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Tight budgets and failures can't kill astronaut dream
UPFRONT
WARS of the future might be decided through manipulation of people’s minds, concludes a report this week from the UK’s Royal Society. It warns that the potential military applications of neuroscience breakthroughs need to be regulated more closely. “New imaging technology will allow new targets in the brain to be identified, and while some will be vital for medicine, others might be used to incapacitate people,” says Rod Flower of Queen Mary, University of London, who chairs the panel that wrote the report. The report describes how such technology is allowing organisations like the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to test ways of improving soldiers’ mental alertness and capabilities. It may also
allow soldiers to operate weaponry remotely through mind-machine interfaces, the report says. Other research could be used to design gases and electronics that temporarily disable enemy forces. This potentially violates human rights, through interference with thought processes, and opens up the threat of indiscriminate killing. The panel highlights the time that Russian security forces ended a hostage siege in a Moscow theatre in 2002 by filling the venue with fentanyl, an anaesthetic gas. Along with the perpetrators, 125 hostages died. The Chemical Weapons Convention is vague about whether such incapacitants are legal. Ambiguities like this must be ironed out, say the panellists.
Seeking Soyuz sub
as the ultimate replacement vehicles for such missions. But recent progress has been mixed. California-based SpaceX planned to send its Dragon capsule to dock with the ISS in March, but last week NASA said the mission would likely be delayed till early April. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Virginia, due to fly cargo to the station, is scheduled to launch a demo mission in April or May but will probably also be delayed. Things are looking up for Armadillo Aerospace of Texas, however, which made its highest flight yet on 28 January.
–New forms of warfare to come–
Deep below the ice
“If Lake Vostok turns out to be dead, it will be the only place on Earth where there is water but no life” up the borehole, as planned. The team were checking their data to confirm that the water was from the lake and not a pocket of water in the ice above it. 6 | NewScientist | 11 February 2012
David Howells/corbis
THE Antarctic quest, 12 years in the making, is about to hit its climax. Will a Russian team find life in Lake Vostok? It may be more exciting if they don’t. As New Scientist went to press, news outlets around the world were speculating on whether the Russian Antarctic Expedition had finally drilled into Lake Vostok. It sits beneath 3.5 kilometres of Antarctic ice and has been cut off from the surface for millions of years, raising hopes it might be home to bizarre life forms. On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the expedition told New Scientist that the drill made contact with water late last week and then automatically withdrew
Even if they have made it to the lake, the Russians will still need to wait a year until the next field season to sample its secrets. Meanwhile, debate is already raging over whether bacteria found in ice sampled from above the lake are the result of contamination. Some argue the lake itself will contain toxic levels of oxygen and hydrogen peroxide, rendering it completely sterile. That could be just as interesting. If Lake Vostok turns out to be dead, it will be the only known place on Earth where there is water but no life.
A LEAK in the Russian Soyuz capsule has delayed flights to the International Space Station. How ready are commercial space taxis to pick up the slack? Russia’s space agency Roscosmos reported last week that the Soyuz capsule scheduled to take astronauts to the ISS on 30 March sprang a leak when its air pressure was accidentally pumped too high during a test. A replacement won’t be ready until 15 May. That’s focused attention on commercial spacecraft, long touted
Astronaut dreams TIGHT budgets, spacecraft failures and an uncertain future can’t keep some dreams grounded. Would-be US astronauts seem as keen as ever to make it into space. Despite retiring its shuttle last year, NASA still sends astronauts to the International Space Station: right now, it uses the Russian Soyuz capsule though in future it may use commercial spacecraft (see “Seeking Soyuz sub”, above). –This is the life– The agency reported this week
tyler hicks/nyt/redux/eyevine
Mind wars of the future
For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
Genes from a bone
that 6372 people applied to join its astronaut corps in response to the latest call. That’s twice as many as usual and the highest number since 1978. “Being an astronaut still touches a broad chord in our society,” says Scott Pace at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute in Washington DC. Mock astronauts are in demand too: a US research team is seeking volunteers for a four-month-long simulated Mars trip in Hawaii. And despite some recent failures, Russia’s space agency is to ask members of the public to compete for seats on a moon mission, say some media reports.
60 Seconds
which revealed that Denisovans interbred with modern humans. However, each position in the genome was read only twice, so the fine detail was unreliable. The new genome covers each position 30 times over. Pääbo
HOW’S this for impressive: a genome pieced together from a 30,000-year-old finger bone contains fewer errors than genomes generated using samples from living people. The “The 30,000-year-old genome, published online this genome has fewer errors week, is from an extinct group of than those sequenced hominins called the Denisovans. Fossils of the Denisovans, close from living people” relatives of the Neanderthals, were plans to use it to estimate how discovered in Siberia in 2008. much genetic variation was A draft genome was released in present among the Denisovans, 2010 by Svante Pääbo of the Max revealing whether they suffered Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, population crashes.
Need a jawbone? Print one out
Whale woes
Biomed/ University of Hasselt
EVEN whales find noisy IT’S certainly something to chew on. An 83-year-old Belgian woman is neighbours stressful – and they now able to eat, speak and breathe show it in their faeces. normally again after a machine The oceans have become much printed her an entirely new noisier over the last century jawbone – a world first. Her own jaw because of shipping. We know was destroyed by an infection called whales can cope with the din osteomyelitis but the new one, made to some extent by calling more from a fine titanium powder sculpted loudly, but we have no idea if by a precision laser, works just as well. they are stressed by noise. The team at Biomed, the Rosalind Rolland of the New biomedical research department of England Aquarium in Boston, the University of Hasselt in Belgium, Massachusetts, and colleagues used an MRI scan of the patient’s used faeces to monitor the levels jawbone to get the shape right. of stress hormones in endangered They then fed it into a laser sintering North Atlantic right whales 3D printer which fused titanium (Eubalaena glacialis). particles layer by layer until the For two days after the 9/11 shape of her jawbone was recreated. terrorist attacks, shipping traffic It was then coated in a biocompatible ground to a halt in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, and underwater noise fell by 6 decibels. During that time, stress-hormone levels in whales there were lower than in readings taken during September in the following four years (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.2429). We don’t know how much stress hormone is normal for right whales, so we can’t say at what level they are genuinely stressed, cautions Patrick Miller of the University of St Andrews, UK. But if these whales are suffering chronic stress, it could explain –Made to order– why they struggle to breed.
ceramic layer (see picture). No detail was spared: it had dimples and cavities to allow muscles to attach, and sleeves to allow nerves to pass through, plus support structures for dental implants that the woman might need in future. The team were astonished at the success of the 4-hour implant operation, which took place in June 2011 but was only announced this week. “Shortly after waking up from the anaesthetic the patient spoke a few words, and the day after was able to speak and swallow normally,” says operation leader Jules Poukens. Until now, probably the largest 3D-printed body part was half of a man’s upper jawbone, implanted in a 2008 operation in Finland.
Pearly secrets Jewellery could soon be adorned with gold pearls, following publication of the Japanese pearl oyster genome. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology say they’ve identified genes driving the process that forms pearls, information that could help produce them in novel colours (DNA Research, in press).
Malaria deaths Malaria killed 1.2 million people in 2010 – almost twice as many as the World Health Organization estimate, according to a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington. The IMHE claims the WHO massively underestimates deaths from the disease in all those over the age of 5 (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S01406736(12)60034-8). The WHO disputes the IMHE result.
Alien matter tasted NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer has captured heavy elements streaming into the solar system for the first time. The interstellar matter is truly alien: it has less oxygen relative to neon than our sun (Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/13).
Telescope quartet Light from four 8-metre telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile has been combined to produce images as detailed as those from a single 130‑metre telescope. The technique will be used to hunt for embryonic planets.
Dolphins in danger Six years after the Yangtze river dolphin disappeared, its cousin is under threat. The world’s largest population of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins lives in China’s Pearl river estuary and is declining at 2.5 per cent a year (Biological Conservation, DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.01.004).
11 February 2012 | NewScientist | 7
WARS of the future might be decided through manipulation of people’s minds, concludes a report this week from the UK’s Royal Society. It warns that the potential military applications of neuroscience breakthroughs need to be regulated more closely. “New imaging technology will allow new targets in the brain to be identified, and while some will be vital for medicine, others might be used to incapacitate people,” says Rod Flower of Queen Mary, University of London, who chairs the panel that wrote the report. The report describes how such technology is allowing organisations like the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to test ways of improving soldiers’ mental alertness and capabilities. It may also
allow soldiers to operate weaponry remotely through mind-machine interfaces, the report says. Other research could be used to design gases and electronics that temporarily disable enemy forces. This potentially violates human rights, through interference with thought processes, and opens up the threat of indiscriminate killing. The panel highlights the time that Russian security forces ended a hostage siege in a Moscow theatre in 2002 by filling the venue with fentanyl, an anaesthetic gas. Along with the perpetrators, 125 hostages died. The Chemical Weapons Convention is vague about whether such incapacitants are legal. Ambiguities like this must be ironed out, say the panellists.
Seeking Soyuz sub
as the ultimate replacement vehicles for such missions. But recent progress has been mixed. California-based SpaceX planned to send its Dragon capsule to dock with the ISS in March, but last week NASA said the mission would likely be delayed till early April. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Virginia, due to fly cargo to the station, is scheduled to launch a demo mission in April or May but will probably also be delayed. Things are looking up for Armadillo Aerospace of Texas, however, which made its highest flight yet on 28 January.
–New forms of warfare to come–
Deep below the ice
“If Lake Vostok turns out to be dead, it will be the only place on Earth where there is water but no life” up the borehole, as planned. The team were checking their data to confirm that the water was from the lake and not a pocket of water in the ice above it. 6 | NewScientist | 11 February 2012
David Howells/corbis
THE Antarctic quest, 12 years in the making, is about to hit its climax. Will a Russian team find life in Lake Vostok? It may be more exciting if they don’t. As New Scientist went to press, news outlets around the world were speculating on whether the Russian Antarctic Expedition had finally drilled into Lake Vostok. It sits beneath 3.5 kilometres of Antarctic ice and has been cut off from the surface for millions of years, raising hopes it might be home to bizarre life forms. On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the expedition told New Scientist that the drill made contact with water late last week and then automatically withdrew
Even if they have made it to the lake, the Russians will still need to wait a year until the next field season to sample its secrets. Meanwhile, debate is already raging over whether bacteria found in ice sampled from above the lake are the result of contamination. Some argue the lake itself will contain toxic levels of oxygen and hydrogen peroxide, rendering it completely sterile. That could be just as interesting. If Lake Vostok turns out to be dead, it will be the only known place on Earth where there is water but no life.
A LEAK in the Russian Soyuz capsule has delayed flights to the International Space Station. How ready are commercial space taxis to pick up the slack? Russia’s space agency Roscosmos reported last week that the Soyuz capsule scheduled to take astronauts to the ISS on 30 March sprang a leak when its air pressure was accidentally pumped too high during a test. A replacement won’t be ready until 15 May. That’s focused attention on commercial spacecraft, long touted
Astronaut dreams TIGHT budgets, spacecraft failures and an uncertain future can’t keep some dreams grounded. Would-be US astronauts seem as keen as ever to make it into space. Despite retiring its shuttle last year, NASA still sends astronauts to the International Space Station: right now, it uses the Russian Soyuz capsule though in future it may use commercial spacecraft (see “Seeking Soyuz sub”, above). –This is the life– The agency reported this week
tyler hicks/nyt/redux/eyevine
Mind wars of the future
For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
Genes from a bone
that 6372 people applied to join its astronaut corps in response to the latest call. That’s twice as many as usual and the highest number since 1978. “Being an astronaut still touches a broad chord in our society,” says Scott Pace at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute in Washington DC. Mock astronauts are in demand too: a US research team is seeking volunteers for a four-month-long simulated Mars trip in Hawaii. And despite some recent failures, Russia’s space agency is to ask members of the public to compete for seats on a moon mission, say some media reports.
60 Seconds
which revealed that Denisovans interbred with modern humans. However, each position in the genome was read only twice, so the fine detail was unreliable. The new genome covers each position 30 times over. Pääbo
HOW’S this for impressive: a genome pieced together from a 30,000-year-old finger bone contains fewer errors than genomes generated using samples from living people. The “The 30,000-year-old genome, published online this genome has fewer errors week, is from an extinct group of than those sequenced hominins called the Denisovans. Fossils of the Denisovans, close from living people” relatives of the Neanderthals, were plans to use it to estimate how discovered in Siberia in 2008. much genetic variation was A draft genome was released in present among the Denisovans, 2010 by Svante Pääbo of the Max revealing whether they suffered Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, population crashes.
Need a jawbone? Print one out
Whale woes
Biomed/ University of Hasselt
EVEN whales find noisy IT’S certainly something to chew on. An 83-year-old Belgian woman is neighbours stressful – and they now able to eat, speak and breathe show it in their faeces. normally again after a machine The oceans have become much printed her an entirely new noisier over the last century jawbone – a world first. Her own jaw because of shipping. We know was destroyed by an infection called whales can cope with the din osteomyelitis but the new one, made to some extent by calling more from a fine titanium powder sculpted loudly, but we have no idea if by a precision laser, works just as well. they are stressed by noise. The team at Biomed, the Rosalind Rolland of the New biomedical research department of England Aquarium in Boston, the University of Hasselt in Belgium, Massachusetts, and colleagues used an MRI scan of the patient’s used faeces to monitor the levels jawbone to get the shape right. of stress hormones in endangered They then fed it into a laser sintering North Atlantic right whales 3D printer which fused titanium (Eubalaena glacialis). particles layer by layer until the For two days after the 9/11 shape of her jawbone was recreated. terrorist attacks, shipping traffic It was then coated in a biocompatible ground to a halt in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, and underwater noise fell by 6 decibels. During that time, stress-hormone levels in whales there were lower than in readings taken during September in the following four years (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.2429). We don’t know how much stress hormone is normal for right whales, so we can’t say at what level they are genuinely stressed, cautions Patrick Miller of the University of St Andrews, UK. But if these whales are suffering chronic stress, it could explain –Made to order– why they struggle to breed.
ceramic layer (see picture). No detail was spared: it had dimples and cavities to allow muscles to attach, and sleeves to allow nerves to pass through, plus support structures for dental implants that the woman might need in future. The team were astonished at the success of the 4-hour implant operation, which took place in June 2011 but was only announced this week. “Shortly after waking up from the anaesthetic the patient spoke a few words, and the day after was able to speak and swallow normally,” says operation leader Jules Poukens. Until now, probably the largest 3D-printed body part was half of a man’s upper jawbone, implanted in a 2008 operation in Finland.
Pearly secrets Jewellery could soon be adorned with gold pearls, following publication of the Japanese pearl oyster genome. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology say they’ve identified genes driving the process that forms pearls, information that could help produce them in novel colours (DNA Research, in press).
Malaria deaths Malaria killed 1.2 million people in 2010 – almost twice as many as the World Health Organization estimate, according to a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington. The IMHE claims the WHO massively underestimates deaths from the disease in all those over the age of 5 (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S01406736(12)60034-8). The WHO disputes the IMHE result.
Alien matter tasted NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer has captured heavy elements streaming into the solar system for the first time. The interstellar matter is truly alien: it has less oxygen relative to neon than our sun (Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/13).
Telescope quartet Light from four 8-metre telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile has been combined to produce images as detailed as those from a single 130‑metre telescope. The technique will be used to hunt for embryonic planets.
Dolphins in danger Six years after the Yangtze river dolphin disappeared, its cousin is under threat. The world’s largest population of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins lives in China’s Pearl river estuary and is declining at 2.5 per cent a year (Biological Conservation, DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.01.004).
11 February 2012 | NewScientist | 7