Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A New Force of Nature?: An Intriguing Experiment May Reveal A Hidden World of Physics
A New Force of Nature?: An Intriguing Experiment May Reveal A Hidden World of Physics
COM Unprecedented
Arctic Wildfires
Competitive
Birding
A Map of All
Mathematics
A NEW FORCE
OF NATURE?
An intriguing experiment may reveal
a hidden world of physics
VO LU M E 3 2 5 , N U M B E R 4
14 Forum
Abortion rights are on the Supreme Court docket
again this term—and they could be in danger.
By Elizabeth Nash
12 16 Advances
A simple mathematical law for travel within cities.
A cozy mucus nest for frog eggs. Tech to separate
whale calls from the noise. A COVID-detecting mask.
28 Meter
Poetry of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
By Michael H. Levin
86 Recommended
16 Human machinations around animals. The joy
of nature’s eccentricities. Human roots of climate
change. Environmental parable of nutmeg.
Who is the conscious you? By Amy Brady
88 Observatory
Jargon is okay when talking to colleagues, but scientists
should speak plainly when addressing the public.
By Naomi Oreskes
92 Graphic Science
The secrets of planetary interiors.
88 By Clara Moskowitz and Mark Belan
Scientific American (ISSN 0036-8733), Volume 325, Number 4, October 2021, published monthly by Scientific American, a division of Springer Nature America, Inc., 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, N.Y. 10004-1562.
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Big on Birds says this odd finding could mean there is a fifth force of nature.
Knowledge builds on knowledge in every field, though in
different ways. Mathematician Emily Riehl explains on page 32
Birds have been a great source of joy for many of us at S cientific that in math, a lot of progress has been made recently thanks to
American and, I hope, for many of you. We’ve been working at category theory, which shows how different mathematical
home during the pandemic and paying more attention to the concepts can be treated as alike in fundamental ways. It allows
wildlife in our neighborhoods, and we now take walks during the current mathematicians to manipulate ideas that stumped Isaac
mornings and evenings rather than commuting during the best Newton and Carl Friedrich Gauss back in their times.
birding hours of the day. Seth Fletcher, who runs our features Sometimes progress comes in surprising ways. On page 82,
department, was entertained recently by a Carolina Wren shriek- author Anil Ananthaswamy reports that artificial-intelligence
ing like its dinosaur ancestors. Art director Mike Mrak sees Wild systems have come up with quantum physics experiments that
Turkeys strut through his yard. Christine Kaelin, who handles humans never conceived of.
customer service, noticed the ridiculous variety of songs North- It’s been another devastating year for wildfires, and although
ern Cardinals belt out. I suction-cupped a feeder to my office win- we hear more about the ones that destroy property or kill people,
dow and often have a White-breasted Nuthatch fly in during vid- the fires raging in the Arctic may be some of the most consequential
eo meetings, make its grouchy call and leave with a peanut. for climate change. Zombie fires are smoldering through the
Kate Wong, an editor who specializes in evolution, got bit by the winter, permafrost is melting, and the insulating layer of duff is
birding bug last year and has been sharing gorgeous photos of drying and easily ignited by lightning strikes, which are also
Osprey, Baltimore Orioles, lots of warblers and even a vagrant increasing because of the climate emergency. On page 42, fire
Roseate Spoonbill she bagged in Connecticut. She met up with researchers Randi Jandt and Alison York describe the profound
some extreme birders this spring for the wildest side of birding—a changes they’ve seen in Alaska.
Big Day, in which teams race across a set territory to identify as As the global population grows, more people are at risk of
many bird species as they can in 24 straight hours. Her story on hunger. Reducing food waste will be necessary to feed the world,
page 64 weaves ornithological observations in with some passionate limit greenhouse gas emissions and protect wild spaces. In a
characters and lots of low-stakes but high-tension drama. graphics-focused story on page 74, Chad Frischmann and Mamta
When the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012, physicists had Mehra of the research group Project Drawdown share projections
finally found all the particles predicted by the Standard Model for possible food futures.
of physics. Boom, done. But a couple of experiments have shown Social scientists have found high levels of resilience in many
that particles called muons seem to wobble in weird ways, hinting majority-Black communities in the U.S. On page 50, writer Nancy
that they may be interacting with additional particles beyond the Averett shares the latest research on how networks of mutual aid
ones we know about. In our cover story this month (page 56), have flourished, some of which began before the Civil War, and
Marcela Carena, a particle physicist at Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., how social capital helps people resist systemic oppression.
BOARD OF ADVISERS
Robin E. Bell Jonathan Foley John Maeda
Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Executive Director, Project Drawdown Global Head, Computational Design + Inclusion, Automattic, Inc.
Columbia University Jennifer A. Francis Satyajit Mayor
Emery N. Brown Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center Senior Professor, National Center for Biological Sciences,
Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Carlos Gershenson
and of Computational Neuroscience, M.I.T., Research Professor, National Autonomous University of Mexico John P. Moore
and Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School Professor of Microbiology and Immunology,
Alison Gopnik
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Vinton G. Cerf Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor
Priyamvada Natarajan
Chief Internet Evangelist, Google of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
Professor of Astronomy and Physics, Yale University
Emmanuelle Charpentier Lene Vestergaard Hau
Donna J. Nelson
Scientific Director, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics,
Professor of Chemistry, University of Oklahoma
and Founding and Acting Director, Max Planck Unit for the Harvard University
Lisa Randall
Science of Pathogens Hopi E. Hoekstra Professor of Physics, Harvard University
Rita Colwell Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Harvard University
Martin Rees
Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland College Park Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Astronomer Royal and Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics,
and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Co-founder, Urban Ocean Lab, and Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge
Kate Crawford Co-founder, The All We Can Save Project Daniela Rus
Director of Research and Co-founder, AI Now Institute, Christof Koch Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering
and Distinguished Research Professor, New York University, Chief Scientist, MindScope Program, Allen Institute for Brain Science and Computer Science and Director, CSAIL, M.I.T.
and Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research New York City Meg Lowman Meg Urry
Nita A. Farahany Director and Founder, TREE Foundation, Rachel Carson Fellow, Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Yale University
Professor of Law and Philosophy, Director, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, and Research Professor, Amie Wilkinson
Duke Initiative for Science & Society, Duke University University of Science Malaysia Professor of Mathematics, University of Chicago
primarily because there is far too much bert Ryle, who put to rest the wronghead-
producing and consuming going on, and edness of Cartesian mind-body dualism
our economic and cultural systems are by metaphorically debunking this notion
fiercely committed to increasing the levels as the “ghost in the machine.” Philoso-
without limit. We cannot get to a sustain- phers have since handed the baton off to
able and just world unless and until the neuroscientists, physicists and other sci-
conventional development paradigm is entists to figure out how the brain gives
scrapped, and we shift to some kind of sim- rise to consciousness.
pler way (see https://thesimplerway.info). Keith Tidman B ethesda, Md.
Ted Trainer v ia e-mail
SCIENCE AND POLITICS
June 2021 KOTHARI REPLIES: C ipra makes an im- In response to “Do Republicans Mistrust
portant point. Indeed, the transitions to- Science?,” by Naomi Oreskes [Observatory],
ward an eco-swaraj—a community that I feel compelled to point out that trust is a
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES practices self-rule merged with ecological two-way street. By mandating behaviors
Ashish Kothari’s “A Tapestry of Alterna- sustainability—will face many such chal- such as wearing masks to fight COVID-19
tives” explores ways of living around the lenges. In my understanding, the values of or using taxes and incentives to influence
world that offer inspirations for sustain- “autonomy” or “self-determination,” which consumer choices to fight climate change,
ability. The article is hopeful and enlight- are part of the vision, include the means those in government are essentially saying
ening, but Kothari may wish to consider and tools that are necessary to sustain that they don’t trust us citizens to inform
the value of self-defense. Inevitably, in the them. Self-defense would be part of this. ourselves and make sound choices. Repub-
“tapestry of alternatives” that he describes, How precisely people and communi- licans strongly value individual liberties. So
there will arise knots of powers with values ties defend their autonomy could vary to them, the issue is the way the science is
at odds with these communities. They will, greatly. Some movements have armed used by the government to justify further
because they can, seek the goods of the themselves with the explicit intention to intrusions on the lives of its citizens.
commons. What’s to stop them? Ultimate- use armed tactics only for self-defense, Admittedly, some mistakenly feel the
ly it will be countervailing power exercised never for offense. And many others use best way to fight back against such intru-
as self-defense, which is not in conflict with Gandhian tactics of nonviolent defense. sions is to deceptively cast doubt on the sci-
the other core values, as any well-trained Indeed, the vast diversity of “martial” ence itself (as Oreskes points out has been
and disciplined martial artist knows. By arts are part of cultural diversity, except done with both climate change and
the way, there are thousands of local that their use, if it is to be in sync with the COVID-19). Although I strongly disagree
schools and traditions of martial arts that values of eco-swaraj, would never be for with this tactic, I am sympathetic with its
rightly should be considered part of the offensive actions that proactively take motivation. I and many others have a strong
sphere of “cultural diversity and knowledge away the autonomy and freedom of oth- conviction that a free and open society is
democracy” highlighted in the article. ers. This is, of course, a complex subject best served by a government that informs
Bill Cipra O
verland Park, Kan. and not possible to deal with satisfactori- and empowers its citizens rather than one
ly in a brief comment. that treats us like we can’t help ourselves.
I wish to commend you for publishing Gerald Sontheimer S t. Louis, Mo.
Kothari’s article on the global “develop- MYSTERY OF MIND
ment” predicament. Too many people in Christof Koch ends “The Brain Electric” NOT-FOR-PROFIT DRUGS
the scientific arena assume that techno- with this most fundamental question: “Deadly Kingdom,” by Maryn McKenna, is
logical advances will be able to solve our “What is it about the brain . . . that turns a real wake-up call. Not only are viruses and
problems while allowing the pursuit of the activity of 86 billion neurons into the bacteria a deadly threat, but now fungal dis-
normal development to continue deliver- feeling of life itself?” Variations of Koch’s eases (which are far more difficult to treat)
ing affluent lifestyles and ever growing provocative question about consciousness are an even greater one. The bigger prob-
gross domestic product. But an increasing have, of course, dogged philosophers for lem, however, is that big pharma has re-
number of people can see that we are on millennia. Among the most influential fused to adequately develop new antiviral,
the road to catastrophic global breakdown, was 20th-century British philosopher Gil- antibacterial and antifungal medications
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Laura Helmuth
MANAGING EDITOR Curtis Brainard COPY DIRECTOR Maria-Christina Keller CREATIVE DIRECTOR Michael Mrak
because they are not profitable enough.
EDITORIAL
The COVID-19 vaccines are not a valid CHIEF FEATURES EDITOR Seth Fletcher CHIEF NEWS EDITOR Dean Visser CHIEF OPINION EDITOR Michael D. Lemonick
example of the pharmaceutical industry FEATURES
SENIOR EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Mark Fischetti SENIOR EDITOR, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY Madhusree Mukerjee
rapidly developing vaccines on its own. SENIOR EDITOR, MEDICINE / SCIENCE POLICY Josh Fischman SENIOR EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY / MIND Jen Schwartz
SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Clara Moskowitz SENIOR EDITOR, EVOLUTION / ECOLOGY Kate Wong
Most of the mRNA vaccine research had al-
NEWS
ready been done, and the U.S. government SENIOR EDITOR, MIND / BRAIN Gary Stix ASSOCIATE EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY Sophie Bushwick
SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Lee Billings ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Andrea Thompson
guaranteed that the industry would not SENIOR EDITOR, HEALTH AND MEDICINE Tanya Lewis ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Sarah Lewin Frasier
lose any money if its vaccines failed. Fur- MULTIMEDIA
SENIOR EDITOR, MULTIMEDIA Jeffery DelViscio
ther, the so-called free vaccines were fully SENIOR EDITOR, AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT Sunya Bhutta SENIOR EDITOR, COLLECTIONS Andrea Gawrylewski
paid for by taxpayers, as are the half a bil- ART
ART DIRECTOR Jason Mischka SENIOR GRAPHICS EDITOR Jen Christiansen
lion doses the U.S. has pledged to “donate” PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Monica Bradley ART DIRECTOR, ONLINE Ryan Reid
to the world. This is one more example of ASSOCIATE GRAPHICS EDITOR Amanda Montañez ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Liz Tormes
how capitalism, with its profit motive re- COPY AND PRODUC TION
SENIOR COPY EDITORS Angelique Rondeau, Aaron Shattuck
quirement, cannot meet the needs of the MANAGING PRODUCTION EDITOR Richard Hunt PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER Silvia De Santis
vast majority of the world’s population. CONTRIBUTOR S
EDITORS EMERITI Mariette DiChristina, John Rennie
John Jaros P hiladelphia
Amy Brady, Gareth Cook, Katherine Harmon Courage, Lydia Denworth,
EDITORIAL
Ferris Jabr, Anna Kuchment, Robin Lloyd, Steve Mirsky,
Melinda Wenner Moyer, George Musser, Ricki L. Rusting,
EIGHT-ARMED BANDIT Dava Sobel, Claudia Wallis
ART Edward Bell, Zoë Christie, Lawrence R. Gendron, Nick Higgins, Katie Peek, Beatrix Mahd Soltani
“A Model Octopus,” by Rachel Nuwer [Ad-
vances; March 2021], quotes multiple ex- EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Ericka Skirpan EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT SUPERVISOR Maya Harty
ERRATA
LE T TER S TO THE EDITOR
“Deadly Kingdom,” by Maryn McKenna, Scientific American, 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004-1562 or [email protected]
should have said that unlike animals, fun- Letters may be edited for length and clarity. We regret that we cannot answer each one.
Join the conversation online—visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter.
gi have cell walls in addition to cellular
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Protect
Biodiversity’s
Protectors
Indigenous peoples have been
conserving the land for millennia. The
developed world should not evict them
By the Editors
Abortion Rights many people, affordable and accessible abortion care has already
become an empty right on paper, even before the Supreme Court
at Risk
takes any new action. Currently 58 percent of women of repro
ductive age live in states that are hostile to abortion rights, facing
multiple restrictions—from bans on insurance coverage to days-
long waiting periods to intentionally onerous regulations that
The Supreme Court will weigh in close down clinics—that build on one another to make abortion
on Mississippi’s severely restrictive law unobtainable for many.
A significant body of scientific literature shows that the adverse
By Elizabeth Nash
consequences of withholding abortion care are serious and long-
When Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new abortion re lasting. Forcing someone who wants an abortion to continue a
striction into law on May 19, 2021, it marked a chilling milestone— pregnancy requires them, against their wishes, to accept the great
a staggering 1,300 restrictions enacted by states since the U.S. risks of pregnancy- and labor-related complications, which include
Supreme Court protected abortion rights in 1973 in its R oe v. Wade preeclampsia, infections and death. And these risks fall much
decision. Unless rejected in court, it could block most abortion heavier on some communities than others. The U.S. has the high
care in the state. Among many other harms, this would force est maternal mortality rate among developed countries, with dra
Texans to travel an average 20 times farther to reach the nearest matic but preventable racial inequities caused by systemic racism
abortion provider. I have read and logged all of these 1,300 and provider bias. Black and Indigenous women’s maternal mor
restraints—many as they were being enacted—in my 22 years at tality rates are two to three times higher than the rate for white
the Guttmacher Institute tracking state legislation on abortion women and four to five times higher among older age groups.
and other issues related to sexual and reproductive health and The risks of serious consequences do not end with a safe deliv
rights. It’s an astounding number, and although many of these ery. The Turnaway Study by researchers at the University of Cali
laws were blocked in court, most of them are in effect today. fornia, San Francisco, found that denying wanted abortion care
But the news from Texas wasn’t the only bad news for abortion can have adverse effects on women’s health, safety and econom
rights that week. Just two days earlier, on May 17, the Supreme ic well-being. For example, among women who had been violent
Court announced that it would hear oral arguments on a Missis ly attacked by an intimate partner, being forced to carry an
sippi law—currently blocked from going into effect—that would unwanted pregnancy to term tended to delay separation from that
ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The news alarmed legal partner, leading to ongoing violence. In addition, compared with
experts and supporters of abortion rights alike, with good reason. women who got the abortion they sought, those who did not
A central tenet of R oe and subsequent Supreme Court deci obtain a wanted abortion had four times greater odds of subse
sions has been that states cannot ban abortion before viability, quently living in poverty. They also had three times greater odds
generally pegged at about 24 to 26 weeks of pregnancy. By taking of being unemployed and were less likely to be able to have the
a case that so clearly violates almost 50 years of precedent, the financial resources for basic needs such as food and housing.
court signaled its willingness to upend long-established constitu The impact of restrictive policies is even further magnified in
tional protections for access to abortion. As the legal experts at regions of the country where hostile states are clustered togeth
the Center for Reproductive Rights put it, “The court cannot er, such as the South, the Great Plains and the Midwest. For peo
uphold this law in Mississippi without overturning Roe’s core ple in those regions, traveling to a state with better access may
holding.” And in fact, Mississippi followed up in July with a brief not be an option because of the long distances and logistical or
asking the justices to explicitly overturn that historic decision. financial hurdles involved.
The Supreme Court that former president Donald Trump These barriers to abortion care are the biggest obstacle for
shaped, possibly for decades to come, by appointing conserva people who are already struggling to get by or who are margin
tives handpicked by abortion rights opponents, is thus poised alized from timely, affordable, high-quality health care—such as
to deliver a potentially severe blow. Conservative state policy those with low incomes, people of color, young people, LGBTQ
makers clearly feel emboldened by the 6–3 majority of justices individuals and people in many rural communities. Any further
opposed to abortion rights and a federal judiciary transformed rollback of abortion rights would once again affect these popu
by Trump’s more than 200 appointments. lations disproportionately.
The decision to hear the Mississippi case comes as abortion If the Supreme Court uses the Mississippi case to further
rights and access are already under threat nationwide, with states undermine women’s rights to health care, things will get ugly—
on pace to enact a record number of abortion restrictions this and fast. Twelve states have so-called trigger bans on the books
year. As of August 5, 97 laws had been enacted across 19 states. (or nearly so)—meaning they would automatically ban abortion
That count includes 12 measures that would ban abortion at dif should R oe f all. Also, 15 states (including 10 of the states with trig
ferent points during pregnancy, often as early as six weeks—before ger bans) have enacted early gestational age bans in the past
most people even know they are pregnant. That is the highest decade. None of these early abortion bans are in effect, but with
number of restrictions and bans ever at this point in the year. For Roe o
verturned, many or all of them could quickly be enforced.
Even if abortion rights are weakened by the Supreme Court rath As federal protections for abortion are being challenged, peo
er than overturned, these same states will look to adopt restric ple may go other routes to get an abortion. Abortion-inducing med
tions that build on the decision. ication, whether under the management of a clinician in person
But there are lots of ways to fight back. States supportive of or via telehealth or self-managed, is a safe and effective method,
abortion, primarily in the West and the Northeast, must step up and many have been able to get such pills through the mail dur
to protect and expand abortion rights and access—both for the ing the COVID pandemic. But here, too, barriers loom large. More
sake of their own residents and for others who might need to trav state legislatures are looking to join the 19 that already ban abor
el across state lines to seek services. Congress and the Biden admin tion via telehealth. And just this year states started to enact bans
istration must do their part by supporting legislation such as the on sending abortion-inducing pills through the mail.
Women’s Health Protection Act that would essentially repeal many Abortion is health care, plain and simple. There were more than
state-level restrictions and gestational bans. Another bill that 860,000 abortions in the U.S. in 2017, and at current rates almost
needs support is the EACH Act; it would repeal the harmful Hyde one in four women will have an abortion by age 45. Supporters of
Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abor abortion rights have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
tion except in a few rare circumstances, and allow abortion cover Most of all, we must stay in this fight until every person who needs
age under Medicaid. There are also tireless advocates and volun an abortion is able to get safe, affordable and timely care.
teers, including managers of abortion funds in many states, who
already assist abortion patients in paying for and accessing care.
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
No doubt these vital efforts will increase dramatically if more Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
states move to ban all or most abortions. or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]
M AT H E M AT I C S
Math Transit
A simple formula predicts
people’s movements in cities
around the world
we move, such as the transportation sys- energy, and people have limited resources pino, who was not involved in the study,
tem, the morphology of a given place, and for it. “There is something really very fun says models based on this new finding
socioeconomic aspects. This is true to some damental at play here. Whether you live in might better track that flow. For example,
extent, but what this shows is that there are Senegal or in Boston, you try to optimize New York City residents are more likely to
some robust laws that apply everywhere.” your day,” says study lead author Markus make short, frequent trips within their own
The researchers analyzed data from Schläpfer of ETH Zurich’s Future Cities borough (such as Manhattan or the Bronx)
about eight million people between 2006 Laboratory in Singapore. “At the core is the and fewer trips to a distant borough.
and 2013 in six urban locations: Boston, Sin- effort that people are willing to invest col- “Those organizational patterns have
gapore, Lisbon and Porto in Portugal, Dakar lectively to travel to certain locations.” really profound implications on how
in Senegal, and Abidjan in Ivory Coast. Pre- Understanding these patterns is impor- COVID will spread,” Scarpino says. In a
vious analyses have used cell-phone data tant not only for planning the place- smaller rural location, where many people
to study individuals’ travel paths; this study ment of new shopping centers or public regularly go to the same church or grocery
focused instead on locations and exam- transportation but also for modeling dis- store, the entire town will experience sharp
ined how many people were visiting, from ease transmission within cities, says Kath- peaks of infections as the virus sweeps
how far and how frequently. The research- leen Stewart, a geographer and mobility through the community. But in a bigger city,
ers found that all the unique choices peo- researcher at the University of Maryland the propagation takes longer, he explains,
ple make—from dropping kids at school to who was not involved in the study. because mini epidemics can occur in each
shopping or commuting—obey this inverse Many researchers estimate travel with neighborhood somewhat separately.
square law when considered in aggregate. “gravity models,” which assume that move- Stewart adds: “The authors demon-
“The result is very simple but quite star- ment between cities is proportional to their strate that their visitation law—that takes
tling,” says Geoffrey West, an urban scaling population sizes. But these models do not into account both travel distance and fre-
theorist at the Santa Fe Institute and one of account for travel patterns within cities— quency of visits in a way that other models
the paper’s senior authors. information that is particularly critical in do not—outperforms gravity models
One explanation for this strong statistical tackling disease transmission. Northeast- when it comes to predicting flows be
pattern is that traveling requires time and ern University epidemiologist Sam Scar- tween locations.” —Viviane Callier
Domesticated
Although these fossilized microbiomes
shed light on an intermediate stage
Diets
between wolves and dogs, domestication
was not a simple linear process, says Dur-
ham University zooarchaeologist Angela
Ancient poop contains clues to Perri, who was not involved with the study.
dogs’ evolving digestion “It feels neat and clean to say it’s a progres-
sion from X to Y to Z,” she says, but consis-
The shift from hunting a nd gathering to tent interbreeding between wild and
farming altered human evolution—and domesticated canines complicates things.
that of our closest companions, dogs. Cop- And even modern dogs carry varying num-
rolites, or fossilized poop, are a “phenome- bers of amylase genes, notes Larson, who
nal” source of information on how diet gut, than that of most modern dogs. Many also was not on the research team. Still,
influenced such changes, says University of today’s wolves lack this gene altogether, Perri says it is significant that microbes may
of Oxford archaeologist Greger Larson. and scientists typically attribute the diver- have picked up the slack where the dogs’
“They’re snapshots of somebody’s gut.” gence to domesticated dogs’ shift from own genomes fell short. This phenomenon
A recent analysis of 13 Bronze Age canine meat-heavy to grain-rich meals. might have also occurred in human guts
coprolites reveals how shifts to a grain- But along with an animal’s own proteins, during our shift from a hunter-gatherer diet
based diet affected dogs’ gut microbes, gut microbes also aid digestion. When the to a farming one—a possibility Candela
which may have played a role in the ani- researchers sequenced microbial rem- and his colleagues are now examining.
mals’ domestication. nants in the fossilized feces, they found Perri notes that the new research dem-
Researchers sequenced DNA from the evidence of bacteria that produce high onstrates how much can be learned from
3,600- to 3,450-year-old fossils, which amounts of amylase. The dogs’ own fossilized animal excrement, a historically
were found at the site of an ancient agricul- genomes had not yet fully evolved to han- untapped and underappreciated resource
tural community in northeastern Italy. Dog dle the grainy diet of their farming domes- from human settlements. “Usually in
DNA in the coprolites had fewer copies of ticators, “so they were complemented by archaeology, human material is difficult to
a gene that encodes amylase, a digestive microbes,” says University of Bologna micro get a hold of,” she says. “But no one is
protein that breaks down starches in the biologist Marco Candela, senior author on fighting over dog poop.” —Tess Joosse
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ScientificAmerican.com 19
ADVANCES
A N I M A L B E H AV I O R
Foam mothers whip up by aerating mucus secre- dured well after full development, until a
Frogs whip up drought-defying tions with their toes. “You could see pool was replenished by rain—and a few
embryos still alive and kicking,” he says. successfully hatched into tadpoles. “The
slime nests for their eggs
Scientists had previously hypothesized froth nest acts almost like a life-support sys-
that several frog and toad species use foam tem that sustains the viability of the eggs,”
Frothy mucus m ight not sound like the to protect eggs from desiccation, but few Gould says. He also found that larger nests
most inviting living space, but for some studies had tested the idea. So Gould and provided more protection, and eggs closer
John Gould (l eft) ; NHP and Photoshot S cience Source (r ight)
frogs’ offspring it is a lifesaving refuge from his colleagues monitored 641 mucus nests to the core could survive longer. The new
drought. The amphibians often lay their built by the sandpaper frog, L echriodus work is detailed in I chthyology & Herpetology.
gelatinous eggs in pools of water to pro- fletcheri, t o determine whether embryos Elisa Barreto Pereira, an ecologist at Bra-
vide the moisture needed to develop prop- were surviving dry mountain conditions. zil’s Federal University of Goiás who was
erly—but those pools can dry up. “The big- They also conducted the first laboratory not involved in the study, says froth nests
gest cause of [frog] offspring mortality is experiments to closely follow eggs’ devel- could be crucial to helping frogs survive as
desiccation,” says University of Newcastle opment in nests deprived of water. the climate changes. “The foam nest is an
ecologist John Gould. The team found that the embryos could important adaptation,” she says—one that
When studying frogs in Australia’s indeed successfully develop in a dried-up evolved several times in different frog
Watagan Mountains, Gould was surprised pool if the eggs encasing them were pro- groups and continents when Earth’s aver-
to find evaporated puddles where eggs tected by slimy frog foam. In some nests age temperature peaked about 55 million
thrived for days, swaddled in nests their stranded on dry land, embryos even en- years ago. —Sandrine Ceurstemont
M AT E R I A L S S C I E N C E
a battery out of a potato,” notes Aimee inspiration, the prototype is long-lasting—
B I O C H E M I S T RY
estation or the spread of invasive species.
FlyPol in A Astronomy
stronomy && Astrophysics. ““If
If the on an instrument to measure Earth’s signals
Abstract Aerial Art GGetty
plant is under drought stress, for example, from the International Space Station. “From
the membranes can swell a bit”—and that
comes through in slightly flattened intensity
the ISS the spatial resolution will still be
quite high,” Patty says, so one would expect ffrf.org
peaks of reflected light. Patty says the tech- to get large signals when measuring above
FFRF is a 501(c)(3) educational charity.
nique could help assess the health of eco- the Amazon, for instance, and flat signals
systems affected by climate change, defor- from Antarctica. —C
— Connie Chang
onnie Chang Deductible for income tax purposes.
Deep
Listening
New tech pinpoints whale calls
Fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales North Atlantic right whales
remain in the wild, and not even 100 of them
are breeding females. Their biggest survival deep-learning models specifically to cut study’s authors, wants to take this technol
threats are boat strikes and entanglement in through the noise. They started by giving ogy above water as well—to Ukrainian for
fishing gear. Protecting these whales, such the models thousands of “clean” spectro ests, where he hopes to identify animals
as by diverting boats from dangerous en grams with only North Atlantic right whale near the site of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
counters, requires locating them more reli calls. Then they slowly added in thousands University of St. Andrews behavioral
ably—and new technology, described in the of spectrograms contaminated with typical ecologist Peter Tyack, who was not
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, background sounds, such as tanker involved in the study, says this new system
could help make that possible. engines. The resulting algorithms can suc should be used to figure out where whales
To listen for marine life, researchers cessfully turn noisy spectrograms into are throughout the year, so that these areas
often deploy underwater microphones clean ones, cutting down on false alarms can be protected. “In terms of estimating
called hydrophones on buoys and robotic and helping spot whales before they reach the density and abundance of these whales
MEDICINE terials and easily stored. (The researchers The prototype mask activates with a
Burning Up
from one year to the next can be quite large. In the graph below, red bars show FRPs calcu-
lated for 100-year time spans up to 2000. Orange bars represent shorter time spans within
the Past
the study period 1984–2020.
Year (A.D.)
Today’s wildfires are taking us 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Fires 50 Year (A.D.)
into uncharted territory burn 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 20002010–2020
faster
Fires 50 HISTORICAL DATA STUDY PERIOD DATA FRP: 68
100
burn Each red bar represents Orange bars represent 2010–2020
2000–2020
With smoke from blazing forests in the aHISTORICAL
100-year period shorter, moreDATA
recent FRP:
faster DATA STUDY PERIOD FRP: 68
117
100
Period (years)
U.S. West tinting skies ochre this year and 150 Each red bar represents Orange barstime periods
represent 2000–2020
last, residents and researchers alike asked, a 100-year period shorter, more recent FRP: 117
Period (years)
“How much worse can fire seasons get?” 150
200 time periods 1984–2020
University of Montana fire paleoecologist Fire Rotation FRP: 204
Philip Higuera has spent his career trying to 200
250 1984–2020
determine the answer by looking at history. FRP: 204
Fire Rotation
sands of years. The study found that from 175,000 2020 alone accounted for an 180,858
Area Burned
150,000
prior to the 21st century. Most of this burn 125,000
rate increase, as well as 72 percent of the
total area burned between 1984 and 2020, 125,000
100,000
resulted from fires in 2020 alone.
Overall, these forests have not burned
100,000
frequently—until the past two decades. 75,000
The gap between extreme fire years in
the U.S. is narrowing as the climate warms, 75,000
and Higuera does not think this pattern 50,000 2018
19,958
Dryad https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rfj6q579n (data and code for study)
Science
creating the first detailed time-series
record of the process. Their work shows
in Images
that glasswing butterflies grow sparse, nar-
row bristles for the clear patches as well as
broader scales (top right), using fewer scale
By Harini Barath precursor cells than other butterflies do.
Colorless wings can be shiny, so butter-
flies have evolved ways of reducing reflected
True to their name, glasswing butterflies light. Using powerful electron microscopes,
sport remarkably transparent wings that the researchers took a closer look at nanopil-
help them hide in plain sight. New work lars—minuscule structures that are known
shows how narrow, bristlelike scales and to prevent glare—scattered on the glassy
a waxy, glare-cutting coating combine to wings’ surface. The team saw that a regular-
make parts of the wings nearly invisible. ly spaced layer of nanopillars made from chi-
Most moths and butterflies get their tin, a fibrous substance found in insect exo-
vibrant colors from flat scales that tile the skeletons, supports an irregular layer of
wing surface like shingles; relatively few nanopillars made from a waxy chemical that
species have clear wings. Nipam Patel, an significantly lowers the amount of reflected
evolutionary and developmental biologist light. The researchers say these findings
at the Marine Biology Laboratory, first could inspire new antireflective materials.
investigated the wings of several such spe- The study also sets the groundwork
cies with his students in an embryology for future efforts to pinpoint the genetic
class. “It was amazing,” he says, “because mechanisms by which butterfly and moth
they found every way you could imagine color (or the lack thereof) evolves, says
to have a transparent wing—from having Cornell University ecologist Robert Reed,
see-through scales to no scales at all.” who was not involved with the study.
Previous studies that explored the “Scales are the evolutionary innovation that
structural diversity and optical properties marks moths and butterflies,” Reed notes,
of wing transparency involved adult speci- “so it’s kind of remarkable that there has
mens held in museums, so the develop- been a reversion of sorts [from color to
mental processes underlying transparency colorless] in some species.”
were largely unknown. For a new study in
the J ournal of Experimental Biology, P
atel For more, visit www.ScientificAmerican.com/science-in-images
Healing
Tales
Listening to a story
reduced pain and stress
in hospitalized kids
F L U I D DY N A M I C S tribute would have been logistically im evolutionary adaptations to boost breeding
Sea Sponges’
possible. Instead the team ran a series of success often harm an organism in other
simulations, developed over the course of departments. A peacock’s attractive but
Secrets
a decade, on one of Italy’s highest-powered heavy tail is one example of such a trade-off.
supercomputers. “I think this represents “It is really cool to see a study like this
simulation at its best—something that you show that this complex morphology does
A romantic sponge cannot do by experiment,” says Sauro Suc- really have [intriguing] implications for flu-
holds engineering insights ci, a senior research executive at the Italian id dynamics,” says Laura Miller, a mathe-
Institute of Technology in Rome and co-au- matician and biomedical engineer at Ari-
Although their exteriors are made from thor of the new study, published in Nature. zona State University who was not involved
intricately woven glass fibers, Venus’s The researchers built a virtual three-di- with the research but authored an accom-
flower basket sponges are better known mensional model based on measurements panying commentary in Nature.
for something often found inside them: of real sponges. Next they simulated bil- In future research, this simulation
a breeding pair of shrimp that becomes lions of individual particles passing through method can be applied to other organisms
trapped within the sponge’s lava-lamp- it, with and without the ridges and holes. whose fluid dynamics have never been mi-
shaped body and goes on to live there They discovered that the organism’s po- nutely studied—Miller suggests a coral
symbiotically. This romantic biology is the rous lattice structure reduces drag from reef’s intricate architecture could be one
reason the deep-sea sponges are present- the flow of the water, and the ridges tem- target. Plus, Venus’s flower baskets have
ed as wedding gifts in Japan—and it is also per the water’s force and create tiny vorti- already inspired biomaterials, including a
why a team of engineers became curious ces inside the sponge. These swirls make it 3-D-printed grid that sustained more load
Agefotostock A lamy Stock Photo
about how water passes through the easier for the sponge’s eggs and sperm to without buckling than current bridges’
sponges, helping their captives thrive. mix while allowing the sponge—and the lattice structures. By understanding the
The team theorized that the sponges’ shrimp within—to feed more efficiently. sponge’s flow properties as well, the co-
eye-catching patterns of ridges and holes According to study lead author Giaco- authors say they hope drag-reducing de-
altered the flow of water in and around the mo Falcucci of the University of Rome Tor sign principles could enhance tomorrow’s
organisms. But an underwater experiment Vergata, this “twofold benefit” of durability skyscrapers, submarines and spaceships.
to pinpoint the effect of each structural at- and fertility surprised the team because —Maddie Bender
EARTH’S ACCIDENTS
(Over Wadi Qumran)
The Dead Sea scrolls were mostly saved ground left no remains of site-map
by bribe and threat: unmindful finders to be guessed. Great Aztec wheels;
re-interred the rest in hopes of Lascaux red bulls; dried funeral garlands
gain. It vanished or decayed. of Neanderthals: all brought to
2018 report. “We also know that Americans use more medica-
tions than they used to,” she says. Polypharmacy—taking four or
more medications—increases the chance of falling. So does tak-
ing a drug that impacts the central nervous system, such as an
opioid or antidepressant. Age-related changes in eyesight, cog-
nition, muscle strength and balance also raise risk.
But experts insist that falling is not inevitable. Targeted exer-
cises, modified drug regimens and fixing vision problems can
reduce the risk. New technology may help, including smart-
phone apps that analyze gait, as well as AI tools that alert busy
health-care providers to fall risks among their patients.
Probably the single most important thing an individual can
do is to work on lower body strength, balance and gait. “Just like
you need to eat every day, you need to exercise every day,” Dykes
says. The Otago exercise program, developed in New Zealand,
has reduced falls by 35 percent among high-risk elderly when
overseen by physical therapists. Many studies have looked at
combining exercise programs with other changes, such as cut-
ting back on certain medications and reducing household haz-
ards. A 2018 review of 62 studies found that, on average, such
multifaceted approaches cut the rate of falls by 23 percent.
Such results can be hard to achieve in the messy real world,
however. Researchers had high hopes for the STRIDE study,
When Health
which tracked 5,451 people aged 70 or older at 86 primary care
practices across the U.S. All participants were at risk for falling.
Takes a Tumble
Half agreed to target one to three specific risk factors, whereas
half were given basic information about preventing falls. But the
results, published in 2020, showed no significant difference
between the groups. Dykes, who was a co-author, says people
Falls among the elderly are a top cause may have avoided selecting factors that would have mattered
of death. Here’s how to reduce the risk most. For instance, “a lot of older people don’t want to take away
scatter rugs [a tripping hazard] or add grab bars in the shower
By Claudia Wallis and next to the toilet. They want their house to look like a home.”
With medications, it takes time and patience to persuade a
In the senior community w here my mom lives, death is a fre- patient to stop a drug they may have relied on for years. Some
quent visitor. When we talk about a recent loss, the story is often drugs that raise the odds of falling are used for conditions that
the same: her neighbor fell, and things got worse from there. impact fall risk if left untreated. “It makes for complicated deci-
Falls are the seventh-leading cause of death for adults aged 65 sion-making for doctors,” Burns says.
and older in the U.S., and their prevalence has jumped more than Given such challenges, several new efforts focus on offering
30 percent in recent years, according to a 2018 report from the better support to health-care providers. The cdc’s STEADI pro-
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even when a gram, for instance, gives doctors a suite of tools to identify and
spill doesn’t cause serious injuries, it can be the beginning of the reduce fall risks among patients. In a large study in New York
end for elderly adults, explains Patricia Dykes, who studies fall State, it cut the chances of a fall-related hospitalization by 40
prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “They percent. Dykes and her colleagues are now testing Web-based
become afraid to move. They’ll think, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t walk tools that scan patient electronic health records for fall risk fac-
so much.’ Then they get weaker, and their balance gets poorer.” tors and use algorithms to suggest remedies.
This starts a spiral of more falls, increased injuries and worsen- Technology can also help raise a person’s own awareness of
ing health. “Fear of falling prevents older people from doing the potential problems. Apple is about to introduce a “walking
things that would prevent falls,” she says. steadiness” rating to its iPhone Health app. It measures stability
There are likely many reasons for the rise in fall-related based on walking speed, step length, step symmetry, and an
deaths. For one thing, more people are surviving heart disease, indicator of shuffling. Users with low ratings can access Otago-
cancer and strokes and living into their 80s and 90s with impair- based exercise videos and other tools. As long as it doesn’t scare
ments and chronic conditions that make them unsteady, says users into retreating to their couches, the app and similar tools
epidemiologist Elizabeth Burns of the cdc, who co-authored the could help put more folks on a safer footing.
O
co-authored with Dominic Verity, will be published in 2022
by Cambridge University Press.
n a crisp fall New England day during my junior year of college, I was
walking past a subway entrance when a math problem caught my eye. A
man was standing near a few brainteasers he had scribbled on the wall,
one of which asked for the construction, with an imaginary straightedge
and compass, of a cube with a volume twice that of a different, given cube.
This stopped me in my tracks. I had as well be 1 because it is the only unit of Galois, who died at 20 in a duel that may
seen this problem before. In fact, the chal measurement given. To construct the have involved an unhappy love affair. At
lenge is more than two millennia old, at larger cube, you have to figure out a way the ripe old age of 20 myself, I had achieved
tributed to Plato by way of Plutarch. A to draw one of its sides with the new re considerably less impressive mathemati
—
straightedge can be used to extend a line quired length, which is 3 √ 2 (the cube root cal accomplishments, but I at least under
segment in any direction, and a compass of two), using just the straightedge and stood Wantzel’s proof.
can be used to draw a circle with any radi compass as tools. Here is the idea: Given a point as the or
us from the chosen center. The catch for It is a tough problem. For more than igin and a length of distance 1, it is relative
this particular puzzle is that any points or 2,000 years no one managed to solve it. ly straightforward to use the straightedge
lengths appearing in the final drawing Finally, in 1837, Pierre Laurent Wantzel and compass to construct all points on a
must have been either present at the start explained why no one had succeeded by number line whose coordinates are ratio
or constructable from previously provid proving that it was impossible. His proof nal numbers (ignoring, as mathematicians
ed information. used cutting-edge mathematics of the tend to do, the impossibility of actually
To double a cube’s volume, you start time, the foundations of which were laid plotting infinitely many points in only a fi
with its side length. Here that value might by his French contemporary Évariste nite amount of time).
SUBWAY BRAINTEASER
Step 1: Use the compass to mark a distance of 1. Step 2: Use the compass at the same radius Step 3: Construct a perpendicular line through
to mark a distance of 2. the point zero using the compass to determine
perpendicularity and mark points on this axis using
the method in steps 1 and 2.
sense of when
ic in an Illogical World, “a powerful aspect be a collection of symmetries, of numbers
of abstraction is that many different situa in some system or something else entirely,
two things are tions become the same when you forget
some details.” Modern algebra was created
together with various operations—for in
stance, addition and multiplication—satis
“the same” in the early 20th century when mathema
ticians decided to unify their studies of the
fying a list of relevant axioms such as asso
ciativity, commutativity or distributivity. By
has expanded. many examples of algebraic structure that making different choices—Is an operation
arose in the consideration of solutions to partially or totally defined? Is it invertible?—
polynomial equations or of configurations one arrives at the standard algebraic struc
to an area of mathematics known as alge of figures in the plane. To connect investi tures: the groups, rings and fields. But the
bra, a word derived from a ninth-century gations of these structures, researchers subject is not constrained by these choices,
book by Persian mathematician and astron identified “axioms” that describe their com which represent a vanishingly small portion
omer Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, mon properties. Groups, rings and fields of an infinite array of possibilities.
the title of which is sometimes translated were introduced to the mathematical uni The proliferation of new abstract math
as The Science of Restoring and Balancing. verse, along with the idea that a mathemat ematical objects brings its own complexi
Over the next millennium, algebra evolved ical object could be described in terms of ty. One way to simplify is to introduce a fur
from the study of the nature of solutions to the properties it has and explored “abstract ther level of abstraction where, astonish
polynomial equations to the study of ab ly,” independently of the scaffolding of par ingly, we can prove theorems about a wide
stract number systems. Because no real ticular examples or constructions. variety of mathematical objects simultane
number x s atisfies the equation x 2 + 1 = 0, John Horton Conway famously pon ously without specifying exactly what
mathematicians built a new number sys dered the curious ontology of mathemati kinds of objects we are talking about.
tem—now known as the complex numbers— cal things: “There’s no doubt that they do Category theory, which was created in
by adding an imaginary number i and im exist but you can’t poke and prod them ex the 1940s by Samuel Eilenberg and Saun
posing the stipulation that i 2 + 1 = 0. cept by thinking about them. It’s quite as ders Mac Lane, does just this. Although it
Algebra is only one of the subjects in a tonishing and I still don’t understand it, de was originally introduced to give a rigor
mathematics undergraduate’s curriculum. spite having been a mathematician all my ous definition of the colloquial term “nat
Other cornerstones include topology—the life. How can things be there without actu ural equivalence,” it also offers a way to
abstract study of space—and analysis, ally being there?” think universally about universal algebra
which begins with a rigorous treatment of But this world of mathematical objects and other areas of mathematics as well.
the calculus of real functions before branch that can exist without actually being there With Eilenberg and Mac Lane’s language,
ing into the more exotic terrains of proba created a problem: Such a world is vastly we can now understand that every variety
bility spaces and random variables and too large for any person to comprehend. of mathematical object belongs to its own
complex manifolds and holomorphic func Even within algebra, there are just too many category, which is a specified collection of
objects together with a set of transforma
tions depicted as arrows between the ob
jects. For example, in linear algebra one
COMPOSITE TRANSFORMATION
studies abstract vector spaces such as
three-dimensional Euclidean space. The
corresponding transformations in this case
are called linear transformations, and each
must have a specified source and target
vector space indicating which kinds of vec
tors arise as inputs and outputs. Like func
tions, the transformations in a category
can be “composed,” meaning you can ap
ply one transformation to the results of an
other transformation. For any pair of
transformations f : A → B ( read as “f is a
transformation from A ”) and g : B →
t o B C,
the category specifies a unique composite
transformation, written as g ∘ f : A → C
(read as “g composed f is a transformation
from A to C ”). Finally, this composition law
is associative, meaning h ∘ (g ∘ f ) = (h ∘ g) ∘ f .
T-SHIRT SYMMETRIES
mathematicians
a mattress. In addition to the identity move, flip, the rotation with the rotation, and so
which applies when the mattress is left in on). Second, if you take two moves from
its original position, a person can move the
mattress by rotating it top to bottom, flip can quickly teach one group and perform them in sequence,
the final position will match with the end
ping back to front or performing both
moves in sequence. (Mattresses typically
every new result of performing the corresponding
moves from the other group in sequence.
are not square, but if they were, there generation of In technical terms, these groups are con
would be more symmetries than described nected by an “isomorphism,” a term whose
here.) Although a T-shirt does not have undergraduates etymology—from the Greek isos, meaning
much to do with a mattress, there is a sense
in which the two symmetry groups have the discoveries “equal,” and morphe, meaning “form”—in
dicates its meaning.
same “shape.” First, both groups of symme
tries have the same number of moves (in
that astonished We can define the notion of isomor
phism in any category, which allows us to
this case, four), and, crucially, you can pair
each move in the T-shirt group with a move
the previous transport this concept between mathemat
ical contexts. An isomorphism between
in the mattress-flipping group such that the generation’s two objects A and B in a category is given
by a pair of transformations, f : A →
experts?
compositions of corresponding moves also B a nd
correspond. In other words, you can match g : B → A
,w
ith the property that the com
posites g ∘ f a nd f ∘ g e qual the respective
identities 1A and 1B . In the category of to
pological spaces, the categorical notion of
MATTRESS SYMMETRIES isomorphism is represented by an inverse
pair of continuous functions. For instance,
there is a continuous deformation that
would allow you to convert an unbaked
doughnut into a shape like a coffee mug:
the doughnut hole becomes the handle,
and the cup is formed by a depression you
make with your thumb. (For the deforma
tion to be continuous, you must do this
without tearing the dough, which is why
the doughnut should not be baked before
the experiment is attempted.)
This example inspired the joke that a to
pologist cannot tell the difference between
a coffee mug and a doughnut: as abstract
spaces, these objects are the same. In prac
tice, many topologists are arguably much
less observant than this because it is com
mon to adopt a more flexible convention
concerning situations when two spaces are
“the same,” identifying any two spaces that
are merely “homotopy-equivalent.” This
term refers to the notion of isomorphism
in the more exotic homotopy category of
spaces. A homotopy equivalence is anoth
er type of continuous deformation, but in
this case, you can identify distinct points.
For instance, imagine starting with a pair
of pants and then shrinking the lengths of
the legs until you are left with a G-string,
another “space” with the same fundamen
tal topological structure—there are still two
holes for legs—even though the original
two-dimensional garment has been shrunk
down to a one-dimensional bit of string.
Another homotopy equivalence collaps
more ground thaws, ice in the lower layers of duff melts Alaska largely avoid the problem, common in the lower
and drains away, drying the duff farther down, making 48 states, of forests that are overgrown or have too much
deadwood. The approach also means that in Alaska, disappearing sea and land ice, which leave larger
researchers can see how climate is changing wildfire, areas of darker ocean and ground cover that absorb
without strong effects of human intervention. much more sunlight than ice or snow.
Until recently, fires would typically kill trees but Winters are warming faster than summers, but the
would not penetrate too deeply into the duff, because cumulative effect means snowpack is now developing
moisture in the lower layers prevented deeper burning. a week later and melting two weeks earlier than in the
Severe, deep burns have always happened on occasion 1990s, drying out duff for more of the year. Fire season
during especially hot and dry conditions. In their after- is at least a month longer than it was 30 years ago, put-
math, a mosaic of meadows, shrublands and hardwood ting pressure on agencies to lengthen contracts for fire-
forests (birch, poplar and aspen) typically emerges, fighters and aircraft. In 2016 Alaska set a record for fire-
replacing the spruce. Now these extreme events are season length: smokejumpers, who parachute into
increasing. In recent years forest fires in Alaska have remote locations, logged the earliest fire jump in their
broken records, burning more acreage, more intensely then 57-year history, near Palmer on April 17. And the
and for longer. Seasons in which a million or more acres Alaska Division of Forestry was still fighting flames near
burn are twice as frequent as 30 years ago. Anchorage in early October—in winds so cold they froze
The Arctic-boreal region as a whole is heating up the water slopping from helicopter buckets overhead.
1.5 to four times faster than temperate zones. Alaska Extremely hot days, which are strongly linked to fire
has warmed by four degrees F in the past 50 years, and growth, are increasing as well. In 2019, the year of the
evidence published in 2021 by David Swanson of the Swan Lake and McKinley Fires, Anchorage set 32 new
National Park Service Alaska Region suggests that record highs and experienced 90 degrees F for the first
warming has accelerated even more since 2014. This time. According to the latest climate models, the annual
“Arctic amplification” is driven for the most part by number of days above 77 degrees F—a key threshold for
HOTTER SUMMERS
Average Summer Temperature (Alaska)
10 coldest
48˚ Fahrenheit 52 56 10 warmest
0 45 90
September 27 First snow
Trend
drying out burnable vegetation—is expected to double est floor can hold 40 to 100 tons of fuel per acre. The
by midcentury Alaska’s interior. trees themselves add about 30 tons per acre, and even
More high-latitude fire is happening worldwide. so flames often consume mostly needles and branches,
Within the Arctic Circle, 2020 was the record year for leaving the denser tree trunks standing.
wildfires seen by satellite, and 2019 ranks second. In The duff, with its compact but airy layering, is a
Siberia, estimates indicate that more than 18,000 fires superb insulator of frozen ground underneath. Per-
burned 35 million acres in 2020—shocking numbers. mafrost in these regions is widespread and tens of
Temperature anomalies nearby were remarkable. On thousands of years old. Alaska is expected to lose
June 20 the town of Verkhoyansk, at the same latitude 25 percent of its permafrost area by the end of the cen-
as northern Alaska, hit a record: over 100 degrees F. In tury just from warming. Fire can accelerate this pro-
the region, precipitation was very low, and snow melt cess. When it leaves less than five inches of insulating
was the earliest since measurements began in 1967. Fire duff, the permafrost underneath can thaw and de
seasons in Russia’s Sakha Republic are now two weeks grade substantially. In Alaska’s midlatitudes, fires may
longer than they were a decade ago, and early reports trigger enough thaw that the permafrost will never
indicate Siberia’s 2021 season through July was more return, barring another Ice Age.
extensive than the same period in 2020. In May, Iceland An extreme example of fire-induced thawing was
issued the country’s first wildfire danger alert. The fac- the 2007 Anaktuvuk River Fire (ARF), which burned
tors feeding these fires are the same as those in Alaska. 250,000 acres of tundra in Alaska’s northernmost region,
the North Slope, at 70 degrees latitude. Fires beyond the
PERMAFROST AND LIGHTNING Arctic Circle (67 degrees latitude) are rare; researchers
Black spruce burn spectacularly, b
ut most of the bio- had no record of a blaze this severe so far north. Light-
mass that goes up in smoke is the duff itself. The for- ning ignited the ARF in July. Although it appeared to be
and July, when the sun is up for almost 24 hours a day. severe fires spread across Alaska and across the north.
Fires started by lightning are responsible for 90 per- Each time the team was in the burn region it recorded
cent of the acreage burned in Alaska and Canada’s plant cover and pushed metal probes down into the
tundra and boreal forests. But lightning on the North ground along numerous transects to measure the
Slope had been rare. An Inupiat elder and lifetime res- active layer. The thawed soil depth became deeper
90%
drained away. Large parcels started to sink, or subside, age; new sensing technology has revealed “taliks”—
because the volume of permafrost was disintegrating. pockets of unfrozen soil—deep under burned areas,
From a helicopter, vast portions of the treeless region which establish channels of thaw in the permafrost. In
looked like a checkerboard of earthy squares; the dark, f acreage
o boreal forests, changes in habitat and the tree canopy
crevasselike channels that outline each of them were burned is from alter patterns of animal movement. And microbes in
deepening significantly. Craters up to 200 feet wide warmer soils digest more of the ancient carbon in the
lightning fires
opened where thawing destabilized slopes—a phenom- duff and thawed permafrost, turning it into green-
enon called thermokarst mass wasting. Underground house gases, including methane.
ice wedges that had not seen the sun for 60,000 years More burning across boreal and tundra regions,
emerged, smelling like dead dinosaurs. L ightning along with cascading ecosystem changes, has global
To chart the changing land, remote-sensing and will increase implications that only large computer models can esti-
59%
permafrost experts Ben Jones and Carson Baughman mate. The models predict that boreal burning may
of the U.S. Geological Survey joined the team excur- double or even quadruple by the end of this century,
sions in 2017. Jones used airborne radar to confirm releasing massive quantities of carbon from the ubiq-
that surface subsidence was widespread, from four to by 2050 uitous duff. That shift could transform the region from
40 inches deep. Surface roughness, a measure of sub- a carbon sink to a carbon source, which would amplify
sidence, over much of the eastern half of the burn area climate change worldwide.
increased threefold, giving the landscape deeper It may not be all bad news. Some studies indicate
channels, taller hummocks and more surface area. that a shift in forest composition from conifers such as
Jones and Baughman left probes in burned and spruce to less flammable deciduous trees such as birch
unburned areas that continued to record temperature. and aspen, as well as a slight increase in rainfall attrib-
Measurements showed that the soil at six inches depth uted to less sea ice, may offset some of the predicted
in the burned area averaged 2.7 degrees F warmer on increase in area burned. If deciduous forests replace
an annual basis, and summer maximum temperatures conifer forests after fire, they could reflect more sunlight,
were 11 degrees F warmer than in the unburned area. at least in winter when their leaves are gone and light
Obviously this warming jeopardizes permafrost, but it reflects off the underlying snow, moderating the climate-
also influences the plants that will dominate the region. warming feedback. Warmer tundra soils are already
Ten years after the ARF fire, tall shrubs, grasses and producing more shrubs and ultimately could support
other vascular plants, some of which had been rare trees, which would sequester some of the carbon lost
beforehand, had increased tremendously. In warmer from soils and permafrost in their wood. But the devil
soils, fast-growing grasses and willow shrubs can out- is in the details. We need better estimates on each of
compete the slower-growing mosses, lichens and dwarf these factors to predict how feedbacks will unfold.
shrubs that were prevalent before the fire. These new- While scientists work on those tasks, Alaska resi-
comers add more dry litter to the fuel bed every year dents and fire agencies are strategizing about how to
than the slow-growing mosses do. That may explain protect people, private land, infrastructure and natu-
why in 2017, a decade after the ARF, there were two new ral resources in an intensifying fire environment. They
fire scars roughly 100 acres apiece inside the 2007 burn are improving firefighting preparedness by thinning
expanse. Repeat fire in just 10 years was unusual inside forest or removing burnable brush and vegetation
a burn area where the likely time between subsequent around towns and cabins. And they are harnessing new
fires has been estimated at several hundred years. technology—such as satellite imagery—for earlier fire
detection and for accurate mapping and monitoring.
SINK OR SOURCE? More fire in the high north may alter the land and the
Researchers are working hard to understand the con- climate, but Alaskans are trying to do as much as they
sequences of changing fire in the high north. The imme- can to prevent disastrous loss of life and property. ‑
diate impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, poor
air quality and infrastructure damage are obvious. Sec-
ondary impacts that can arise are challenging to pre- FROM OUR ARCHIVES
dict. Some are expected, such as soil warming in sum- The Permafrost Prediction. Ted Shuur; December 2016.
mer as a result of the charred black surface, undulating
s c i e n t if i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a zi n e /s a
landscapes and reestablishment of vegetation as burned
S PIRITUALITY IS WHEN
YOU’VE BEEN TO HELL
Collectivism in Black communities—
what some social scientists have called
the “Black helping tradition”—can be
traced back to at least the late 1700s,
when two formerly enslaved men, Rich-
ard Allen and Absalom Jones, founded
the Free African Society, a mutual-aid
society that eventually led to the first U.S.
Black religious denomination: African
Methodist Episcopal. The society gave
newly freed people goods and services
they could not get elsewhere: money, jobs,
education, clothes, health care and reli-
gious instruction.
Churches were some of the few places
Dill and Mattis, as well as other researchers in psychology, social where Black Americans could gather safely for any kind of public
work, epidemiology, public health, and other fields, are building discourse. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously used the church in the
up a body of published evidence showing that a current of collec- fight for civil rights, and the Black Panthers held free breakfasts for
tivism runs through majority-Black enclaves that can help make Black children in church basements. “For Blacks especially, churches
people more resilient than they might be otherwise. Their work provide an opportunity to be civically engaged with a protective
has sometimes met with skepticism. Mattis, for example, says peer- covering of unity and support,” wrote Keon Gilbert, a behavioral
reviewers have accused her of making up the personal stories of sciences professor at St. Louis University, and Lorraine Dean, an
altruism that she has gathered from people she has interviewed epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
(she offered to let them listen to recordings), and some scholars Health, in their research looking at health and political advocacy.
have told her it is irresponsible to study goodness in poor urban Mattis began studying religion and spirituality and their con-
spaces because it might give the impression that there are not big nection to the psychological welfare of the Black community by
problems in places affected by structural racism and inequality. using surveys and in-depth interviews when she was in graduate
Mattis counters that it is misleading to ignore altruism and how school at the University of Michigan. At the time, she was strug-
it helps people cultivate social capital. During the C
OVID pandemic, gling with her mother’s exhortation—“You have a responsibility
scholars have noted how an extreme focus on individualism in to tell our story”—and the often negative portrayals her profes-
American culture has led to tragic results. But that is too sweeping sors shared about people in majority-Black neighborhoods. She
an assessment. “In the Black community, we have to take care of knew from personal experience that religion and spirituality had
ourselves,” says Traci Blackmon, a Missouri pastor. In the early days helped instill resiliency in her neighbors, allowing them to remain
of the pandemic, her church collected 30,000 masks and many gal- hopeful despite their unjust circumstances and to create a sense
THE
UNSEEN
UNIVERSE
A mismatch between theory and experiment
from muons points to possible new particles
and forces of nature
By Marcela Carena
Illustration by Maria Corte
A
at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and a professor
of physics at the University of Chicago, where she is a member
of the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.
may now be showing that the Standard Model, as splendid as it particles travel around the ring, but with a small wobble.
is, describes just a part of a richer subatomic world. The rate of precession depends on the strength of the mu-
The subject of the experiment—muons—are produced in on’s internal magnet and is proportional to a factor that we call
abundance by cosmic rays in Earth’s atmosphere; more than g. The way the equations of the Standard Model are written, if
10,000 of them pass through our bodies every minute. These the muon didn’t wobble at all, the value of g would be 2. If that
particles have the same physical properties as the familiar elec- were the case, the muon’s direction of motion and direction of
tron, but they are 200 times heavier. The extra mass makes spin would always be the same with respect to each other, and
them better probes for new phenomena in high-precision labo- g-2 would be zero. In that case, scientists would measure no
ratories because any deviations from their expected behavior wobble of the muon. This situation is exactly what we would ex-
will be more noticeable. At Fermilab, a 50-foot-diameter ring of pect without considering the properties of the vacuum.
Direction of spin
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP (exaggerated in this graphic)
Magnetized loop
The g-2 experiment sends
muons into a magnetized loop Direction of momentum
where they circle around until
they decay. Physicists look at the
decay products to find out how
the direction of the particles’
spin has changed—or precessed.
Here we show the case of
negatively charged muons.
But quantum physics tells us that the nothingness of empty feature of the quantum world plays a crucial role in particle
space is the most mysterious substance in the universe. This is physics experiments; indeed, the discovery of the Higgs boson
because empty space contains virtual particles—short-lived ob- was enabled by virtual particle effects at the LHC.
jects whose physical effects are very real. All the Standard Model Virtual particles also interact with the muons in the Fermi-
particles we know of can behave as virtual particles as a result of lab ring and change the value of g. You can imagine the virtual
the uncertainty principle, an element of quantum theory that particles as ephemeral companions that a muon emits and im-
limits the precision with which we can perform measurements. mediately reabsorbs—they follow it around like a little cloud,
As a result, it is possible that for a very short time the uncer- changing its magnetic properties and thus its spin precession.
tainty in the energy of a particle can be so large that a particle Therefore, scientists always knew that g would not be exactly 2
can spring into existence from empty space. This mind-blowing and that there would be some wobble as muons spin around the
THE RESULTS
g=2 g>2
Scientists at the
Muon g-2 experiment
measured significantly
more wobbling than
the Standard Model
of physics predicts.
If virtual particles were
not present, the factor
g-2 would equal zero.
But with virtual particle
interactions, g becomes
greater than 2, and
the spin direction
diverges from the
muon’s direction
of momentum. The
findings suggest that
novel particles may be
contributing to g-2.
ring. But if the Standard Model is not the whole story, then mining the energy and arrival time of the electrons or positrons,
other particles that we have not yet discovered may also be scientists can deduce the spin direction of the parent muon. A
found in that cloud, changing the value of g in ways that the team of about 200 physicists from 35 universities and labs in
Standard Model cannot predict. seven countries developed techniques for measuring the muon
Muons themselves are unstable particles, but they live long g-2 property with unprecedented accuracy.
enough inside the Muon g-2 experiment for physicists to mea-
sure their spin direction. Physicists do this by monitoring one of A CONFIRMATION
the decay particles they create: electrons, from decays of nega- The first experiments to measure the muon g-2 took place at
tively charged muons, or positrons—the antiparticle version of CERN, and by the late 1970s they had produced results that, within
electrons—from decays of positively charged muons. By deter- their impressive but limited precision, agreed with standard the-
values, confirming that the Brookhaven findings were not a fluke. discretizes our world into a gridlike lattice of space and time.
To confirm this year’s results, we need not just more experi- These techniques have yielded highly accurate results for other
mental data but also a better understanding of what exactly our computations where strong forces play a dominant role.
theories predict. Over the past two decades we have been refin- Teams around the world are tackling the lattice calculations
ing the Standard Model predictions. Most recently, more than for the muon g-2 factor. So far only one team has claimed to
100 physicists working on the Muon g-2 Theory Initiative, started have a result of comparable accuracy to those based on experi-
by Aida El-Khadra of the University of Illinois, have strived to mental data from electron collisions. This result happens to di-
improve the accuracy of the Standard Model’s value for the lute the discrepancy between the experimental and Standard
muon g-2 factor. Advances in mathematical methods and com Model expectations—if it is correct, there may not be evidence
putational power have enabled the most accurate theoretical of additional particles tugging on the muon after all. Yet this lat-
Day
A Connecticut team races to find as many bird species as possible
in 24 hours, in the high-intensity, low-stakes world of competitive birding
By Kate Wong
Gallo, a naturalist and birder, has been coming to the sewage amount of time they have at each one to see or hear the target
plant regularly since last fall, when a motley crew of warblers— species. Seconds count—there will be no pausing to admire one
Prairie, Cape May, Tennessee, Palm, Pine and Yellow-rumped— bird’s dazzling plumage or another’s melodious song, no study-
that should have headed south for the winter decided to stay here ing a fascinating behavior or puzzling over an unexpected sight-
instead. Birders flocked to the site all winter, trudging up and ing. As a friend of his once quipped about Big Days, Gallo says,
down the icy trail in hopes of glimpsing the rarities foraging in “This isn’t birding. This is war.”
the tanks and evergreens. Now, with spring migrants starting to
appear throughout the northeast, the sewage plant crowd is thin- “200 has to be a perfect day,” team member Dave Tripp tells me.
ning. But Gallo keeps returning because he wants to see when “To get 200, everything needs to be there and to call. It’s doable,
the Cape May and Tennessee Warblers depart for their breeding but all the stars need to line up.” He and the other team mem-
grounds up north. Although overwintering in Connecticut was bers have been bringing those stars into alignment, and he is
risky, the survivors are now that much closer to where they need phoning to brief me. They’ve been honing their strategy since
to be to establish a territory for the summer, find a mate and they first started birding together competitively more than a
reproduce. Maybe they’ll get a head start, he muses. Such are the decade ago in New Jersey.
Kate Wong (p receding pages, left) ; McPhoto Schaef A lamy Stock Photo ( p receding pages, right)
pleasures of birding—marveling at life’s diversity, pondering the The most prestigious Big Day competition in the country is
rhythms of the natural world, feeding curiosity one question at the World Series of Birding, held every year in New Jersey. For
a time, even in unglamorous locations. years the Connecticut team—it calls itself the Raven Lunatics—
Today Gallo is preoccupied with his next avian pursuit. In just competed in the World Series, building its knowledge of New Jer-
a few weeks he and five of his friends—some of the top birders in sey’s birds and refining its tactics for getting as many of them as
the state—will be doing their annual Big Day, competing as a team possible on game day. In 2008 the team took home the prize for
to find as many bird species in Connecticut as they can by sight the second-highest number of species, having found 222—an espe-
or sound in a 24-hour period. They’ll go midnight to midnight on cially impressive feat considering they were from out of state. But
a day of their choosing. Their goals: get 200 species, which no in Connecticut, the Big Day record had been stuck at 186 species,
team in New England has ever been able to do; beat the existing set by another team in 1994. “Let’s take what we’ve learned in Jer-
New England record of 195 species, set by their archrivals in Mas- sey and apply it to our home state,” Tripp recalls telling the oth-
sachusetts in 2014; best their own 2018 record of 193. ers. “Let’s go for the state record in Connecticut.”
To accomplish any of these objectives, the team needs to fig- Anyone can do a Big Day bird count following the American Bird-
ure out ahead of time where the hard-to-find birds are likely to ing Association’s rules. Competitors have 24 hours—midnight to
be found. And it has to design a driving route that maximizes the midnight on a single calendar day—to find as many bird species on
number of sites the players can hit across the state and the the official checklist as they can; they may gather intelligence before
which smashed the state record and set a new bar for New Eng- in a variety of habitats across the state and at the right times of
land. A decade on, the Raven Lunatics remain the Connecticut day to find birds. Owls and marsh birds, for instance, call at night.
T
hree days later I meet team member Nick
Bonomo at 8:30 in the morning at a car-
pool lot off Interstate 95 in the coastal
town of Guilford. He’s been looking for birds since
2 a.m. Game day is just a few days away, and he’s
behind on scouting his territory. Bonomo and Gal-
lo run the southern part of the route, including
the coast, with help from teammates Patrick
Dugan and Dave Provencher. Today Bonomo, a
productive. Bonomo spies two small, sleek seabirds with black and lo raises a hand for a high five. Raptors nest early in the breed-
white heads and bright yellow bills—Least Terns. This species, ing season and are attentive parents, so chances are good the bird
which nests on beaches, is threatened in Connecticut because of will be here if the team drives by on competition day.
habitat loss. It’s one of just two tern species the team can expect The rest of the afternoon is hit-or-miss. And the misses are
to find on competition day, the other being the Common Tern. weighing on Gallo. Here and there along the coast, he locates a
Brian Kushner A lamy Stock Photo ( b ottom)
Bonomo also notes a nearby flock of Dunlin, chunky little shore- few Sanderlings and Purple Sandpipers, Semipalmated Sandpip-
birds with long, probing bills that breed in the Arctic tundra. ers and Least Sandpipers. But other species he needs—Black
Surveying the water with his spotting telescope at the next Skimmer, Pectoral Sandpiper and White-rumped Sandpiper,
beach, Bonomo discovers a Long-tailed Duck—an elegant sea among others—elude him. “There’s just no shorebirds right now.
duck with showy tail feathers—bobbing in the waves. Most Long- The weather pattern has not been conducive,” Gallo says. “We
tailed Ducks have set off for their breeding grounds in the High want south winds with enough time for migrants to get here and
Arctic by mid-May. During the competition “we only get this spe- blocking winds so they fall on Connecticut.”
I
spend the next two mornings in northwestern Connecticut, me so I can jump out of the car quickly at our frequent stops with-
the first one with Tripp, the next one with his teammate and out the car dinging to remind me to buckle up.
best friend since grade school, Fran Zygmont. I’m on the road Tripp is running the route, checking to make sure the birds he
by 3 a.m. each day to meet them at 4:00 in Litchfield County, has scouted are still in the same place and trying to get the tim-
A
t midnight on monday, May 17, the team started its mad-
cap scavenger hunt at an undisclosed location in the
north. The team members swore me to secrecy for fear
that their strategy could leak to competitors. Unable to join them
there, I agreed to meet them at their next stop.
At 1:13 a.m., a black Chevy Suburban rolls into the parking
lot of a Kohl’s department store. Six men wearing binoculars exit
the vehicle and face the storefront, peering up at the mud nests
built into its eaves. Cliff Swallows: check. Thirty seconds after
they pulled in, the men pile back into their SUV and peel off into
the night. They got exactly what they came for, nothing more,
nothing less.
Unsure of exactly where we’re going next, I follow close behind,
wondering what the speed limit is as we fly through the empty
streets. I can’t lose them—Tripp, who’s driving, warned me at the
outset that they cannot wait for me to catch up. At the next stops
an Eastern Screech-Owl and Eastern Whip-poor-will call right
on cue, and a surprise Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Green Heron
chime in.
Tripp spontaneously cancels a planned stop at the gas station
and heads for the pond where he scouted a pair of Common Gal-
linules—chickenlike rails with dark feathers and a candy corn
bill—an uncommon find. We pull over on the side of the back-
country road and cut the engines. Under the faint light of the
moon and stars the men fan out, cupping their hands around
their ears to amplify the sounds of any birds. The twangy,
plucked-banjo mating calls of green frogs punctuate the silence.
Between the pond and the surrounding marsh and the forest
beyond, the team stands to pick up several birds here. A distant
Barred Owl is the first to sound off, hooting its signature w ho
cooks for you? Then, in response to a recording, the elusive Amer-
ican Bittern makes its extraordinary display call—a series of bel-
lowing gulps, as though it’s glugging a gallon of water—eliciting
a hushed YES! from the birders. The gallinule cooperates, joined
by a Marsh Wren, Swamp Sparrow and Virginia Rail.
its. They add Little Blue Heron, Clapper Rail, Ruddy Turnstone, 27 minutes to get. What is more, only six of the 192 birds they got
A ll Canada Photos A lamy Stock Photo (c lockwise from top left)
Seaside Sparrow and Saltmarsh Sparrow to their list. Tripp, were dirty. Bonomo says he is confident that given how well they
seeming more relaxed now that the north is done, rounds the did in a lousy migration year, 200 is within their grasp.
guys up for a group photo. But it isn’t long before Bonomo is “One day it will all come together,” Gallo says. “The birds we
prodding them to get a move on. They’re in his territory now, and scouted will all stick, and the migrants will drop in, and all will be
they have work to do. right with the world.” Until they decide they need to go for 201.
Two hours and several stops later, the team is at 186 species—
the number that held the state record for 17 years. The birders
have nearly six hours left to find the 14 day birds and four night FROM OUR ARCHIVES
birds that are still in play, according to Gallo. It sounds doable, How Birds Branched Out. K ate Wong; November 2020.
but at this point in the competition the new finds are scarce.
s c i e n t if i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a zi n e /s a
The birders have reached Milford Point, a barrier beach at the
FOOD,
I
Mamta Mehra is a senior fellow for the land-use
and food sectors at Project Drawdown.
magine going to the market, leaving with three full bags of groceries and coming home.
Before you step through your door, you stop and throw one of the bags into a trash bin,
which later is hauled away to a landfill. What a waste. Collectively, that is exactly what
we are doing today. Globally, 30 to 40 percent of food intended for human consumption
is not eaten. Given that more than 800 million people go hungry every day, the scale of
food loss fills many of us with a deep sense of anguish.
If population growth and economic development continue at ing nations, billions of people burn biomass in noxious cookstoves
their current pace, the world will have to produce 53 million more that spew polluting, unhealthy smoke and black carbon.
metric tons of food annually by 2050. That increase would require After all these waste-producing activities, too much of the food
converting another 442 million hectares of forests and grassland— that makes it to a consumer’s table is thrown in the garbage, which
far greater than the size of India—into farmland over the next 30 then is typically transported by fossil-fueled trucks to landfills where
years. The escalation would also release the equivalent of an addi- it decomposes and emits methane, another potent greenhouse gas.
tional 80 billion tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years— Tossing that leftover lasagna accounts for far more emissions than
about 15 times the emissions of the entire U.S. economy in 2019. a rotting tomato that never leaves the farm gate. We can do better.
Food waste already accounts for roughly 8 percent of the world’s
greenhouse gases. SMALLER FOODPRINT
There is another path, however. Our group at Project Drawdown, At Project Drawdown, w e poured global data from the Food and
an international research and communications organization, com- Agriculture Organization and many other sources into a detailed
pleted an exhaustive study of existing technologies and practices model of the entire food production and consumption system. The
that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas levels in the atmo- model took into account rising population projections, as well as
sphere while ushering in a more regenerative society and econo- greater consumption and more meat eating per person, particu-
my. Reducing food waste is one of the top-five means of achieving larly in developing countries, based on actual trends over the past
these goals among 76 we analyzed. Basic adjustments in how food several decades. According to our calculations, healthier diets and
is produced and consumed could help feed the entire world a more regenerative agricultural production lead to a lower “food-
healthy, nutrient-rich diet through 2050 and beyond without clear- print”—less waste, fewer emissions and a cleaner environment.
ing, planting or grazing more land than is used today. Providing If half of the world’s population consumes a healthy 2,300 kilo-
more food by eliminating waste, along with better ways of produc- calories a day, built around a plant-rich diet, and puts into prac-
ing that food, would avoid deforestation and also save an enormous tice already proven actions that cut waste across the supply chain,
amount of energy, water, fertilizer, labor and other resources. food losses could decline from the current 40 percent to 20 per-
Opportunities to reduce waste exist at every step along the sup- cent, an incredible savings. If we were even more ambitious in fol-
ply chain from farm to table. We harvest crops, raise livestock, and lowing the same practices, food waste could be cut to 10 percent
process these commodities into products such as rice, vegetable [see graphics on pages 77–80 for details].
oil, potato chips, perfectly cut carrots, cheese and New York strip These hefty savings would result partly from shifts in basic hab-
steaks. Most of these products are packaged in cardboard boxes, its. In the developed world, embracing an average daily 2,300-kilo-
fcafotodigital G etty Images ( p receding pages)
plastic bags and bottles, tin cans and glass jars made from extract- calorie diet instead of consumption that often reaches more than
ed materials in industrial factories, and then they are shipped on 3,000 kilocalories lessens food waste in the first place. In the devel-
gas-guzzling trucks, trains and planes all over the world. oping world, caloric and protein intake generally need to rise to
After arriving at stores and restaurants, food is held in energy- reach nutritious levels, which may increase some waste across the
hungry refrigerators and freezers that use hydrofluorocarbons— system. But overall, if everyone on the planet adopted healthy con-
powerful greenhouse gases—until purchased by consumers, whose sumption practices and a plant-rich (not necessarily vegetarian)
eyes are often bigger than their appetites, particularly in richer com- diet, 166 million metric tons of food waste could be avoided over
munities. In high-income countries, restaurants and households the next 30 years. Feedback would be sent across the supply chain
turn on their energy-consuming stoves and ovens, and in develop- Continued on page 81
7 *
3 40% wasted
1
20%
10%
2020 2030 2040 2050 2020 2030 2040 2050 2020 2030 2040 2050
CURRENT PRACTICE PLAUSIBLE SAVINGS AMBITIOUS SAVINGS
This baseline scenario assumes that global population If half the world’s people consume 2,300 kilocalories If three quarters of Earth’s population follows
and consumption per person continue to rise as a day and choose more plants and less meat, and the same measures described in the “plausible”
they have over the past several decades; 40 percent losses are reduced across the supply chain, waste scenario, waste could drop to 10 percent.
of food produced is wasted. could be cut to 20 percent by 2050.
* Projections begin with 2018, so 2020 values are slightly different for each scenario.
Trashed: Every Second the World Wastes 2,860 Garbage Bins of Food
3,741 bins per second 1,365 bins per second 591 bins per second
in 2050 if current in 2050, according to in 2050, according to
practices continue the plausible plan the ambitious plan
Food Type Annual Production and Waste Percent Wasted at Each Stage of the Supply Chain
Current Practice Plausible Ambitious From farm ...
Savings Savings
Million metric
tons (MMT) CROP GROWING, POSTHARVEST
In 2020, 2,365 ANIMAL RAISING HANDLING
million metric AND STORAGE
2,000 Waste as % of Total Production by Food Type
tons were
FRUITS AND produced. 16%
VEGETABLES 54% was
12
wasted
1,000
8
4
Plant-Based Food Categories (ranked by annual production)
0 0
2020 2050 2020 2030 2040 2050 2020 2030 2040 2050
CEREALS
1,343 MMT,
29% wasted
OTHER
704 MMT,
37% wasted
ROOTS AND
TUBERS
689 MMT,
53% wasted
OILSEEDS
AND PULSES
232 MMT,
26% wasted
MEAT
402 MMT,
22% wasted
203 MMT,
40% wasted
... to table
Resulting from Less Food Waste Resulting from Shift to Plant-Rich Diet
2020 2030 2040 2050 2020 2030 2040 2050
Billion 0
metric 1.6
tons 2
of CO2 3.6 The same reductions accrue in the
4 plausible and ambitious scenarios.
Resulting from Less Food Waste Resulting from Shift to Plant-Rich Diet
2020 2030 2040 2050 2020 2030 2040 2050
Billion 0
metric
tons 2 2.2
of CO2 3.1
3.6
4
5.1
6
15
51% reduction
Plausible
Scenario
62% reduction
Ambitio
us Sce
10 nario
0
2020 2030 2040 2050
The
Artificial
Physicist
A machine-learning system is making
shocking progress at the frontiers
Q
of experimental quantum physics
By Anil Ananthaswamy
Illustration by Kotryna Zukauskaite
I
ate quantum states of photons entangled in a very t was this more evolved MELVIN t hat left Krenn
particular manner. When two photons interact, they scratching his head in a Viennese café. He had
become entangled, and both can be mathematically set it running with an experimental toolbox that
described only using a single shared quantum state. contained two crystals, each capable of generating a
If you measure the state of one photon, the measure- pair of photons entangled in three dimensions.
ment instantly fixes the state of the other even if the Krenn’s naive expectation was that MELVIN would
two are kilometers apart (hence Einstein’s derisive find configurations that combined these pairs of pho-
comments on entanglement being “spooky”). tons to create entangled states of at most nine dimen-
In 1989 three physicists—Daniel Greenberger, the sions. But “it actually found one solution, an extreme-
late Michael Horne and Zeilinger—described an ly rare case, that has much higher entanglement than
entangled state that came to be known as GHZ (after the rest of the states,” Krenn says.
their initials). It involved four photons, each of which Eventually he figured out that MELVIN had used
could be in a quantum superposition of, say, two a technique that multiple teams had developed near-
states, 0 and 1 (a quantum state called a qubit). In ly three decades ago. In 1991 Xin Yu Zou, Li Jun Wang
their paper, the GHZ state involved entangling four and Leonard Mandel, all then at the University of
qubits such that the entire system was in a two- Rochester, designed one method. And in 1994 Zeil-
dimensional quantum superposition of states 0000 inger, then at the University of Innsbruck in Austria,
and 1111. If you measured one of the photons and and his colleagues came up with another. Conceptu-
found it in state 0, the superposition would collapse, ally these experiments attempted something similar,
and the other photons would also be in state 0. The but the configuration that Zeilinger and his col-
same went for state 1. In the late 1990s Zeilinger and leagues devised is simpler to understand. It starts
his colleagues experimentally observed GHZ states with one crystal that generates a pair of photons (A
using three qubits for the first time. and B). The paths of these photons go right through
Krenn and his colleagues were aiming for GHZ another crystal, which can also generate two photons
states of higher dimensions. They wanted to work with (C and D). The paths of photon A from the first crys-
three photons, where each photon had a dimensional- tal and of photon C from the second overlap exactly
ity of three, meaning it could be in a superposition of and lead to the same detector. If that detector clicks,
three states: 0, 1 and 2. This quantum state is called a it is impossible to tell whether the photon originated
qutrit. The entanglement the team was after was a from the first or the second crystal. The same goes for
three-dimensional GHZ state that was a superposition photons B and D.
of states 000, 111 and 222. Such states are important A phase shifter is a device that effectively increas-
ingredients for secure quantum communications and es the path a photon travels as some fraction of its
Animal Person
of one of them—usually several. Animal
forms, references and mimicries hover
all around us, even in places where no
living nonhuman animals are present
Our mechanistic relationships with nonhuman animals (at least, beyond the miniature and micro-
Review by Lydia Millet scopic). They populate our language
with their richness, diversity and color
In On Animals, a new collection of old lifelong interest in animalkind and specu- and play a critical role in helping us raise
essays, veteran journalist Susan Orlean lates that she has a rare affection for it. our children.
is almost the obverse of wonder-seeking But there’s little evidence in the book of So when Orlean asks the question,
naturalists like David Attenborough. Her the author as an outlier. Clearly, she loves in “Animalish,” of whether her life among
focus is not on wild creatures and their dogs, chickens, horses, and other long- the other animals and her yearning for
swiftly disappearing worlds but on animals time familiar companions and has gone their company is atypical, I find myself
that live in human-dominated spheres: to great lengths to make caring for many wishing she’d answered the question in
pets, working animals, and those kept as of them a focus of her wide-roaming inves- greater depth—wishing that, given this
barnyard companions, livestock, or curios- On Animals tigative life. But the proposition that her collection’s central theme, she’d examined
ities. Her subjects are the familiar denizens By Susan Orlean. affinity is outlandish lands with an oddly how humanness is constructed through
of the home, farm, zoo and marketplace. Avid Reader Press/ unexamined weight. Is a fondness for and around the existence of nonhuman
Orlean explores the human machina- Simon & Schuster, other animals strange? animals. How our notions of personhood
tions around show dogs and celebrity 2021 ($28) Even in a culture willfully detached are built on the vast foundation of our
megafauna such as captive giant pandas from the wild, animal sign is visible every- extensive evolutionary and social history
and the movie star orca Keiko of Free Willy where. I rarely enter a home, office or with the other species that define our lived
fame. She tells the unsettling saga of an experience. In a time of press-
American woman who kept numerous ing and accelerating biodiver-
tigers, written long before the airing of the sity crisis, it seems more urgent
notorious series T iger King. The differences than ever that we grapple with
between mules and donkeys are illumi- the implications of our use and
nated here, as are the decline and fall of abuse of other life-forms,
pack animals in the armed forces and the whether domesticated or
poignancy of a young girl’s devotion to her wild—with how our love for
homing pigeons. them is mediated by, and sub-
Orlean deftly captures some of the sumed into, our exploitation of
ways in which categories like “pet” and their bodies and habitats. With
“revenue source” or “food” overlap, some- how and why our culture has
times painfully. And how in other cases, taught us that other animals
such as donkeys in Morocco’s medinas, are little more than useful idi-
working animals are seen as machines and ots and that, therefore, our
unmourned when, after years of devoted love of them is childish, hobby-
service, they die. Some readers may be istic or weird. When in fact, our
startled by her rosy account of a meet and stories, homes and minds are
greet with a privately owned African lion, furnished with the artifacts of
brought to her New York apartment as an a far deeper love.
apparently charming Valentine’s Day sur- The best writing in On
prise; it doesn’t stop to contemplate, as her Animals—about Keiko the
story “The Lady and the Tigers” does, the orca, say, or about donkeys
ethical dimensions of personal wild-animal or about Biff the prizewinning
ownership. But in general, these well- boxer—occurs where the
researched and readable essays—origi- mundane meets the tragic,
nally published in the New Yorker and at the crossroads between
Smithsonian Magazine beginning in 1995— our compulsion to care for and
open onto a world of troubled human rela- be near animals and our dawn-
tionships with charismatic beasts. ing realization that those ani-
In her introduction, a piece called “Ani- mals are always, finally,
malish”—the only newly written material beyond our sphere of nurtur-
in the collection—Orlean describes her ing and control.
Reveling
in Nature’s
Eccentricities
Amy Leach’s latest effort—an expansive,
thought-provoking reflection on the natural
world—is a worthy successor to her cele-
brated first book, Things That Are. A winner
of the Whiting Award and the Pushcart
Prize, Leach charms even as she challenges
the reader with this new collection.
In the titular essay, a choir director en-
courages everyone on the “Existence Boat”
to raise their voices in a joyous cacophony ple of the latter is “Dogness defies dogma.”) Gegenschein, F labellina). After importing
of Being. It is an apt kickoff for a book so Instead, Leach argues, our animal breth- them, she does not just set them blithely
planetary in scope. The “Pandemoniums” ren’s identity is inherent, and they stand for down, but rather she rubs them together
that follow cover everything from the cha- nothing but themselves. with her point until insights shoot like sparks.
otic mindfulness of Beanstan, Leach’s un- In “Non Sequiturs,” she illustrates the If they are non sequiturs, they still forge
hinged Pomeranian, to Elon Musk’s recent application of this through an animal- links via revelation rather than relatedness.
spaceflight, the premise of which she oriented exegesis of the Book of Job, high- Leach’s essays are passionate, but they
rejects on the basis of her loyalty to Earth: lighting how God “brings lions and light- refresh more than burn. While breathtak-
“Yes to the Earth, my Earth, for I do not The Everybody ning and various other non sequiturs, like ingly sophisticated in their content, their
hope to find a better where.” Ensemble: donkeys” to answer Job’s many questions. tone recalls the best and most beloved chil-
But Leach’s love for Earth is not unex- Donkeys, Essays, “Perhaps,” Leach remarks, “we could try dren’s books: playful but gentle, earnest
amined. She often criticizes humanity’s and Other his rhetorical method ourselves.” And she without being naive, reverberant with on-
reductive view of animals, noting our pro- Pandemoniums does just that, illuminating her essays with tological wonder. Fusing poetry and biolo-
pensity to collapse them into anatomy or By Amy Leach. a dizzying array of nature references: some gy, philosophy and commentary, this col-
taxonomy and rejecting our tendency to Farrar, Straus and household names (eagles, grapes, sea lection offers something for everyone on
use them as religious symbols. (One exam- Giroux, 2021 ($26) horses), others less so (strawberry frogs, the Existence Boat. —Dana Dunham
I N B R I E F
tion” for the much of the world’s poor. There are no violence, an impulse that can only be called ‘omni- experimental setups—such as an artificial neural
easy answers, of course. But as the planet continues cide,’ the desire to destroy everything.” Ghosh finds network creating visual hallucinations of dogs in
hurtling toward disaster at breakneck speed, Ahuja hope in the promise of renewable energy and the virtual reality—prove more imaginative and compel-
presents a convincing framework for understanding “vitalist politics” of Greta Thunberg, the activists of ling than philosophical hypotheticals of false selves
environmental racism. —Tess Joosse Standing Rock, and others. —Seth Fletcher and teleportation. —Maddie Bender
Scientists: Please language is impenetrable even to many insiders. Consider the “sec-
ondary maximum contaminant level,” or SMCL, used by the U.S.
Speak Plainly
Environmental Protection Agency. Primary maximum contaminant
levels (MCLs) are the maximum levels of contaminants allowed
in drinking water, based on scientific evidence of health threats.
Jargon may work when talking to So what is a secondary standard? It’s something established
for reasons that do not affect public health—at least not directly.
colleagues, but it alienates the public The epa has recognized three distinct types of concern that can
By Naomi Oreskes trigger an SMCL: A esthetic issues t hat involve the appearance,
odor or taste of the water; cosmetic issues t hat can affect your ap
With the persistence of vaccine denial, as well as many Ameri- pearance, such as silver, which can cause argyria (a condition in
cans still reluctant to face the facts of climate change even in the which your skin turns irreversibly blue); and t echnical issues t hat
face of devastating floods and record-breaking heat, social media involve damage to equipment. The agency is lumping three very
has been suffused with theories about why people don’t trust sci- different concerns under one term that communicates none of
ence. In my own work, I have talked about how 40 years of par- them. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t care if silver in my tap
tisan attacks on government have led to distrust of government turned my water a bit blue. I would c are if it turned me b
lue. And I
science and then of science generally. would certainly care if damage to equipment led to my water car-
But this past year another issue has been bugging me. It’s the rying dangerous amounts of lead.
way scientists t alk. This is not a new concern. Many years ago sci- Examples of confusing and misleading scientific terms
ence writer Susan Hassol and atmospheric scientist Richard abound. When astronomers say “metals,” they mean any element
Somerville wrote a humorous but serious piece about how the heavier than helium, which includes oxygen and nitrogen, a usage
that is massively confusing not just to laypeople but
also to chemists. The Big Dipper isn’t a constellation
to them; it is an “asterism.” Computational scientists
declare a model “validated” when they mean that it has
been tested against a data set—not necessarily that it
is valid. In AI, there is machine “intelligence,” which
isn’t intelligence at all but something more like
“machine capability.” In ecology, there are “ecosystem
services,” which you might reasonably think refers to
companies that clean up oil spills, but it is ecological
jargon for all the good things that the natural world
does for us. And then there’s my favorite, which is espe-
cially relevant here: the theory of “communication
accommodation,” which means speaking so that the
listener can understand.
Studies show that alien terms are, in fact, alienat-
ing; they confuse people and make them feel excluded.
One study showed that even when participants were
given definitions for the terms being used, jargon-lad-
en materials made them less likely to identify with the
scientific community and decreased their overall inter-
terms that climate scientists use mean one thing to them but often est in the subject. In plain words: jargon turns people off.
something very different to others. In the climate system, for exam- Of course, there are words with specific technical meanings that
ple, “positive feedback” refers to amplifying feedback loops, such cannot be otherwise easily expressed (look up “holobiont”), and
as the ice-albedo feedback. (“Albedo,” itself a bit of jargon, basical- astronomers may have a good reason for preferring the parsec
ly means “reflectivity.”) The loop in question develops when glob- (which equals 3.26 light-years) to the familiar light-year. Techni-
al warming causes Arctic ice to melt, exposing water that is dark- cal terms used in regulatory contexts may be hard to change for
er and reflects less of the sun’s warming rays, which leads to more legal reasons. But if scientists could speak plainly, it would help
warming, which leads to more melting ... and so on. In the climate us understand their claims and better appreciate their work.
system, this positive feedback is a bad thing. But for most, it con-
jures reassuring images, such as receiving praise from your boss.
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
Hassol and Somerville call this “speaking in code.” Codes, of Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
course, are intended to be opaque to outsiders, but some scientific or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]
OCTOBER
Seeking Dynamos
Planets with Magnetic Fields
Each planet’s magnetic field arises from its own unique composition
and rotational properties. Venus and Mars seem to lack enough
convection in their interiors to produce fields.
understand how they arise Silicate mantle Silicate crust Liquid metallic
hydrogen and helium
The magnetic fields in our solar system are surprisingly diverse—
Liquid hydrogen Water, methane, Hydrogen and helium
Jupiter’s and Saturn’s are extremely strong, but Mercury’s is puny.
and ammonia
Uranus’s and Neptune’s are out of whack with the direction of their
rotation, although others are closely aligned. And each has a unique Mercury
set of conditions that gives rise to a dynamo—the engine thought to The smallest of the planets
activate a magnetic field. also has the weakest
magnetic field. Its internal S
Several upcoming space missions seek to study planetary mag- N
netic fields, which offer a window into planets’ internal makeup as dynamo is counteracted
by the solar wind of particles
well as their history and formation. nasa’s Juno mission, for instance,
streaming off the sun.
is orbiting Jupiter with two sensor experiments to make the first glob-
al map of its magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system. And
the European Space Agency has a mission in orbit now called Swarm, Earth
focused on monitoring how Earth’s magnetic field changes over time. Our planet’s magnetic
north pole happens
Rotational to point toward its S
axis (dotted)
N
geographic south pole, as
do Mercury’s and Uranus’s.
Jupiter
The solar system’s strongest
magnetic field is much
Convection more intense and complex
Liquid N
cells (red) than Earth’s because of the
outer core S
gas giant’s rapid rotation
and larger metallic interior.
Sources: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington (M ercury’s surface) ;
Solid
inner
Saturn
Saturn’s magnetic field
core
Reto Stöckli, NASA Earth Observatory (E arth’s surface) ; NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute (J upiter’s surface)
is weaker than Jupiter’s
Planet’s
and symmetric around
rotation N
its axis of rotation, possibly
twists the S
because of helium rain
convection
that dampens convection
cells*
in the atmosphere.
Uranus
The magnetic field here
is tilted 60 degrees from S
the planet’s rotational axis, N
Magnetic causing the field’s strength
field lines and orientation to fluctuate
(blue) as Uranus spins.
Dynamo Basics
Dynamos form inside planets when moving electric charges give rise to magnetic fields. Neptune
Earth’s magnetic field, for instance, originates in its outer core, which is mostly made The farthest planet’s mag
of molten iron. This iron, a metal, is essentially a river of electrically charged particles. netic axis is also misaligned
These particles churn and flow because of convection—the tendency of denser material N
from its rotational axis, S
to sink and hotter, less dense stuff to rise—as well as our planet’s rotation. The result giving it a lopsided shape
is a constantly moving electric current, which produces a continuous magnetic field. that interacts with the solar
*Helices are likely smaller and more turbulent than shown here. wind in unbalanced ways.