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Hunger hotspots of the future
60 SECONDS as New Scientist went to press. Independent space-flight analyst Charles Lurio says Ares I may be especially vulnerable to winds because it is so tall. The issue adds to the mounting problems for Ares I, including a tendency to vibrate excessively. One NASA engineer, who has participated in studies of Ares I performance, told New Scientist that the design needs a complete rethink: “You might as well change gears and work on a design that is going to be successful.” Ares I is likely to be reviewed after the US election. The engineer says many people within NASA are pessimistic: “They don’t think the project will survive as it is.”
OUR new-found love of flat-screen TVs could come back to haunt us. Levels of a potent greenhouse gas, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), released in their manufacture are four times as high as estimates in 2006, and rising, reveals the first study measuring atmospheric levels of the gas. Researchers warned earlier this year that the growing popularity of LCD technology was releasing increasing amounts of NF3 into the atmosphere. Though it is 17,000 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, it is not regulated by the Kyoto protocol because NF3 emissions
Diet-drug whirl
FAMINE IN A WARMING WORLD
IN THE world of diet pills, last week was a roller coaster. Where in sub-Saharan Africa will climate On 23 October, Sanofi-Aventis change hit hardest? When it comes to suspended European sales of its food supply, prospects for much of the anti-obesity drug rimonabant centre and east of the region are looking (Acomplia), following a grim. Reduced crop yields along with a recommendation from the rising population mean that Tanzania, European Medicines Agency. Mozambique and the Democratic The EMA pointed to evidence Republic of the Congo (DRC) are likely to that the drug doubles the risk of face serious shortages by 2030, according psychiatric disorders and that five to a comprehensive new study. people in a large study committed A team from the Swiss Federal suicide after taking it, compared Institute of Aquatic Science and to just one in a group taking a Technology in Dübendorf led by Junguo dummy drug. Concerns over side Liu assessed the impact of climate effects led the US Food and Drug change by 2030 on the production of six Administration to refuse approval major food crops in sub-Saharan Africa: for rimonabant last year . cassava, maize, wheat, sorghum, rice But it’s not all bad news for and millet. Higher temperatures will dieters. People weighing more make wheat wilt, with yields falling by than 100 kilograms who took up to 18 per cent. By contrast, millet the drug tesofensine, made by NeuroSearch of Copenhagen, Denmark, lost almost 13 kilograms in 6 months, on average – twice as much as with any previous diet drug (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/ S0140-6736(08)61525-1). The drug makes people feel full early in a meal by increasing the pleasurable effects of three neurotransmitters. Larger trials to come will delay its approval, however. Meanwhile, orlistat, sold over the counter as Alli in the US since February 2007, should soon be approved for pharmacy-counter sales in Europe, too. –In Tanzania, food will be scarcer– www.newscientist.com
were tiny when it was agreed in 1997. Ironically, NF3 was brought in as a “climate friendly” substitue for perfluorocarbon gases (PFCs), which are regulated by Kyoto. Ray Weiss of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in
Extra-salty sea Increasing saltiness in parts of the Atlantic Ocean is down to us. Salinity is known to have risen in areas of the Atlantic in recent decades. Now a team led by Peter Stott at the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change has used climate models to show that anthropogenic warming is to blame, through increased evaporation and a decrease in rainfall. The study will appear in Geophysical Research Letters.
“The gas was brought in as a ‘climate friendly’ substitute for perfluorocarbons” La Jolla, California, and colleagues have shown that some 5400 tonnes of it are in the atmosphere (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2008GL035913). An estimate in 2006 put levels of the gas at under 1200 tonnes.
Double belt The nearest known planetary system sports two asteroid belts, one of which could obscure a rocky planet. Dana Backman of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and his team found the belts around the star Epsilon Eridani, 10.5 light years away. “I would put money on there being an Earth-like planet in the space between the inner asteroid belt and the star,” he says.
benefits, with yields up by as much as 27 per cent (Global and Planetary Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2008. 09.007). Rice, maize, sorghum and cassava show little change. By combining these assessments with projections for population and economic growth, the team then predicted how people in different countries would be affected. Tanzania, Mozambique and the DRC fared worst for food security. “They have the lowest economic growth, the fastest population growth or the lowest increase in calories from their crops,” Liu says. The report predicts that economic growth in Nigeria, Sudan and Angola will increase their purchasing power enough to allow them to buy their way out of hunger.
Pig cell boost for diabetics Eight people with diabetes will be treated in New Zealand with capsules of insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells from pigs following government approval for the trial on 21 October. Living Cell Technologies of Auckland says it already has “strong preliminary evidence of efficacy” in seven people in Russia treated over the past 14 months.
Bluetongue strikes again
WOLFGANG KAEHLER/GALLO/GETTY
Warm glow of TV
Europe has been re-invaded by the ruminant disease bluetongue. The BTV8 strain of the midge-borne virus came from Africa in 2006. Now BTV6, which circulates in Africa, the Middle East and Central America, has appeared. It could become established in livestock before midges die off this winter.
Deaf to voices A British woman has become the first person known to be born unable to recognise voices, including those of Margaret Thatcher, David Beckham or even her own daughter. Her condition has been dubbed “phonagnosia” (Neuropsychologia, DOI: 10.1016/ j.neuropsychologia.2008.08.003).
1 November 2008 | NewScientist | 7
OUR new-found love of flat-screen TVs could come back to haunt us. Levels of a potent greenhouse gas, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), released in their manufacture are four times as high as estimates in 2006, and rising, reveals the first study measuring atmospheric levels of the gas. Researchers warned earlier this year that the growing popularity of LCD technology was releasing increasing amounts of NF3 into the atmosphere. Though it is 17,000 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, it is not regulated by the Kyoto protocol because NF3 emissions
Diet-drug whirl
FAMINE IN A WARMING WORLD
IN THE world of diet pills, last week was a roller coaster. Where in sub-Saharan Africa will climate On 23 October, Sanofi-Aventis change hit hardest? When it comes to suspended European sales of its food supply, prospects for much of the anti-obesity drug rimonabant centre and east of the region are looking (Acomplia), following a grim. Reduced crop yields along with a recommendation from the rising population mean that Tanzania, European Medicines Agency. Mozambique and the Democratic The EMA pointed to evidence Republic of the Congo (DRC) are likely to that the drug doubles the risk of face serious shortages by 2030, according psychiatric disorders and that five to a comprehensive new study. people in a large study committed A team from the Swiss Federal suicide after taking it, compared Institute of Aquatic Science and to just one in a group taking a Technology in Dübendorf led by Junguo dummy drug. Concerns over side Liu assessed the impact of climate effects led the US Food and Drug change by 2030 on the production of six Administration to refuse approval major food crops in sub-Saharan Africa: for rimonabant last year . cassava, maize, wheat, sorghum, rice But it’s not all bad news for and millet. Higher temperatures will dieters. People weighing more make wheat wilt, with yields falling by than 100 kilograms who took up to 18 per cent. By contrast, millet the drug tesofensine, made by NeuroSearch of Copenhagen, Denmark, lost almost 13 kilograms in 6 months, on average – twice as much as with any previous diet drug (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/ S0140-6736(08)61525-1). The drug makes people feel full early in a meal by increasing the pleasurable effects of three neurotransmitters. Larger trials to come will delay its approval, however. Meanwhile, orlistat, sold over the counter as Alli in the US since February 2007, should soon be approved for pharmacy-counter sales in Europe, too. –In Tanzania, food will be scarcer– www.newscientist.com
were tiny when it was agreed in 1997. Ironically, NF3 was brought in as a “climate friendly” substitue for perfluorocarbon gases (PFCs), which are regulated by Kyoto. Ray Weiss of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in
Extra-salty sea Increasing saltiness in parts of the Atlantic Ocean is down to us. Salinity is known to have risen in areas of the Atlantic in recent decades. Now a team led by Peter Stott at the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change has used climate models to show that anthropogenic warming is to blame, through increased evaporation and a decrease in rainfall. The study will appear in Geophysical Research Letters.
“The gas was brought in as a ‘climate friendly’ substitute for perfluorocarbons” La Jolla, California, and colleagues have shown that some 5400 tonnes of it are in the atmosphere (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2008GL035913). An estimate in 2006 put levels of the gas at under 1200 tonnes.
Double belt The nearest known planetary system sports two asteroid belts, one of which could obscure a rocky planet. Dana Backman of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and his team found the belts around the star Epsilon Eridani, 10.5 light years away. “I would put money on there being an Earth-like planet in the space between the inner asteroid belt and the star,” he says.
benefits, with yields up by as much as 27 per cent (Global and Planetary Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2008. 09.007). Rice, maize, sorghum and cassava show little change. By combining these assessments with projections for population and economic growth, the team then predicted how people in different countries would be affected. Tanzania, Mozambique and the DRC fared worst for food security. “They have the lowest economic growth, the fastest population growth or the lowest increase in calories from their crops,” Liu says. The report predicts that economic growth in Nigeria, Sudan and Angola will increase their purchasing power enough to allow them to buy their way out of hunger.
Pig cell boost for diabetics Eight people with diabetes will be treated in New Zealand with capsules of insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells from pigs following government approval for the trial on 21 October. Living Cell Technologies of Auckland says it already has “strong preliminary evidence of efficacy” in seven people in Russia treated over the past 14 months.
Bluetongue strikes again
WOLFGANG KAEHLER/GALLO/GETTY
Warm glow of TV
Europe has been re-invaded by the ruminant disease bluetongue. The BTV8 strain of the midge-borne virus came from Africa in 2006. Now BTV6, which circulates in Africa, the Middle East and Central America, has appeared. It could become established in livestock before midges die off this winter.
Deaf to voices A British woman has become the first person known to be born unable to recognise voices, including those of Margaret Thatcher, David Beckham or even her own daughter. Her condition has been dubbed “phonagnosia” (Neuropsychologia, DOI: 10.1016/ j.neuropsychologia.2008.08.003).
1 November 2008 | NewScientist | 7