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Antarctic detections open up era of neutrino astronomy
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Neutrino eye opens
D-Wave uses a non-mainstream method called adiabatic quantum computing, which caused critics to doubt that its chips are truly quantum. In March, two tests of D-Wave showed indirect evidence for quantum entanglement. Now Catherine McGeoch of Amherst College, Massachusetts, a D-Wave consultant, has pitted the device against three algorithms for solving the optimisation problem on a high-end PC. McGeoch claims that the D-Wave machine was about 3600 times faster than the best algorithm. She will present the results this week at a conference in Ischia, Italy.
60 Seconds
Being chargeless, neutrinos zip from a source direct to Earth, so could be used to study supernovae and active galactic nuclei – galaxies powered by huge black holes, both of which produce neutrinos. “If you have something
FANCY seeing the sky in neutrino? Supermassive black holes and exploding stars may give up their secrets now that neutrinos from space can be detected. Until now, the only space neutrinos definitely detected came “Looking into the heart of from the sun and a 1987 supernova beasts like supernovae explosion. But on Wednesday, the and galaxies may help us untangle what is going on” IceCube collaboration, which monitors a cubic kilometre of ice that looks into the hearts of these at the South Pole, reported the detection of 28 neutrinos. At least beasts, maybe it’ll help untangle what’s going on,” says John half almost certainly came from Learned at the University of outer space, opening up the skies Hawaii, who is not part of IceCube. for neutrino astronomy.
Fish in hot water leave home
Coronavirus threat
reuters
“CAN transmit from person to HOT, hot, hot. Fish the world over are migrating to escape global warming. person”. That is how the World For several years now, some Health Organization is now talking fishers have been noticing changes of the coronavirus that emerged in their nets. In places, new species last year in the Middle East. Clusters of people with the viral are being caught. Elsewhere, staple catches are vanishing fast. But infection, dubbed Middle East whether this is a global effect and Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), what is behind the change have been give evidence that it can spread. unclear. Are fish being ousted from What’s more, France’s health their original habitats as climate ministry has reported that a man change warms the waters? Are who fell seriously ill with MERS disappearances due to overfishing? after a trip to Dubai passed the Now, Dan Pauly of the University virus to the person in the next of British Columbia in Vancouver, hospital bed. But the virus has not Canada, and colleagues have found spread widely in the community, that the mix of fish in all the world’s and close contact appears to be major fisheries has changed since necessary for transmission, says 1970, as fish that prefer warmer Keiji Fukuda of the WHO. waters move in. The average However, Fukuda notes that undiagnosed cases may exist, with only mild symptoms. The two earliest known cases were part of a cluster of respiratory infections in April 2012 in Jordan. The others were milder and are thought to have been due to the virus, even though standard tests were negative. Routine tests on the first French patient were also negative, only deep lung sampling uncovered the virus. Virologists are now working on a test for viral antibodies that can show if someone was infected in the past. That could reveal how –There’s a catch– widespread the virus really is.
temperature preference of fisheries has risen by nearly 1 ºC in temperate regions (Nature, DOI:10.1038/ nature12156). The effect correlated closely with local increases in sea surface temperatures, but not with fishing pressure or other oceanic features such as currents. Ominously, the temperature preference of tropical fisheries also rose initially, until the 1980s, then levelled off. Cooler-water species moved out, but there are no heat-loving species to replace them, says Pauly’s colleague William Cheung. The species that are abandoning tropical fisheries may also be the most important food species for coastal communities that subsist on fishing.
The only way is up Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide hit a high of 400 parts per million above the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii on 9 May. The symbolic milestone highlights the accelerating rise from 280 ppm in pre-industrial times. Stopping all emissions now would give Earth a good chance of keeping global warming below 2 °C.
Jolie cuts cancer risk Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing breast cancer. The actress has a BRCA1 gene mutation associated with an 80 per cent risk of the cancer. A double mastectomy cuts this chance by up to 90 per cent in people at high risk, according to the UK’s National Health Service.
Primes next door Prime numbers just got less lonely. Yitang Zhang of the University of New Hampshire has proved that an infinite number of primes have a “neighbour” that is also prime – at a distance of 70 million numbers away. The proof is a step towards solving the twin prime conjecture, which asks if there is an infinite number of primes separated by two numbers.
Cosmic magnet origin We can now explain why the universe is magnetic. Leonardo Campanelli at the University of Bari in Italy has shown that tiny fluctuations present in the early universe could have been stretched into the magnetic fields around galaxies and cosmic voids seen today, via the process called inflation.
Everest is melting The world’s highest mountain is losing its coat of ice. Satellite data presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Cancún, Mexico, shows that glaciers around Mount Everest have shrunk by 13 per cent in the past 50 years. Rising temperatures have forced the snow line 180 metres uphill.
18 May 2013 | NewScientist | 5
Neutrino eye opens
D-Wave uses a non-mainstream method called adiabatic quantum computing, which caused critics to doubt that its chips are truly quantum. In March, two tests of D-Wave showed indirect evidence for quantum entanglement. Now Catherine McGeoch of Amherst College, Massachusetts, a D-Wave consultant, has pitted the device against three algorithms for solving the optimisation problem on a high-end PC. McGeoch claims that the D-Wave machine was about 3600 times faster than the best algorithm. She will present the results this week at a conference in Ischia, Italy.
60 Seconds
Being chargeless, neutrinos zip from a source direct to Earth, so could be used to study supernovae and active galactic nuclei – galaxies powered by huge black holes, both of which produce neutrinos. “If you have something
FANCY seeing the sky in neutrino? Supermassive black holes and exploding stars may give up their secrets now that neutrinos from space can be detected. Until now, the only space neutrinos definitely detected came “Looking into the heart of from the sun and a 1987 supernova beasts like supernovae explosion. But on Wednesday, the and galaxies may help us untangle what is going on” IceCube collaboration, which monitors a cubic kilometre of ice that looks into the hearts of these at the South Pole, reported the detection of 28 neutrinos. At least beasts, maybe it’ll help untangle what’s going on,” says John half almost certainly came from Learned at the University of outer space, opening up the skies Hawaii, who is not part of IceCube. for neutrino astronomy.
Fish in hot water leave home
Coronavirus threat
reuters
“CAN transmit from person to HOT, hot, hot. Fish the world over are migrating to escape global warming. person”. That is how the World For several years now, some Health Organization is now talking fishers have been noticing changes of the coronavirus that emerged in their nets. In places, new species last year in the Middle East. Clusters of people with the viral are being caught. Elsewhere, staple catches are vanishing fast. But infection, dubbed Middle East whether this is a global effect and Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), what is behind the change have been give evidence that it can spread. unclear. Are fish being ousted from What’s more, France’s health their original habitats as climate ministry has reported that a man change warms the waters? Are who fell seriously ill with MERS disappearances due to overfishing? after a trip to Dubai passed the Now, Dan Pauly of the University virus to the person in the next of British Columbia in Vancouver, hospital bed. But the virus has not Canada, and colleagues have found spread widely in the community, that the mix of fish in all the world’s and close contact appears to be major fisheries has changed since necessary for transmission, says 1970, as fish that prefer warmer Keiji Fukuda of the WHO. waters move in. The average However, Fukuda notes that undiagnosed cases may exist, with only mild symptoms. The two earliest known cases were part of a cluster of respiratory infections in April 2012 in Jordan. The others were milder and are thought to have been due to the virus, even though standard tests were negative. Routine tests on the first French patient were also negative, only deep lung sampling uncovered the virus. Virologists are now working on a test for viral antibodies that can show if someone was infected in the past. That could reveal how –There’s a catch– widespread the virus really is.
temperature preference of fisheries has risen by nearly 1 ºC in temperate regions (Nature, DOI:10.1038/ nature12156). The effect correlated closely with local increases in sea surface temperatures, but not with fishing pressure or other oceanic features such as currents. Ominously, the temperature preference of tropical fisheries also rose initially, until the 1980s, then levelled off. Cooler-water species moved out, but there are no heat-loving species to replace them, says Pauly’s colleague William Cheung. The species that are abandoning tropical fisheries may also be the most important food species for coastal communities that subsist on fishing.
The only way is up Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide hit a high of 400 parts per million above the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii on 9 May. The symbolic milestone highlights the accelerating rise from 280 ppm in pre-industrial times. Stopping all emissions now would give Earth a good chance of keeping global warming below 2 °C.
Jolie cuts cancer risk Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing breast cancer. The actress has a BRCA1 gene mutation associated with an 80 per cent risk of the cancer. A double mastectomy cuts this chance by up to 90 per cent in people at high risk, according to the UK’s National Health Service.
Primes next door Prime numbers just got less lonely. Yitang Zhang of the University of New Hampshire has proved that an infinite number of primes have a “neighbour” that is also prime – at a distance of 70 million numbers away. The proof is a step towards solving the twin prime conjecture, which asks if there is an infinite number of primes separated by two numbers.
Cosmic magnet origin We can now explain why the universe is magnetic. Leonardo Campanelli at the University of Bari in Italy has shown that tiny fluctuations present in the early universe could have been stretched into the magnetic fields around galaxies and cosmic voids seen today, via the process called inflation.
Everest is melting The world’s highest mountain is losing its coat of ice. Satellite data presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Cancún, Mexico, shows that glaciers around Mount Everest have shrunk by 13 per cent in the past 50 years. Rising temperatures have forced the snow line 180 metres uphill.
18 May 2013 | NewScientist | 5