New Scientist International Edition - August 06, 2022

60 Pages·2022·37.8 MB·English

This week’s issue
On the 10 The DeepMind 40 Feature
breakthrough that
cover
“ People say
will transform biology
the first half
40 Secrets of the world’s 16 Can a new kind of vaccine
first civilisations finally end the pandemic? of human
How AI is decoding the
lost stories of ancient 45 The hunt for hidden history
Mesopotamia asteroid craters
is only
recorded
in these
12 The search for the oldest galaxy
37 Why we love scary films tablets”
Vol 255 No 3398 15 Do microclots cause
Cover image: Julia Geiser chronic fatigue?
News Features
9 Monkeypox deaths 40 Cracking the code
First fatalities outside Africa News AI is helping us decipher
reported in current outbreak incredible stories from
ancient Mesopotamia
18 Dirty bomb
How fraudsters in US could 45 Blasts from the past
obtain radioactive material Ludovic Ferrière on searching
for undiscovered craters
22 Asylum seekers from asteroids
UK committee set to
recommend flawed 48 Rio, bravo
methods for estimating ages How children are key to fighting
infectious disease in Brazil
Views
The back pages
29 Comment
A public information campaign 52 Maker
about the climate crisis is much Ferment your own hot sauce
needed, says Bill McGuire
53 Puzzles
30 The columnist Try our crossword, quick quiz
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein and logic puzzle
tackles space-time
54 Almost the last word
32 Aperture How might space have gone
Mysterious creatures from the from finite to infinite?
bottom of the Pacific Ocean
56 Feedback
34 Letters ES Why roboticists find dead spiders
G
A
We must prepare for future AIs M truly gripping
Y I
T
T
E
G
36 Culture CE/ 56 Twisteddoodles
A
0
The challenge of returning lost S5 for New Scientist
P
species to ecosystems 21 Bird tracking Tiny tags give us detailed insights on migration Picturing the lighter side of life
6 August 2022 | New Scientist | 3
Elsewhere A note from
the editor
on New Scientist
Newsletter
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E Dear reader,
R
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CT This is just to let you know – in case you have missed the
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R/I adverts – that our flagship show, New Scientist Live, is back
E
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A at ExCeL London this October after a two-year hiatus. If you
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AR have been before, I hope you can make it again this year. If you
H
C
RI are new to the event, please let me assure you it is the highlight
Extreme weather What can COP27 do to tackle climate change? of everyone’s year at New Scientist and, in our view, well worth
a trip. Personally, I love going to as many of the talks as possible;
hearing live from the world’s top scientists and technologists
Podcast
fires me up for the next 12 months. I also love getting the
chance to meet you, our community of readers, without
whom we wouldn’t exist.
This year, it is a three-day event over a weekend, with a
schools focus on the Friday and then business as normal on
the Saturday and Sunday. I am really looking forward to the
“big” talks from the most high-profile guests, but the joy of
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L.
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RE and being bowled over by it. For details of our early-bird ticket
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NA offer, please go to newscientistlive.com.
A/
EG So, to this issue of our magazine. Our feature on cuneiform
C
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BA (see page 40) is one of my favourite cover stories so far this
C
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E year. As part of the research for it, my colleague Alison George
Doctor, doctor Chimps treat each other with medicinal insects and I had the most enormous privilege of being allowed
behind the scenes at the British Museum in London, where
we got to inspect its vast collection of ancient clay tablets
Tour Newsletter
from Mesopotamia. Thank you to renowned cuneiform
expert Irving Finkel for that visit; it was inspirational.
Neanderthal Origins: Fix the Planet
Another leading expert in this field is Enrique Jiménez,
Southern France
After a sweltering few weeks, who also features heavily in our story (for which we owe him
Step back in time to key senior reporter Adam Vaughan many, many thanks). He has provided these words, written
Neanderthal sites with analyses the possible in cuneiform, below. If you can decipher them, email me at
archaeologist Rebecca Wragg outcomes of the upcoming [email protected] with your address and what you
Sykes. See the oldest traces left COP27 conference, our next think they say. We will pick some winners out of a hat and send
by archaic humans, including big chance to limit extreme them something nice adorned with the words “New Scientist”
stone tools and cave paintings. weather in the future. as a reward. Be warned: cuneiform isn’t for the faint-hearted!
All the best to you all,
newscientist.com/tours newscientist.com/fix
Emily Wilson
Podcast TikTok
New Scientist editor
Weekly Ancient art
Can you decipher this?
This week’s episode was Join reporter Alice Klein on her
recorded live at Bluedot music travels to Murujuga in Western
festival. The team discuss Australia to see an incredible
extraterrestrial life, reveal collection of ancient rock art.
news of chimp doctors and The area holds more than
chat about how they would use 2 million engravings.
$100 million to save the world.
tiktok.com/
newscientist.com/nspod @ newscientist
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4 | New Scientist | 6 August 2022

Signal Boost
Welcome to our Signal Boost project – a page for charitable
organisations to get their message out to a global audience, free of
charge. Today, a message from Hebridiean Whale & Dolphin Trust
Sail with HWDT to protect whales and dolphins
There is still so much to learn about our seas and the Isle of Mull or Mallaig and Ullapool in the The data has been instrumental in the
oceans; the creatures which inhabit that world Scottish Highlands. Each expedition will gather identification and designation of marine
beneath the waves and the challenges they face. data from a different area and each night will be protected areas – a national and global first for
Off Scotland’s west coast, the Hebridean Whale spent in a different location, providing a great some species. It is also shared with other
and Dolphin Trust (HWDT) run a pioneering opportunity to explore the area. conservation organisations, researchers and
citizen science programme on board their Over the last 20 years, thanks to the help of Universities to help deepen our understanding of
research yacht, Silurian, gathering high-quality thousands of citizen scientists 130,000 km of these awesome creatures.
visual and acoustic data. The vital data collected Hebridean seas have been surveyed – equivalent
is used to protect whales, dolphins, porpoises of sailing five times around the world. More than Want to get involved?
and basking sharks in Hebridean seas. 9,000 hours of underwater recordings have Join an expedition in 2023 with HWDT
Each year, people participate in live-aboard been collected. Over 50,000 individual animals and contribute directly to the protection
expeditions, spending between 7 and 12 days at have been observed from almost 16,000 of Scottish whales and dolphins by helping
sea. These citizen scientists effectively become encounters, with a count of 16 different species. gather vital data. Explore the magical west
marine mammal field biologists for the duration, The vast volume of data collected on board coast of Scotland, have a positive impact on
with full training provided on how to identify provides a unique and powerful body of the area and an unforgettable experience.
different species and undertake the monitoring knowledge, which is boosting the protection of Find out more at: www.hwdt.org/silurian
work. People from all walks of life join HWDT on whales, dolphins, porpoises and basking sharks. or contact [email protected].
board Silurian, from teenagers to retirees – the
experience is open to all.
HWDTs study area covers the west coast of Do you need your signal boosted?
Scotland, from Cape Wrath in the north to the If you are a charitable organisation working in STEM, science, medicine,
Mull of Kintyre in the south and as far west as St technology or conservation, and would like to find out more about this project
Kilda. Expeditions rendezvous in Tobermory on contact Jacqui McCarron on [email protected]
The leader
Biology’s cup runneth over
AI can now reliably predict crucial information on vast numbers of proteins
“It has not escaped our notice...” With dimensional structure. These can be This is another huge step forward in
those famous words published in 1953, obtained experimentally, yet that is biology. Protein structures are never going
James Watson and Francis Crick described often a very slow process. Alternatively, to get as much attention as, say, dramatic
the fundamental genetic significance of computers can be used to try to predict images from space, but knowing them can
the double-helix structure of DNA, based structures from the gene sequence have a much greater impact on our lives,
on work by Rosalind Franklin. It was a alone, but that used to be very difficult. transforming medicine and perhaps also
pivotal moment in biology, allowing us to Used to be. In November 2020, food, farming and synthetic biology.
understand for the first time how living While the Human Genome Project
“ Knowing protein structures can
organisms store the recipes for making rapidly transformed research, it was a
transform medicine and perhaps
proteins – the molecular machines that do decade or so before it delivered practical
also food, farming and more”
most of the hard work in our bodies – and benefits like better treatments. We can
pass them down the generations. expect something similar with AlphaFold.
Another major step forward came in Alphabet-owned DeepMind revealed that Much work remains to understand how
2001, with the draft sequence of almost AlphaFold, its AI system for predicting protein structures relate to their functions
the entire human genome. That revealed protein structure, could accurately do this and how proteins interact with each other
the big picture, that we have around for pretty much any protein from its gene and with other molecules. The hope is that
20,000 recipes for proteins, but not the sequence. Now, it has released predicted this will now accelerate, hastening our
detail of what they do. To fully understand structures of nearly all the more than understanding of how life works at the
proteins requires knowing their three- 200 million known proteins (see page 10). molecular level, of the universe within. ❚
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