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Bitcoin: bringer of the b-commerce revolution
EDITORIAL
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2013 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
Banish the bogeyman If Alzheimer’s really is a form of diabetes, we can take heart JUST over 100 years ago, German actually a late stage of another pathologist Alois Alzheimer disease, type 2 diabetes. The link dissected the brain of a 57-year-old between the two has been noted woman who had died, demented, for a few years and though it in a hospital in Kassel. He found remains a hypothesis, the tangles of strange fibrous deposits evidence is growing (see page 6). that seemed to have destroyed her At first glance that sounds brain from within. like bad news. If the Alzheimer’s Today, the disease that bears his epidemic is scary, the type 2 name is a bogeyman stalking our diabetes one is truly terrifying. ageing societies. About 35 million “The epidemic of people have Alzheimer’s; most Alzheimer’s disease is of them require expensive, scary – the type 2 diabetes exhausting care. By 2050 that one is truly terrifying” number is expected to triple. We still don’t really know what causes the disease or how it destroys the About 270 million people have brain. There is no way to prevent type 2 diabetes already and their it and no cure. Dealing with the ranks are swelling rapidly – epidemic will cost trillions. among them adolescents and All it not lost, however. We young adults. If they are destined could be in the midst of a rethink to progress to Alzheimer’s disease, that promises to banish the the future looks bleak. bogeyman. There is growing Or perhaps not. Type 2 diabetes evidence that Alzheimer’s is is largely a lifestyle disease,
caused by obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise. It can be prevented, alleviated and even cured by lifestyle changes, which holds out the hope that we could start to deal with Alzheimer’s in a similar way. Experience tells us, of course, that exhorting people to eat better and exercise more often falls on deaf ears. But with obesity rates levelling off in some parts of the world and falling slightly in others, there is some evidence that the message is getting through. If the link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s is firmed up, there will be even more reason to take heed – and even more reason to keep banging the public health drum. Good news comes in many guises. The possibility that Alzheimer’s is “just” diabetes is one of them. n
The b-commerce revolution SHOULD you judge a currency by the company it keeps? Bitcoin enthusiasts say it represents a whole new way of transacting online. So it has proved – but the upstart digital currency is so far best known as an illicit medium of exchange for black marketeers. The key attraction for these shady early adopters is Bitcoin’s combination of publicly recorded
transactions and anonymous ownership. Now researchers have highlighted how this can also streamline legitimate online commerce (see page 24). Peek into the future, and it’s possible to envisage this sort of technology being used to cut intermediaries out of trades of many kinds – beginning with payment systems such as Visa and
moving on to banks, real estate and more. Transactions could be arranged, executed, verified and publicly recorded automatically. The resulting commercial and social disruption would be huge. That might seem a stretch for an untested technology with a dicey reputation. But early internet shopping was also viewed as edgy before security was ramped up. E-commerce cleaned up its act and changed the world. Maybe b-commerce will too. n
The strange place we go to at night
But not all mysterious places are physically remote. Every human on the planet visits one of the most peculiar every single day – or rather, night. Think of night as a place, rather than a time, and its oddity becomes apparent (see page 36). It has its own wildlife and its own climate, which is changing in its own way.
Nor are the night’s human residents quite like those of the day. Our bodies change radically while we sleep, as do our minds. And those of us who regularly stay up past bedtime may be putting our health on the line. So the night still holds its terrors. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. n
“FEWER people have been there than have walked on the moon.” The places that can make that claim – the ocean deeps, the bowels of huge caves – tend to be few and far between.
30 November 2013 | NewScientist | 3
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2013 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
Banish the bogeyman If Alzheimer’s really is a form of diabetes, we can take heart JUST over 100 years ago, German actually a late stage of another pathologist Alois Alzheimer disease, type 2 diabetes. The link dissected the brain of a 57-year-old between the two has been noted woman who had died, demented, for a few years and though it in a hospital in Kassel. He found remains a hypothesis, the tangles of strange fibrous deposits evidence is growing (see page 6). that seemed to have destroyed her At first glance that sounds brain from within. like bad news. If the Alzheimer’s Today, the disease that bears his epidemic is scary, the type 2 name is a bogeyman stalking our diabetes one is truly terrifying. ageing societies. About 35 million “The epidemic of people have Alzheimer’s; most Alzheimer’s disease is of them require expensive, scary – the type 2 diabetes exhausting care. By 2050 that one is truly terrifying” number is expected to triple. We still don’t really know what causes the disease or how it destroys the About 270 million people have brain. There is no way to prevent type 2 diabetes already and their it and no cure. Dealing with the ranks are swelling rapidly – epidemic will cost trillions. among them adolescents and All it not lost, however. We young adults. If they are destined could be in the midst of a rethink to progress to Alzheimer’s disease, that promises to banish the the future looks bleak. bogeyman. There is growing Or perhaps not. Type 2 diabetes evidence that Alzheimer’s is is largely a lifestyle disease,
caused by obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise. It can be prevented, alleviated and even cured by lifestyle changes, which holds out the hope that we could start to deal with Alzheimer’s in a similar way. Experience tells us, of course, that exhorting people to eat better and exercise more often falls on deaf ears. But with obesity rates levelling off in some parts of the world and falling slightly in others, there is some evidence that the message is getting through. If the link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s is firmed up, there will be even more reason to take heed – and even more reason to keep banging the public health drum. Good news comes in many guises. The possibility that Alzheimer’s is “just” diabetes is one of them. n
The b-commerce revolution SHOULD you judge a currency by the company it keeps? Bitcoin enthusiasts say it represents a whole new way of transacting online. So it has proved – but the upstart digital currency is so far best known as an illicit medium of exchange for black marketeers. The key attraction for these shady early adopters is Bitcoin’s combination of publicly recorded
transactions and anonymous ownership. Now researchers have highlighted how this can also streamline legitimate online commerce (see page 24). Peek into the future, and it’s possible to envisage this sort of technology being used to cut intermediaries out of trades of many kinds – beginning with payment systems such as Visa and
moving on to banks, real estate and more. Transactions could be arranged, executed, verified and publicly recorded automatically. The resulting commercial and social disruption would be huge. That might seem a stretch for an untested technology with a dicey reputation. But early internet shopping was also viewed as edgy before security was ramped up. E-commerce cleaned up its act and changed the world. Maybe b-commerce will too. n
The strange place we go to at night
But not all mysterious places are physically remote. Every human on the planet visits one of the most peculiar every single day – or rather, night. Think of night as a place, rather than a time, and its oddity becomes apparent (see page 36). It has its own wildlife and its own climate, which is changing in its own way.
Nor are the night’s human residents quite like those of the day. Our bodies change radically while we sleep, as do our minds. And those of us who regularly stay up past bedtime may be putting our health on the line. So the night still holds its terrors. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. n
“FEWER people have been there than have walked on the moon.” The places that can make that claim – the ocean deeps, the bowels of huge caves – tend to be few and far between.
30 November 2013 | NewScientist | 3