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Devastating Indonesian earthquake ‘still to come’
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60 SECONDS
The earthquake that struck Sumatra last week was not the major one predicted along a nearby plate boundary
Nice try…
2004 slip
NEW Nobel prizes? No chance. That’s the Nobel Foundation’s robust response to calls for the creation of new prizes for public health and the environment.
2005 slip
Anti-cancer virus
Predicted future slip
EURASIAN PLATE
MALAYSIA
INDIAN PLATE
“Tackling climate change and infectious disease can be recognised via the peace and medicine Nobels”
EPICENTRE 30 SEPTEMBER
SOUTH CHINA SEA
A tumour-munching virus will be given to a large number of cancer patients for the first time. First 80, then about 200 people with head and neck tumours will get two standard anti-cancer drugs plus Reolysin, which contains a harmless reovirus. In smaller trials, this cocktail helped up to threequarters of patients.
AUSTRALIAN PLATE
CASSINI/JPL
A group of 10 prominent scientists lobbied for new Nobels INDIAN OCEAN in a letter published last week by New Scientist. In an official reply 500 km sent on 4 October, the Nobel Foundation notes that only one new prize – the economics award – Sumatra’s big one has been created since the first INDONESIA should steel itself was given in 1901. And that, says for a far nastier rumble than the the foundation, will be the only addition: the medicine and peace earthquake it suffered last week. “Another earthquake is on its Nobels can be awarded for efforts way, and all it will take to trigger to tackle threats such as climate it is the pressure of a handshake,” change and infectious disease. says John McCloskey of the Two of this year’s prizes had University of Ulster in Coleraine, been announced as New Scientist went to press. The medicine Nobel Northern Ireland. The city of Padang on the went to the trio who discovered Indonesian island of Sumatra telomeres, the caps that prevent experienced a magnitude-7.6 chromosomes from fraying earthquake on 30 September. during cell division, and telomerase, the enzyme that builds the caps. The physics prize “When the boundary does slip, it will trigger was shared by the inventor of a tsunami that could be optical fibres able to transmit as high as 10 metres” light over great distances, and the pair who developed chargeAt first, geologists assumed this coupled devices, which now sit was the earthquake they had been at the heart of digital cameras. predicting for many years along the tectonic boundary between the Indian, Australian and Eurasian plates (see Map). This interface slipped in 2004 and 2005, but one region has not experienced the stress relief of an earthquake for over 200 years, according to a recent analysis of the region by McCloskey. He drew on research into historical growth rings in coral, which show no sign of sea-floor uplift (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature435756a). “A shallow earthquake… is long, long overdue,” says McCloskey. –Something’s missing– Yet the Padang earthquake
P Padang
SUMATRA
originated far from the boundary and deeper than the interface between the plates. It may have been due to a vestigial weakness left behind by an ancient plate boundary, he suggests. McCloskey’s computer simulations suggest that when the boundary does slip, it will trigger a tsunami that could be as high as 10 metres.
Down’s test upset A TEST to reveal whether a fetus has Down’s syndrome from just a drop of its mother’s blood has hit a snag. A panel set up by Sequenom of San Diego, California, to investigate the firm’s seemingly rosy research results has found they contain “inadequately substantiated claims, inconsistencies and errors”. Prenatal Down’s tests typically involve using a needle to draw fluid from the mother’s womb. This carries a small risk of miscarriage. In September 2008, Sequenom said that its test, which dodges this risk as it relies on fetal RNA in the mother’s blood, would be ready by June 2009. But Sequenom reported on 28 September that the panel found problems with its data. Sequenom sacked five employees and says it cannot predict when its test will be ready, though it stands by the underlying science.
Credit crunch joy Our current economic woes have one bright side. Emissions of carbon dioxide are expected to be 3 per cent lower this year than in 2008 due to the economic slowdown, according to the International Energy Agency.This is the steepest drop in 40 years.
Sun shield lowered Space radiation is at a record high. Measurements by NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer indicate that cosmic rays are 19 per cent more abundant than at any other time in the past 50 years. A lull in solar activity has weakened the sun’s magnetic field, which normally shields the solar system from cosmic rays. The onslaught could play havoc with spacecraft electronics.
Toxic glaciers Melting glaciers are feeding toxic chemicals into alpine lakes. An analysis of lake sediments deposited over the last 60 years shows that chemicals banned in the 1980s have been preserved in the ice and are still flowing into Swiss lakes. Global warming could accelerate this pollution, they add (Environmental Science & Technology, DOI: 10.1021/ es901628x).
Vaccine off the hook A cervical cancer vaccine was not responsible for the death of 14-year-old Natalie Morton of Coventry, UK. On 1 October pathologists confirmed that the real cause was a large malignant tumour in her heart and lungs.
10 October 2009 | NewScientist | 7
60 SECONDS
The earthquake that struck Sumatra last week was not the major one predicted along a nearby plate boundary
Nice try…
2004 slip
NEW Nobel prizes? No chance. That’s the Nobel Foundation’s robust response to calls for the creation of new prizes for public health and the environment.
2005 slip
Anti-cancer virus
Predicted future slip
EURASIAN PLATE
MALAYSIA
INDIAN PLATE
“Tackling climate change and infectious disease can be recognised via the peace and medicine Nobels”
EPICENTRE 30 SEPTEMBER
SOUTH CHINA SEA
A tumour-munching virus will be given to a large number of cancer patients for the first time. First 80, then about 200 people with head and neck tumours will get two standard anti-cancer drugs plus Reolysin, which contains a harmless reovirus. In smaller trials, this cocktail helped up to threequarters of patients.
AUSTRALIAN PLATE
CASSINI/JPL
A group of 10 prominent scientists lobbied for new Nobels INDIAN OCEAN in a letter published last week by New Scientist. In an official reply 500 km sent on 4 October, the Nobel Foundation notes that only one new prize – the economics award – Sumatra’s big one has been created since the first INDONESIA should steel itself was given in 1901. And that, says for a far nastier rumble than the the foundation, will be the only addition: the medicine and peace earthquake it suffered last week. “Another earthquake is on its Nobels can be awarded for efforts way, and all it will take to trigger to tackle threats such as climate it is the pressure of a handshake,” change and infectious disease. says John McCloskey of the Two of this year’s prizes had University of Ulster in Coleraine, been announced as New Scientist went to press. The medicine Nobel Northern Ireland. The city of Padang on the went to the trio who discovered Indonesian island of Sumatra telomeres, the caps that prevent experienced a magnitude-7.6 chromosomes from fraying earthquake on 30 September. during cell division, and telomerase, the enzyme that builds the caps. The physics prize “When the boundary does slip, it will trigger was shared by the inventor of a tsunami that could be optical fibres able to transmit as high as 10 metres” light over great distances, and the pair who developed chargeAt first, geologists assumed this coupled devices, which now sit was the earthquake they had been at the heart of digital cameras. predicting for many years along the tectonic boundary between the Indian, Australian and Eurasian plates (see Map). This interface slipped in 2004 and 2005, but one region has not experienced the stress relief of an earthquake for over 200 years, according to a recent analysis of the region by McCloskey. He drew on research into historical growth rings in coral, which show no sign of sea-floor uplift (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature435756a). “A shallow earthquake… is long, long overdue,” says McCloskey. –Something’s missing– Yet the Padang earthquake
P Padang
SUMATRA
originated far from the boundary and deeper than the interface between the plates. It may have been due to a vestigial weakness left behind by an ancient plate boundary, he suggests. McCloskey’s computer simulations suggest that when the boundary does slip, it will trigger a tsunami that could be as high as 10 metres.
Down’s test upset A TEST to reveal whether a fetus has Down’s syndrome from just a drop of its mother’s blood has hit a snag. A panel set up by Sequenom of San Diego, California, to investigate the firm’s seemingly rosy research results has found they contain “inadequately substantiated claims, inconsistencies and errors”. Prenatal Down’s tests typically involve using a needle to draw fluid from the mother’s womb. This carries a small risk of miscarriage. In September 2008, Sequenom said that its test, which dodges this risk as it relies on fetal RNA in the mother’s blood, would be ready by June 2009. But Sequenom reported on 28 September that the panel found problems with its data. Sequenom sacked five employees and says it cannot predict when its test will be ready, though it stands by the underlying science.
Credit crunch joy Our current economic woes have one bright side. Emissions of carbon dioxide are expected to be 3 per cent lower this year than in 2008 due to the economic slowdown, according to the International Energy Agency.This is the steepest drop in 40 years.
Sun shield lowered Space radiation is at a record high. Measurements by NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer indicate that cosmic rays are 19 per cent more abundant than at any other time in the past 50 years. A lull in solar activity has weakened the sun’s magnetic field, which normally shields the solar system from cosmic rays. The onslaught could play havoc with spacecraft electronics.
Toxic glaciers Melting glaciers are feeding toxic chemicals into alpine lakes. An analysis of lake sediments deposited over the last 60 years shows that chemicals banned in the 1980s have been preserved in the ice and are still flowing into Swiss lakes. Global warming could accelerate this pollution, they add (Environmental Science & Technology, DOI: 10.1021/ es901628x).
Vaccine off the hook A cervical cancer vaccine was not responsible for the death of 14-year-old Natalie Morton of Coventry, UK. On 1 October pathologists confirmed that the real cause was a large malignant tumour in her heart and lungs.
10 October 2009 | NewScientist | 7