Museum

of Natural History.

5. We are closing in on how

life began. Gerald Joyce is not

saying that he reproduced the

origin of life, but by some de� -

nitions that is exactly what he

has done. In 2009 he and his

graduate student Tracey Lin-

coln at the Scripps Research

Institute in La Jolla, Califor-

nia, engineered a system of

molecules that can sustain-

ably replicate themselves and

undergo Darwinian evolution in

a test tube. Now Joyce wants

to see “if we can get the mol-

ecules to invent novel function

for themselves,” he says.

So where would the � rst life

on earth have picked up RNA,

the simple hereditary molecule

that is notoriously hard to syn-

thesize? Two papers published

in 2009 propose plausible

chemical routes. In Science a

July report discusses a “helper

molecule” to RNA, which the

author was able to construct

in his lab, that shows the

basic properties necessary

for evolution (see page 83).

And a separate experiment,

published in Nature in May,

showed that it is possible for

the building blocks of RNA to

emerge spontaneously from

simple molecules thought to

have been present on the early

earth. John Sutherland and his

colleagues at the University

of Manchester in England

argue that the precursors

came together in a warm-

water solution, reminiscent of

Charles Darwin’s notion that

life began in some “warm little

pond.” In the meantime, 2009

Nobel laureate Jack Szostak

of Harvard Medical School

has been packaging prebiotic

chemistry into simple mem-

branes to see how protocells

could have self-assembled

out of fatty acids.

The huge strides from the

past year signi� cantly clarify

how life could arise from the

laws of chemistry. “If Darwin

were around now,” Sutherland

says, “maybe he would have

been an organic chemist.”

JESSICA RUVINSKY

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SPACE || MEDICINE || ENVIRONMENT || EVOLUTION

44 Spaceport Breaks Ground in New MexicoDrive an hour northeast of

Las Cruces, New Mexico,

then another 25 miles along a

dirt road, and you can watch

the construction of Spaceport

America—the nation’s � rst

commercial hub built speci� -

cally for spaceships. Right

45 Eye Drops Could Cure GlaucomaScientists in Italy have discovered a simple eye drop that

may reverse glaucoma, the disease caused when pres-

sure builds in the eye, injuring nerve cells and ultimately

leading to blindness. Ophthalmologist Stefano Bonini at

the University of Rome Campus Bio-Medico and his col-

laborators applied drops containing nerve growth factor (a

protein involved in neural development) to the eyes of rats

with induced glaucoma. The drops protected the animals’

retinal ganglion cells and optic nerves, both of which are

generally damaged by the disease. The team’s report

appeared in the August 11 issue of PNAS.

In the study Bonini also had success applying nerve

growth factor to humans with advanced glaucoma.

Two of three patients given the eye drops exhibited a

remarkable improvement in visual acuity and sensitivity

to contrast after three months. “I cannot say that we

have found a cure for glaucoma,” Bonini says carefully,

“but we have something that worked in a few patients.

It will be interesting to test more.” LINDSEY KONKEL

Reconstruction of Dakota shows the dinosaur’s heavily muscled haunches.

now the facility’s 10,000-foot

runway is being formed out

of a mountain of gravel, but

by 2011 it is expected to host

the takeoffs and landings of

space-tourism � ights oper-

ated by its anchor tenant,

Virgin Galactic.

The $200 million project,

underwritten by the state of

New Mexico, broke ground in

June not far from the restricted

airspace of the White Sands

Missile Range. The location

was chosen carefully. It is

unhampered by commercial

jet traf� c and bene� ts from the

same advantages that drew

the U.S. Army there: abundant

clear weather and a 4,700-foot

elevation, which drops the

cost of reaching Earth orbit by

up to $90 million, compared

with launching at sea level.

“Space tourism isn’t the

spaceport’s only purpose,”

says Steven Landeene, its

executive director. Private

companies like Lockheed

Martin are already sending

up rockets from the facility’s

vertical launchpads, located

several miles from the runway.

Other sites around the United

States also support commer-

cial launches, but these are

mostly carved out of existing

government facilities.

“Dreams are becoming a

reality,” Landeene says. He

envisions a day when Virgin

Galactic’s $200,000 � ights will

come down in price and start

to change the way we � y on

Earth, with business travelers

reaching Asia or Europe in less

than two hours.

BOONSRI DICKINSON

47

El Niño’s Cousin Spurs Hurricanes

Dawn at Spaceport America—an artist’s preview.

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In 1999, while fossil hunting in the Badlands of North

Dakota, 16-year-old Tyler Lyson stumbled upon a mummi-

fi ed dinosaur: not just a skeleton, but a fossil that turned

out to include naturally preserved soft-tissue structures.

This year a group of scientists published the fi rst in-depth

analysis of this rare fi nd from 67 million years ago.

The dinosaur—a hadrosaur, or duck-billed plant-eater

—apparently died in a soggy spot. Minerals precipitated

rapidly in its skin, forming a replacement framework

before the soft organic tissues decomposed. “We actually

have a three-dimensional organism preserved,” says study

coauthor Roy Wogelius of the University of Manchester

in England. Scales are visible to the naked eye; more

remarkable, electron microscopy reveals double-layered

skin similar to that of modern animals, and possibly even

the outlines of cells. Wogelius, a geochemist who analyzes

mineral surfaces, was asked to apply his expertise in

infrared imaging to the fossil, nicknamed Dakota. He found

that its mummifi ed remains appear to include some of

the creature’s original amino acids, although there are no

traces of whole proteins or DNA. The results were pub-

lished online in July in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The generous surface area of Dakota’s skin suggests

that there was a lot more muscle packed into the animal’s

tail than previously believed. On the basis of the new infor-

mation, researchers now estimate that this hadrosaur could

have run roughly 27 miles per hour. That is “a lot faster than

a T. rex,” Wogelius’s colleague Phil Manning says.

Manning suspects that skin and soft tissue may have

been overlooked in other fossils and that they could yield

startling new insights about ancient creatures. “I think there

are specimens in museums today that are time capsules,”

he says. “We could go back to these specimens and breathe

new life into those old bones.” MEGAN TALKINGTON

48 Twin Black Holes Found Black holes are weird

enough, but in March

astronomers found

signs of something even

stranger: twin massive

black holes orbiting

tightly around each other.

Such objects have been

long predicted but

never veri� ed.

Todd Boroson and Tod

Lauer at the National Opti-

cal Astronomy Observa-

tory in Tucson found what

they think is a dual black

hole while examining more

than 17,000 quasars in the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey,

which obtained data,

images, and spectra of

more than one-fourth of

the sky. The two objects (a

20-million-solar-mass hole

and a billion-solar-mass

partner) seem to be sepa-

rated by just one-third of

a light-year, less than one-

tenth the distance from the

sun to the closest star.

In theory the universe

should be littered with

black hole multiples. All

sizable galaxies are thought

to be born with black

holes at their centers, and

each time galaxies collide

and merge the expanded

galaxy should collect a new

one. But binary black holes

are dif� cult to � nd. Astrono-

mers have found dozens of

quasars with similar double

lines of emission, but the

signatures are usually

attributed either to a single

black hole or to two galax-

ies passing close together.

Boroson and Lauer are

optimistic that they have

the real deal this time.

“We’re convinced it is

different from every other

object we’ve studied,”

Boroson says. STEPHEN ORNES

Dino Mummy Spills Its Secrets

To forecasters trying to anticipate extreme

weather and avert disasters, the 2004 hur-

ricane season looked like nature thumbing

her nose at us. That year, 15 major storms

developed in the North Atlantic—including

Hurricane Ivan, which caused $14 billion in

damage in the United States. And yet the

best models had called for a quiet season

because it was a year of El Niño, a recurring

pattern of warm water in the eastern Pacifi c

Ocean. That pattern is associated with

lower-than-average tropical storm activity

in the North Atlantic. Atmospheric scientist

Peter Webster at the Georgia Institute of

Technology set out to determine what went

wrong, and now he has some answers.

Last spring, Webster discovered that

his colleagues had lumped together two

distinct weather patterns under the name

of El Niño. Those patterns “have a very, very

different impact on the tropical climate and,

most important, on hurricane formation,”

he says. The divergence appears to be a

recent phenomenon, which explains why

researchers were unaware of its effects.

During a typical El Niño, the Pacifi c Ocean

warms up in a long band that extends

from the coast of South America toward

Polynesia. The second, less familiar pattern

involves a more isolated, extensive patch of

warmer water in the central Pacifi c.

After examining more than six decades’

worth of ocean surface temperatures

and tropical storm data, Webster and

his collaborators realized that the

newly identifi ed warming in the central

Pacifi c produces more hurricanes than a

traditional El Niño. It did not show up in

the data until three decades ago, leaving

Webster unsure whether the new weather

pattern is part of a long-term oscillation

or a result of climate change. Regardless

of the root cause, though, the discovery

of the central Pacifi c hot spot should lead

to better hurricane predictions and fewer

surprises. ELIZA STRICKLAND

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50 Magnetic Mysteries of SunspotsDecodedIn July the � rst complete 3-D

sunspot simulation illuminated

long-standing questions about

these disturbances on the

solar surface. Sunspots are

strong magnetic regions that

disrupt the outward � ow of

heat from the sun’s interior. As

a result they are comparatively

49 Space Trash Causes Orbital CrashIn February, about 500 miles above

Siberia, a U.S. communications

satellite smashed into a defunct

Russian orbiter at 25,000 miles per

hour, annihilating them both. It was

the � rst wreck of its kind—two intact

spacecraft accidentally plowing into

each other at hypervelocity—in the

half-century that humans have been

launching objects into space.

Initially the crash left behind some

1,500 pieces of wreckage bigger than

four inches in diameter, along with

hundreds of thousands of smaller

fragments, estimates Nicholas John-

son, chief scientist of the Orbital

Debris Program Office at NASA’s

Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The debris clouds, initially distrib-

uted along the orbital paths of the

satellites, are spreading to enshroud

the entire planet, joining the roughly

19,000 large chunks of orbiting space

junk (below) already tracked by the

Department of Defense.

Even if we stop launching objects

into space, the amount of trash will

continue to grow. “Things will keep

running into each other at a faster

rate than debris will fall out of orbit,”

Johnson says. Another major colli-

sion is certain to happen eventually,

he adds. In March, a 5-inch fragment

from a spent rocket engine whizzed

closely past the International Space

Station. Scientists and policymakers

are exploring ways to prevent future

accidents by removing large, defunct

objects from orbit. JOCELYN RICEfrom the bone of a griffon vulture—might be

capable of expressing greater harmonic variety

than the modern-day � ute, he says.

Conard’s group discovered fragments

of three ivory � utes in their 2008 digs. Four

other bone and ivory � utes were previously

found in the same area. Collectively, these

are regarded as the oldest known musical

instruments. The researchers conjecture

that music was important in the geographic

expansion and cultural development of humans

during the Upper Paleolithic era. “We can now

state that our ancestors had a developed

culture,” Tarasov says. “Not only were they

surviving, but they had time to do something

that required superior skill.” ALINE REYNOLDS

51 Oldest Musical Instrument FoundMore than 35,000 years ago, our ancestors

living in present-day southwestern Germany

were playing sophisticated music, according to

University of Tübingen archaeologist Nicholas

Conard. In June he announced that he and his

colleagues had unearthed an ancient bone � ute

in Hohle Fels, a cave in the Swabian mountains.

The sound produced by the � ute “is almost

identical to tones of the major scale played on

today’s � ute,” says Nikolaj Tarasov, a recorder

specialist at the Music University of Karlsruhe

in Germany. The � ve-holed instrument—carved

cool and so look dark against

the 10,000-degree Fahren-

heit solar surface. (They still

blaze at temperatures near

7,500°F, however.)

Scientists at the National

Center for Atmospheric

Research in Boulder, Colo-

rado, simulated a typical pair

of sunspots, which usually

appear in tandem with oppo-

site polarity. Mimicking the

twisted magnetic � elds and

fast-moving plasma in these

20,000-mile-wide maelstroms

required a month of work on

a supercomputer capable

of 76 trillion calculations per

second. The result closely

matched observations of

how plasma � ows from a

sunspot’s central dark region

into the surrounding turbulent

zone, according to lead

researcher Matthias Rempel.

This model exposes new

details of stellar physics and

could make it easier to predict

violent “space weather” before

it affects Earth. Sunspots

often spawn solar � ares that

can knock out radio communi-

cation, damage satellites, and

zap power grids. ADAM HADHAZY

Computer simulation of sunspot structure; vertical magnetic fi elds appear dark.

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52 Fight Rages Over Cancer GenesWhen Lisbeth Ceriani, a

43-year-old Massachusetts

woman, was diagnosed

with breast cancer last year,

her doctors recommended

that she undergo genetic

testing to see if she carried

mutations in the BRCA1 and

BRCA2 genes that increase

risk of breast and ovarian

cancers. She had several risk

factors for inherited cancer,

including relatives who had

died from breast and ovarian

cancer. “My dad’s mother

wasn’t diagnosed with ovar-

Illustration of

cancer in glandular

breast tissue and

lymph nodes. Inset:

Breast cancer cells.

ian cancer, but we feel sure

she had it after reviewing her

symptoms,” Ceriani says.

When Ceriani’s doctors

submitted her blood to Myr-

iad Genetics—the only com-

pany that offers a sequencing

test for BRCA mutations—the

company refused to process

it, saying that Myriad did not

accept Ceriani’s health insur-

ance. She could not afford

to pay for the test herself

(it costs nearly $4,000), so

she did not have it done. If

there had been a cheaper test

or a company that took her

insurance, she would have

known quickly what her best

treatment options were.

There is only one test for

BRCA mutations because

Myriad controls the BRCA

genes. The U.S. Patent and

Trademark Of� ce awarded

the company its � rst patent

in 1997; by 2000 the patent

of� ce had awarded it eight

more, in effect giving Myriad

ownership of the genes.

Accordingly, the company is

allowed to decide who may

study the genes and has

written cease-and-desist let-

ters to university geneticists

working on alternative BRCA

sequencing tests.

This year Myriad’s patent

was challenged in court by

the American Civil Liberties

Union on behalf of 20 plain-

tiffs, including the American

College of Medical

Genetics, the Asso-

ciation for Molecular

Pathology, and various

individuals, including

the genes related to breast

cancer and knew where the

genes were likely to be,” says

Arupa Ganguly, a geneticist at

the Hospital of the University

of Pennsylvania and one of

the plaintiffs in the ACLU

suit. “Essentially the work

was done for Myriad already.

Everyone knew where the

gene was.” Myriad has refused

to comment and in July � led a

motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

That motion was denied by a

New York federal district court

in November.

Robert Cook-Deegan,

director of the Institute for

Genome Sciences and Policy

at Duke University, does credit

Myriad with discovering spe-

ci� c mutation sequences and

building a public database

of genetic variations—both

valuable contributions. But

he says that many scientists

believe Myriad’s control has

slowed or blocked research,

and it “certainly has made

researchers more cautious in

how they report relevant � nd-

ings.” At the least, geneticists

in the United States do not

have the option of making

a more accurate screening

test because doing so would

infringe on Myriad’s patent.

The ACLU argues that gene

patents as a whole inhibit the

free � ow of ideas and should

not be awarded. “Gene

patents defy common sense,”

says Chris Hansen, one of the

ACLU lawyers handling the

case. “If you’re at a cocktail

party and you tell people

human genes are patented,

almost everyone will say that

can’t be right.”

Right or not, about 20

percent of all human genes

already have been included in

patent claims. Whether that

number will stand or even

grow will depend on how

the ACLU suit is decided.

JANE BOSVELD

Ceriani. The lawsuit

charges that the BRCA

patents—and gene pat-

ents in general—violate

established laws that

prohibit the patenting

of products and laws of

nature. According to the

ACLU, “Human genes,

even when removed

from the body, are still

products of nature.”

Critics also argue

that the process of

locating speci� c genes

does not warrant the

awarding of patents. “A

number of researchers

had been looking for

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MEDICINE || EARTH

55 Virus Linked to Chronic FatigueChronic fatigue syndrome, which affects 17 million people worldwide, has � nally

been linked to a speci� c pathogen: XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia-related

virus). XMRV is one of only three known human retroviruses, infectious agents that

slip into our genome and become a permanent part of our DNA. Cancer biologist

Robert Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic isolated XMRV three years ago in men

suffering from prostate cancer. The men had an immune defect that allowed the

virus to proliferate, much like a defect documented in patients with chronic fatigue.

Seizing upon that clue, cell biologist Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson

Institute in Reno, Nevada, tested 101 chronic fatigue patients. In October she

reported that 67 percent of them had the virus, as opposed to only 3.7 percent of

healthy people. Tests on another 200 patients revealed that more than 95 percent

of people with chronic fatigue carry antibody to the virus, Mikovits says.

For Mikovits these statistics raise new questions. Is XMRV the cause of chronic

fatigue, or just an opportunistic infection? More ominously, does XMRV increase

the risk of cancers, as HIV—another retrovirus—does? A blood test to detect

XMRV antibodies is now available through VIP Dx Labs in collaboration with

Whittemore Peterson. “This discovery could be a major step in the development of

vital treatment options for millions of patients,” Mikovits says. JILL NEIMARK

54 Seismic Waves Clarify How Continents MovePlate tectonic theory does a marvelous

job explaining how sections of Earth’s

crust shift about, moving continents and

reshaping oceans. Still, the underly-

ing structure that makes all this motion

possible was poorly understood until

Catherine Rychert and Peter Shearer

of the University of California at San

Diego dug through 15 years’ worth of

seismic data from around the world.

As seismic waves cross through differ-

ent materials, they change speed and

direction. By analyzing such effects,

the researchers were able to locate the

boundary below the earth’s rigid tec-

tonic plates where they meet the hot,

pliable asthenosphere beneath.

The base of the tectonic plates

appears to lie 44 miles beneath the

oceanic islands, on average, and 50

miles below young parts of the conti-

nents, the team reported in Science.

They also found a boundary 60 miles

below the oldest continental regions

but are not certain that it represents the

base of the plates. Previous evidence

had suggested that these parts of the

continents were at least 120 miles thick.

Rychert notes that some of the data

that generated the 60-mile estimate

While millions of Americans are trying

to shed fat, in the past year three research

teams announced that the adult body

contains a peculiar kind of fat that we might

prefer to hold on to. Called brown fat, it burns

energy rather than storing it. Activating this

improbable tissue might provide a new way

to rev up the body’s metabolism and acceler-

ate weight loss.

Packed with mitochondria (the energy-

generating units in cells), brown fat produces

heat in response to cold temperatures, con-

suming a lot of calories in the process. Brown

fat is present in newborns, whose bodies use

it to keep warm because they cannot shiver,

but it was thought to vanish by adulthood.

So it came as quite a shock when scientists

at fi ve Boston-area biomedical institutes

studied thousands of archived PET/CT scans

and found deposits of brown fat around the

neck and collarbone in about 5 percent of the

people examined. C. Ronald Kahn, the head

of obesity and hormone action research at

Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, believes that

brown fat is actually present in most adults

and that the only reason it did not show up in

the majority of the PET/CT scans was because

it had not been activated.

In a separate study, conducted in Finland

and Sweden, adult volunteers were kept in

cold rooms or subjected to ice-water footbaths

to spur any brown fat into action. Follow-up

PET/CT scans and biopsies then confi rmed

that the fat was indeed present. Meanwhile,

researchers in the Netherlands documented

that lean young men have more brown fat than

their overweight counterparts.

All three reports appeared in the New

England Journal of Medicine in April. “Adults

do have brown fat,” Kahn says. “Now the

question is to fi nd out how active it is in

controlling metabolism.” KATHLEEN MCGOWAN

Lose Weight With Brown Fat?

53

might have come from seismic stations

near thin edges of continents; she plans

to examine data from additional sta-

tions in those areas to con� rm her � nd-

ings. In the other environments, though,

the evidence seems clear, she says: “We

don’t know of any other mechanism that

can explain the sharp, globally pervasive

boundary we’ve seen.” Pinpointing the

location of that boundary will help clarify

how continents formed and why certain

parts of those continents are particularly

stable today. JENNIFER BARONE

The Arabian plate (lower left) collides with

the Eurasian plate (upper right) at the Persian

Gulf, driving Iran’s Zagros Mountains upward.

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56 Earth-like Storms Seen onSaturn’s MoonWith its thick atmosphere, rippling

lakes, and eroded landscapes, Sat-

urn’s giant moon Titan has a lot in

common with Earth. In August scien-

tists added another similarity shared

by these unlikely siblings: stormy

weather. Using the NASA Infrared

Telescope Facility and Gemini North

Observatory, planetary scientist

Emily Schaller of the University of

Arizona identi� ed a massive storm

that appeared near Titan’s equator.

“For so long, it was cloud-free,” says

Schaller, who devoted her doctoral

research to a largely fruitless search

for Titanic clouds. “Then, all of a sud-

den, they dramatically appeared.”

Schaller’s team could not con� rm

whether precipitation fell, but other

studies have offered strong evi-

dence that methane clouds on Titan

dump methane rain in a cycle much

like the exchange of water between

the atmosphere and the surface of

Earth. The scientists are now trying

to determine whether Titan’s storm

resulted from atmospheric condi-

tions or from surface activity, such

as methane-spewing geysers or

volcanoes. ANDREW GRANT

Five wild orangutans in Borneo—nick-

named Sam, Henk, Rambo, Kondor, and

Sultan—have learned to create a new

kind of distress signal, using leaves

to lower the pitch of their common

warning call, known as a kiss-squeak.

The leaf-produced kiss-squeaks seem

intended to make the orangutans sound

bigger and more threatening. “Primates

were assumed to have no control over

their calls,” says Madeleine Hardus, a

behavioral biologist at Utrecht University

in the Netherlands, who classifi es the

orangutans’ ability to alter their stan-

dard call as “a cultural innovation.”

Hardus and her colleagues discovered

that the orangutans had developed leaf-

assisted calls to identify humans (and

probably predators as well). She hypoth-

esizes that the technique is passed

down from one orangutan to the next.

Researchers have rigorously documented

leaf adaptation in the cluster of fi ve but

have also observed the behavior in the

wider orangutan population. JANE BOSVELD

58Orangutans Invent New Warning Calls

An orangutan changes its voice with a leaf.

57 Robots Learn to WalkLast year, robots got off their

behinds and began walking

upright. Inspired perhaps by

the success of drone aircraft

in Iraq and Afghanistan, the

U.S. Department of Defense

is funding projects to build

machines that walk like

us—machines that could

carry loads, perform search

and rescue, or even assist

in combat.

One of the greatest

challenges for a bipedal

robot is navigating com-

mon obstacles like curbs

and stairs. Keith Buf� nton,

a mechanical engineer at

Bucknell University, recently

received a $1.2 million Navy

grant to tackle the problem.

He video-taped students

regaining their balance after

a shove and realized that

walking is actually a type of

controlled falling, with each

step an act of recovery.

That insight inspired new

algorithms for managing

hips, knees, ankles, and

toes. Collaborating with

the Institute for Human

and Machine Cognition in

Florida, Buf� nton’s team

has built a partial bipedal

robot (torso, legs, and feet)

that could soon walk over

simple obstacles, allegedly

with better balance than a

person. In 2010 the group

will add arms and a head

with stereoscopic vision.

Boston Dynamics, an

offshoot of MIT, is taking

a similar approach with

Petman, which struck out

this year on its � rst explor-

atory walks. This robot not

only stands like a person

but also simulates human

gestures, body warmth,

and—creepiest of all—it

can sweat. Those traits

are important to the Army,

which wants to use Petman

for testing chemical-pro-

tection gear in battle� eld

conditions starting in 2011.

Anybots of Mountain

View, California, is trying

something different with

Dexter: It incorporates self-

teaching software to help

the robot learn how to walk.

Dexter recently began its

� rst tentative movements.

That’s one small step for a

robot, but if this approach

succeeds, a giant leap for

robotkind. It would certainly

beat anything with wheels.

FRED GUTERL

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In September

the European Southern

Observatory released

one of the most

spectacular views ever

created of our home

galaxy (left). This edge-

on perspective offers a

good view of what the

Milky Way would look

like from the outside

because in a sense we

are on the outside: Our

solar system resides in

one of the peripheral

outer arms of our fl at-

tened spiral galaxy.

The central bulge

is packed tight with

old red stars and an

invisible black hole

some 4 million times

as massive as the sun.

Thick clouds of gas and

dust create the spidery

dark markings. Two of

the Milky Way’s satellite

galaxies, the Large

and Small Magellanic

Clouds, appear toward

the bottom right. The

800-megapixel image

comprises nearly 1,200

photos, but no high-

powered telescopes

were involved—just

the dark, clear skies of

the Chilean desert and

Canary Islands and a

Nikon D3 digital camera.

In a separate view

zooming in on the

galactic center (bottom),

a giant black hole at the`

Milky Way’s core (white

area at center) gobbles

up matter and spews

X-rays. Nearby,

large stars erupt in

cataclysmic supernova

explosions, sparking

additional emissions

from gas heated to

millions of degrees. This

image, captured by the

Chandra X-ray Observa-

tory, shows X-rays

ranging from relatively

low (red) to high (blue)

energy. ANDREW GRANT

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you had asked me just a few

years ago, I would have said it

would disappear somewhere

around the year 2070. But we

seem to be on the fast track

now. Climate models are tell-

ing us that we might lose that

summer ice by the year 2030.

Is there any way we can

reverse the changes?

We’re already committed. A

year ago I was focusing on

understanding why we’re los-

ing the ice cover so fast. But

my research has shifted now

to understanding the impact.

You can think of it as throwing

up my hands and saying, well,

all right, we’re going to lose the

summer ice cover, so get over

it, and let’s start thinking about

what it really means.

OK—so what will be different

about a warmer Arctic?

Shifts in the sea ice are going

to have cascading effects

through the food chain, from

the top predators all the way

down to the plankton in the

sea. We’ll see more coastal

erosion. Before, a big storm

would come through in sum-

mer but sea ice would limit the

size of the waves. As we lose

the ice, the wind has what we

call a big fetch over the open

water, and you get big waves.

Villages in Alaska and coastal

Siberia are eroding into the

ocean because of this effect.

Will we be able to cross the

fabled Northwest Passage?

You’re already seeing a

busier Arctic. Instead of taking

a boatload of Toyotas through

the Panama Canal or around

Cape Horn, shippers will take

them right from Tokyo across

the Arctic Ocean to Boston or

even New York, at great sav-

ings in time and fuel.

What will the impact be

beyond the Arctic?

By losing the sea ice cover

we’re changing the energy

budget of the Arctic. It’s cold

there because the sun’s rays

strike the surface at a much

shallower angle than they do

at the equator. Also, snow and

ice are so re� ective that much

of the solar radiation you do

get is re� ected right back up

into space. This means that

we set up a gradient in tem-

perature in the atmosphere

with the higher temperatures

in the lower latitudes and

the colder temperatures in

the Arctic. The temperature

gradient creates atmospheric

circulation, which transports

heat from areas of equato-

rial excess to the cold polar

regions. When we lose the

sea ice, we start to change

the nature of the temperature

gradients, and the rest of the

system must respond.

What kinds of responses do

you foresee?

There are going to be shifts in

storm tracks and the inten-

Geographer MARK SERREZE says a big Arctic melt is inevitable and readies us for what comes next.

text by PAMELA WEINTRAUB photograph by BETH WALD

How did you come to study

the Arctic?

I went up there with my

adviser to measure an ice cap

on northern Ellesmere Island.

I remember � ying in on an old

Twin Otter. There were sap-

phire blue skies—it was the

pristine beauty of the place,

the whiteness of the snow

and ice and the visibility of

100 miles in any direction. As I

came back again and again, I

realized that the Arctic was as

much a feeling, a smell, as it

was a place.

What do you feel when you

visit the Arctic today?

Now you can see the hand

of man. As we lose the ice,

the very color of the Arctic

is changing from pure white

toward the blue color of the

ocean breaking through.

We’re seeing areas of formerly

treeless, windswept tundra

transition into shrub vegeta-

tion as the climate warms and

different things grow.

Can you determine when this

process began?

We’ve been able to accurately

measure the extent of Arctic

sea ice from satellites since

1979. What we’ve seen is

an awesome loss of ice, 40

percent of what we used to

have in the 1970s. That’s about

equal to the area of all of the

states east of the Mississippi.

It’s a lot of real estate.

Will all the Arctic sea ice

eventually vanish?

Even in a greenhouse world,

it’s cold in the Arctic in winter.

We’ll have ice, but we will lose

the summer sea ice cover. If

6oWhen Mark Serreze fi rst traveled to the Arctic, in 1982, he was

hit with a thrilling expanse of white. “It was just the most incred-

ible, beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was hooked,” he says.

Returning many times, he got a Ph.D. in Arctic science and for 25

years has studied the region’s snow and storms. Serreze recently

recognized that current climate trends mean that the seasonal

Arctic ice could melt in 20 years or less. He is now trying to help

the world prepare for a very different Arctic: a place of dimin-

ished species, increased vegetation, and easy travel through the

Northwest Passage. Director of the National Snow and Ice Data

Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Serreze spoke

to DISCOVER about the future of the place he loves.

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sity of the cold air outbreaks

that you get in the winter. We

won’t have as many problems

with damaged citrus crops in

Florida. But talk to the farmer

who wants to grow winter

wheat, which requires that win-

ter precipitation. Think about

the American West, where our

whole water supply system is

strongly dependent on the win-

ter snowfall. You start to see

how these changes can have

real economic impact.

Will the shifts add to the

greenhouse effect?

The looming environmental

consequence, the one that’s

really global in scope, has to

do with the carbon cycle. The

issue here is that if we go up

to the Arctic and if we dig into

the soil, we’ll � nd it is peren-

nially frozen—permafrost,

with a great deal of carbon

from past plant and animal life

locked inside, roughly twice

what is in the atmosphere to

date. A big concern is that if

we start to thaw that perma-

frost, microbes living in the

soil will become active. As

they metabolize, move, and

reproduce, they’ll disturb the

soil, releasing the locked-in

carbon. Now we’ve initiated a

feedback loop. Put this stuff

in the atmosphere and you’ve

got even greater warming. The

circulation of the atmosphere

will spread that warmth out

across the land. There’s grow-

ing evidence that this effect is

going to be quite strong.

What do your studies tell you

about the earth of the future?

It’s unknown. The Arctic is

a wickedly complex sys-

tem, and there are all these

cascading effects. Change

in itself isn’t always that bad.

Look at the great ice ages of

the past. The key here is how

rapidly the change will unfold.

Do I fear for the extinction of

the human species? No, but

you can say good-bye to a

lot of species that we have

today. We’re looking at a

different world. That world is

coming fast, and the Arctic

is leading the way.

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61 Abuse

Leaves Its Mark

on Victim’s DNAChildhood trauma may leave a last-

ing imprint not just on the psyche

but also in the DNA. This news

comes from McGill University and

the Suicide Brain Bank, a Quebec-

based organization that carried out

autopsies on suicide victims who

had been abused as kids. Across

the board, their brains showed DNA

modi� cations that made them par-

ticularly sensitive to stress. Although

gene variations are primarily inherit-

ed at conception, the � ndings show

that environmental impacts can also

introduce them later on. “The idea

that abuse changes how genes

function opens a new window for

behavioral and drug therapy,” says

study leader and neuroscientist Pat-

rick McGowan.

During periods of adversity, the

brain triggers release of cortisol, a

hormone responsible for the � ght-

or-� ight response. Due to differen-

tial gene expression associated with

stress, the brains of child-abuse vic-

tims had lower levels of glucocor-

ticoid receptors, McGowan found.

Cortisol normally binds to these

receptors; with fewer of them pres-

ent, there is more cortisol and less

resilience to feelings of stress.

In his study, McGowan reviewed

medical records and police reports

and interviewed family members to

determine whether a subject was

abused early in life. He then exam-

ined the subjects’ brain tissues

and found that among those who

had been abused, glucocorticoid-

receptor expression was reduced

by 40 percent. “If we can identify

how these changes occur, we can

identify those at high risk and ulti-

mately find ways to treat them,”

McGowan says. AMY BARTH

For the fi rst time, astronomers predicted when

and where an asteroid would strike Earth—and

recovered pieces of the rock to prove it. By study-

ing the orbit of the asteroid and examining its

remains, researchers hope to reconstruct more

details about conditions in the early solar system.

The work also serves as a dress rehearsal for

efforts to discover larger, potentially deadly

incoming asteroids before they hit.

Astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey

in Arizona spotted a car-size object headed our

way on October 5, 2008, when it was about as

far away as the moon. After quickly deter-

mining that the rock was too small to cause

damage, scientists at the Minor Planet Center

at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

calculated its trajectory. Less than a day later

the asteroid—now classifi ed as a meteor—

Asteroid Strike Predicted

exploded 23 miles above Sudan’s Nubian

Desert, exactly as was expected.

The story did not end there, however.

Meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI

Institute in California suspected that chunks of

the rock might have survived the fi ery descent.

He enlisted a team of local Sudanese students

to comb the desert of northeastern Sudan and

managed to recover almost 300 fragments total-

ing 10 pounds. In a March paper published in

the journal Nature, Jenniskens reported that the

rocks were part of a porous asteroid that formed

rapidly during Earth’s infancy, some 4.5 billion

years ago. The fragility of the asteroid explains

why it exploded so high up in Earth’s atmo-

sphere. “By looking at this trail of bread crumbs,”

Jenniskens says, “we can go back in time and

see how the asteroid evolved.” ANDREW GRANT

62The meteor’s trail over Sudan, captured by cell phone.

Titanoboa as reconstructed by an artist.

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64 DEET Might Harm the BrainDEET is great at keeping away mosquitoes—200

million people around the world rely on it—but this

common insect repellent may also interfere with the

human nervous system, a group of European sci-

entists warn. Their widely covered study, published

in August, shows that DEET can disrupt nerve cells

and enzymes in insects, mice, and people.

Vincent Corbel of the Institute of Research for

Development in France, who led the research,

cautions that the conditions in his experiment did

not mirror real-world use of the chemical. “We

directly exposed speci� c neural cells to high

concentrations of DEET,” he says. He estimates

that the risks from applying it as recommended—

sprayed onto the skin, with no more than three

applications per day at a concentration of no more

than 50 percent—are far lower than the dangers

from mosquito-borne diseases, especially in the

tropics. Nevertheless, Corbel believes that DEET

deserves further investigation: “It’s funny that

after 60 years, there are still many things we don’t

know about this compound.” CYRUS MOULTON

65 Giant Snake Hints at Life in Hot Times In February researchers announced that they had uncovered the

60-million-year-old remains of Indiana Jones’s greatest nightmare:

Titanoboa, the biggest snake of all time. The bones of this 43-foot,

one-ton, crocodile-munching behemoth—found amid the remains

of an ancient rain forest—are helping scientists understand what

the earth was like when the climate was much warmer.

Snakes rely on external heat to regulate their body temperature,

and their size depends directly on the climate where they live. So

when a team of paleontologists unearthed several huge fossilized

snake vertebrae in a Colombian coal mine, the scientists were able

to deduce not only how big the creature was but also what the

temperatures were like in its era. Assuming the monster snake’s

metabolism was similar to that of its living relatives—anacondas

and boa constrictors—lead author Jason Head of the University of

Toronto at Mississauga estimates that equatorial Colombia must

have hovered around 90 degrees Fahrenheit on average, about

10 degrees warmer than the region is today.

The team’s � ndings, published in Nature, support the idea that

during warming periods, temperatures rise across the globe.

An opposing viewpoint holds that equatorial temperatures stay

roughly constant while excess heat accumulates in higher lati-

tudes. “Most climate models favor a hot equator,” says Paul

Koch, a paleontologist at the University of California at Santa

Cruz, who did not participate in the research.

Neither scenario would be particularly good news in the con-

text of modern climate change. Head notes that an overheated

equator could threaten a sizable portion of the earth’s biodiver-

sity and its people. “These areas are home to much of the earth’s

population,” he says. On the other hand, Titanoboa also shows

that rain forests can thrive at substantially higher temperatures

than they do in the modern Amazon. ANDREW GRANT

63 Did NASA’s Phoenix Find Liquid Water on Mars?Self-portraits taken by a NASA probe

on the surface of Mars may have pro-

vided our � rst glimpse of liquid water

on another planet. The Phoenix Mars

Lander, which touched down near the

planet’s north pole, was designed to

look only for ice frozen into the Martian

soil. But University of Michigan space

scientist Nilton Rennó says probe

images show blobs of liquid water

clinging to the lander’s titanium legs.

In an October paper in the Journal of

Geophysical Research, Rennó theorizes

that as Phoenix landed, its thrusters

displaced topsoil and splashed small

droplets of brine onto the probe’s legs.

Sodium and magnesium perchlorate

salts in the Martian soil may allow water

to remain liquid despite the extreme

cold, about –90 degrees Fahrenheit.

In successive images, the drops seem

to � ow downward and darken, as if

they are melting. “I think there is liquid

water on Mars right now,” Rennó says.

In a follow-up, he con� rmed that under

simulated Martian atmospheric condi-

tions, sodium salts do absorb water

vapor and form a liquid solution.

Michael Hecht of the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory disagrees with Rennó’s

assessment, saying the blobs could

merely be frost; Phoenix principal

investigator Peter Smith of the Univer-

sity of Arizona in Tucson thinks there is

not yet enough evidence to evalu-

ate the claim. “Whether you believe

Rennó’s case or not, though, he’s

created some interesting ideas that are

very relevant to future Mars research,”

Smith says. One intriguing possibility:

If � uid water does persist on Mars, life

that might have thrived there millions

of years ago, when the climate was

warmer and wetter, could be hang-

ing on in thin layers of salty water just

beneath the surface. ANDREW GRANT

The steep cliffs of

the Martian polar

ice cap.

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ASTRONOMY || MIND || BIOLOGY || TECHNOLOGY

67Giant Geysers From a Tiny MoonSaturn’s moon Enceladus seemed like a boring ball of

rock and ice—“until we fi gured out that it was spewing out

its insides,” says Hunter Waite, a space scientist at South-

west Research Institute. The fi rst major hint came in 2005,

when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft detected magnetic fi eld

distortions along with plumes of water vapor and ice erupt-

ing from its south pole. Last summer, two papers published

in Nature bolstered the possibility that the plumes originate

from buried reservoirs of liquid water (modeled below).

Waite and his colleagues reported that Cassini’s mass

spectrometer had caught a whiff of ammonia—an anti-

freeze that could keep water in a liquid state. Another

group, led by Frank Postberg of the University of Heidel-

berg, described fi nding sodium in the ice grains of Saturn’s

E ring, which is composed of material released by Enceladian

eruptions. Their discovery suggests the moon may have

a liquid ocean that, like Earth’s, picked up salt from rock,

Postberg says. A third team using Earth-based telescopes to

look for sodium near Enceladus came up empty, however.

Some scientists believe that pools of water lurk thou-

sands of feet below the frozen surface, while others think

the eruptions might be released directly from ice. More

answers should come soon: Cassini is scheduled to loop

by Enceladus several more times. MEGAN TALKINGTON

66 Girls Hit Puberty Earlier Around the WorldThe average age of puberty

is falling, according to a study

of 20,654 healthy Chinese girls

aged 3 to 20. On average the

girls developed breast buds by

9 and pubic hair by 11, notably

earlier than what used to be

the norm. A 15-year Danish

study similarly concludes that

girls today experience initial

breast development a year

earlier than they did in the early

1990s. Both reports are in sync

with a landmark 1997 study of

17,000 girls by the American

Academy of Pediatrics, which

found that Caucasian girls

were developing breasts 6 to

12 months earlier than they did

40 years ago.

Better nutrition—leading to

taller, heavier girls who mature

younger—probably plays a

role. Environmental exposure

to hormone-mimicking chemi-

cals may have an effect too.

Pediatrician Barbara Cromer of

Case Western Reserve Univer-

sity notes that many pesticides

and plastics contain synthetic

estrogens, and that cattle fat-

tened with estrogen have up to

� ve times as much of it in their

tissue as do untreated cattle.

“Early puberty could represent

a ‘canary in the coal mine’

for excessive estrogen in our

environment,” she says. If so,

the next generation of young

women are at greater risk of

health problems. Elevated

exposure to estrogen over

a long period is linked with

higher breast cancer rates in

adulthood and earlier onset of

risky sexual activity. JILL NEIMARK

68 200-Year-Old Cipher SolvedIn 1801 American mathematician

Robert Patterson sent a letter contain-

ing an encrypted message to Thomas

Jefferson. The president never � gured it

out, but this past March, mathematician

Lawren Smithline of the Center for Com-

munications Research in Princeton, New

Jersey, � nally cracked the code.

Patterson and Jefferson shared an

interest in cryptography. In his letter,

Patterson wrote that he had devised

the perfect cipher: simple, yet impossi-

ble to break without the key. It entailed

writing a message in vertical columns

on a grid, scrambling the grid’s horizon-

tal rows, and then inserting nonsense

letters at the start of each row. The key

consisted of numbers listing the proper

order of the rows and the number of

nonsense letters in each. Patterson

claimed that his message would stump

humanity “to the end of time.”

Smithline took on the challenge,

writing a computer program to test

different arrangements of rows and vari-

ous quantities of nonsense letters, and

zeroing in on options that produced the

most promising two-letter pairs. Pairs

like “qu” and “nt” suggested he was on

the right track, while combinations that

produced impossible neighbors like “vj”

and “dx” were rejected. After a week,

he exposed the mystery message as

words that Jefferson would have easily

recognized: the Preamble to the Decla-

ration of Independence. STEPHEN ORNES FR

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71 First Ground Animals Borrowed ShellsSome of the � rst

animals to venture onto

land commandeered

empty seashells for pro-

tection, according to an

April report in Geology.

Amherst College geolo-

gist Whitey Hagadorn

came to this realization

while studying imprints

in a 500-million-year-old

sandstone formation in

central Wisconsin. These

markings resembled oth-

er tracks thought to be

made by an early arthro-

pod, Protichnites, as it

dragged itself across an

ancient beach. But the

impressions exhibited

curious diagonal notches

between the leg prints

that puzzled Hagadorn.

He showed them to Yale

geologist Dolf Seilacher,

who noted that the

pattern resembled the

tracks created by mod-

ern hermit crabs as they

drag their shells.

Hermit crabs carry

shells on their backs

for protection and to

store water. Protichnites

probably used shells to

keep their abdominal

gills moist, Hagadorn

speculates. That would

have allowed the animals

to breathe and forage on

land for longer periods.

“Shells increased the

range of conditions

they could withstand,”

he says. Hagadorn is

following up on a related

development, the dis-

covery of a fossil of the

lobsterlike creature that

may have created the

tracks. JEREMY LABRECQUE

69 Prize-Driven Research Takes OffA growing number of organizations are taking a cue

from reality TV, offering prize money for successful

solutions to science and technology problems.

Three major prizes are currently up for grabs from

the X Prize Foundation, which aims to spur innovation.

The $10 million Archon X Prize will reward any group

or person who can sequence the human genome in

10 days or less for no more than $10,000 per genome.

So far, eight teams have registered. The $10 million

Progressive Automotive X Prize, recognizing high-

ef� ciency, commercially viable vehicles, completed

two rounds of judging this past year. Performance tests

will start in the spring of 2010, with winners announced

in September. And 21 teams are vying to land a pri-

vately funded rover on the moon in pursuit of the

$30 million Google Lunar X Prize. Last October a small-

er X Prize–operated contest, the Northrop Grumman

Lunar Lander Challenge, awarded $1 million to Masten

Space Systems and $500,000 to Armadillo Aerospace

for their progress in building a commercial rocket capa-

ble of safe vertical takeoff and landing, as demonstrat-

ed by successful tests in the Mojave Desert.

Other groups were also busy in 2009. Entries poured

in for the £10 million ($17 million) Saltire Prize, to be

awarded by the government of Scotland for wave or

tidal energy technology that can produce a continuous

output of 100 gigawatt-hours for two years. More than

100 teams will begin competition this month. In Septem-

ber, the DVD rental company Net� ix paid out a $1 mil-

lion purse to a seven-member team that developed an

algorithm to improve its predictions of customers’ movie

preferences. Net� ix plans to announce a sequel early

this year. Meanwhile, a company called InnoCentive

is hosting hundreds of open questions in science and

technology. Rewards range from $5,000 to $1 million.

X Prize founder Peter Diamandis thinks prize-based

innovation is much more than a fad: “Investments where

sponsors pay only for results are ef� cient, effective, low-

risk mechanisms to solve problems.” DARLENE CAVALIER

While digging for fossils in Pakistan,

paleontologist Philip Gingerich of the Uni-

versity of Michigan discovered the fossil

skeleton of a 47-million-year-old pregnant

whale with her fetus positioned for head-

fi rst delivery—a surprise since modern-

day whales are born tail-fi rst to prevent

drowning. The clear implication: Ancestral

whales may have given birth on land.

“Virtually all of mammal evolution has

occurred on land,” says Gingerich, who in

2001 described fossil evidence that whales

descended from split-hoofed mammals, a

fi nding that compounded earlier indications

of a genetic relationship between whales and

hippos. Fossils indicate that whales started

to make the transition from land to sea

Ancestral Whales May Have Given Birth on Land

about 50 million years ago. The pregnant

specimen, Maiacetus inuus, was found

near what was once a coastline. It probably

looked like a long-snouted sea lion, with

fl ipperlike limbs and a long, muscular body.

This intermediate species may have spent

most of its time in the water, coming onto

land to rest, mate, and give birth. A second,

even more complete Maiacetus fossil was

found nearby; it appears to be a male,

slightly larger.

Gingerich and team nearly overlooked

the two skeletons. “There was just a trace

of chalk dust on the ground,” he says. “I

thought it was nothing at fi rst, but when we

came to the mother’s skull, I knew this was

something special.” LINDSEY KONKEL

70

A ventral view

of the skull

of Maiacetus

inuus.

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ASTRONOMY || MEDICINE || EVOLUTION || ENERGY

74Hydrogen Energy Gets Two Big BoostsHydrogen fuel cells, which

expel only water and heat as

waste, are an appealing way to

generate clean electricity, but

the present technology relies on

expensive platinum catalysts.

Moreover, most of the hydrogen

available today is derived from

fossil fuels, so hydrogen is not

nearly as clean as it may seem.

This year, researchers made

notable progress in transcend-

ing both limitations.

Looking for an alternative

to platinum, Jean-Pol Dodelet

of the National Institute of

Scientifi c Research in Quebec,

found inspiration in the human

body, which uses iron-based

molecules to extract energy

from food. In April his group

described an enhanced

iron-based catalyst for fuel

cells. It works just as well as

platinum-based ones but could

be considerably less costly.

Chemist Daniel Nocera at MIT

is also looking to nature, trying to

fi nd a renewable way to generate

hydrogen. He has developed

a different catalyst—one that,

when coupled with a photovol-

taic cell, splits water into hydro-

gen and oxygen using energy

from sunlight,

just as plants

do during

photosynthe-

sis. Nocera

is working

to scale up

the system in

hopes that it

will bring clean,

abundant energy

to poor people living off

the grid. “With this,” he

says, “the only thing

you’re tied to is the

sun.” JOCELYN RICE

Illustration of how a pterosaur

might have launched using

all four limbs.

73 Venus Has a Secret PastThe fi rst detailed infrared map of Venus, unveiled by the Euro-

pean Space Agency (ESA) in July, suggests that Earth’s nearest

planetary neighbor may have had a watery past. In size, density,

and composition, Venus is the most Earth-like planet in the

solar system, but it is a hellish domain: Ground tempera-

tures settle around 860 degrees Fahrenheit beneath a

crushingly dense atmosphere laced with

a sulfuric acid haze. Thick clouds pre-

vent direct observation of the surface of

Venus, but its heated rocks emit infra-

red radiation that hints at their composi-

tion. Captured by ESA’s Venus Express

orbiter, this radiation indicates that the

highlands of the planet’s southern hemi-

sphere resemble granite, the same mate-

rial that makes up terrestrial continents. To

form, granite requires water, which does not

currently exist on Venus. It also requires plate tec-

tonics and volcanism—neither of which seems to be active at

this time either. The � nding suggests that the young Venus might

have been much like Earth, with oceans surrounding its extensive

landmasses, before a runaway greenhouse effect condemned it

to its bleak fate. ADAM HADHAZY

76

7572 Tiny Robots Prepare for Surgery Nobody is yet plotting to

shrink Raquel Welch and

inject her into your veins, but

engineers are making notable

progress toward the Fantastic

Voyage vision: creating

miniature probes that could

dart around in your blood and

treat disease from the inside.

This past year, mechani-

cal engineer James Friend

of Monash University in Aus-

tralia crafted a robot motor

just a quarter of a millimeter

in diameter and 2 millime-

ters long, smaller than the

head of a pin. It is built out of

piezoelectric materials that

vibrate when exposed to an

electric � eld. Those vibrations

can be converted into rotary

motion to propel a miniature

swimming robot. Inserted

into a patient, such a device

could transport catheters and

guide wires, carry a camera,

or deliver drugs to the site of

an injury. “It will increase the

ability of the doctor to see

and control what is happen-

ing during surgery,” Friend

says. His group is testing the

mini-motor in silicone models

of human arteries and plan-

ning even smaller versions.

Meanwhile, engineers at

Technion, the Israel Institute

of Technology, debuted Virob,

a buglike microbot that needs

no internal power source.

Instead, a magnetic � eld out-

side the body induces vibra-

tions in its legs, propelling it

forward. The Technion team

hopes to deploy Virob into

the ears of people suffering

from hearing loss, stimulating

nerve cells that lie beyond the

reach of cochlear implants.

BOONSRI DICKINSON

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Giant pterosaurs were masters of the

air from 108 million to 70 million years

ago. The biggest ones weighed 500

pounds, had a wingspan of 34 feet, fl ew

40 miles an hour, and covered hundreds of

miles a day. They were unable to launch

themselves like modern birds, though, so

how did these prehistoric giants get off

the ground? Common sense suggests they

must have run a long distance, built up

speed, and then leaped into the air.

Wrong, says Michael Habib, a paleontolo-

gist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.

“My fi ndings suggest there was no running

involved.” According to his analysis,

published in the European journal Zitteliana,

pterosaurs folded their wings so they could

act as arms and then used all four limbs to

shove themselves aloft. “Pterosaur arms

were much stronger than their legs,” he

77 Did an Early Pummeling of Asteroids Pave the Way for Life on Earth?The “late heavy bombardment” of asteroids that

clobbered Earth and the rest of the inner solar

system for 20 million to 100 million years, ending

3.85 billion years ago, is generally regarded as

one of the most hostile eras in our planet’s his-

tory. Collision after collision would have blasted

and heated the surface, wiping out any primordial

organisms trying to eke out an existence. New

studies are turning this view on its head, however,

hinting that the ancient rain of asteroids may actu-

ally have established a more congenial environ-

ment for biology to take hold.

There already were clues that the late heavy

bombardment was not the full-on killer it was

once thought to be, says planetary scientist Oleg

Abramov of the University of Colorado. The ear-

liest evidence for living organisms dates back

almost exactly to the time when the rain of aster-

oids ended. Unless life appeared nearly instantly,

it must have survived the onslaught. Abramov’s

study, published in the May 21 issue of Nature,

shows how that could have happened. Certain

modern bacteria thrive deep underground; their

ancestors may have done the same, he argues.

In fact, some scientists think life might have

originated in subsurface hydrothermal sys-

tems. “Nobody had calculated how far steriliza-

tion would have extended below the surface,”

Abramov says. He and his coauthor, geochemist

Stephen Mojzsis, also of the University of Colo-

rado, found that if early bacteria were living more

than 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) down, the impacts

could have helped life by creating more hot-water-

� lled cracks for microbes to inhabit.

Soon after, the late heavy bombardment might

have aided life on the surface, too. Back then the

sun was so dim that Earth should have frozen solid,

and yet geochemical evidence indicates the pres-

ence of oceans 4 billion years ago. One proposed

explanation is that heat-trapping greenhouse

gases kept things balmy, but it was not clear

where those gases could have come from.

In August, geochemist Richard Court of

Imperial College London published

a report showing that impacting

rocks would have shed tremendous

quantities of carbon dioxide and

water vapor, both of which effectively

trap heat. “People had always known that the bom-

bardment would have changed the atmosphere’s

chemistry,” he says, “but nobody had really done

the experimental work.” MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

Yes, You Really Can Smell Fear

says. “Together the wings could withstand

more than 2,000 pounds of force in launch

position. They would crouch down on all

fours, vault, and push off.” Once airborne,

the giant creatures would snap their wings

into fl ying position and eventually soar.

Habib used CAT scans to analyze

bone strength in a number of species

of living birds and compared them to

measurements taken from 12 species of

pterosaurs. He could fi nd no evidence to

support the idea that large pterosaurs got

off the ground using only their hind legs

to launch. In this regard they resembled

vampire bats, which use a “quadrupedal

launch” to accelerate quickly, Habib says.

This kind of launch allows the bat to

employ its strongest muscles (in forelimbs

and chest) for takeoff. JANE BOSVELD

“The smell of fear” turns out to have a foundation in science. All sweat

smells—and some sweat screams anxiety to the world, according to a study

published in June in PLoS One. “The chemical transfer of anxiety may cause a

feeling of discomfort in the perceiver. It’s like a sixth sense,” says psychologist

Bettina Pause of the University of Düsseldorf in Germany, one of the authors of

the paper. Pause and her colleagues collected sweat from 49 students at two

times—right before a university exam and during exercise. The researchers

then had other students sniff the samples and scanned their brains with fMRI,

which registers activity. Sniffers’ brains responded to sweat made during an

anxious period differently from sweat produced through physical exertion. In

humans, anxious sweat activates a cluster of brain areas known to be involved

in empathy. “That suggests,” Pause says, “that anxiety—and maybe also other

emotions—can be chemically transferred between people.” JANE BOSVELD

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In the heart

of the National

Ignition Facility

(NIF), a techni-

cian inspects the

optics assem-

bly where 192

powerful laser

beams will zap a

pellet fi lled with

deuterium and

tritium, two

heavy forms

of hydrogen.

The pellet will

immediately

implode, reaching

a temperature of

more than 100

million degrees at

a pressure

100 billion times

that of Earth’s

atmosphere.

Under those

conditions the

hydrogen will

fuse into helium,

releasing a vast

amount of

energy and creat-

ing the kinds of

nuclear processes

that occur deep

inside the

sun. The NIF,

dedicated in May

in Livermore,

California, will

also mimic the

detonation of

nuclear weapons

and will perform

astrophysics

experiments.

Research at

the facility

could speed the

development of

abundant, clean

fusion power

—literally the

stars brought

down to Earth.

AMY BARTH

Star Power Comes to California78

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79 80 Chimps Plan AheadAs a group, humans know how to think about the future. We are the species of agendas, delayed grati� cation, and � ve-year plans. But this year two studies found that chimpan-zees premeditate too.

In one study, a chimp named Santino—the dominant male at Furuvik Zoo in Gävle, Sweden—was observed collecting and piling caches of stones, then returning later to hurl them at people who had come to look at him. Mathias Osvath, a cognitive scientist at Lund Uni-

81 Human Gene Changes Mouse TalkHow important was a single gene in the evolu-tion of human language? Scientists have been asking that question since linking a mutation in a gene called FOXP2 with a rare hereditary speech disorder seen in a British family. Other animals possess their own versions of FOXP2, suggesting that it might be possible to deter-mine which evolutionary changes to the gene’s DNA sequence are most closely related to our ability to talk. This year molecular biologist Wolfgang Enard of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, explored that possibility with an extraordinary

versity in Sweden, posits that Santino may be showing off his strength to human visitors and other chimps. “He has a great time scaring visitors,” Osvath says, “and as the group’s dominant male, he is showing the other chimps that he can protect them.”

A kind of Darwinian quest for survival underlies the second thread of evidence as well. That study comes from behavioral ecologist Chris-tophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolution-ary Anthropology, who spent years observing wild chimpan-zees in the Taï National Park in

Côte d’Ivoire. Boesch and his fellow researchers found that male chimps frequently had sex with the females they had previously shared meat with, thus increasing their mating success. The female chimps, for their part, thrived because of their increased caloric intake. The way the chimps hoard food makes Boesch suspect that the animals plot such trades ahead of time. “But we want to know more about their planning abilities,” he says. “How long ahead and how detailed is this planning, and is there some kind of hierarchical way that they plan?” JANE BOSVELD

An adult male chimp (right) offers meat to a female carrying her infant.

experiment: He inserted the human version of FOXP2 into mice and studied the effects on the creatures’ brains and vocalizations.

Enard and his collaborators found that neu-rons in the brains of mice with human FOXP2

showed greater plasticity, the ability to change the strength of their connections with one another. Such plasticity might be involved in vocal learning, he suspects. Mice endowed with the human gene also expressed themselves with lower-pitched sounds. Those deeper squeaks provide additional evidence of FOXP2’s central role in spoken language. “We have no clue which mechanisms could cause such a change,” Enard says, “but we don’t know of any other gene so directly linked to speech.” ALLISON BOND

PHYSICS || MEDICINE || BIOLOGY || ANTHROPOLOGY

Black Hole Created in LabIn June researchers at Technion,

the Israel Institute of Technology,

announced they had made an earth-

bound analogue of a black hole. Not to

worry: Instead of a superdense object

from which no light can escape, their

more docile version merely prevents

sound waves from getting out.

Constructing a sonic black hole

was first proposed by Canadian

physicist William Unruh nearly 30

years ago, but the Israeli team was

the fi rst to successfully create one.

They cooled 100,000 rubidium atoms

to a few billionths of a degree above

absolute zero and used a laser to cre-

ate a void in this tiny cloud. As the

atoms, attracted to the breach, zipped

across it at more than four times the

speed of sound, they gave rise to a

black hole effect. Under such con-

ditions, no sound wave could travel

against the fl ow of the racing fl uid.

“It’s like trying to swim upstream

in a river whose current is faster

than you,” says team member Jeff

Steinhauer. The boundary between

the subsonic and supersonic fl ows

mimics a black hole’s event horizon,

the point of no return.

The discovery could potentially

provide a way to test Stephen Hawk-

ing’s prediction that a real black hole

should slowly evaporate as it emits

radiation generated in the quantum

turmoil at its event horizon. A sonic

black hole ought to act in the same

way by releasing phonons, or packets

of sound energy. Finding phonons

would provide strong evidence that

black holes “ain’t so black,” as Hawk-

ing likes to put it. MARCIA BARTUSIAK

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83 Light Can Bend ItselfIn July engineers demonstrat-

ed that beams of light can be

made to repel each other, much

like repulsive electric charges.

The discovery could help

control data transfer through

the Internet and enable cell

phones to work more quickly

while drawing less power.

The � ndings from Yale Uni-

versity electrical engineer Hong

Tang and his team build on

discoveries they announced in

late 2008, in which they dem-

onstrated the opposite effect:

attraction between light beams

con� ned within a silicon chip.

Together, the attraction and

repulsion effects make up

what is known as the “opti-

cal force,” a phenomenon

that theorists � rst predicted in

2005. The force acts along an

axis perpendicular to the direc-

tion in which light is traveling.

Parallel beams can therefore

be induced to converge or

diverge.

Tang proposes that the opti-

cal force could be exploited

in telecommunications. For

example, switches based on

the optical force could be

used to speed up the routing

of light signals in fiber-optic

cables, and optical oscillators

could improve cell phone sig-

nal processing. Unfortunately

for amateur physicists, the

optical force effect becomes

imperceptible for larger light

sources, so � ashlight beams

cannot tug on one another.

“You need a transistor-size

object to see it,” Tang says.

STEPHEN ORNES

Light-wave

circuit

enables

engineers

to study

the newly

discovered

optical force.

Computer reconstruction of an ancient deformed skull shows that the

child to whom it belonged must have been nurtured. Such a brain

deformity would have made the child unable to surive without assistance.

82 Early Humans Tended the DisabledThe 530,000-year-old de -

formed skull of a child found

in Spain indicates that some

early humans must have nur-

tured and cared for disabled

members of their tribe.

This child, estimated to be

10 years old at the time of

death, had a debilitating birth

defect called craniosynosto-

sis, in which joints in the skull

fuse before the brain has � n-

ished growing. The disorder

increases pressure in the skull,

impairing brain development.

“It is amazing that this child

was able to survive until 10

years old. This is the most

ancient proof of social care of

the handicapped,” says Ana

Gracia, a paleoanthropologist

based in Madrid, who pub-

lished an analysis of the skull

in March in Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences.

Many mammals kill burden-

some offspring, she points out.

The child, unearthed in the

Atapuerca Mountains of Spain,

belonged to the species Homo

heidelbergensis and was prob-

ably part of a small tribe of

hunter-gatherers who migrat-

ed in response to food and

weather. “Survival would have

been dif� cult even for healthy

individuals,” Gracia says. “The

incredible part of this story is

that the parents must have

looked after this child.”

The discovery was made in

Sima de Los Huesos—“the Pit

of Bones.” Located at the bot-

tom of a 137-foot-deep chim-

ney inside a cave, the pit is

littered with remains of ancient

animals and also includes

about 28 hominid skeletons

dating back to the Middle

Pleistocene. AMY BARTH

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On July 19, 15 years after the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet slammed

into Jupiter, Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley noticed

a dark spot near the planet’s south pole that resembled marks he

had seen after the 1994 crash. NASA scientists took a closer look

and concluded that another comet or asteroid had slammed into

Jupiter with the force of 2 billion tons of TNT. The Hubble Space

Telescope snapped this photo four days later, showing an enigmatic

cloud spread out by Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere. ANDREW GRANT

84Jupiter Gets Comet-Whacked

ASTRONOMY || ENVIRONMENT

85Plankton Record Earth’s CO2 History

Trace elements trapped in ancient plankton reveal that

atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been largely stable

over the last 2.1 million years. In a study published in

Science in June, paleoceanographer Bärbel Hönisch and

colleagues at Columbia University examined the remnants

of planktonic foraminifera—single-celled creatures with

elaborate shells—buried beneath the seafl oor off the coast

of Africa. The plankton incorporate different forms of boron

into their shells, depending on the seawater’s acidity, so

each shell serves as a chemical record of the ocean’s pH

during its occupant’s brief life. The sea’s acidity, in turn,

refl ects how much carbon dioxide was present in the

atmosphere at the time. By analyzing boron in shells accu-

mulated over more than 2 million years, Hönisch was able

to reconstruct in unprecedented detail how atmospheric

carbon dioxide levels have changed over time.

As expected, carbon dioxide fl uctuated with variations

in local temperature, with higher levels corresponding to

warmer epochs. But despite major shifts in the climate

over the period she studied, Hönisch found that overall con-

centrations of the gas remained remarkably constant. That

makes today’s sky-high readings look even more anoma-

lous. “It really shows how much we have interfered with

the environment,” Hönisch says. “This goes way beyond

anything that earth has seen in a really long time.” The

researchers now want to dig deeper below the seafl oor,

where plankton have been piling up for some 100 million

years, to study times when carbon dioxide levels were as

high as they are today. JOCELYN RICE

Plankton shells show that CO2 levels have never been so high in 2 million years.

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ADVERTISEMENT

Scientists have made significant contributions to the safety and well-being of the human race. They have identified laws of nature that explain the functioning of the universe, Earth’s flora and fauna, and especially of the physical activities of Homo sapiens. But “why” planet Earth and its occupants exist is still an admitted mystery to them. What follows explains an important part of that mystery.

For millennia great developmental progress has taken mankind from a simple desire to survive to our present complex systems of social laws and inherited customs. Most readers would agree that despite those man-made systems, human affairs are still in a state of confusion with problems and trouble growing daily.

We have races pitted against one another, political groups pitted against one another, as well as individuals who pit themselves against one another in their careers, marriages, and sports to name a few obvious areas.

An appropriate question is, Why? Our answer fol-lows: From the beginning people have been living by their own laws of behavior and inherited customs, but those man-made systems contradict a natural law, causing people to get wrong, troublesome results.

That natural law was identified by Richard W. Wetherill almost a century ago and was presented in his book, Tower of Babel, published January 2, 1952. It is a law of behavior that Wetherill called the law of absolute right, indicating that rightness in all human activities is required for successful outcomes.

As a result of Wetherill’s identification of the law, he developed a program called humanetics to ex-plain the wrongness of people’s attitudes and behav-ior and how to correct them. Wrongness has not only been destroying people’s lives but also increasingly is damaging the environment that supports the life of the planet.

When scientists identify natural laws, they apply their principles to better human existence and well-being—that is, usually, until the nuclear age developed. Scientists could now investigate nature’s behavioral law and help to inform people of its principles. Wetherill used words to describe right behavior such as rational, honest, logical, and moral but cautioned that words

are just symbols. The law is the final arbiter: Right begets right results; wrong begets wrong results.

What are society’s results? Are people rational and honest? Or do they act on their own motives to do, be, have, get, and become whatever they desire?

People know they must obey nature’s laws of grav-ity, friction, and all the other laws of physics, but for nearly a century scientists, religionists, educators, and the public have resisted acknowledging creation’s law of rightness. Is that sane?

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For millennia people have reasoned from man-made laws and inherited customs over and over again, expecting a different result. Instead, over and over again, humanity has been getting incalculable wrong results. Is that sane?

This essay/ad provides a brief description of the behavior that natural law requires of us. Are we going to comply and get out of the muddled mess of human affairs being caused by acting on man-made laws?

Visit our colorful Website www.alphapub.com where essays and books describe the changes called for by whoever or whatever created nature’s law of absolute right. The material can be read and down-loaded free. As people worldwide visit our Website, they can join those who are already benefiting from adhering to the behavioral law with rational and honest thoughts, words, and action.

That is creation’s way to change what is wrong until everything is made right: perfectly behaving people on the one planet in this universe that sup-ports life as we know it!

This public-service message is from a self-financed, nonprofit group of former students of the late Richard W. Wetherill.

Richard W. Wetherill1906-1989

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We’ve been analyzing other

possible failure modes and

making sure none of them

would have unfortunate con-

sequences. Most of that work

is done, but there are still some

other precautions people

want to take. Those would be

necessary before we go to

maximum energy. For 2010

the plan is to start up at half

energy, then in a few weeks or

months go to about three-

quarters energy. Full energy

won’t be possible until 2011.

When will you start making

particles collide again?

We might see some half-power

collisions before the end of

2009. That would require

quite a lot of luck. It’s like

NASA’s launching a space

probe. If you discover a faulty

valve reading somewhere or

other, you have to go back and

check it. It’s one thing to make

collisions; it’s another to under-

stand what’s going on and � nd

new physics.

Will you be able to do nota-

ble science at half power?

Already at half power, particles

will be colliding at energies

beyond what has been

achieved with any previous

accelerator. Just to put this

into perspective, the energy

distance between half power

and the Tevatron accelerator

[at Fermilab in Illinois] is greater

than the difference between

the Tevatron and the previous

collider. As soon as we make

half-power collisions, we’ll

be seeing beyond what the

Tevatron can see. That should

be enough to start looking for

high-pro� le items on the shop-

ping list, like dark matter. The

Higgs boson [the hypothetical

particle that endows other

particles with mass] would not

be seen immediately. That’s a

real tough cookie.

How will the LHC aid the

search for dark matter?

Dark matter by de� nition

consists of something you

can’t see. So the way you

would detect it is by observing

events in which some particle

carries away energy invisibly.

You observe something by its

absence, so to speak. That

is pretty delicate because

you have to make sure you

couldn’t possibly have missed

anything more conventional.

You have to demonstrate

that you can see and mea-

sure accurately all the known

particles—muons, quarks, and

so on. When the experiment-

ers have demonstrated that

they can measure all those

things accurately, then they will

be able to start convincing us

that they can really measure

whether there’s any miss-

ing energy. There have been

false alarms in the past, when

people have thought they were

seeing missing energy. So you

have to be very, very careful.

What about supersymmetric

particles—hypothetical parti-

cles that are like weird twins

of the known ones? Will the

LHC look for those, too?

Supersymmetry is one

example of something that

could explain dark matter. But

the two are not equivalent.

You could imagine a scenario

in which supersymmetric par-

ticles do not produce missing

energy and do not make dark

matter. So if you do see miss-

ing energy, you have to ask if

it’s a result of supersymmetry;

The world’s greatest particle-smasher gears up for a second try. Physicist JOHN ELLIS previews what will happen when the fi reworks resume.

There’s been a lot of

downtime at CERN. What

have you been doing—long

lunches in the cafeteria?

People are working their butts

off, bashing away on their

computers. Experimentalists

are using this time to work on

the alignments of their detec-

tors, the data acquisition sys-

tem, and all that. There haven’t

been any idle moments. One

upside of the delay is that the

experiments are really ready to

take collision data.

What happens next?

The damage that occurred in

2008 has been fully repaired.

The biggest particle accelerator ever made—the Large Hadron

Collider in Geneva—spectacularly fi zzled shortly after scientists

turned it on in September 2008. What felled the gargantuan

machine was a single badly soldered connection. When the

powerful electrical currents running through the LHC came to

bear on that tiny piece of solder, the resulting heat set off a

cascade of events, ending in a sudden release of helium that

blew aside several of the collider’s massive superconducting

magnets. The staff at the European Organization for Nuclear

Research, or CERN, spent the past year repairing the damage,

inspecting tens of thousands of connections, and bolting down

the magnets in case of another accident. By the end of 2009,

CERN scientists were ready to start again, using the LHC to

investigate the deepest mysteries in physics—including why

matter has mass. John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN

who has been involved in the project for 25 years, talked with

DISCOVER about the repairs and the prospects for the LHC.

86

text by FRED GUTERL photography by ROBERT HUBER

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the energy might also be going

into extra dimensions, or there

might be some other explana-

tion. There would be a long

period in which you would try

to � gure it out. You can also

imagine supersymmetry sce-

narios that don’t involve miss-

ing energy at all. Those would

be quite tricky to look for.

Could you fi nd some sign of

the Higgs boson early on,

while operating at half or

three-quarters energy?

Finding the Higgs boson is

a question of seeing a signal

against a background. It’s

not as if you would produce

an event so distinctive that it

couldn’t possibly be anything

other than the Higgs. So

you would have to build up

statistics to convince people

that the signal you’re seeing

is the real deal. At half or

three-quarters power, we will

be able to start looking for the

characteristics of the Higgs

boson, but it will take quite a

bit of time to � nd.

If there were another big fail-

ure of the LHC, would that be

the end of particle physics?

If we never got the thing run-

ning reliably, that would be the

end, because nobody would

trust us to build anything else.

I don’t see that happening.

What happened on the day of

the � rst start-up was not typi-

cal—it was just one of those

things. You drive a new car

and get a punch in a tire, but

that doesn’t mean you’ll get a

punch every � ve miles. You put

on a new set of tires, and after

that the car normally works. It’s

worth remembering that the

problem didn’t arise in some

high-tech component. It was a

simple soldering problem.

The lengthy repairs must be

agonizing to people like you,

who have waited so long for

results from the LHC.

You bet. It has been even more

frustrating for the accelerator

guys, who, when they started

up, thought they would be

able to produce collisions very

soon. It has also been frustrat-

ing for many of the experimen-

talists, who thought they were

going to be able to start doing

physics, many of them having

spent 10 years in preparation.

The atmosphere has been very

subdued. Now I can feel the

fever mounting a little bit.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 | 75

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MEDICINE || EARTH

8887 Mockingbirds Know Who You AreDon’t mock the mockingbirds,

because they can recognize you...

and they hold a grudge. Doug

Levey, a biologist at the University

of Florida, found that the birds

could easily pick out a threatening

person from a crowd.

Levey sent students, called

“intruders” in the paper he

published last May in the journal

PNAS, to perturb nests of mock-

ingbirds. The intrusion constituted

standing by an egg-� lled nest for

15 seconds, then touching it for

an additional 15 seconds. This

aggressive loitering, which was

repeated over four days, elicited

an increasingly intense response.

The mockingbirds ignored the

approach of other, nonthreaten-

ing students, but every time the

intruder student swung by, the

birds quickly and sneakily left

the nest and eventually dive-

bombed the malefactor. “The

� rst time a male mockingbird

drew blood on the back of my

neck, I was shocked,” says

intruder Monique Hiersoux.

Mockingbirds’ strong aware-

ness of their surroundings makes

them well suited for living so

close to humans, Levey con-

cludes. “We might be walk-

ing along on campus and see

a mockingbird perched on a

branch and think, ‘Oh, that bird

is minding its own business,’ ” he

says. “But what we don’t realize

is that we are its business.”

MICHAEL ABRAMS

This past September, a pair of research

teams announced that they had identified

three new genes associated with Alzheimer’s

disease. The scientists also tagged another

12 gene variants as promising candidates for

further study. Previously, only four genes were

known to be linked to Alzheimer’s, which

affects an estimated 5 million Americans.

Both reports appeared in Nature Genetics.

To pinpoint the new genes, the two groups

conducted studies looking for differences

between the DNA of people who have Alz-

heimer’s disease and those who do not. Epi-

demiologist Philippe Amouyel of the Pasteur

Institute of Lille in France and his colleagues

closed in on genes called CR1 and CLU. The

precise function of these genes is unknown,

but previous research suggests they may be

involved in removing a protein fragment called

beta-amyloid from the brain. In people with

Alzheimer’s, beta-amyloid molecules clump

Alzheimer’s Genes Located together and form destructive plaques.

The other team, led by medical psychol-

ogist Julie Williams of Cardiff University

in Wales, noted the same CLU gene and

identi� ed another Alzheimer’s-related gene,

PICALM. This gene is thought to help main-

tain the health of synapses, the connection

points between neurons, and it, too, may

regulate beta-amyloid levels in the brain.

These findings mark “the first time any

novel Alzheimer’s gene has been identi� ed

in genomewide studies,” says Washing-

ton University geneticist Alison Goate, one

of Williams’s coauthors. Previous studies

had examined small numbers of people to

con� rm already-known genetic risk factors.

Locating new Alzheimer’s genes will aid

efforts to understand the chemical pathways

that drive the disease, Amouyel says, and

might eventually point the way to effective

drugs to keep it at bay. BOONSRI DICKINSON

89 Radiation Is WhatTurns Your Hair GraySooner or later almost everyone’s hair goes gray, but the

cause has never been clear. Last spring a team of Japa-

nese researchers said they think they have found the trigger:

radiation-induced stress.

Within every hair follicle is a population of melanocyte stem

cells. Over time these cells split into two populations. One pro-

duces pigment for the hair before dying off, while the other

becomes a new melanocyte stem cell. In a stress-free world,

these cells would replenish themselves inde� nitely and we

would keep our youthful hair color until our dying day (baldness

notwithstanding). But stress free this world is not—nor is the lab

of dermatologist Emi Nishimura at Kanazawa University. There,

she and her colleagues bombarded brown- and black-haired

mice with DNA-damaging radiation. The consequences, as

described in a paper published in Cell this June: The melano-

cytes that originally went on to rejuvenate instead only matured

and died. The brown- and black-haired mice soon went gray.

Researchers posit that the melanocyte die-off may be a

way for the body to shed potentially cancerous, radiation-

stressed cells. It is too early to blame your spouse for your

silver strands, though—emotional stress has not yet been

shown to harm stem cells. MICHAEL ABRAMS

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90 Oldest Octopus UnveiledNinety-fi ve million years ago, � ve octo-

puses met their end in the waters covering

what is now Lebanon. The lack of oxygen

on the local sea� oor kept the area free of

bottom-dwelling scavengers, and sediment

quickly covered the animals’ corpses, pre-

serving them in unprecedented detail. Last

January paleobiologist Dirk Fuchs of the

Free University of Berlin and his colleagues

released their analysis of these fossils—the

most ancient octopods known.

Due to their delicate construction, octo-

puses have left almost no evolutionary trail

to follow. “The preservation of these soft-

bodied creatures is the result of a chain of

lucky chances,” Fuchs says. Previously

only a single species of prehistoric octopus

had turned up in the fossil record, so the

new � nds represent an explosion of informa-

tion about the animals’ history.

The � ve individuals include three previ-

ously unrecorded octopus species: Keuppia

hyperbolaris, Keuppia levante, and Sty-

letoctopus annae. Each specimen shows

the animal’s head, eight arms, ink sacs, and

suckers. The two Keuppia species appear

primitive, but Fuchs was surprised to � nd

that Styletoctopus’s anatomy places it in the

same family as Octopus vulgaris, the living

common octopus. “Its appearance indicates

that modern octopods developed much

earlier than previously thought,” he says.

SAM KISSINGER

A rare octopus fossil from

the time of the dinosaurs,

seen here in ultraviolet light.

91 Oxygen’s Odd OriginRoughly 2.4 billion years ago,

a rapid buildup of oxygen in the

atmosphere set in motion big

changes that allowed multicellu-

lar life to emerge. Most scientists

believe photosynthetic bacteria

produced the oxygen. The driv-

ing force behind the transition

has been unclear, though.

In April, new research showed

that our planet itself might have

been the primary cause: Today’s

oxygen-� lled atmosphere may

owe its existence to a dramatic

decline in nickel in the world’s

oceans. In a study published in

Nature, a team led by geomicro-

biologist Kurt Konhauser of the

University of Alberta in Canada

examined rocks from around the

world known as banded iron for-

mations (right), which contain a

sequentially layered record of

the concentrations of various

elements in the ancient oceans.

Their analysis showed a drop

of almost 50 percent in oceanic

nickel levels between 2.7 and

2.5 billion years ago.

According to Konhauser,

this “nickel famine” coincided

with the cooling of the earth’s

mantle, which curtailed volcanic

eruptions of nickel-rich lava.

Deprived of this source of nick-

el, marine methane-producing

bacteria known as methano-

gens—which require nickel to

function—would have been

sidelined, paving the way for

the rise of photosynthetic, oxy-

gen-producing cyanobacteria.

Konhauser marvels at the

interdependence of geology,

chemistry, and biology that the

research reveals. “It links vol-

canism and trace elements in

seawater to changing popula-

tions in the biosphere,” he says,

“which in turn led to changes

in the earth’s atmosphere that

made the rise of complex life-

forms possible.” JEREMY JACQUOT

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 | 77

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Getting away from it all is harder than ever, according to a new map

developed by Andy Nelson for the European Commission’s Joint Research

Centre and the World Bank. An ever-expanding network of roads, railways,

rivers and shipping lanes means that only 10 percent of the earth’s surface is

now remote, de� ned as being at least 48 hours away from a major city. More

than half of the world‘s population lives within an hour of a major city, largely

because “accessibility is a precondition for the satisfaction of almost any

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92

economic or social need,” Nelson says. “The main story of the map is connec-

tivity. It brings home how important it is to manage our resources, lifestyles,

and economies in a sustainable manner, since we are all interdependent, and

shows the remote places left behind. It also reminds us that the price of connec-

tivity is that there is little wilderness left.” The brightest areas of the map represent

the most densely populated and accessible regions; the darkest areas are the

sparsest and most remote. Spanning lines show shipping lanes. HEATHER MAYER

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 | 79

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93 Einstein’s Brain Re-AnalyzedThere has been yet another attempt to identify the unique traits

of Einstein’s brain, this one by anthropologist Dean Falk of Florida

State University in Tallahassee. Falk did not have access to the

actual brain, so she used techniques developed for the examina-

tion of fossils and applied them to photographs of Einstein’s brain

taken after his death. In a study published in Frontiers in

Evolutionary Neuroscience last May, Falk reports that

the brain exhibited “an unusual mixture of sym-

metrical and asymmetrical features” that may

have contributed to Einstein’s genius.

For one thing, the parietal lobes of the great scien-

tist’s brain were wider than normal (something that other research-

ers have noted in the past), and its grooves and ridges were oddly

patterned. These details are important, Falk says, because the

brain’s parietal lobes process numbers; they also integrate sensory

information from different parts of the body. She believes that the

novelties in Einstein’s lobes may have contributed to his “prefer-

ence for thinking in sensory impressions, including visual images

rather than words.”

Falk also observed a small, knoblike structure coming off the

right motor cortex, an area of the brain that controls the � ngers of

the left hand. This knob is sometimes seen in the brains of right-

handed string players who train from a young age. Einstein was

an avid violinist from childhood on. “It tickled me,” Falk says, “that

the knob may well have been tied to Einstein’s musical ability.”

The cognitive connection between music and mathematics has, of

course, been noted for many years. JANE BOSVELD

Two colonies of butterflies

flapped their wings in north-

ern England and the resulting

debate was felt around the

world. In February a group led

by biologist Stephen G. Wil-

lis of Durham University in the

U.K. reported that they had

introduced two butterfly spe-

cies—known as the mar-

bled white (left) and the

small skipper—into

new habitats about

40 miles and 22 miles,

respectively, from their

homes. The move was a

success, Willis’s six-year

study showed. The trans-

planted species increased

their populations at the same

rate as they would have in their

current territory, proving that

the team’s models accurately

predicted habitats suitable for

the insects. Willis says that

he undertook the experiment

because temperature increas-

es are outpacing the butter-

� ies’ ability to compensate by

spreading northward.

Months earlier, marine biolo-

gist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and

colleagues, writing in the journal

Science, proposed a broader

program of relocating organ-

isms that are facing extinction

due to climate change. Dis-

mayed scientists raised the

alarm, pointing to the devas-

tating effects of species intro-

ductions such as the invasive

kudzu vine. But Willis notes that

he chose two thoroughly stud-

ied species that were unlikely to

become invasive. “It would not

have been good for our careers

if we introduced the next cane

toad,” he says. That unpopular

creature was brought to Austra-

lia to control agricultural pests

and quickly became a pest

itself. CYRUS MOULTON

Species Transplant Succeeds

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It happened on our last trip to SouthAmerica. After visiting the “Lost City” of

Machu Picchu in Peru, we venturedthrough the mountains and down theAmazon into Brazil. In an old village wemet a merchant with an impressive collec-tion of spectacular, iridescent emeralds.Each gem was tumbled smooth and glistened like a perfect rain forest dew drop.But the price was so unbelievable, I was sureour interpreter had made a mistake.

But there was no mistake. And after return-ing home, I had 20 carats of these exquisiteemeralds strung up in 14k gold andwrapped as a gift for my wife’s birthday.That’s when my trouble began. She lovedit. Absolutely adored it. In fact, she rarelygoes anywhere without the necklace andhas basked in compliments from totalstrangers for months now.

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To make matters worse, my wife’s becomeobsessed with emeralds. She can’t stopsharing stories about how Cleopatra

cherished thegreen gem aboveall others and howemeralds wereworshiped by theIncas and Mayansand prized bySpanish conquis-tadors and Indianmaharajahs. She’seven buying intoancient beliefsthat emeraldsbring intelligence,well-being andgood luck to anyone who wears them. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’mnever going to find another deal this lucky.

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ANTHROPOLOGY || ENERGY || EVOLUTION || BIOLOGY || MIND

Right: Ring-tailed lemurs in tropical Madagascar.

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95 Hidden Civilization Found Under Lake HuronTraces of an ancient caribou

hunting ground lie buried beneath

Lake Huron, according to archae-

ologist John O’Shea at the Univer-

sity of Michigan. Modern Siberian

herders manage reindeer migra-

tion by chopping down trees and

laying them on the ground, he

noted; the animals instinctively

follow these “drive lanes.” O’Shea

has found evidence that Paleo-

Americans did the same thing

thousands of years ago, when the

climate around the Great Lakes

was similarly Arctic-like.

On land, old drive lanes would

be quickly disrupted and become

unrecognizable. In the middle of

Lake Huron, however, such lanes

could have been buried when

lake water levels rose rapidly

about 7,500 years ago, after the

end of the last ice age. Equipped

with sonar and remote-operated

underwater vehicles, O’Shea and

a team of University of Michigan

colleagues plunged through the

dark waters to look around. They

found thousand-foot-long lines of

rocks peppered with large boul-

ders, which strongly resemble the

drive lanes used by prehistoric

hunters in the Canadian Arctic.

The rocks have been buried there

for more than 7,000 years.

“This has potential to fill an

important gap in knowledge of

cultural development,” O’Shea

says. The discovery also leaves

him wondering what other relics

lie hidden beneath Lake Huron.

“The features are subtle,” he

says. “I’m sure people have

passed over these areas with

sonars running and not recog-

nized them for what they are.”

O’Shea plans to send divers back

to the 28-square-mile site in pur-

suit of further evidence, including

stone tools and preserved animal

remains. AMY BARTH

96 Microbes Build Better BatteriesIn the never-ending search

for improved ways to store

energy, two groups are

looking to biology, enlisting

microbes to produce methane

and viruses to build batteries.

Penn State environmen-

tal engineer Bruce Logan

and his colleagues identi-

� ed micro organisms called

methanogens that ef� ciently

reduce carbon dioxide to

methane. When the microbes

receive an electric jolt, Logan

reported in March, they use

the electrons to combine

CO2 and protons, creating

methane gas. Methane can

be stored and later used to

fuel a vehicle or run a genera-

tor. Exploiting the microbes’

chemistry might be a way

to make inconsistent energy

sources like wind and solar

more practical.

Along the same lines, MIT

materials scientist Angela

Belcher has engineered

viruses to help store electric-

ity. Her genetically modi� ed

bacteriophages (viruses

that infect bacteria) cloak

themselves in iron phosphate,

a metal salt, then attach to

carbon nanotubes to produce

a framework of microscopic

conductive wires that can

hold a charge just like a car

battery. Genetic tweaks

enabled the virus to bind

tightly to the carbon nano-

tube, creating a high-powered

battery, as she described in a

May issue of Science. Unlike

traditional battery manufac-

turing, the process requires

no toxic chemicals and

can be set up very cheaply.

Belcher is working to improve

the batteries’ storage capac-

ity further by experimenting

with different virus-coat

materials.

ELIZABETH SVOBODA

97 Tropical Heat Speeds Up EvolutionIf alien biologists were on an expedition to Earth, it would

not take long for them to realize that there are a lot more

species in the tropics than there are in temperate regions.

“It’s the biggest, most obvious pattern in nature,” says Len

Gillman, an evolutionary ecologist at Auckland University

of Technology in New Zealand. Why that pattern exists has

been a long-standing puzzle. This year, however, Gillman

found a possible answer: A warm climate makes life evolve

more quickly.

Gillman and his colleagues compared 130 closely related

pairs of mammal species. In each case, one species

lived at a higher latitude or elevation than the other. The

researchers tallied the number of mutations each species

had accumulated in the same stretch of DNA since it split

from a common ancestor. On average, mammals living

in warmer climates collected mutations 50 percent more

quickly—that is, they evolved 50 percent more rapidly—

than their sister species in cooler regions.

These results matched up with Gillman’s earlier study

on plant evolution, as well as with independent research

on cold-blooded animals. Gillman thinks that a warm

climate accelerates evolution by raising the metabolism of

organisms. A higher metabolism produces more mutations,

which in turn provide the raw material for evolutionary

change. To con� rm this hypothesis, he says, scientists will

have to make year-round measurements of the metabolism

of many different species. “Boy, that will be a big job,” he

warns, “even for one species.” CARL ZIMMER

A model of tPNA,

a molecule that can

assemble itself; it

may resemble the

precursor of life’s DNA.

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98 First Molecule of Life Discovered?In the beginning there was RNA. RNA begat DNA,

and DNA begat lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins:

That is Genesis according to the “RNA world”

hypoth esis, a leading but still sketchy picture of

how life began. In June, chemist Reza Ghadiri of the

Scripps Research Institute started � lling in details.

99 God Lives in Your HeadReligion can cause wars,

unify communities, and

help us rationalize our

world, but does thinking

about God activate par-

ticular areas of the brain?

Cognitive neuroscientists

at the National Institute of

Neurological Disorders

and Stroke sought the

answer through function-

al magnetic resonance

imaging, or fMRI.

The researchers asked

religious and nonreligious

test subjects to ponder

God as a savior, a for-

giver, and a moral guide.

The fMRI scans revealed

activation of particular

neural pathways, includ-

ing those in the anterior

prefrontal cortex. But this

brain region is not used

only for religious thought.

Investigator Jordan Graf-

man says it is also a cen-

ter for empathy and for

the perception that others

have thoughts and feel-

ings of their own. “People

were using established

cognitive processes to

try to understand the

actions of a supernatural

being,” he says.

The prefrontal cortex is

the most recently evolved

region of the human brain,

much larger in us than in

apes. It is thought to have

bene� ted us by allowing

humans to explain myste-

rious phenomena and by

bringing groups of peo-

ple together. “You would

persuade others that

the way you think about

something was the way

they should think about

it too,” Grafman says. “It

creates group cohesion,

and that’s important for

survival.” ALLISON BOND

Ghadiri posited the existence of a helper molecule:

a kind of prebiotic template that might have enabled

RNA to spawn more complex organic compounds.

Then he actually constructed a version of the mol-

ecule in his lab. Called tPNA (thioester peptide nucleic

acid), it comprises the same four base pairs as DNA.

The amazing thing about tPNA is that it adapts,

chameleon-like, as it interacts with other molecules.

When Ghadiri poured tPNA molecules into a soup of

DNA bits, the tPNA base pairs reshuf� ed until they

matched the sequence of a DNA strand. When he

mixed tPNA with a single strand of RNA, it conformed

to RNA’s structure. And when he let tPNA mingle with

its own kind, the molecules danced until their struc-

tures became stable. In short, Ghadiri says, it “exhib-

its the most basic properties needed for evolution.”

The next challenge for Ghadiri is to show that tPNA

can self-replicate, crucial for a DNA precursor. If so,

RNA world—and the whole � eld of biogenesis—will

look a lot more credible. BOONSRI DICKINSON

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 | 83

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ASTRONOMY

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Hubble’s Amazing New VisionThe Hubble Space Telescope demonstrated its newly enhanced capabilities with this stunning image of

the Butterfl y nebula. In May astronauts docked the space shuttle Atlantis onto the 19-year-old telescope to

make repairs and add new instruments. For astrophotography buffs, the most important upgrade is Wide

Field Camera 3 (WFC3), whose predecessor captured many of Hubble’s iconic images, including the Pillars of

Creation in the Eagle nebula. The latest version boasts higher resolution and an expanded fi eld of view.

This WFC3 shot captures strands of superheated gas that were expelled by a dying star almost 4,000

light-years away. The Butterfl y nebula’s distinctive shape results from a ring of dust that prevents the gas

from spreading uniformly in all directions. Its wings stretch more than two light-years across—equivalent

to about half the distance between our sun and the nearest star. ANDREW GRANT

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 | 85

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OBITUARIES

Willem Kol� (Feb. 14, 1911–Feb.

11, 2009): During World

War II, the pioneering

biomedical engineer

created a dialysis

machine from sausage

casings and an auto-

motive water pump.

Kolff later built the � rst

arti� cial heart.

Jacob Schwartz(Jan. 9, 1930–March 2,

2009): A proli� c math-

ematician, Schwartz

made signi� cant

contributions to parallel

processing, com-

puter programming,

logic, robotics, and

bioinformatics.

Hidesaburo Hanafusa (Dec. 1,1929–March

15, 2009): His discov-

ery of cancer-causing

genes, or oncogenes,

earned Hanafusa the

1982 Lasker Award for

basic medical research.

It was his insight that

viruses can turn normal,

healthy cells into malig-

nant ones by activating

those oncogenes.

IN MEMORIAM A powerful idea

far outlasts a brilliant

mind. We remember

some of the giants

we lost in 2009

and look forward

to standing on their

shoulders.

BY HEATHER MAYER

Sir John Maddox (Nov. 27, 1925–April

12, 2009): The editor

of Nature for 22 years,

he reestablished the

in� uence and reputation

of that august British

weekly science journal.

He was also the father

of DISCOVER contribu-

tor Bruno Maddox.

Herbert York

(Nov. 24, 1921–May

19, 2009): After work-

ing on the Manhattan

Project to construct the

� rst atom bomb and

supervising missile and

space research under

President Eisenhower,

York became an impor-

tant � gure in arms con-

trol. He was involved

in launching Lawrence

Livermore National

Laboratory and was the

� rst chancellor of the

University of California

at San Diego.

Jean Dausset (Oct. 19, 1916–June 6,

2009): Dausset shared a

1980 Nobel Prize for the

discovery of human leu-

kocyte antigens (HLAs),

the immune-regulating

gene complex that must

be “matched” for organ

transplants to succeed.

Wallace Pannier (Aug. 22, 1927–Aug. 6,

2009): He was a trail-

blazer in the study of

biological weapons. In

one top-secret project

in 1966, Pannier staged

a mock attack on the

New York subway. His

team threw light bulbs

� lled with microbes

onto the tracks and

monitored the swirl of

the released bacteria as

trains sped past.

Norman Borlaug

(March 25, 1914–Sept.

12, 2009): The Nobel

laureate was dubbed

the “father of the Green

Revolution” for devel-

oping high-yield crops

and modern agricultural

techniques that have

greatly increased the

global food supply and

prevented starvation.

Lawrence Slobodkin

(June 22, 1928–Sept.

12, 2009): The

renowned ecologist

argued in a 1960 paper,

dubbed “The World Is

Green,” that because

vegetation is abundant,

predation—and not the

availability of food—is

the primary check on

the herbivore popula-

tion and a key in� uence

on ecosystems.

Malcolm Casadaban(Aug. 12, 1949–Sept.

13, 2009): This

molecular geneticist

devised techniques to

study the genes of dis-

ease-causing microbes.

He died after being

exposed to a weakened

strain of Yersinia pestis

(the bacterium that

causes bubonic plague),

which he was studying.

Mahlon Hoagland

(Oct. 5, 1921–Sept. 18,

2009): The molecular

biologist described a key

step in the way proteins

are synthesized from

amino acids. He also

codiscovered transfer

RNA, an essential player

in gene expression.

Leon Eisenberg

(Aug. 8, 1922–Sept.

15, 2009): A child

psychiatrist and human

rights advocate, he

brought scienti� c

rigor to psychological

studies, scrutinizing

treatment for autism

as early as the 1950s

and conducting the � rst

randomized clinical trial

in psychiatry.

Sheldon Segal (March 15, 1926–Oct.

17, 2009): He devel-

oped Norplant, a

hormonal form of birth

control that is implanted

under the skin of the

arm; it can prevent

pregnancy for up to � ve

years. Wyeth stopped

selling the implant in the

United States in 2002.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

(Nov. 28, 1908–Oct.

30, 2009): The French

anthropologist was a

pioneer of structuralism,

arguing that diverse cul-

tures share underlying

similarities and that the

human mind is funda-

mentally predisposed to

think in terms of binary

opposites: black and

white, hot and cold. His

writing in� uenced social

science, philosophy,

comparative religion,

literature, and � lm.

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YEAR INSCIENCE

2 0 0 9

INDEX

ANTHROPOLOGY

Meet Your New Ancestor . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

World’s First Grain Silos

Discovered in Jordan . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Another Baby Boom Hits Rich Nations . . . .44

Neanderthals Get Personal . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Oldest Musical Instrument Found . . . . . . .54

Early Humans Tended the Disabled . . . . . .71

Hidden Civilization Under Lake Huron . . . .82

ASTRONOMY

Interview: Alan Dressler . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Earth-like Worlds Come Into View . . . . . . .28

Fresh Hints of Life on Mars . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Twin Black Holes Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Magnetic Mysteries of

Sunspots Decoded . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

Earth-like Storms Seen

on Saturn’s Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Milky Way Panorama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

Asteroid Strike Predicted . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

Giant Geysers From a Tiny Moon . . . . . . . .64

Did an Early Pummeling of Asteroids

Pave the Way for Life on Earth? . . . .67

Jupiter Gets Comet-Whacked . . . . . . . . . .72

Hubble’s Amazing New Vision . . . . . . . . . .84

BIOLOGY

Stem Cell Science Takes Off . . . . . . . . . . .23

Skip a Meal, Extend Your Life . . . . . . . . . .39

Genetic Disease Cured With Two Moms . . .44

Fake DNA Fools Crime Lab . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Blast of Biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Strange Gaze of the See-through Fish . . . .49

Lose Weight With Brown Fat? . . . . . . . . . .56

Orangutans Invent New Warning Calls . . . .57

Girls Hit Puberty Earlier

Around the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Yes, You Really Can Smell Fear . . . . . . . . .66

Chimps Plan Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Human Gene Changes Mouse Talk . . . . . .70

Mockingbirds Know Who You Are . . . . . . .76

Radiation Turns Hair Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . .76

EARTH

Seismic Waves Clarify

How Continents Move . . . . . . . . . . . .56

Oxygen’s Odd Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

ENERGY

Experimental Power Plant

Takes the CO2 Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Algae Make Clean,

Renewable Diesel Fuel . . . . . . . . . . .48

A Smart Makeover for

the Electrical Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

Hydrogen Energy Gets

Two Big Boosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Star Power Comes to California . . . . . . . . 68

Microbes Build Better Batteries . . . . . . . . .82

ENVIRONMENT

Clear-Cutting Has a High Cost. . . . . . . . . .38

Sun’s Changes Have Surprise

Effects on Earth’s Weather . . . . . . . .45

El Niño’s Cousin Spurs Hurricanes . . . . . .52

Interview: Mark Serreze . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Plankton Record Earth’s

CO2 History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72

Map Tracks Remote Places . . . . . . . . . . . .78

Species Transplant Succeeds . . . . . . . . . .80

EVOLUTION

Oldest Animal Fossils Uncovered . . . . . . . .34

Intact Tissue Found in Dinosaur . . . . . . . .35

Hunters Accelerate

the Pace of Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Darwin’s Next Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Dino Mummy Spills Its Secrets . . . . . . . . .52

Giant Snake Hints at Life in Hot Times . . .62

Ancestral Whales May Have

Given Birth on Land . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

First Ground Animals Borrowed Shells . . . .65

Leaping Flying Lizards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Oldest Octopuses Unveiled . . . . . . . . . . . .77

Tropical Heat Speeds Up Evolution . . . . . .82

First Molecule of Life Found? . . . . . . . . . .83

INTERVIEWS

Astronomer Alan Dressler . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Economist George Loewenstein . . . . . . . . .32

Geneticist J. Craig Venter . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Geographer Mark Serreze . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Physicist John Ellis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74

MEDICINE

Vaccine Phobia Becomes a

Public-Health Threat . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Swine Flu Outbreak

Sweeps the Globe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

The Age of Genetic Medicine Begins . . . . .34

Hope for HIV Vaccine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

The Common Cold Is Decoded . . . . . . . . .36

Interview: J. Craig Venter . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Diarrhea Vaccine Could Save Millions . . . .47

Infection Seen as It Happens . . . . . . . . . . .49

Eye Drops Could Cure Glaucoma . . . . . . . .52

Fight Rages Over Cancer Genes . . . . . . . .55

Virus Linked to Chronic Fatigue . . . . . . . . .56

DEET Might Harm the Brain . . . . . . . . . . .63

Tiny Robots Prepare for Surgery . . . . . . . .66

Alzheimer’s Genes Located . . . . . . . . . . . .76

MIND

Interview: George Loewenstein . . . . . . . . .32

Rise of the Mind Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Can a Shock to the Brain

Cure Depression? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Abuse Leaves Its Mark

on Victim’s DNA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

200-Year-Old Cipher Solved . . . . . . . . . . .64

Einstein’s Brain Re-Analyzed . . . . . . . . . . .80

God Lives in Your Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

PHYSICS

Model Solves Fundamental

Packing Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Math Could Fix Traffic Jams . . . . . . . . . . .48

Quantum Freakiness Leaks

Into the Big World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Black Hole Created in Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Light Can Bend Itself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Interview: John Ellis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74

SPACE

NASA Braces for Course Correction . . . . .20

The Moon: Cold, Wet,

and Breathing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Probe Shows Mercury’s Hidden Face . . . .44

Spaceport Breaks Ground

in New Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Space Trash Causes Orbital Crash . . . . . .54

Did NASA’s Phoenix Find

Liquid Water on Mars? . . . . . . . . . . .63

Venus Has a Secret Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

TECHNOLOGY

The Graphene Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

New Battery Tech Could

Transform the Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Computer Learns to Reason

Like Isaac Newton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Computers Go Quantum . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Robots Learn to Walk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Prize-Driven Research Takes Off . . . . . . . .65

DECEMBER WHAT IS IT?

HONEYBEE EYE

Each of a honeybee’s eyes

comprises 6,000 hexagonal

units for capturing light.

The eyes are attuned to

rapid movement—useful for

keeping up with a speedy

queen during her mating

fl ight—and geometric

patterns. Bees prefer radial,

symmetrical arrangements

typical of fl owers. They

respond to many colors and

can see ultraviolet light; UV

patterns on fl ower petals

may help them distinguish

among plant species.

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20 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUTDWARF PLANETS

NA

SA

, E

SA

AN

D G

. B

AC

ON

(S

TS

CI)

1 Pluto—once the ninth

planet, now infamous as the

fi rst dwarf planet—was dis-

covered by Clyde Tombaugh

at the Lowell Observatory

80 years ago this month, in

a series of photos taken in

January 1930.

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birthday of the observatory’s

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planet beyond Neptune.

3 Lowell was also obsessed

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aliens had built enormous

networks of irrigation canals

on Mars. That one didn’t pan

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4 Gotta start early: Tom-

baugh was a 24-year-old

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Lowell’s “Planet X.”

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planet, including “Percival”

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suggestion came from Vene-

tia Burney, an 11-year-old

British girl whose grandfa-

ther had connections to the

Royal Astronomical Society.

6 Pluto was regarded as a

planet for 76 years, until the

International Astronomical

Union (IAU) created the des-

ignation “dwarf planet.”

7 The IAU recognizes fi ve

dwarf planets: Pluto, along

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(“MAH-kay MAH-kay”), and

Haumea (“ha-ooh-MAY-ah”).

8 Caltech astronomer Mike

Brown’s 2005 discovery of

Eris, which is bigger than

Pluto, helped bring about

the downfall of Pluto’s plan-

etary status.

9 Brown now Tweets under

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Haumea, making him the

only person in history with

three planets—albeit dwarf

ones—to his credit.

11 Eris is 10 billion miles from

the sun, roughly three times

as far out as Pluto, making

it the most distant known

object in the solar system.

12 My, how time fl ies: Hau-

mea spins so quickly that

its “day” is only 3.9 hours

long, probably the result of

a tremendous impact.

13 Makemake is covered

in frozen methane, and like

a comet, it may develop

an atmosphere only

when it approaches most

closely to the sun and

vaporizes slightly.

14 Pluto probably does the

same thing. Perhaps we

should call these things

“obese comets”

instead of dwarf

planets.

15 More identity

issues: When

Italian monk

Giuseppe Piazzi

discovered Ceres on

January 1, 1801, it too was

hailed as a new planet.

16 By the 1850s astrono-

mers realized that Ceres

was just the largest among

a swarm of objects circling

between Mars and Jupiter,

and they reclassifi ed it as

an “asteroid.”

17 But Ceres weighs nearly

as much as all the other

asteroids combined and has

enough gravity to pull its

surface into a sphere—a key

criterion that earned it new

respect as a dwarf planet.

18 Designed by a kid?

According to the latest

studies, the surface of Ceres

consists of clay, and it may

be wet and muddy on

the inside.

19 A good year for dwarf

planets: In 2015

NASA’s Dawn

spacecraft will

swing by Ceres

and the New

Horizons probe will

reach Pluto, giving

us our fi rst good look

at each one.

20 New Horizons will

arrive bearing a special

cargo—some of the ashes

of Tombaugh.

Andrew Moseman

DISCOVER® (ISSN 0274-7529) is published monthly, except for combined issues in January/February and July/August, by Discover Media LLC, 90 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. Volume 31, number 1; copyright 2010 Discover Media LLC. Periodical postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. In Canada, mailed under publication mail agreement 41245035, P.O. Box 875, STN A Windsor, ON, N9A 6P2. GST Registration #817800345RT0001. SUBSCRIPTIONS: In the U.S., $29.95 for one year; in Canada, $39.95 for one year (U.S. funds only), includes GST; other foreign countries, $44.95 for one year (U.S. funds only). Back issues available. All rights reserved. Nothing herein contained may be reproduced without written permission of Discover Media LLC, New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Please address all subscription corre spondence, including change of address, to DISCOVER, P.O. Box 37808, Boone, IA 50037, or call toll-free 800-829-9132; outside the U.S.A., 515-247-7569. Printed in the U.S.A.

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