Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
The
Search
for
Planet X
Is it hidden in
the solar systems
outer reaches?
VO LU M E 3 1 4 , N U M B E R 2
44
S PACE SUSTAI NA BIL IT Y
30 The Search for Planet X 56 Six Billion in Africa
A planet larger than Earth may be Population projections for
hiding in the far reaches of the solar the continent are alarming.
system. By Michael D. Lemonick The solution: empower women.
H E ALT H By Robert Engelman
38 Bitter Taste Bodyguards NEU ROSC IENC E
Tongue proteins that sense harsh
64 The Power of
foods are sentinels in other body
the Infant Brain
parts, guarding against disease.
The childs brain undergoes
By Robert J. Lee and
brief periods of intense change.
NoamA. Cohen
It might be possible to reinstate
SO CI A L B E H AV I O R
this malleability later in life
44 Collective Wisdom of Ants to correct neurological and
Understanding how ants manage
psychiatric disorders.
to carry out complex feats
By TakaoK. Hensch
without a leader could lead
to improved data networks and ASTRO N OMY
cancer treatments. 70 My Life as ON THE C OVER
If the solar system is harboring a hidden planet,
By Deborah M. Gordon a Comet Hunter it could be a so-called super Earth, a planet up to
T ECH N O LO GY A leading cosmic sleuth roughly 10 times more massive than Earth. Such
ALEX WILD (harvester ants)
48 The Quantum Hack found his lifes calling while a planet would be too dim and too far to be seen
easily by current telescopes, but its gravitational
Todays encryption methods trying to pass a French test
pull could explain some odd behavior among
will soon be obsolete. What then? in high school. other bodies in the distant solar system.
By Tim Folger By DavidH. Levy Illustration by Ron Miller.
11 Forum
Without government resources, basic science would
grind to a halt. By Nathan Myhrvold
12 Advances
The best hope for dark matter detection boots up.
A virtual crash test dummy. How jellyfish galaxies
11
are born. The birds that choose love over food.
24 TechnoFiles
When will we be able to vote online? By David Pogue
72 Recommended
Risking the fury of volcanoes. Superconducting Super
Collider failure. How living in homes made us human.
By Clara Moskowitz
73 Skeptic
Can our minds live forever? By Michael Shermer
12
74 Anti Gravity
Public health info has to take into account
how the public will interpret it. By Steve Mirsky
Scientific American (ISSN 0036-8733), Volume 314, Number 2, February 2016, published monthly by Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc., 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, N.Y. 10004-1562. Periodicals postage
paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40012504. Canadian BN No. 127387652RT; TVQ1218059275 TQ0001. Publication
ENRICO SACCHETTI (dark matter experiment)
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Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found atwww.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains
a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers.
Planet X?
in the night sky, after that you might jet to page 70 for My Life
as a Comet Hunter, where David H. Levy describes a cosmic
passion thats lasted for the past 50years.
In contrast to the expanding universe, Robert Engelman writes,
When we look up a t the night sky, its easy to appreciate how Earth is a finite place. Its increasingly clear that our species
scientists have gained insights from the apparent movements of must learn how to live within our meanswhether it comes to
those twinkling orbs. But its striking how energy, food, water or any other resource.
much of astronomy involves looking for One way we do that is to use less as a spe
indirect clues to something unseen. As an cies. And fewer people use fewer resources.
undergraduate, I reflected on how Nep We have been improving on that score,
tune revealed itself by subtly shifting the with a global average of 2.5 births per wo
orbit of Uranus. Then Pluto was found man, about half the level of six decades
when astronomers thought (incorrectly) ago. But challenges remain where popula
that something was pulling on Uranus tions are still rising steeply. In Six Billion
and Neptune. in Africa, starting on page 56, Engelman
Now, as staff editor Michael D. Lem reports that fertility remains high in most
onick writes, Something very odd seems of Africas 54 countrieshigh enough that
to be going on out beyond Pluto. Could it by 2100 the continents 1.2 billion could
be another hidden world? In our cover swell to between three billion and 6.1 bil
story, The Search for Planet X, Lemon lion, adding further challenges to the econ
ick describes how super Earthsplan omies and systems in some of the worlds
COULD PLANET X EXIST? Although
ets with up to roughly 10 times Earths poorest regions. Giving women opportuni
Nicolaus Copernicuss 1543 heliocentric
masscould be circling the sun beyond model of the universe was not correct, his ties and choices over their lives has per
our current range of discovery. Today concentric rings evoke the widening quest. haps the greatest potential. As Engelman
they are too far to be detected, but per says, The empowerment of women needs
haps future observatories could confirm them, if they exist. no demographic justification, but it is nonetheless a critical fac
Meanwhile we can enjoy the tale of the hunt for the latest icy tor in helping Africa move toward a more prosperous future.
BOARD OF ADVISERS
Leslie C. Aiello Kaigham J. Gabriel Christof Koch Martin A. Nowak Terry Sejnowski
President, Wenner-Gren Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer, President and CSO, Director, Program for Evolutionary Professor and Laboratory Head
for Anthropological Research Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Allen Institute for Brain Science Dynamics, and Professor of Biology and of Computational Neurobiology
of Mathematics, Harvard University Laboratory, Salk Institute for
Roger Bingham Harold Skip Garner Lawrence M. Krauss Biological Studies
Co-Founder and Director, Director, Origins Initiative,
Robert E. Palazzo
Director, Medical Informatics and Michael Shermer
Dean, University of Alabama at
The Science Network Systems Division, and Professor, Virginia Arizona State University Publisher, Skeptic magazine
Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences
Arthur Caplan Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech Morten L. Kringelbach Michael Snyder
Carolyn Porco
Director, Division of Medical Ethics, Michael S. Gazzaniga Director, Hedonia: TrygFonden Leader, Cassini Imaging Science Professor of Genetics, Stanford
Department of Population Health, Director, Sage Center for the Study Research Group, University of Oxford Team, and Director, CICLOPS, University School of Medicine
NYU Langone Medical Center of Mind, University of California, and University of Aarhus Space Science Institute Michael E. Webber
Santa Barbara Vilayanur S. Ramachandran Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,
Vinton Cerf Steven Kyle
Director, Center for Brain and Cognition, and Associate Professor,
Chief Internet Evangelist, Google David J. Gross Professor of Applied Economics and Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Professor of Physics and Permanent Management, Cornell University University of California, San Diego
George M. Church University of Texas at Austin
Director, Center for Computational Member, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Robert S. Langer Lisa Randall
Steven Weinberg
Physics,University of California, Santa Professor of Physics,
Genetics, Harvard Medical School David H. Koch Institute Professor, Director, Theory Research Group,
Harvard University
Rita Colwell Barbara (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004) Department of Chemical Department of Physics,
Martin Rees University of Texas at Austin
Distinguished University Professor, Lene Vestergaard Hau Engineering, M.I.T.
Astronomer Royal and Professor (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979)
University of Maryland College Park Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Lawrence Lessig of Cosmology and Astrophysics, George M. Whitesides
and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Applied Physics, Harvard University Professor, Harvard Law School Institute of Astronomy, University Professor of Chemistry and
of Public Health Danny Hillis John P. Moore of Cambridge Chemical Biology, Harvard University
Richard Dawkins Co-chairman, Applied Minds, LLC Professor of Microbiology and John Reganold Nathan Wolfe
Founder and Board Chairman, Daniel M. Kammen Immunology, Weill Medical Regents Professor of Soil Science Director, Global Viral Forecasting
Richard Dawkins Foundation College of Cornell University and Agroecology, Washington Initiative
Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor
State University Anton Zeilinger
Drew Endy of Energy, Energy and Resources Group, M. Granger Morgan
Jeffrey D. Sachs Professor of Quantum Optics,
Professor of Bioengineering, and Director, Renewable and Appropriate Professor and Head of Engineering and
Director, The Earth Institute, Quantum Nanophysics, Quantum
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Beware Prenatal
Gene Screens
Blood tests are safer for pregnant
women but do not tell the whole truth
Expecting a baby o ften provokes mixed emotionswonder and
amazement but also concern. Will the child be healthy? Happy?
Find his or her spot in the world? Several prenatal blood tests are
now available that attempt to ease some of the anxietyat least
about health. By analyzing trace amounts of fetal DNA in a preg-
nant womans bloodstream, these tests (which go by such names
as Harmony, MaterniT21 PLUS and verifi) can identify various
genetic anomalies up to six months before birth. Whether or not
parents to be take advantage of these laboratory measures is, of
course, up to them. But results from screening tests can be mis- tests, which, by definition, cast a broad net that includes many
leading, and industry and federal regulators are not doing more false-positive results than more specialized diagnostic
enough to ensure that people get all the information they need. procedures that are typically more accurate.
At present, the tests detect major abnormalitiessuch as Ignoring this distinction can lead to serious problems. If a
three copies of the 21st, 18th or 13th chromosome, which lead, screening test on 1,000 people correctly identified 19 out of 20
respectively, to Down, Edwards and Patau syndrome. These true cases of a genetic problem, it would have what statisticians
measures are a definite safety improvement over earlier proce- call a sensitivity rate of 95 percent. That sounds pretty good, but
dures to check the genes of the unborn. Previously such chromo- that same test might also yield 10 false positives10 other peo-
somal abnormalities could be detected prenatally only by inva- ple in the group for whom the test incorrectly suggested a prob-
sive tests, such as amniocentesis, which carry a small risk of trig- lem. The sensitivity rate would still be 95 percent because the
gering a miscarriage. test caught most of the true positives. But just over 65 percent
The new screens were originally offered to women older than of all the positive results19 out of 29were actually correct.
35 years, who are at a higher risk of delivering babies with Down It is this last ratiowhat statisticians called the positive
syndrome or other genetic maladies. But now companies are predictive valuethat tells you how much faith you should
marketing such tests to women with low-risk pregnancies as really have in a particular test result. And yet most gene-screen-
well. Last November a market research firm reported that the ing companies do not provide the positive predictive values for
tests accounted for $563.4 million worth of sales in 2014a fig- their tests. Instead they tout their tests sensitivity rate, which
ure that is expected to quadruple by 2022. can mislead patients and even their physicians. Problems with
Federal regulations have not caught up with the advancing prediction are why anyone who receives a positive result from
technology, however. Under current rules, such gene screens a screening test should follow it up with a more precise diag-
are considered lab tests, which, unlike new drugs, do not have nostic exam.
to show they offer clinically meaningful benefits. Instead manu- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also needs to follow
facturers only need to demonstrate that their tests generate up on these tests. It should accelerate efforts to change the rules
results within certain statistically acceptable limits of error. so that the makers of gene screens give more clinically relevant
This standard made more sense in the days when blood tests information, such as predictive values. The companies that offer
looked primarily for individual compounds, such as sugar mole- noninvasive prenatal screening should do more to educate all of
cules or hormones. Gene tests are different: they take a lot more us about a tests potential drawbacks. And expectant parents
interpretation and analysis to determine if a suspicious result should think carefully about whether they want to undergo these
indicates a true genetic aberration or merely a benign variation. screenings in the first place, particularly because new blood tests
For one thing, the amount of fetal DNA found in the mater- that supposedly provide a glimpse into the entire fetal genome
nal bloodstream is minute and must be copied many times to including possible predispositions to heart disease, cancer or di
generate enough material to test. The amplification process, abetesare just around the corner.
among other things, may lead to double counting mistakes that
give the false impression of an extra 21st chromosome, for ex
SCIENTIFIC AMERIC AN ONLINE
ample, where none exists. A second source of uncertainty stems COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE AT
from the fact that the new genetic tests are actually screening SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM/Feb2016
Even Genius
Needs a
Benefactor
Without government resources,
basic science will grind to a halt
By Nathan Myhrvold
F U R T H E R R E A D I N G S A N D C I TAT I O N S | SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM/Feb2016/ADVANCES
PHYS ICS
gives off light when its atoms are dis- another explanation for dark matter. On Twenty-seven subjects in a study at
turbed; scientists are aiming to catch the one hand, we know it exists, but on the Favaloro University in Argentina listened
rare occasion when a dark matter particle other hand, we know very little about it, to recorded sentences containing verbs
collides with a xenon nucleus, an impact so its very easy to theorize about possi- associated with specific hand shapes (such
that should leave a unique energy signal. bilities, Tait says. If we dont see it, that as applaud or punch). As soon as they
Although dark matter is thought to be tells us the dark matter has turned out to understood the sentence, participants
ubiquitousroughly 100,000 dark parti- be more weird and wonderful than we pressed a button while keeping both hands
cles fly through every square centimeter had originally guessed it might be. in either a flat or clenched-fist position.
of space each secondit almost never Clara Moskowitz Healthy subjects responded more quickly
AMYOTROPHIC
LATERAL SCLEROSIS (ALS)
ALS is typically characterized as a movement
disorder, which can lead some patients to speak
unclearly because of weak muscles. A new
study led by Sharon Ash at the University of
Pennsylvania shows that the disease may also
disrupt grammar usage. Forty-five subjects
were asked to narrate the events in a series of
24 pictures, using their own words. ALS patients
produced more incomplete sentences (And
hes angry cause it), more missing deter
miners (Owl flew around) and more errors
in verb tense (And the deer push him off a Over 100 new features & Over 500,000 registered users
cliff), compared with healthy controls. MRI improvements in Origin 2016! worldwide in:
scans revealed that people who made more 6,000+ Companies including
grammatical errors also showed more deterio FOR A FREE 60-DAY EVALUATION, 120+ Fortune Global 500
ration of brain regions associated with lan GO TO ORIGINLAB.COM/DEMO 6,500+ Colleges & Universities
guage, suggesting that grammar analysis may AND ENTER CODE: 9246 3,000+ Government Agencies
be a relatively simple way to assess disease & Research Labs
onset and severity. In an ongoing follow-up
study, Ash and her colleagues are analyzing
patients shorter utterances, prompted by
a single picture. 20+ years serving the scientific
& engineering community
THE SENS ES
The Ear as
tion for calculating distance. Distance is
something thats very difficult to compute,
Tape Measure
he explains. The study was recently pub-
lished in the journal P
LOS ONE.
Aaron Seitz, a professor of psychology
Humans use sightand hearing and neuroscience at the University of
to approximate distance California, Riverside, who was not involved
in the work, says the results may be
The experience o f seeing a lightning bolt useful clinically, such as by helping people
before hearing its associated thunder some with amblyopia (lazy eye) improve their
seconds later provides a fairly obvious performance when training to see with
example of the differential speeds of light both eyes. And there might be other practi-
and sound. But most intervals between cal applications, including making virtual-
linked visual and auditory stimuli are so reality environments more realistic. Adding
brief as to be imperceptible. A new study in a delay, says Nick Whiting, a VR engi
has found that we can glean distance infor- neer for Epic Games, can be another tech-
mation from these minimally discrepant nique in our repertoire in creating believ-
arrival times nonetheless. able experiences. Geoffrey Giller
Poison Pot
cides that deep in the woods. The team had
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The New
Crash Test
Dummy
A virtual model could improve
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etty Images
research institutes have set out together to
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3-D computer model depicting bone,
tissue and internal organs from head to toe.
To date, the group, known as the Global
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In recent years astronomers have spotted Located 220 million light-years away, this of the Royal Astronomical Society.
spiral galaxies that resemble the exotic jellyfish galaxy migrates toward one oclock. To confirm this idea, the researchers
creatures, trailing blue tendrils of gas and now plan to examine the gas in clusters
young stars. Now a search for more of these new stars. The brightest young stars shine harboring jellyfish galaxies. Cluster gas is
intriguing galaxies has yielded insights into blue, lending color to the jellyfishs tenta- so hot that it emits x-rays, but in the colli-
their origin. cles. In total, nine previously undiscovered sion scenario, the gas in jellyfish-bearing
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: M.SUN University of Alabama in Huntsville
To locate celestial jellyfish, astronomers jellyfish galaxies were found. clusters should be especially hot where the
Conor McPartland and Harald Ebeling of All was not as expected, however. We clusters smack into one another. If x-ray
the University of Hawaii at Manoa and realized theres something funny here, observations verify this scenario, galactic
their colleagues searched within 63 galaxy Ebeling says. These galaxies are not mov- jellyfish must be victims of violence. Born
clusters, which harbor numerous large gal- ing toward the centers of the clusters. in the aftermath of enormous collisions,
axies embedded in torrid gas. The team Because of each clusters gravitational pull, they are destined to lose all their gas and
already knew that jellyfish arise when a the jellyfish should have been heading into metamorphose into elliptical galaxies,
luckless spiral galaxy falls into a galaxy clus- the cluster coresa direction signaled by bland objects that lack gas and thus the
ter and the hot gas there strips away the the trailing tentacles. Yet the galaxies were beauty of star-spawning spiral arms.
spirals gas, yielding streamers that spawn moving every which way. Similarly, the jel- Ken Croswell
2016 Scientific American
K Ca Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr
Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te I Xe
*
Cs Ba Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Ti Pb Bi Po At Rn
Fr Ra Rf Db Sg Bh Hs Mt Ds Rg Cn Uut Fl Uup Lv Uus Uuo
* Lanthanides La Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu
IN PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES USA, VOL. 112, NO. 20; MAY 19, 2015
Actinides Ac Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No Lr
There are fewer than SOURCE: ON THE MATERIALS BASIS OF MODERN SOCIETY, BY T.E. GRAEDEL ETAL.,
22 Scientific
_Gorilla_Fund_Adopt_Me.indd 1 American, February 2016 12/18/15 1:05 PM Illustration by Daisy Chung
or visit ScientificAmerican.com/travel
A N I M A L B E H AV I O R
Copyright 2015 Insight Cruises Scientific American is a trademark of Nature America, Inc.
TRAVEL WITH
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
Like most birds, t he great tit is (mostly) birds from those mismatched pairs visited
monogamous. Every winter pairs of the inaccessible feeders nearly four times as
stunning yellow-breasted songbirds (above) often as those from matched pairs, sug-
reunite for the upcoming breeding season gesting that mates were sticking together
and spend the bulk of their time together even if it meant one of them lost out on
staking out territory, building nests and a meal. The results were published in
even foraging. The strength of their bond is December in C urrent Biology.
palpable, but what would happen if the Great tit couples may remain side by
birds were forced to choose between love side even when one of them is hungry
and food? because they will need each other later on.
To find out, University of Oxford zoolo- The pair bond is vital for great tits, Firth
gist JoshA. Firth and his colleagues ar says. Single parents cannot cope with the
ranged a set of feeders in a forest near the demands of raising a brood alone. Their
English countryside. Some of those feeders only hope for success depends on having
were set to open only for birds that had a supportive and reliable partner.
been tagged with odd-numbered micro- Andrew King, a behavioral ecologist at
chips; others allowed access only to those Swansea University in Wales, says that these
tagged with even numbers. Thus, pairs findings mirror observations in a wide vari-
with matching assignments could open ety of animals, ranging from primates to
the same feeders and feast on sunflower fish. Getting less food and foraging with a
SciAm 1-3rd vert.indd 1
seeds together. Mismatched couples, on friend may still be better than getting more
the other hand, were forced to dine at dif- food and foraging [alone], he says. In fact,
ferent venues. many of the thwarted birds in the experi-
Over the course of three months the ment eventually learned to scrounge quickly
BUITEN-BEELD A lamy
researchers monitored 17 couples, including from their partners food, taking advantage
seven odd-plus-even pairs that could not of a two-second window before the feeders
eat at the same feeders. They found that locked back up. Jason G. Goldman
Get Out the iVote Johns Hopkins Universitys Information Security Institute and
author of the 2006 book B rave New Ballot. You cant control
the security of the platform, he told me. The app youre using,
When will we bring our democratic the operating system on your phone, the servers your data will
process into the 21st century? cross en route to their destinationthere are just too many
By David Pogue openings for hacker interference.
But wait, youre entitled to object, banks, online stores and
Sooner or later e verything seems to go online. Newspapers. TV. stock markets operate electronically. Why should something as
Radio. Shopping. Banking. Dating. simple as recording votes be so much more difficult?
But its much harder to drag voting o
ut of the paper era. In the Voting is much trickier for a couple of reasons. Whereas mon-
2012 presidential election, more than half of Americans who vot- etary transactions are based on a firm understanding of your
ed cast paper ballots0percent voted with their smartphones. identity, a vote is supposed to be anonymous. In case of bank
Why isnt Internet voting here yet? trouble, investigators can trace a credit-card purchase back to
Imagine the advantages! Thered be no ambiguity, no hang- you, but how can they track an anonymous vote?
ing chads or errant marks. Wed get the totals instantly. And credit-card and bank fraud goes on constantly. Its just a
And think how online voting would boost participation! If cost of doing business. But the outcome of an election is too im
most people didnt actually have to g o somewhere to vote, youd portant; we cant simply ignore a bunch of lost or altered votes.
have a much better turnout than the measly 61.8 percent who So how does Estonia do it?
bothered in the 2012 election. Its a clever system. You can vote online using a government
Youd also cut costs, improve accessibility for older or dis- ID card with a chip and associated PIN codeand a card reader
abled voters, accommodate citizens abroad and get the younger for your PC. You can confirm the correct logging of your vote with
generation more involved in government. And you could still an app. Parts of the software are available for public inspection.
have in-person voting for those who lack access to the tech. You can change your vote as many times as you like online
Hey, Estonia has offered Internet voting in elections since you can even vote again in personbut only the last vote counts,
2005. About 30percent of voters take advantage of the option. No diminishing the possibility that somebody forced your selection.
fraud, no hacks, no problems. So whats the holdup in the U.S.? Unfortunately, three factors weaken this systems importance
Its all about security, of course. Currently Internet voting is as a model for the U.S. First, Estonia is a country of about one
a nonstarter, according to Aviel D. Rubin, technical director of million eligible votersnot around 220 million. Second, we
dont have a national ID card.
Third, security experts insist that just because hackers havent
interfered with Estonias voting doesnt mean they c ant. In 2014
a team led by University of Michigan researchers found at least
two points where hackers could easily change votes: by installing
a virus on individual PCs or by modifying the vote-collecting
servers. (The Estonian government disagrees with the findings.)
Meanwhile other countries online-voting efforts havent
been as successful. Norway tested online voting systems in 2011
and 2013. But after controversy and the discovery that there was
no improvement in voter turnout, the program was abandoned;
its back to paper for Norway.
At the moment, a few Americans c an v ote online: absentee
voters from Alaska and many such voters in the military, for ex
ample. But theyre informed that their votes may not be anony-
mous or secure.
Online voting isnt dead forever: great minds are working
with biometric ID systems, two-factor authentication and new
cryptographic systems in hopes of solving the problem. But the
odds are overwhelming that you wont be casting your vote
online in this years electionor in the next few after that. In
the meantime, we can still get our I voted stickers.
oratory tests. Pooling all these data turns them into a valuable
commodity. Other businesses are willing to pay for the insights
that they can glean from such collections to guide their invest
ments in the pharmaceutical industry, for example, or more pre
cisely tailor an advertising campaign promoting a new drug.
By law, the identities of everyone found in these commercial
databases are supposed to be kept secret. Indeed, the organiza
tions that sell medical information to data-mining companies
strip their records of Social Security numbers, names and de
tailed addresses to protect peoples privacy. But the data brokers
also add unique numbers to the records they collect that allow
them to match disparate pieces of information to the same indi
vidualeven if they do not know that persons name. This match
ing of information makes the overall collection more valuable,
but as data-mining technology becomes ubiquitous, it also makes
it easier to learn a previously anonymous individuals identity.
At present, the system is so opaque that many doctors, nurs
es and patients are unaware that the information they record or
divulge in an electronic health record or the results from lab
tests they request or consent to may be anonymized and sold.
But they will not remain in the dark about these practices forev
er. In researching the medical-data-trading business for an up
coming book, I have found growing unease about the ever ex
panding sale of our medical information not just among privacy
advocates but among health industry insiders as well.
The entire health care system depends on patients trusting
that their information will be kept confidential. When they learn
Medical Records
health care experts believe that it is time to adopt measures that
give patients more control over their data.
M ULTIBILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS
Data brokers legally buy, sell and trade The dominant player in the medical-data-trading industry is
health information, but the practice risks IMS Health, which recorded $2.6 billion in revenue in 2014.
undermining public confidence Founded in 1954, the company was taken private in 2010 and re
launched as public in 2014. Since then, it has proved an investor
By Adam Tanner favorite, with shares rising more than 50 percent above its ini
tial price in little more than a year. At press time, IMS was a
For decades researchers have run longitudinal studies to gain $9-billion company. Competitors include Symphony Health So
new insights into health and illness. By regularly recording in lutions and smaller rivals in various countries.
formation about the same individuals medical history and care Decades ago, before computers came into widespread use,
over many years, they have, for example, shown that lead from IMS field agents photographed thousands of prescription rec
peeling paint damages childrens brains and bodies and have ords at pharmacies for hundreds of clerks to transcribea slow
demonstrated that high blood pressure and cholesterol levels and costly process. Nowadays IMS automatically receives peta
contribute to heart disease and stroke. To this day, some of the bytes (1015 bytes or more) of data from the computerized rec
original (and now at least 95-year-old) participants in the fa ords held by pharmacies, insurance companies and other medi
mous Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1948, still pro cal organizationsincluding federal and many state health de
vide health information to study investigators. partments. Three quarters of all retail pharmacies in the U.S.
Health researchers are not the only ones, however, who col send some portion of their electronic records to IMS. All told,
lect and analyze medical data over long periods. A growing the company says it has assembled half a billion dossiers on in
number of companies specialize in gathering longitudinal infor dividual patients from the U.S. to Australia.
mation from hundreds of millions of hospitals and doctors rec IMS and other data brokers are not restricted by medical
ords, as well as from prescription and insurance claims and lab privacy rules in the U.S., because their records are designed to
THE SEARCH
FOR PLANET
In the far reaches of the solar
system, a hidden planet larger
than Earth may be lurking
By Michael D. Lemonick
These badly behaving objects, which number between four objects into this strange configurationand that something
and a dozen, depending on who is counting, share another could be a huge, unknown planet, significantly more massive
orbital peculiarity as well. Like most KBOs, they orbit at an than Earth, lurking out at the edge of the solar system: a super
angle to the pancake-shaped plane where the planets live, ris- Earth (super Earths are planets up to roughly 10 times more
ing above the pancake for part of the time, then plunging massive than Earth). If such a hidden objectsometimes whim-
through to dip below for the rest. But unlike their frozen breth- sically called Planet Xexists, it would orbit at least 10 times
ren, these objects all pass through the planetary plane at the farther from the sun than Neptunetoo distant and too faint to
same time that they make their closest swing toward the sun. have been spotted by any telescope to date. Yet its sizable mass
Or, to use a term even many astronomers find arcane, they would have gravitational effects on the rest of the solar system
have remarkably similar arguments of perihelion (AOP). Nor- effects that might explain the odd orbits astronomers have seen.
mally, says Scott Sheppard, a planetary scientist at the Carne We dont have definitive proof yet that theres a planetary-
gie Institution for Science, you would expect the arguments of mass body out there, says Nathan Kaib, a planet-formation
perihelion to have been randomized over the life of the solar theorist who is also at the Carnegie Institution. But something
system. Maybe it is just a coincidence that these few bodies funny is going on that we dont understand. And a growing
ended up with the same AOP: such a thing should happen, number of astronomers are putting stock in the once ridiculed
purely by chance, less than a few percent of the time. Those notion of the presence of a super Earth in our midst, Planet X.
odds are something like getting 10heads in a row when you flip As Kaib suggests, the evidence for a hidden planet is far
a coin: pretty unusual but nowhere near impossible. from ironclad. Many astronomers still doubt the idea, and even
But those 10 heads could also mean your coin is loaded, and those who invoke it as a possibility say they are not yet fully
the same goes for these KBOs. Something may have forced the convinced. The history of astronomy is full of invisible mystery
IN BRIEF
A number of distant, icy objects c ircling the sun with The evidence, t hey say, supports the idea that one or These bodies w ould be too far and dim to have shown
weird orbits have led some scientists to suspect there may more super Earthsplanets up to 10 times more up in any existing telescope, but future observatories
be more planets than we know of in the solar system. massive than Earthmay orbit far beyond Neptune. may be able to spot them, if they are out there.
2002 GB32
2005 RH52
Kuiper belt
Uranus
Pluto
Sun
Neptune
2000 CR105
2010 VZ98
2007 VJ305
2012 VP113
SOURCES: INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION MINOR PLANET CENTERS LIST OF TRANSNEPTUNIAN OBJECTS (Kuiper belt object data);
2004 VN112
Eccentricity (orbit shape relative to a perfect circle)
0.5
WHERE PLANET X MIGHT LURK
A plot of the average distance these bodies travel from the sun as well as their eccentricity
a measure of how stretched out their orbits areunderscores their differences from the familiar
Pluto members of the solar system. If a hidden super Earth planet exists, its properties could fall
Mercury within a wide range, but general estimates suggest a distance of between 200 and 1,000 AU.
Mars
Uranus
0.0
Neptune Current estimates put Planet X somewhere in this range (2001,000 AU)
Earth
Nobody had thought an upped the ante. Based on the orbits of Sedna,
2012 VP113 and smaller bodies, they argued
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE Listen to a podcast about evidence for Planet X at ScientificAmerican.com/feb2016/planet-x
Bitter taste
receptors
are not only on
the tongue but
throughout the
body, where
they defend us
against microbial
invaders
By Robert J. Lee and
Noam A. Cohen
btter
taste
IN BRIEF
Proteins that detect bitter taste exist not just on the Called taste receptors, these proteins trigger ex- Stimulating these receptors w ith bitter compounds
tongue but throughout the body, in organs that nev- treme rapid-response defenses that can kill bacteria, may heighten natural immune responses and reduce
er come into contact with food. new research has found. our reliance on antibiotics.
SUPERTASTERS
In our search, we looked specifically for one bitter taste receptor,
T2R38, the most well studied of the T2R family. The human we compared the behaviors of nasal cells possessing one or the
T2R38 protein comes in several varieties, the result of slight dif- other of these two forms. (We knew which types were in the cells
ferences, called polymorphisms, in the genes that encode them. by sequencing their genes.) To get the receptors to react, we ex-
And we did find many of the most common versions in the cilia posed the cells to a chemical called phenylthiocarbamide (PTC),
lining the nose and sinuses. often used for T2R38 taste testing. And we were excited to see
The discovery of this receptor menagerie led us to explore that the cells from supertaster patients, but not those from the
how the different T2R38 forms affect the behavior of sinus and nontasters, produced large amounts of nitric oxide.
nasal cells. Two forms in particular have dramatically different This finding gave another boost to our idea of a taste-immuni-
effects on taste when present in the tongue. One of these versions ty connection. Nitric oxide does two important things against
is very sensitive as a taste detector in the mouth, and the other bacteria in the airway. It can stimulate airway cells to increase cil-
one does not respond at all. About 30 percent of Caucasians in- iary beating. It can also directly kill bacteria. Because nitric oxide
herit two copies of the gene for the insensitive T2R38 variant molecules form a gas, they can rapidly diffuse out of the cells lin-
(one from each parent), and these individuals are nontasters ing the airway into the mucus and then into bacteria. Once in-
for certain bitter compounds. About 20 percent of Caucasians side, the substance can damage membranes, enzymes and DNA.
have two copies of the gene for the functional T2R38, and these Ordinarily our sinuses produce large amounts of nitric oxide that
individuals perceive those same compounds as intensely bitter; travel through the airway, which helps to keep it free of infection.
such people are known as supertasters. Those with one copy of These twin modes of antibacterial activity made us think that
each gene variant fall somewhere in between these extremes. different T2R38 versions might alter peoples susceptibility to up-
Examining tissue removed during sinus and nasal surgeries, per respiratory infections. And indeed, in the lab, we found that
IMMUNE RESPONSE
Hair-Trigger
Reaction
Bacteria of the gram- Bacterium
negative class, when they
infect the nose, release
4 Nitric
chemicals called acyl- 1 AHL released oxide kills
homoserine lactones, or
bacteria
AHLs 1 . This chemical
is detected by bitter taste
receptors from a group
called T2R38s, which sit in
hairlike projections called
cilia that extend from cells 2 T2R38 receptor
on the inside surfaces of the activated
nose 2 . The cells, known
as nasal epithelial cells,
release a gas, nitric oxide,
in response 3 . The gas
diffuses into the bacteria,
killing them 4 . Cilia on
3 Cell produces
the cells also beat back and
nitric oxide
forth, flicking bacteria away. Ciliated nasal
epithelial cell
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE Learn about chronic sinusitis treatment at ScientificAmerican.com/feb2016/sinusitis Illustration by AXS Studio
In the 2015 summer blockbuster Ant-Man, the charac- chical way in which many human organizations work, and it
ter Hank Pym, a scientist who has invented a suit that can shrink provides a convenient premise for a Hollywood film whose he-
a person down to the size of an insect, remarks that ants can per- roes are people. Theres just one problem: its wrong. Ants nev-
form amazing feats, but they need a leader to tell them what to er march in lockstep, united in obedience to a single command.
do. Pym wears a small device behind his ear that allows him to in- In the real world, the often random and apparently inept ac-
struct the ants to act as a phalanx of attackers that helps the ant- tions of individual ants, each without any sense of a common
sized human hero defeat an evil mastermind. goal, combine to allow colonies to find and collect food, build
The idea that ants have commanders that set the agenda nests, form trails and bridges, defend their host plants from
and orchestrate their activities resonates because of the hierar- herbivores or cultivate gardensall without supervision. Ants
IN BRIEF
Ant colonies work without a leader. simple interactions based on scent. colony uses is related to its ecology. ants could illuminate other systems that
They organize their activities using The system of interactions that a Insights into collective behavior in operate without central control.
world. Perhaps its effectiveness at getting to new food resources Ant Encounters. D eborah M. Gordon. Princeton University Press, 2010.
first explains why this invasive species tends to outcompete na- The Ecology of Collective Behavior. D eborah M. Gordon in P LOS Biology, Vol. 12,
tive species wherever it invades. No.3, Article No. e1001805; March 11, 2014.
Quantum
Hack Quantum computers
will render todays
cryptographic
methods obsolete.
What happens then?
By Tim Folger
IN BRIEF
Conventional computers h ave been Quantum computers, however, could No one has built a full-scale quantum That is why researchers a re racing to
ill equipped to crack the encryption break todays encryption schemes by computer, but academic, government perfect and deploy technology for quan-
schemes, often based on large prime exploiting the strange rules of the sub- and private researchers are trying, and tum encryption, which uses quantum
numbers, at the core of everyday online atomic world and trying all solutions to some experts say they could succeed uncertainty to create nearly unbreak-
commerce and communication. a code simultaneously. in as little as 10 years. able codes.
T O D AY
Party A
Secret key Secure Insecure channels Secret key
channel Party A
Insecure
channel
Plain Plain
te te
(orig xt Ciph
ertex Plain
text (orig xt Ciph
ertex Plain
text
docu inal t docu inal t
men men
t) t)
When a mismatch
occurs, photons
are repolarized
at random.
or
3 Recipient and sender compare notes. The values they agree on form the key.
Receiving
lters
The receiver chooses one
of two filters at random for
each incoming photon. 0 0 1 1 0
Unlike a conventional secret key, the photon key is nearly allow any number of networked gadgetscell phones, home
tamper-proof. (More on that nearly in a bit.) Any eavesdropper computers or even televisionsto exchange quantum keys by
who tries to intercept the photons will disturb them, altering connecting to a secure, centralized server. They call their inven-
their values. By comparing parts of the key, the legitimate sender tion the QKarD, a play on quantum-key distribution.
and receiver can check whether the transmitted photons match The expensive parts of quantum cryptography are the single
the originals. If they detect signs of spying, they can scrap the photon detectors and all the things to cool them and make them
key and start again. Today keys are often used for years, Walen- happy, Nordholt says. So she and her colleagues placed the com-
ta says. But with quantum-key distribution, we can change the plicated, costly components in one computer at the hub of a net-
key every second or every minute, which is why it is so secure. work. Client computers, each equipped with a QKarD, connect to
COUNSELORfrom Marie
Stopes International educates
women gathered at a hospital
in Rabai, Kenya, about family-
planning options, including
emergency contraception.
E
More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want (Island Press), won
the Population Institutes Global Media Award in 2008.
IN BRIEF
By 2100 Africas population could be three billion to women are empowered educationally, economically, Men also have to relinquish sole control over the
6.1 billion, up sharply from 1.2billion today, if birth socially and politically. They must also be given easy decision to have children and refrain from abusing
rates remain stubbornly high. This unexpected rise and affordable access to contraceptives. Following wives or partners who seek birth control.
will stress already fragile resources in Africa and this integrated strategy, Mauritius has lowered its For such efforts to succeed ultimately, government
around the world. fertility rate from six to 1.5 children; Tunisias rate leaders must encourage public and policy conversa-
A significant fertility decline c an be achieved only if dropped from seven to two. tions about slower population growth.
and are less likely to contribute to their parents income, and par-
ents are more likely to shift from traditional to modern ideas about
ideal family size and the use of family planning. Of course, that is
not a full solution. Ironically, certain African countries have sig-
nificantly reduced fertility rates and have lessons to teach. The
greatest is the benefit of combining family-planning access with
efforts to give women more control over their lives and families.
In the Arabic north and in South Africa and neighboring na-
tions, fertility rates have declined to three or less, approaching
those in the rest of the world. In contrast, in the three vast subre- out of five reproductive-age women were using contraception.
gionsEast, Central and West Africafertility rates range from In 1957 Tunisias first president, Habib Bourguiba, set in mo-
four to seven or higher. tion a sea change in the legal status and reproductive health of
The bright spots began their work years ago. Africas half-doz- women hard to imagine in a mostly Muslim country. Bourguiba
en small island states have some of the continents smallest fami- guaranteed women full citizenship rights, including the right to
lies. One of the most rapid fertility declines in history occurred in vote and to remove the veil. He pledged universal primary school
Mauritius, east of Madagascar. The average fell from more than six attendance for girls as well as boys, banned polygamy, raised
in the 1960s to 2.3 two decades later. Today the rate is about 1.5, minimum marriage ages and granted women the right to di-
comparable to Europe and Japan. The steepest drop took place in vorce. He legalized contraception and then subsidized abortions
the 1960s and early 1970s in the absence of any economic growth. for women with large families. By the mid-1960s mobile family-
Mauritians were relatively well educated, women as well as men. planning clinics were offering oral contraceptives throughout
And by the early 1960s the national government overcame opposi- the country. Bourguiba was no democrathis tightly controlled
tion from various groups, including Catholics and Muslims, to National Assembly elected him president for life in 1975but his
successfully promote family planning. Within two decades four social reforms were left in place after he was deposed in 1987. Tu-
AN INTEGRATED STRATEGY
How can the rest of Africa duplicate such suc-
cess? The first step is to recognize that women
and couples, not governments, hold the right to
decide how many children to have. Women who
are treated by their governments and the people
HOME VISITS,here supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,
around them as equal to men are more likely to
are vital to bringing family-planning information to remote villages such as
conclude that they should decide whether and
Mbale, Uganda (above).
when to become pregnant, with the net result be-
ing smaller family size.
Education, especially in secondary school, tur-
bocharges this empowerment. Education teaches girls and higher educational attainment, later sexual activity and mar-
young women about nutrition, medicine and vaccination. But riage, and has reduced teen pregnancy.
education also opens up a world of opportunityeconomic, so- Ethiopias government recently recruited 38,000 health exten-
cial, civic, political and artistic. Education spurs young people to sion workers, armed them with information and supplies, and dis-
seek contraceptives and to plan smaller families as they learn patched them to rural areas, where 80 percent of the countrys
about the world, their bodies and the potential to steer their own population lives. Pedaling U.S.-donated bicycles to remote villages,
destinies. African women with no education have, on average, the health workers offer family-planning information and contra-
5.4 children, according to the International Institute for Applied ceptives to women and, when they are supportive, their husbands.
Systems Analysis. Women who have completed primary school Fertility declined over a recent three-year period from 4.8 to 4.1.
have, on average, 4.3 children. A big drop, to 2.7, correlates with Similarly impressive declines are turning up in communities in
completion of secondary school. For those who go on to college, Kenya and Ghana and even in the megacity of Kinshasa.
fertility is 2.2. In many places, however, the leadership shift is halfhearted.
Better education of young men is also vital. Young people of The continents mostly male presidents still seem to think there
both genders who complete comprehensive sex education cours- is strength in numbers and that women should not be reaching
es are more likely to delay having sex, which reduces early and for equality with men. It would help if African presidents would
unwanted pregnancy. The HIV/AIDS pandemic stoked the visit family-planning clinics, May says. That can really make a
spread of sex education, at least in southern and eastern Africa. difference in attitudes. But instead they always like to go to the
But its quality is uneven, and it is absent altogether in much of immunization clinics.
the continent.
The impact of sex education and higher educational attain- CHANGING MENS ATTITUDES
ment by women can be squandered if family planning goes un- Indeed, much depends on t he men in womens lives. Unfortunate-
supported by governments and society at large, however. Even ly, helping women plan their families stealthilyby using con-
women with graduate degrees cannot manufacture their own traceptive injections, for exampleis a leading strategy because
contraceptives in their homes. many male partners believe childbearing decisions are theirs
African leaders appear to be gradually recognizing this dire alone to make. Men also tend to want one to three more children
situation. Ugandas president Yoweri Museveni long opposed than women do, not surprising given who gets pregnant, gives
family planning, but in July 2014 he hosted an all-Africa confer- birth and handles most of the child care.
ence on the need to make it more widely available. Government- The differences in male and female outlooks sometimes get ex-
funded voucher programs in Kenya and Uganda and subsidized pressed in ugly ways. A womans interest in or use of contracep-
maternal and child health care in Zimbabwe encourage low-in- tion can make her vulnerable to abuse from her male partner. A
come individuals and couples to visit clinics. Many walk out with Nigerian study presented at a 2011 conference found that 30 per-
a method of contraception that will prevent unwanted pregnan- cent of women who are or ever were married report some degree
cies and space out wanted ones. In Malawi, cash transfers from of intimate partner violencesexual, physical or emotional. Con-
an experimental program to schoolgirls and their parents or traceptive users and women with some primary education were
guardians have encouraged school attendance, contributing to more likely than nonusers and those with no schooling to have en-
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE For a video graphic showing 2,000 years of global population growth, see ScientificAmerican.com/feb2016/engelman
proportion of rural residents who depend on children to work Africas Demographic Challenges: How a Young Population Can Make
poor land, large families being valued as a matter of status (espe- Development Possible. L illi Sippel et al. Berlin Institute for Population and
cially for men), and women having low status (children prop up Development, 2011. www.berlin-institut.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Afrika/
Africas_demographic_challenges.pdf
womens value in marriages, which are often polygamous). Child-
African Demography. Jean-Pierre Guengant and John F. May in Global Journal of
rearing is typically shared in extended families, notes demogra- Emerging Market Economies, V ol. 5, No. 3, pages 215267; September 2013.
pher John Casterline of Ohio State University, easing the bur- Unmet Need and Fertility Decline: A Comparative Perspective on Prospects in
denand therefore easing the decision among parents to have Sub-Saharan Africa. John B. Casterline and Laila O. El-Zeini in S tudies in Family
another baby. Mamadou Tandja, president of Niger until 2010, Planning, Vol. 45, No. 2, pages 227245; June 2014.
used to spread his arms to denote the vast expanse of his coun- FROM OUR ARCHIVES
try, bigger than Texas, telling visitors there was plenty of room
Population & Sustainability. R obert Engelman; Scientific American Earth 3.0, J une 2009.
for a much larger population.
A multipronged strategy requires strong engagement by gov- s c i e n t i f i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a z i n e /s a
POWER
OF THE
An understanding of formative periods of intense learning
INFANT
during childhood suggests strategies for correcting neurological
BRAIN
and psychiatric disorders later in life
By Takao K. Hensch
The latest findings from brain science are lending a new appre- The original discovery of these formative stages came more
ciation to the proverb. New discoveries made during the past 15 than 50 years ago. (Torsten N. Wiesel and the late David H.
years spell out more clearly how the brain begins to wire itself in Hubel received a Nobel Prize for some of the work in 1981.) For
infancy and toddlerhoodand how to tinker with brain c ircuits to many years afterward, the conventional wisdom held that criti-
treat the most serious neurological and psychiatric illnesses. cal periods were fleeting and that once they ended, there was
The brain builds the right connections during intervals of no way of going back. Recently new molecular tools for study-
intense developmentsome lasting months, others yearsthat ing critical periods have overturned many of the prevailing
are known as critical periods. Most occur in infancy, but some ideas. Experiments in animalsand even some human stud-
arrive as late as the teenage years. Neuroscientists have already ieshave demonstrated that a critical period might be re-
identified critical periods for vision, hearing, language and var- opened to repair broken brains well afterward.
ious forms of social interaction. During a critical period, the The implications point to a startling possibility. We may one
child brain enters into an intimate pas de deux with the outside day be able to tweak chemical switches that reinstate pivotal in-
world. Incoming photons and sound waves serve as cues for the tervals and let the brain rewire itself to treat neurological and
brains molecular machinery to lay down and select the links psychiatric disorders ranging from amblyopia (lazy eye) to psy-
among brain cells that will last into adulthood and old age. chosis. An understanding of what happens in the baby brain
If a critical period occurs too soon or too late or if it fails to may inspire more than the design of new drug treatments. It
begin or end when it should, the consequences can be dire. A may also give educators, psychologists and policy makers a fun-
child might be left partially blind or become susceptible to con- damental understanding of the basic process of child develop-
ditions such as autism. A baby with, say, a hereditary cataract ment or the consequences of parental neglect that will allow
in one eye that keeps her from seeing her surroundings will them to tailor schooling to fit the capabilities of each child at a
lose sight because the connections among brain cells will not particular stage of brain growth.
have wired up properly during a critical period that begins in
infancy and tapers off gradually before ending at age eight. TRIGGERS AND BRAKES
Once it is over, the child has an extremely limited chance of de- The brain changes all the time, n ot just in infancy. Neurosci-
veloping normal vision through that eye. entists call it plasticity. When you learn how to juggle or use a
IN BRIEF
The child brain d evelops vision and Critical periods o pen at defined times Growing understanding of the mole- Regulating the biology of early devel-
other abilities during critical periods, during the course of childhood and cules that both start and stop critical opment may one day allow drugs or
when the brain is primed to undergo adolescence to allow the molding and periods has let scientists gain a mea- medical procedures to restart critical
lasting change in response to sensory shaping of neural connectionsa prop- sure of control over their timing, re- periods later in life to correct early de-
and social stimuli. erty known as brain plasticity. storing plasticity even in adulthood. velopmental problems.
Inhibitory GABA
Excitatory
neuron released
neuron
Synapses
Synapses not firing in
fire hap- tandem are
hazardly Synapses inhibited
firing
Other together Strong
neurons persist connections
stabilize Weak connections
are pruned
Reopening Plasticity
Experiments
A Restart Drugs and Cell Therapies Environmental Factors have shown that
Understanding of the molecular Stem cells Physical exercise even in an adult, plasticity
processes in the brain that bring Valproate (HDAC inhibitors) Video-game training can, at times, return
about the plasticity of the critical Breakdown of perineuronal nets Meditation to levels comparable
period has enabled scientists to use Antidepressants to that found
drugs or behavioral measures, such Acetylcholine-enhancing drugs in childhood.
as physical exercise, to demonstrate
Neural Plasticity
new phone app, subtle alterations occur at synapses, the sites During the critical periods of early childhood, however, es-
where nerve signals travel between neurons. Mastering a new pecially momentous changes take place. A baby begins life with
skill brings about biochemical changes in a neuron that results a thick overgrowth of synapses that must be pared back to do
in either stronger or weaker transmission across synapses. their job properly. The necessary structural changesthe cull-
This simple type of plasticity persists throughout a lifetime. A ing of synapseshappen during the critical period.
person can always learn new things. Scientists who study critical periods often home in on the
Illustration by Mesa Schumacher (neurons), Graphic by Jen Christiansen February 2016, ScientificAmerican.com67
this chemical relative of a snake toxin rekindles plasticity. Neurodevelopment: Unlocking the Brain. J on Bardin in Nature, V ol. 487,
Acetylcholine is not the only neurotransmitter that may help pages 2426; July 4, 2012. w ww.nature.com/news/neurodevelopment-
treat amblyopia. Administering antidepressants such as Prozac unlocking-the-brain-1.10925
that increase the levels of serotonin has alleviated amblyopia in Re-Opening Windows: Manipulating Critical Periods for Brain Development.
TakaoK. Hensch and ParizadM. Bilimoria in Cerebrum. P ublished online August 29,
rat experiments. In some cases, drugs may not even be needed. 2012. h ttp://tinyurl.com/pyg9jjc
Action video games or meditation may also promote a height- Balancing Plasticity/Stability across Brain Development. A nneE. Takesian and
COURTESY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY
ened state of plasticityand are being explored as possible treat- TakaoK. Hensch in Changing Brains: Applying Brain Plasticity to Advance and Recover
ments for amblyopia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder Human Ability. E dited by MichaelM. Merzenich etal. Elsevier, 2013.
and other conditions. FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Researchers who work on critical periods often find them-
Baby Talk. P atriciaK. Kuhl; November 2015.
selves asking why these limits on learning exist in the first place.
The ability to learn, say, Chinese as an adult as easily as a child s c i e n t i f i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a z i n e /s a
COMET
augmented by more powerful instruments.
But actually discovering my first comet took
almost 19 years. On that particular night,
November 13, 1984, I got my bearings by
finding a faint galaxy, then a planetary
HUNTER
nebula (the remnant of an ancient stars
lethal outburst) and then a pretty cluster
of stars. My attention was soon drawn to a
fuzzy object a bit to the clusters south. Al
though its glow was diffuse, it lacked the
symmetry of a galaxy. Nor did it have the
The need to pass a French test, mottled ap pearance of a densely packed
star cluster. I drew the object and some sur-
of all things, spurred half a rounding stars as reference points on a sketch
pad. As I looked through the telescope again
century of cosmic sleuthing and again and made new drawings, I slowly real-
ized that this fuzzy object was not staying in the
By David H. Levy same place relative to the nearby stars but was creep-
ing northward, as only a comet would.
I telephoned an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in
Flagstaff, Ariz., who confirmed my find with an abrupt, Better
I
send a telegram. I felt as though I could float right up to the
sky I loved so much. It turned out that Michael Rudenko dis-
decided to become a comet hunter on covered the comet independently the next evening, and thus
the new object became known as Comet Levy-Rudenko.
a bright, clear morning 50 years ago in In the following years, I discovered 22 other new comets,
Montreal. It was a bit of an impromptu either working alone or with others. Perhaps the most famous
decision. I had a French test coming up was Comet Shoemaker-Levy9, which was the first comet ever
observed crashing into a planet, Jupiter. Working together in
and knew that the examiner, a Mr. Hutch 1993, Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and I found this odd
ison, would ask me about my ca reer space ball, 16 months before its fiery collision.
plans. I had to come up with something I am still searching for comets, but I rather doubt I will find
any more new ones. Comet hunting has become completely
that was both credible and easily translated automatedwith computers scanning robotically captured
into French. photographs of the night sky for fuzzy objects that move in
just the right way. My original methodpeering directly into
About six years earlier I truly had become passionate about a telescope to witness what no one else had seen beforeis
the night sky, but to stand up and say, Astronomie! was not no longer needed. I still enjoy the visual hunt, however. After
enough. Mr. Hutchison would want details. I recalled a comet 50 years, it is the joy of the search, more than the discoveries,
that had recently been discovered from Japanone that eventu- that keeps me going.
ally became the brightest of the 20th century. Without a further
thought, I decided that I was going to be a searcher for comets,
among other things. Not coincidentally, the English and French M O R E TO E X P L O R E
words for a comet (une comte) sound very much alike, and thus Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS):
my new vocation was relatively easy to talk about in French. http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public
By the time I arrived in school that day, I had developed a Rosetta Mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: www.esa.int/
search plan that would last a lifetime. And true to the answer I Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta and http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov
gave Mr. Hutchison, I began on Friday evening, December 17, FROM OUR ARCHIVES
1965, when the moon was a waning crescent and its light would
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Meets Jupiter. D avidH. Levy, EugeneM. Shoemaker
not interfere too much. I have not stopped searching for com- and CarolynS. Shoemaker; August 1995.
ets since that night. Fortunately, working as a science journalist
and giving lectures about the night skynot to mention the s c i e n t i f i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a z i n e /s a
The authors examine what went wrong enthusiast George offers an insiders enabling the advances in culture and tech-
and what lessons the failure of the SSC account of the frantic messages, last-min- nology that separate us from our primate
can impart in an era when such Big Sci- ute antenna malfunctions and aggressive cousins. At a time when many people
ence projects are increasingly central to jockeying for coveted wave bands that around the world lack a place to call their
scientific research. defined the spirited contest. own, Allen shows why we all deserve one.
for Atheists
easy to trace the synaptic connections between the neurons.
This sounds promising, but I have my doubts. Is a connec
tome precisely analogous to a program that can be uploaded in
Can a brains connectome machine-readable format into a computer? Would a connectome
so preserved and uploaded into a computer be the same as awak
be preserved forever? ening after sleep or unconsciousness? Plus, there are around
By Michael Shermer 86 billion neurons in a human brain with often 1,000 or more
synaptic connections for each one, for a total of 100 trillion con
The soul is the pattern o f information that represents you nections to be accurately preserved and replicated. Staggering
your thoughts, memories and personalityyour self. There is no complexity. And this doesnt include the rest of the nervous sys
scientific evidence that something like soul stuff exists beyond tem outside the brain, which is also part of your self that you
the brains own hardwiring, so I was curious to visit the labora might want resurrected.
tories of 21st Century Medicine in Fontana, Calif., to see for Hayworth admitted to me that a future of uploaded posthu
myself an attempt to preserve a brains connectomethe com mans is probably centuries away. Nevertheless, he adds, as an
prehensive diagram of all neural synaptic connections. atheist and unabashed materialist neuroscientist, I am virtually
This medical research company specializes in the cryopres certain that mind uploading is possible. Why? Because our
ervation of human organs and tissues using cryoprotectants best neuroscience models say that all these perceptual and sen
(antifreeze). In 2009, for example, the facilitys chief research sorimotor memories are stored as static changes in the synapses
scientist GregoryM. Fahy published a paper in the peer-reviewed between neurons, which is what connectomics is designed to
journal O rganogenesis, documenting how his team successfully record and preserve, allowing us to hit pause for a few centu
transplanted a rewarmed rabbit kidney after it had been cryo ries if we need to. Imagine a world in which the fear of death,
protected and frozen to 135 degrees Celsius through the process disease and aging would have been mostly removed, he says.
of vitrification, in which the liquids in a living system are
converted into the glassy state at low temperatures.
Can brains be so preserved? Fahy and his colleague
Robert L. McIntyre are now developing techniques that
they hope will win the Brain Preservation Technology
Prize, the brainchild of neuroscientist Kenneth Hay
worth (Im on their advisory board as the a dvocatus
diaboli). As I write this, the prize is currently valued at
more than $106,000; the first 25percent of the award will
be for the complete preservation of the synaptic struc
ture of a whole mouse brain, and the other 75percent will
go to the first team to successfully preserve a whole
large animal brain in a manner that could also be adopt
ed for humans in a hospital or hospice setting immedi
ately upon clinical death.
I witnessed the infusion of a rabbit brain through its
carotid arteries with a fixative agent called glutaraldehyde,
which binds proteins together into a solid gel. The brain
was then removed and saturated in ethylene glycol, a cryopro It sounds utopian, but theres something deeply moving in
tective agent eliminating ice formation and allowing safe stor this meliorism. I refuse to accept that the human race will stop
age at 130 degrees C as a glasslike, inert solid. At that tempera technological and scientific progress, Hayworth told me. We
ture, chemical reactions are so attenuated that it could be stored are destined to eventually replace our biological bodies and
for millennia. If successful, would it be proof of concept? minds with optimally designed synthetic ones. And the result
Think of a book in epoxy resin hardened into a solid block of will be a far healthier, smarter and happier race of posthumans
plastic, McIntyre told me. Youre never going to open the book poised to explore and colonize the universe.
again, but if you can prove that the epoxy doesnt dissolve the Per audacia ad astra.
ink the book is written with, you can demonstrate that all the
words in the book must still be there ... and you might be able
Scientific American ONLINE
to carefully slice it apart, scan in all the pages, and print/bind a COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE AT
new book with the same words. Hayworth tells me that the SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM/Feb2016
Spinning If youve heard of MRSA but think its Mr. As wife, an-
tibiotic resistance is a growing and deadly problem referring to
populations of bacteria evolving so that they are no longer killed
Our Wheels
by a given drugthe bacteria have become resistant to the antibi-
otic. But in interviews conducted for Wellcome Trust in London,
Manchester and Birmingham, researchers encountered an un-
Some words may not mean welcome frustration, as it noted in a press release: Researchers
found that most people, if they had heard of antibiotic resistance
what you think they mean at all, thought that it was their body which becomes resistant to
By Steve Mirsky antibiotics, rather than the bacteria that cause drug-resistant in-
fections. This misconception often makes people feel like antibi-
The sign reads Share the Road. Its usually a bright yellow dia- otic resistance is someone elses problem. Which it is, until it
mond featuring a black line drawing of a bicycle. Variations on isnt, regardless of the correct usage of the terms.
the sign exist, but they all pretty much send the message that The misconception could help to explain why many people
cars should be on the lookout for cyclists and give them some who are prescribed antibiotics fail to complete the course, believ-
breathing room. ing that this will prevent their bodies from becoming resistant,
Or at least thats what I, a cyclist sometimes and a motor vehi- the press release continued. This strategery (see Ferrell, Will, on
cle operator other times, assumed was the message they sent. Es- misunderestimation) helps to keep the patient infected and ex-
pecially given that the occupants of even a small automobile will acerbates the real problem. Its an Appointment in Samarra sit-
barely feel a car-bicycle crash that will at the very least likely bust uation, with the added wrinkle of not making sense.
a bike riders ribs and crack a collarbone. Wellcome Trust thus recommends that doctors, the media
A recent, study, however, rocked my two-wheeling world: Al- and other communicators talk about drug-resistant infections
though often described as a reminder to motorists that bicyclists or antibiotic-resistant germs, rather than antibiotic resistance.
may use the travel lane, bicyclists frequently complain that motor- This makes it easier to understand that it is bacteria that ac-
ists interpret the sign to mean that they should get out of the way, quire resistance, not peoples bodies. So whether on a bike ride
wrote North Carolina State University researchers George Hess or on antibiotics, dont stop until you finish the course.
and M.Nils Peterson in the journal PLOS ONE. They noted that the
state of Delaware, which is just wide enough for two lanes of traffic
SCIENTIFIC AMERIC AN ONLINE
in each direction, got rid of its Share in November 2013 because, COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE AT
according to a state document, some believe the plaque puts more SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM/Feb2016
SCIENCE FOR A GRAPHIC ON RISKY BEHAVIORS THAT CAN SHORTEN LIFE SPAN,
SEE SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM/Feb2016/GRAPHIC-SCIENCE
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
countries, offset by a rise in de
veloping nations. The same trend
is occurring with cerebrovascular
disease. In contrast, the preva
lence of low back and neck pain is
increasing everywhere.
Depressive
disorders 2013 Rank, Total DALYs (millions)
Developed countries (top) and
Preterm birth developing countries (bottom)
complications Cerebrovascular Tracheal,
disease bronchus and 1. Ischemic heart disease
Iron-deciency lung cancer (Heart attack, pain, aneurysm or
anemia artery trouble)
Lower Ischemic heart Low back
respiratory disease and neck pain 0
infections
HIV/AIDS
0% 100
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2013 0%
1990 95 00 05 10 2013
Lower respira- 2. Lower respiratory infection
tory infections (Pneumonia, inuenza and more)
Diarrheal 0
diseases HIV/AIDS
Malaria 100
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Ischemic 200
Preterm birth heart disease
complications 3. Cerebrovascular disease
Cerebrovascular (Stroke from various causes)
disease
Low back and 0
neck pain
100
Chronic 4. Low back and neck pain
obstructive
pulmonary 0
Congenital disease
anomalies Road injuries 100
5. Road injuries
Falls
Drowning Self-harm Interpersonal 0
violence
100
100%
6. Diarrheal diseases
DALYs (disability-adjusted life yearsthe sum of years of life lost to early death and years lived with disability) 0
Communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional causes Percent change over time (19902013) 100
SOURCE: GBD COMPARE. INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION, SEATTLE, WA, 2015.
Noncommunicable causes
Injuries Shrank by at least 3% 0 Grew by at least 3% 200
Disease Squeeze
ACCESSED DECEMBER 1, 2015 http://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare
Life expectancy worldwide has risen for decades. But more peo- of these ailments is increasing rapidly, even as those countries
ple are living more years with debilitating ailments, according continue to try to stamp out communicable diseases such as di-
to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evalua- arrhea and malaria that have plagued them for a long time
tion in Seattle. In developed countries (top half of graphic), the (blue). If developing nations are clever, though, they can create
trouble comes almost entirely from noncommunicable condi- health policies that impede the new threats and keep reducing
tions such as heart and lung disease and back pain (orange) the old ones. Knowing whats coming, says Amy VanderZan-
ills typically associated with lifestyle choices such as diet and ex- den at the institute, they can prioritize what they should do.
ercise. In developing nations, however (bottom), the prevalence Mark Fischetti