New Scientist - July 09, 2022

60 Pages·2022·38.2 MB·English

This week’s issue
On the 46 Your inner voice 38 Features
How you can take control
cover
“ There are
of it to beat stress
going to be
38 The universe as we’ve 9 Time loops
never seen it before Mind-bending paradoxes discoveries
What the world’s most might just be possible
powerful space telescope that nobody
is about to reveal 21 Covid reinfection
The serious health risks anticipates,
from catching it twice
and those
15 Alien worm invasion
are often the
14 Biggest-ever water lily
12 Brain implant eases depression most fun”
Vol 255 No 3394 18 AI predicts crime
Cover image: Andy Gilmore
News Features
8 US climate setback 38 A new cosmic dawn
Supreme Court ruling could News Seven big questions the
hamper US carbon-free goals James Webb Space Telescope
could soon answer
10 ‘Fair’ AI tackles bias
An artificial intelligence aims 44 Future-proofing
to redress racial discrimination Sophie Howe on how to bring
in financial aid to homebuyers long-term thinking into politics
12 Molecular computer 46 Internal chatter
A new design based on biology Why getting to know your inner
is energy efficient voice could have a dramatic
impact on your daily life
Views
The back pages
27 Comment
Restoring seagrass would 51 Cooking
be a huge conservation win, Making cold-brew coffee at home
says Sophie Pavelle
53 Puzzles
28 The columnist Try our crossword, quick quiz
Chanda-Prescod Weinstein and logic puzzle
on space-time
54 Almost the last word
30 Aperture What shape would a candle’s
Dazzling photos from an flame be in zero gravity?
astronomy photo competition
W
E 56 Feedback
K
G
32 Letters RB Doop Snogg enters the world
A,
More on the mystery of time EN of ton-nungible fokens
L
A
D
G
A
M
34 Culture S 56 Twisteddoodles
O
L
A vivid window into AR for New Scientist
C
Chernobyl’s exclusion zone 14 Giant water lily Newly identified species is the largest of its kind Picturing the lighter side of life
9 July 2022 | New Scientist | 1
Elsewhere
on New Scientist
Tour Newsletter
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“ Gardens
Renaissance
astronomy in Prague,
are vital for
Czech Republic
connecting
Explore the legacy of Renaissance
astronomers in Prague, the city
habitats –
of a hundred spires, where
maths, music and art connect.
hedgehogs
Astronomer Martin Griffiths M
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will guide you through Prague’s PL. travel up to
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medieval marvels, including one U
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of the world’s oldest astronomical T/ 3 kilometres
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Event
Origin of the universe
One of the most famous
ideas in science is that the
universe began in a big bang. ES
G
A
But this leaves many questions M
Y I
T
unanswered, like why the T
E
G
universe is so big and so old, VA/
O
L
and why it has its particular RI
V
A
G
structure. In this talk, physicist A
G
L
Will Kinney delves into the theory O
of inflation, which may hold Tick tock Check out one of the world’s oldest astronomical clocks
some answers. Join us online at
6pm BST/1pm EST on 14 July.
newscientist.com/events
Video Newsletter
All in the mind Wild Wild Life
Podcast
A man who is partially paralysed News and digital director Penny
Weekly
has been able to feed himself Sarchet has been hunting around
Essential guide
The team examine the ethics dessert using only his thoughts her garden in search of the West
surrounding the world’s first and some smart robot hands. European hedgehog, an animal
genetically modified children, Researchers at Johns Hopkins in decline in the UK. She finds Consciousness is the ghost in our
who are now toddlers. They also University Applied Physics out how to make your garden machine – our feeling of being and
chat about “super-poopers” who Laboratory in Maryland decoded hedgehog-friendly, plus there our relationship with the world. But
are helping treat people with the man’s brain signals associated is a new species of toad, a deep what does it consist of and why do
irritable bowel syndrome. Plus with the thought of moving, using dive into coral reefs and some we have it? Delve into the greatest
there is monkeypox, rogue them to control two robotic limbs surprising news about chickens. mystery of the mind with the latest
planets and a singing whale. holding a knife and fork. New Scientist Essential Guide.
newscientist.com/
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2 | New Scientist | 9 July 2022

The leader
A new dawn for astronomy
Seeing the first images from our new space telescope will be a moment to cherish
FINALLY, we are about to see further Not to worry. The JWST is working galaxies – and the properties of potentially
back in time than ever before – and all perfectly, and it sounds like those first habitable planets orbiting other stars.
in glorious high resolution. On 12 July, images will be worth the wait. And so the science begins. Precisely
NASA will release the first full-colour NASA has said that next week’s release what scientists granted precious time with
images captured by the James Webb will include a deep-field image, revealing the JWST during its first observation cycle
Space Telescope (JWST), which promises a patch of the universe as it looked a few will look at, and how they will address
to transform our understanding of how hundred million years after the big bang, some of the cosmos’s biggest mysteries,
the universe was made. is the subject of our cover story on page 38.
“ The space telescope is set to
It is a moment to savour. These first This is just the start: all being well,
reveal the properties of other
snapshots are the culmination of a the telescope will be gathering data and
potentially habitable planets”
decades-long engineering effort, not images for the next 20 years. It will leave
to mention a suspenseful launch and a stunning legacy. However, there is also
commissioning phase in which the and the spectrum of an atmosphere the question of whether this might be
telescope’s origami-style sunshield around an exoplanet. That is a fitting the last of the scientific megaprojects,
had to unfold without a hitch and the curtain-raiser for a telescope designed given that nothing remotely comparable
18 hexagonal segments of its mirror align to reveal the universe’s early history – in ambition or expense is currently
with astonishing precision. Last month, the first stars, the invisible matter that funded. Let’s hope not, because you
there was another scare as the $10-billion brought them into being and the don’t have to be a scientist to be moved
telescope was struck by a small space rock. gargantuan black holes that sculpted by what we are about to see. ❚
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9 July 2022 | New Scientist | 5

News
The fast life The frost world Cold comfort Gene editing Our climate niche
Time-restricted Dinosaurs were Implantable device An alternative Warming could put a
eating linked to adapted for freezing blocks pain by to CRISPR may be billion people outside
gut benefits p10 winters p16 chilling nerves p18 more accurate p19 optimal zone p19
ITER, being built in
France, will inform
commercial fusion
which is funded by EU member
states and Switzerland.
There are problems to
overcome, such as generating
tritium. Supplies of the isotope are
limited and expensive because it
decays quickly. Research projects
have so far used only grams, but a
power station will need kilograms.
This will require design choices
about how to create more tritium
by allowing neutrons to escape the
G plasma and interact with lithium
R
O
R. in the tokamak’s walls.
E
T
W.I Other design choices include
W
P://W the materials to use in the
TT tokamak walls, which will be
H
N,
O exposed to a huge influx of
TI
A
NIZ neutrons from the fusion reaction.
A
RG “The dose [of neutrons] that the
O
R
E structure absorbs is much, much
T
I
bigger than we ever had to do.
Technology It’s really orders of magnitude
Fusion plans announced larger,” says Fasoli.
He says work on DEMO can’t
wait for the completion of ITER,
but must happen in parallel.
A European consortium is beginning to design a commercial nuclear “[Otherwise] there will be a big
gap of decades and then nobody
fusion power plant to be built by 2054, reports Adam Vaughan
will have an interest in fusion,”
says Fasoli. Nonetheless, he says
NUCLEAR fusion engineers are powerful magnets to confine and completion in 2025 and due DEMO must learn from ITER.
starting to design a power station control hot matter – or plasma – to achieve full power in 2035. Where the power plant will
they hope will mimic how the sun usually in the shape of a The DEMO power station will be built remains to be seen. Juan
works to provide a clean, almost doughnut. The plasma is typically need to control and maintain the Matthews at the University of
unlimited source of energy. produced from two hydrogen plasma for much longer than Manchester, UK, is betting on
This week marks the beginning isotopes: deuterium and tritium. experiments to date. DEMO will Germany, given it has no fusion
of a five-year “conceptual design” Much of the research has also need to collect the heat from device and France and the UK
phase to flesh out key technology focused on tweaking the materials the reaction and turn it into have won competitions to host
decisions for the DEMOnstration and magnets in the walls of previous ones.
“DEMO will need to collect
power plant (DEMO), a project tokamaks, and better modelling Whatever DEMO’s conceptual
heat from the reaction
backed by a European consortium, how experiments with plasmas design looks like when it is
and turn it into electricity,
EuroFusion, to take fusion power will play out, with the ultimate finished in 2027, the plant is
for 24 hours a day”
from the concept stage to a aim of getting more energy out unlikely to be the world’s first
commercial reality. The group of a fusion reaction than goes in. fusion power station. Several
plans for the 300 to 500 megawatt That major milestone of “net electricity, all while working private fusion start-ups have
reactor to be generating low- gain” has yet to be achieved, but 24 hours a day. “It’s hard. But claimed they will have one
carbon energy by 2054. there is progress: a global energy that’s why we need to start – that’s operating by the early 2030s, while
There has been plenty of record was set last year. More may exactly the point,” says Ambrogio the UK government has said its
experimental work on nuclear occur when an €18 billion research Fasoli, chair of the EuroFusion “STEP” fusion power plant will be
fusion, largely with machines tokamak in France, known as ITER, General Assembly, the decision- running by 2040. China has said it
known as tokamaks. These use is switched on. It is scheduled for making body for the consortium, will have one complete in 2035. ❚
9 July 2022 | New Scientist | 7
News
Briefing Climate change
US ruling may harm climate efforts
A decision by the US Supreme Court clarifies a long-running row about
the role of the Environmental Protection Agency, says James Dinneen
ON 30 June, the US Supreme Court A coal power plant in congressional gridlock, that is
issued a ruling that could set back Avon Lake, Ohio, which unlikely to happen any time soon.
efforts to reduce greenhouse gas was closed this year “The ruling curtails EPA’s
emissions and more widely limit authority to regulate pollutants
the work of the Environmental of climate change, wrote that on the basis of protection of the
Protection Agency (EPA). the ruling “deprives EPA of the Earth’s climate and will result in
power needed – and the power unconscionable delays, given that
What was the ruling about? granted – to curb the emission Congress is not poised to address
The ruling looked at a case of greenhouse gases”. this issue,” says Lynn Goldman
between the state of West Virginia at George Washington University
and the EPA with roots in a S How will this affect efforts in Washington DC.
E
G
complex legal fight over who has A to combat climate change? Conservative lawyers point out
M
Y I
authority to regulate greenhouse T In short, it could have a big impact, that the EPA has other avenues to
T
E
G
gas emissions from power plants. R/ but not as big as some had feared. control greenhouse gas emissions,
A
F
In the 1960s, Congress passed AJD The ruling is likely to stymie for instance through standards for
M
the Clean Air Act, giving the EPA LI the Biden administration’s plans exhaust emissions or by setting
A
authority to enforce regulations to make US electricity generation rules for individual power plants.
to improve air quality. In 2015, How did the Supreme Court rule? carbon-free by 2035. However, it “There are many, many other
the Obama administration’s In the 6-3 opinion, chief justice falls far short of limiting the EPA’s steps the EPA already has the
Clean Power Plan set guidelines John Roberts wrote that the discretion to regulate on all issues. statutory authority to take to
for states around carbon dioxide Clean Air Act doesn’t give the EPA That said, it could be a “canary in reduce emissions,” says Joseph
emissions from power plants. clear congressional authority the coal mine” for how this court Bingham, an attorney at Mountain
Some states objected to the to regulate greenhouse gas will interpret various agencies’ States Legal Foundation. The
plan, setting up a political and emissions at power plants by authority to use their expertise, agency can still regulate CO2 as it
legal back and forth across the making sweeping changes to says Dena Adler at New York would any other pollutant, he says.
Trump and Biden administrations entire grids, as opposed to University School of Law. It is also worth pointing out that
that culminated in coal companies requiring individual emitters While the ruling limits the EPA’s reductions are possible without
and coal-producing states, led by to make reductions. authority, Congress could still pass regulations. The emissions targets
West Virginia, petitioning the In her dissenting opinion, Elena legislation on greenhouse gas set in the Clean Power Plan, for
Supreme Court to rule on the Kagan, citing the dire assessments emissions or other environmental instance, were met a decade ahead
powers granted to the EPA by by the Intergovernmental Panel issues, or grant the agency that of schedule even though the plan
the Clean Air Act. on Climate Change on the impacts authority. But given current never came into effect. ❚
Technology
Firms plan to clean
will be a low-emission version, cement is inherently carbon- limestone is heated and crushed
up construction with rising to one-half by 2030. They intensive and usually requires to make cement.
also intend to use only net-zero plenty of fossil fuel-powered heat. Paul Dipino at property developer
net-zero concrete
concrete by 2050. However, researchers and Joseph Homes, one of the initiative’s
“Concrete is a huge part of global companies are making progress, founders, says in the short term
CONCRETE is one of the most emissions. What we are aiming such as electrifying the production people are looking to cut concrete
important construction materials, to do is put a really big collective of cement and strengthening the emissions by using fly ash, a
but it is associated with high carbon demand signal there, which gives material by adding graphene so less by-product of coal power stations,
emissions. Now, an alliance of confidence to innovators, to concrete is needed to build a given as a replacement for some of the
construction and property giants investors,” says Helen Clarkson structure. There are also efforts to cement in the concrete.
is hoping to kickstart development at Climate Group, the non-profit develop technology to capture and “It’s going to cost more in the
of greener concrete. organisation that has organised store the carbon released when short term,” he says of buying
The group of 17 companies, the campaign. low-carbon concrete, but he
including Willmott Dixon, Laing The problem with decarbonising “We are aiming to put a thinks some of that extra cost
O’Rourke and Skanska, have formed concrete is there are currently no big collective demand could be offset by design choices
a coalition pledging that one-third solutions on a large-enough scale. signal there, which gives that use less of the material. ❚
of the concrete they use by 2025 The chemical process of making confidence to innovators” Adam Vaughan
8 | New Scientist | 9 July 2022