New Scientist - November 11, 2017(1).pdf

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Why fidgeting is
good for your brain
Stop worrying and learn to
love autonomous killer robots
FIDDLE FACTOR
FIGHT FOR PEACE
CHAMPAGNE SUPERNOVA
WEEKLY
11 November 2017
The exploding star that
keeps on popping its cork
CHOKE POINT
Ocean life faces an oxygen crisis
WHAT
IF THERE
ARE NO
LAWS OF
NATURE?
w not
everything ab
e
s
t
t
n
No3151 £4.10 US/CAN$6.99
4 5
9 770262 407275
PLUS
FACE BLINDNESS /
NEW ORANGUTAN
/ CHRONIC FATIGUE /
DIGITAL DETOX
/
LANGUAGE ORIGINS
/ CONCUSSION CURE /
ABOLISH TIME ZONES!
/ SPIDER CARNAGE
CONTENTS
newscientist.com/issue/3151
Management
Executive chairman
Bernard Gray
Publishing director
John MacFarlane
Finance director
Matthew O’Sullivan
Strategy director
Sumit Paul-Choudhury
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Louise Rogers
Publishing and commercial
MICHAEL MELFORD/GETTY
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Head of data science
Kimberly Karman
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Richard Holliman, Justin Viljoen,
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Volume 236 No 3151
EOIN RYAN
News
Oceans are set to choke
8
Recruitment advertising
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US sales manager
Jeanne Shapiro
On the cover
33 Fiddle factor
Why fidgeting is good for
your brain
22 Fight for peace
Stop worrying and learn to
love autonomous killer robots
9
Champagne supernova
The exploding star that keeps
on popping its cork
Choke point
Ocean life faces an oxygen crisis
5
Leaders
New data laws will return power to
who it belongs – you. We shouldn’t
distance ourselves from death
Features
28 Reality? It’s what you make it
What if alternative facts are the
laws of nature?
33 State of unrest
Why fidgeting
can be good for you
36 Elements that rule the waves
The tiny forces that control
ocean life
40 PEOPLE
Caitlin Doughty, the
mortician who wants to fix our
relationship with death
Marketing
Head of marketing
Lucy Dunwell
Danbi Cho, David Hunt, Chloe Thompson,
Andrew Wilkinson
News
6
UPFRONT
NASA’s Deep Space
Gateway. Cleaner air. Genetic test
regulations eased
NEWS & TECHNOLOGY
Our
oceans are set to suffocate. Gene
therapy for fatal skin disease. Odd
supernova dies again and again.
Oxygen treatment for concussion.
AI CSI. How human burials can
save wildlife. Error-spotting
quantum computers. Data detox.
New orangutan discovered.
Cake cutting trick could make US
elections fairer. Virtual cocktails.
Chronic fatigue syndrome cells lack
energy. Face blindness. First
mammals to live in daylight
Web development
Director of technology
Steve Shinn
Maria Mareno Garrido, Tuhin Sheikh,
Amardeep Sian
New Scientist Live
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Valerie Jamieson
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Jacqui McCarron
Event manager
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Event executive
Laura Giddings
Conference producer
Natalie Gorohova
8
8
Culture
42 The amazing conversation
machine
The to and fro that
happens when we talk is key to
understanding language
44 Fetching figures
Mathematics,
perception and beauty turn out to
be close bedfellows
UK Newsstand
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2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf,
London E14 5HU
28 What if there are no laws
of nature?
How nothingness can explain
everything about reality
Plus
Face blindness (16). New
orangutan (14). Chronic fatigue
(15). Digital detox (12). Language
origins (42). Concussion cure (10).
Abolish time zones! (25). Spider
carnage (26)
Syndication
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+44 (0)20 7588 7588
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Regulars
26 APERTURE
Spider dismembered in slo-mo
52 LETTERS
Focusing attention with eardrums
55 CROSSWORD
56 FEEDBACK
Linguistic benefit of alcohol?
57 THE LAST WORD
Survival of the fittest
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19 IN BRIEF
Malarial mosquitoes eat
more human blood. Enceladus has
a hot, gritty core. Mites steal from
spiders. Hidden pyramid chamber
Analysis
22 Killer robots
Why armed
machines could actually save lives
24 COMMENT
Releasing Stephen
Hawking’s PhD online is inspired.
Let the dammed river sue
25 INSIGHT
It’s time to end daylight
saving time
11 November 2017 | NewScientist |
3
LEADERS
Editorial
Acting editor
Graham Lawton
Managing editor
Rowan Hooper
Head of production
Julian Richards
Art editor
Craig Mackie
Editor at large
Jeremy Webb
News
Chief news editor
Niall Firth
Editors
Sally Adee, Jacob Aron,
Penny Sarchet, Jon White, Chelsea Whyte
Reporters
(UK) Andy Coghlan,
Jessica Hamzelou, Michael Le Page,
Timothy Revell, Clare Wilson,
Sam Wong, (US) Leah Crane, Aylin Woodward,
(Aus) Alice Klein
Features
Chief features editor
Richard Webb
Editors
Catherine de Lange, Gilead Amit,
Catherine Brahic, Julia Brown, Daniel Cossins,
Kate Douglas, Alison George,
Joshua Howgego, Tiffany O’Callaghan,
Sean O’Neill
Culture and Community
Editors
Liz Else, Mike Holderness, Simon Ings,
Frank Swain
When ‘agree’ means agree
New data laws will hand power back to who it belongs – you
IF SOMEBODY from a shop you
occasionally visited phoned and
asked what you had been doing
for the past month, would you tell
them? Almost certainly not. Yet
often without thinking we allow
technology companies to track
and collect such data. Everything
from your movements to what
you have been buying, watching,
reading and listening to gets
scooped up and filed, ostensibly
to help tailor services to your
needs and sell you things you
want. But this data is so valuable
that it is often sold to third parties.
None of this happens without
your consent, but consent is often
obtained by sleight-of-click, via
lengthy and impenetrable service
agreements. The terms and
conditions for an Amazon Kindle
e-book reader, for example, are
longer than many novels. Has any
ordinary punter ever read them?
Does Amazon actually expect us
to? Both parties know it is easier
to simply click “accept”.
The cumulative result of
this lackadaisical approach can
be quite shocking. One of our
journalists signed up for a “data
detox”, and was surprised at how
much the tech giants knew about
him (see page 12).
So should everyone detox?
Probably. But in the real world,
who can be bothered?
For citizens of the EU, the onus
will soon change. From May,
companies will have to be more
transparent about their collection
and use of data. Pre-ticked boxes
will be banned; companies must
seek specific consent to process
and sell data. Those that break
these rules will face hefty fines.
The change is long overdue.
Even if EU citizens decide that
they are happy to give their data
away in return for useful services,
at least that is a decision they
have made themselves. The UK
government has said it will keep
the law after Brexit. That is a
form of taking back control that
we can all get behind.
■
Subeditors
Managing subeditor
Eleanor Parsons
Vivienne Greig, Tom Campbell,
Hannah Joshua, Chris Simms
Design
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Dave Johnston, Ryan Wills
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Get closer to death
FEW people like to contemplate
their own death, but knowledge
of its inevitability has some
surprising upsides. According to
a school of thought called terror
management theory, the desire
to transcend death is the driving
force of human civilisation. The
“worm at the core of life” inspires
people to create symphonies,
build cathedrals, nurture their
children and seek knowledge.
But if awareness of death is
such a force for progress, we are
not very good at harnessing it.
In the West, we distance ourselves
from death at every opportunity.
Dying is medicalised and the
aftermath stage-managed and
sanitised (see page 40).
The funeral industry must
take much of the blame for this.
© 2017 New Scientist Ltd, England
New Scientist is published weekly
by New Scientist Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079.
New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387
Registered at the Post Office as a
newspaper and printed in England
by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
It could change its ways.
Natural burials – which eschew
embalming, expensive coffins
and so on – are on the increase.
There is also a growing movement
to amalgamate burial plots into
conservation areas, in which your
own personal resting place is built
into something bigger, lasting
and environmentally beneficial
(see page 11). Such burials promise
to both demystify death and
provide the lasting legacy that we
so desire in life. Worms and all.
■
11 November 2017 | NewScientist |
5
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