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Healthy equality
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Healthy equality
supply (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0466). “Reindeer are used to sporadic ice cover, and adult males can normally smash through ice around 2 centimetres thick,” says Bruce Forbes at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland, who led the study. “But in 2006 and 2013, the ice was several tens of centimetres thick.” This September saw the secondlowest Arctic sea-ice cover on record, prompting fears of another famine. “If it happens again, it will be a major problem for traditional reindeer herders still suffering from losses in 2013,” says Forbes.
FIGHTING germs helps feminism. It seems that better control of infectious diseases has driven improved gender equality. Gender equality flourishes when women are able to focus on their education and careers. Michael Varnum at Arizona State University and his team investigated whether four potential threats to this – infectious diseases, resource scarcity, war and climate stress – have affected gender equality in the US and UK over the past seven decades.
60 Seconds
Infectious diseases turned out to be the only strong predictor. When infection rates dropped, measures of gender equality – such as female wages and political representation – improved proportionally between 15 and 25 years later (Nature Human Behaviour, doi.org/bs3g). The findings suggest that better public health has propelled the gradual narrowing of the gender gap since the early 1970s in the US and UK, Varnum says. Improvements in infection control are likely to have similar benefits for women in developing countries, he says.
We’re living at the hottest time
Chinese space food
ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA
INSECTS, weeds and rice are THIS year is set to be the hottest ever recorded globally, beating 2015’s growing on the Chinese space record temperatures, the World station, and could pave the way Meteorological Organization has said. for future food sources for Global temperatures this year astronauts. are approximately 1.2 °C above China’s Tiangong-2 space station launched on 15 September, pre-industrial levels and 0.88 °C above the average for 1961-1990, and two astronauts have been which the WMO uses as a reference living there since mid-October. period. As a result, 2016 is on track to The station includes experiments be the hottest year in records dating growing thale cress – an edible back to the 19th century. Sixteen of weed – and rice in microgravity. the 17 hottest years on record have Chinese news sources are occurred in the 21st century. reporting that the cress has The provisional assessment flowered and some of the rice by the WMO has been released plants are 10 centimetres tall. to inform the latest round of UN The station also hosts an climate talks in Morocco, which experiment designed by Hong are focusing on implementing the Kong middle school students world’s first comprehensive climate involving six silkworms, which previous studies have suggested could be protein sources for long space journeys. Five of the silkworms have spun cocoons. When the astronauts return to Earth, which is expected around 18 November, they will bring cress samples back with them. The rice experiment will continue for several months. This is not the first time we’ve grown food in space – astronauts on the International Space Station ate lettuce grown in orbit. But the Tiangong-2 experiment lets scientists on Earth control the incubator environment remotely. –No warmer year on record so far–
treaty, the Paris Agreement. This year’s high is partly down to a powerful climate phenomenon in the Pacific known as El Niño, which pushes up global temperatures and which led to a spike in temperatures in the early months of the year. “Three record-breaking years for global temperature would be remarkable,” says Peter Stott a the UK’s Met Office. “As the El Niño wanes, we don’t anticipate that 2017 will be another record-breaking year in the instrumental record.” But 2017 is still likely to be warmer than any year prior to the last two decades because of the underlying extent of global warming due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, he says.
Ditch the fakers Google and Facebook have moved to stop fake news sites from making money from advertising. Google will prevent websites with misleading content from using its AdSense online ad network to earn money, while Facebook is updating its policy to stop ads appearing alongside “misleading or deceptive” content.
Blood pressure boom More than a billion people have high blood pressure, finds an analysis of four decades of data. In 1975, only 594 million had the condition. The largest rises were in some African and Asian countries such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh (Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31919-5).
Carbon emissions stall Global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have seen almost no growth for three years even as the economy has grown. Emissions did not increase in 2015 and are expected to rise only 0.2 per cent in 2016, according to new data (Earth System Science Data, doi.org/bs3k).
Cockatoo genius A Goffin’s cockatoo named Figaro proved to be smarter than the average bird by tearing a splinter off a chunk of wood as a tool to obtain an out-of-reach treat. Some doubted the intent behind the feat, but now the parrot has shown it can fashion the right tools from different materials, suggesting it knows what it is doing (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0689).
Space tortoise Chinese spacecraft Traveller II took its maiden flight on 10 November, with an unusual passenger: a tortoise. The animal was meant to test the vehicle’s life support systems, but because the craft only reached an altitude of 12 kilometres, short of its 20 kilometre goal, the tests proved inconclusive. There is no word on whether the tortoise survived.
19 November 2016 | NewScientist | 7
Healthy equality
supply (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0466). “Reindeer are used to sporadic ice cover, and adult males can normally smash through ice around 2 centimetres thick,” says Bruce Forbes at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland, who led the study. “But in 2006 and 2013, the ice was several tens of centimetres thick.” This September saw the secondlowest Arctic sea-ice cover on record, prompting fears of another famine. “If it happens again, it will be a major problem for traditional reindeer herders still suffering from losses in 2013,” says Forbes.
FIGHTING germs helps feminism. It seems that better control of infectious diseases has driven improved gender equality. Gender equality flourishes when women are able to focus on their education and careers. Michael Varnum at Arizona State University and his team investigated whether four potential threats to this – infectious diseases, resource scarcity, war and climate stress – have affected gender equality in the US and UK over the past seven decades.
60 Seconds
Infectious diseases turned out to be the only strong predictor. When infection rates dropped, measures of gender equality – such as female wages and political representation – improved proportionally between 15 and 25 years later (Nature Human Behaviour, doi.org/bs3g). The findings suggest that better public health has propelled the gradual narrowing of the gender gap since the early 1970s in the US and UK, Varnum says. Improvements in infection control are likely to have similar benefits for women in developing countries, he says.
We’re living at the hottest time
Chinese space food
ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA
INSECTS, weeds and rice are THIS year is set to be the hottest ever recorded globally, beating 2015’s growing on the Chinese space record temperatures, the World station, and could pave the way Meteorological Organization has said. for future food sources for Global temperatures this year astronauts. are approximately 1.2 °C above China’s Tiangong-2 space station launched on 15 September, pre-industrial levels and 0.88 °C above the average for 1961-1990, and two astronauts have been which the WMO uses as a reference living there since mid-October. period. As a result, 2016 is on track to The station includes experiments be the hottest year in records dating growing thale cress – an edible back to the 19th century. Sixteen of weed – and rice in microgravity. the 17 hottest years on record have Chinese news sources are occurred in the 21st century. reporting that the cress has The provisional assessment flowered and some of the rice by the WMO has been released plants are 10 centimetres tall. to inform the latest round of UN The station also hosts an climate talks in Morocco, which experiment designed by Hong are focusing on implementing the Kong middle school students world’s first comprehensive climate involving six silkworms, which previous studies have suggested could be protein sources for long space journeys. Five of the silkworms have spun cocoons. When the astronauts return to Earth, which is expected around 18 November, they will bring cress samples back with them. The rice experiment will continue for several months. This is not the first time we’ve grown food in space – astronauts on the International Space Station ate lettuce grown in orbit. But the Tiangong-2 experiment lets scientists on Earth control the incubator environment remotely. –No warmer year on record so far–
treaty, the Paris Agreement. This year’s high is partly down to a powerful climate phenomenon in the Pacific known as El Niño, which pushes up global temperatures and which led to a spike in temperatures in the early months of the year. “Three record-breaking years for global temperature would be remarkable,” says Peter Stott a the UK’s Met Office. “As the El Niño wanes, we don’t anticipate that 2017 will be another record-breaking year in the instrumental record.” But 2017 is still likely to be warmer than any year prior to the last two decades because of the underlying extent of global warming due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, he says.
Ditch the fakers Google and Facebook have moved to stop fake news sites from making money from advertising. Google will prevent websites with misleading content from using its AdSense online ad network to earn money, while Facebook is updating its policy to stop ads appearing alongside “misleading or deceptive” content.
Blood pressure boom More than a billion people have high blood pressure, finds an analysis of four decades of data. In 1975, only 594 million had the condition. The largest rises were in some African and Asian countries such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh (Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31919-5).
Carbon emissions stall Global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have seen almost no growth for three years even as the economy has grown. Emissions did not increase in 2015 and are expected to rise only 0.2 per cent in 2016, according to new data (Earth System Science Data, doi.org/bs3k).
Cockatoo genius A Goffin’s cockatoo named Figaro proved to be smarter than the average bird by tearing a splinter off a chunk of wood as a tool to obtain an out-of-reach treat. Some doubted the intent behind the feat, but now the parrot has shown it can fashion the right tools from different materials, suggesting it knows what it is doing (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0689).
Space tortoise Chinese spacecraft Traveller II took its maiden flight on 10 November, with an unusual passenger: a tortoise. The animal was meant to test the vehicle’s life support systems, but because the craft only reached an altitude of 12 kilometres, short of its 20 kilometre goal, the tests proved inconclusive. There is no word on whether the tortoise survived.
19 November 2016 | NewScientist | 7