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Pregnant women acquire emotion-reading superpowers
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Higgs bosons keep falling on my head
so-called Randall-Sundrum models of space-time. These models propose a fourth dimension to space that is curled up so small as to be undetectable. Gravity leaks into this extra dimension, explaining why it is orders of magnitude weaker than the other “There might be a fundamental forces of nature. connection between the The dark matter particles physics of dark matter and in such models can annihilate that of mass generation” and produce a slew of secondary particles. Two WIMPs, each show gamma rays peaking at with a mass of between 50 and certain energies. The standard 200 gigaelectronvolts, can expectation of dark matter is that annihilate into two massless you’ll see one single peak, says gamma-ray photons, the energy Tait. “We are predicting that there of each equalling the mass of one may be an entire forest.” WIMP. Alternatively, the WIMPs If FERMI sees these telltale can produce one photon and one signatures anytime soon, then massive particle. in theory it will have sighted the According to the researchers, Higgs before the LHC, which is one such massive particle could still a few years from any such be the Higgs boson – the particle
Anil Ananthaswamy
EVIDENCE for the Higgs boson could be pouring down upon us from deep space. If so, an orbiting space telescope could upstage the Large Hadron Collider in the search for the elusive particle. NASA’s FERMI satellite was launched last year to detect gamma rays. One expected source of gamma rays is the mutual annihilation of dark matter particles in our galaxy. While the nature of dark matter – which makes up 90 per cent of the matter in the universe – is unknown, physicists think it is made of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. WIMPs appear in many theories. Tim Tait of the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues analysed WIMPs that show up in
14 | NewScientist | 12 December 2009
VANESSA GAVALYA/STOCKBYTE/GETTY
Ability to read faces increases while pregnant RAGING hormones during pregnancy prompt mood swings, but may also lead to a heightened ability to recognise threatening or aggressive faces. This may have evolved because it makes future mothers hypervigilant, yet it could also make them more vulnerable to anxiety. Previous studies have suggested that a woman’s ability to correctly identify fearful or disgusted facial expressions varies according to her stage of the menstrual cycle, with perception heightened on days associated with high levels of the hormone progesterone. Since levels of progesterone and other hormones rise dramatically in late pregnancy, Rebecca Pearson and her colleagues at the University of Bristol in the UK
thought to endow all elementary particles with mass. “If there is a strong connection between the physics of dark matter and the physics of mass generation, those dark matter particles probably like to interact with the Higgs boson,” says Tait (arxiv.org/ abs/0912.0004). If this was the case, a study of the sky – say in the direction of the galactic centre, where dark matter particles are supposed to be concentrated – should
investigated whether the ability to read faces varies during pregnancy. They asked 76 pregnant women to assign one of six emotions to 60 computer-generated faces before the 14th week of pregnancy, and again after the 34th week. Faces expressing happiness and surprise tended to be
discovery. “FERMI has very good prospects of discovering the Higgs if this model is true,” says Tait. The gamma-ray peaks could also be detected by ground-based gamma-ray telescopes such as VERITAS in southern Arizona or HESS in Namibia. Dan Hooper of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, says the model used by Tait’s team is exotic but not implausible. “FERMI is the kind of experiment you would want to use to look for this kind of signature,” says Hooper. “If they got lucky, and this kind of dark matter candidate exists, then they could measure the masses of both the dark matter and the Higgs.” The FERMI telescope has already collected some gamma-ray measurements from the centre of the Milky Way but so far it has only been used to put limits on how much dark matter is out there, according to Elliott Bloom of the FERMI collaboration at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. “We are only starting to untangle what’s going on.” ■
to her and her fetus, and prime her to be hyper-vigilant once she becomes a mother. But it could have a downside. Pearson points out that people with clinical anxiety are also better at identifying negative emotions in faces. Pregnant women aren’t clinically anxious, but “they might interpret negative or emotional things around them in a slightly more sensitive way”, she says. The finding builds on a recent study by Ben Jones of the University of Aberdeen in the UK who found that pregnant women – and women in stages of the menstrual cycle where –Primed to protect her baby– progesterone levels spike – are better at identifying faces showing signs of correctly assigned at both stages of sickness. “It’s preventing them from pregnancy, but for faces expressing becoming sick by interacting with fear, anger and disgust, the accuracy people who are ill,” he says. rates were higher in late pregnancy The next step will be to examine (Hormones and Behavior, DOI: whether pregnant women and new 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.09.013). mothers are also more sensitive to This may increase the chance that emotional cues in babies’ faces, the woman will spot potential threats Jones says. Linda Geddes ■
Higgs bosons keep falling on my head
so-called Randall-Sundrum models of space-time. These models propose a fourth dimension to space that is curled up so small as to be undetectable. Gravity leaks into this extra dimension, explaining why it is orders of magnitude weaker than the other “There might be a fundamental forces of nature. connection between the The dark matter particles physics of dark matter and in such models can annihilate that of mass generation” and produce a slew of secondary particles. Two WIMPs, each show gamma rays peaking at with a mass of between 50 and certain energies. The standard 200 gigaelectronvolts, can expectation of dark matter is that annihilate into two massless you’ll see one single peak, says gamma-ray photons, the energy Tait. “We are predicting that there of each equalling the mass of one may be an entire forest.” WIMP. Alternatively, the WIMPs If FERMI sees these telltale can produce one photon and one signatures anytime soon, then massive particle. in theory it will have sighted the According to the researchers, Higgs before the LHC, which is one such massive particle could still a few years from any such be the Higgs boson – the particle
Anil Ananthaswamy
EVIDENCE for the Higgs boson could be pouring down upon us from deep space. If so, an orbiting space telescope could upstage the Large Hadron Collider in the search for the elusive particle. NASA’s FERMI satellite was launched last year to detect gamma rays. One expected source of gamma rays is the mutual annihilation of dark matter particles in our galaxy. While the nature of dark matter – which makes up 90 per cent of the matter in the universe – is unknown, physicists think it is made of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. WIMPs appear in many theories. Tim Tait of the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues analysed WIMPs that show up in
14 | NewScientist | 12 December 2009
VANESSA GAVALYA/STOCKBYTE/GETTY
Ability to read faces increases while pregnant RAGING hormones during pregnancy prompt mood swings, but may also lead to a heightened ability to recognise threatening or aggressive faces. This may have evolved because it makes future mothers hypervigilant, yet it could also make them more vulnerable to anxiety. Previous studies have suggested that a woman’s ability to correctly identify fearful or disgusted facial expressions varies according to her stage of the menstrual cycle, with perception heightened on days associated with high levels of the hormone progesterone. Since levels of progesterone and other hormones rise dramatically in late pregnancy, Rebecca Pearson and her colleagues at the University of Bristol in the UK
thought to endow all elementary particles with mass. “If there is a strong connection between the physics of dark matter and the physics of mass generation, those dark matter particles probably like to interact with the Higgs boson,” says Tait (arxiv.org/ abs/0912.0004). If this was the case, a study of the sky – say in the direction of the galactic centre, where dark matter particles are supposed to be concentrated – should
investigated whether the ability to read faces varies during pregnancy. They asked 76 pregnant women to assign one of six emotions to 60 computer-generated faces before the 14th week of pregnancy, and again after the 34th week. Faces expressing happiness and surprise tended to be
discovery. “FERMI has very good prospects of discovering the Higgs if this model is true,” says Tait. The gamma-ray peaks could also be detected by ground-based gamma-ray telescopes such as VERITAS in southern Arizona or HESS in Namibia. Dan Hooper of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, says the model used by Tait’s team is exotic but not implausible. “FERMI is the kind of experiment you would want to use to look for this kind of signature,” says Hooper. “If they got lucky, and this kind of dark matter candidate exists, then they could measure the masses of both the dark matter and the Higgs.” The FERMI telescope has already collected some gamma-ray measurements from the centre of the Milky Way but so far it has only been used to put limits on how much dark matter is out there, according to Elliott Bloom of the FERMI collaboration at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. “We are only starting to untangle what’s going on.” ■
to her and her fetus, and prime her to be hyper-vigilant once she becomes a mother. But it could have a downside. Pearson points out that people with clinical anxiety are also better at identifying negative emotions in faces. Pregnant women aren’t clinically anxious, but “they might interpret negative or emotional things around them in a slightly more sensitive way”, she says. The finding builds on a recent study by Ben Jones of the University of Aberdeen in the UK who found that pregnant women – and women in stages of the menstrual cycle where –Primed to protect her baby– progesterone levels spike – are better at identifying faces showing signs of correctly assigned at both stages of sickness. “It’s preventing them from pregnancy, but for faces expressing becoming sick by interacting with fear, anger and disgust, the accuracy people who are ill,” he says. rates were higher in late pregnancy The next step will be to examine (Hormones and Behavior, DOI: whether pregnant women and new 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.09.013). mothers are also more sensitive to This may increase the chance that emotional cues in babies’ faces, the woman will spot potential threats Jones says. Linda Geddes ■