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Contents
JUNE 2018
Website access code: DSD1806
Enter this code at: www.DiscoverMagazine.com/code
to gain access to exclusive subscriber content.
VOL. 39, NO. 5 FEATURES
28 Long
in the Tooth
Teeth are storytellers,
time-stamping when we’re
exposed to toxins. Now,
researchers are drilling
down to connect speciic
substances to disease.
BY RACHEL CERNANSKY
36 Something
Stirs
Earth’s permafrost
is thawing, exposing
prehistoric seeds, animal
carcasses and maybe
something more sinister:
ancient infectious pathogens
against which we have
no defense. BY BRIDGET ALEX
46 Whatever
Happened
to the Future?
Though time machines
and warp-speed travel aren’t
the norm, other tech still
promises a Jetsons-esque
future. BY BILL ANDREWS
56 Beyond
Time
A physicist tries to grasp
the enigmatic landscape
of a timeless world.
BY CARLO ROVELLI
BRANDT MEIXELL/USGS
Ancient permafrost is thawing

in northern latitudes, including
along Alaska’s Arctic coast.
Read about the dangers on page 36.
June 2018 DISCOVER 3

Contents
COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS
6 EDITOR’S NOTE
Into the Future
Some far-out high-tech promises
actually feel within reach today.
7 INBOX
Readers weigh in on the quantum
rabbit hole that is human
consciousness and on the velocity
of space junk.
9 THE CRUX
Sulfur might be the Hail Mary
to beat global warming;
how the chemtrail conspiracy
lives on; a Lower Mississippi
River model could hold clues Background signals
that have puzzled
to stemming bayou erosion; scientists for decades
revisiting the potential of could be coming
from black holes.
a memory boost in a pill; Read about the
and more. theory on page 70.
22 VITAL SIGNS
FROM TOP: ESO/M. KORNMESSER; NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; BIG FOOT PRODUCTIONS/SHUTTERSTOCK
64 ORIGIN STORY ANCIENT THREAT AWAKENS P.36 I QUASARS’ MYSTERIOUS ENERGY P.70
Discover
Helping Hands Was Science Wrong ®
Doctors race to save a middle-aged About Being Right? How Close Are We To
JUNE 2018
man who collapses on a commuter Researchers try to get a grip on Flying

train and has no signs of life. our right-handed preference, Cars...
BY TONY DAJER
but uncover more questions
than answers. BY GEMMA TARLACH
26 MIND OVER MATTER . . . JETPACKS
WARP SPEED
he Power of hree 70 OUT THERE PLUS
TIME TRAVEL?
AND MORE! P.46
Two’s company, but three can be too, As the Mighty Quasars Flow What Baby Teeth Reveal
Was Science Wrong
P.28
About Being Right?

at least when it comes to keeping Could the universe’s most
P.64
A Little Blue Pill for Memory P.14
everyone honest. BY MARINA KRAKOVSKY mysterious signals emanate from

billions of sources? Two Harvard ON THE COVER
62 PROGNOSIS astronomers think so. BY STEVE NADIS
In the Blood Ancient Threat Awakens p.36
A test of bodily luids 74 20 THINGS YOU Quasars’ Mysterious Energy p.70
may one day detect DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT … How Close Are We to Flying Cars . . . ? p.46
residual disease in What Baby Teeth Reveal p.28
Sand
cancer patients. Was Science Wrong About Being Right? p.64
Learn why it’s highly sought,
BY DELIA O’HARA A Little Blue Pill for Memory p.14
Sand out of this world and a builder COVER: Terrafugia/Barcroft Cars/Barcroft Media
flea of countries. BY SYLVIA MORROW via Getty Images
4 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
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Editor's Note ®
BECKY LANG Editor In Chief

DAN BISHOP Design Director
EDITORIAL
Into the Future GEMMA TARLACH Senior Editor

BILL ANDREWS Senior Associate Editor
ELISA R. NECKAR Production Editor
MARK BARNA Associate Editor
ERIC BETZ Associate Editor
LACY SCHLEY Assistant Editor
This memory — and it’s quite a DAVE LEE Copy Editor
vivid one — is of such a leeting, AMBER JORGENSON Editorial Assistant
mundane moment. I’m 7 years old CHARLOTTE HU Intern
and it’s summer. I’m riding in the Contributing Editors

TIM FOLGER, JONATHON KEATS,
hot car, staring out the window, as LINDA MARSA, KENNETH MILLER,
we’re stopped at the intersection STEVE NADIS, ADAM PIORE,
COREY S. POWELL, JULIE REHMEYER,
of Lyndale Avenue and Main STEVE VOLK, PAMELA WEINTRAUB,
Street in Helena, Montana. I’m on JEFF WHEELWRIGHT,
DARLENE CAVALIER (SPECIAL PROJECTS)
a rant, badgering my dad about
how I really, really, really want to ART
ERNIE MASTROIANNI Photo Editor
see this awesome new movie called ALISON MACKEY Associate Art Director
Star Wars. I want to be part of
DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
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I eventually did see it, of course, LAUREN SIGFUSSON Associate Editor
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and was swept away into its
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evil. The interplanetary journeys JEREMY HSU, ERIK KLEMETTI, REBECCA KRESTON,
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QUANTUM
RABBIT HOLE
Fellow scientists labeled
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THE CRUX T H E L ATEST S C I E N C E N E WS A N D N O T ES
MOMENT OF TENSION
Photographing a metal safety pin floating on water isn’t easy, even with surface tension on your side. Physics teacher Richard Germain covered
a light with a grid of black squares to reflect the distortion created when an object bends but does not break the water’s surface. Then he used
tweezers to gently place the pin in a cooking pot full of water. The slightest vibration would quickly sink his efforts. Eventually, he captured
the concept without any digital trickery. “A science photo has to be a very truthful witness of reality,” says Germain, who uses his photos to
demonstrate concepts to his high school students in Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec.  ERNIE MASTROIANNI

THE CRUX
Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, spewing

so much smoke and ash into the atmosphere
that it cooled large regions of the globe.
BIG IDEA dangerous for animals adapting to
climate change than never attempting
it at all.
Should We Cool Earth?

Amid climate inaction, scientists confront an idea that scares them.
Aerosols also relect sunlight
— instead of trapping heat like
CO2 — so they’d overcool the tropics
and undercool the poles, creating
unpredictable results.
All this makes researchers worry
about a rogue nation altering climate
MOUNT PINATUBO ERUPTED in the (SCoPEx). The researchers will send without considering global impacts. In
Philippines in 1991, spewing millions a balloon into the stratosphere above Nature Communications last fall, Jones’
of tons of ash and chemicals into the Tucson, Arizona, to spray particles team studied the impacts of releasing
atmosphere. Over the next year, large across an area roughly half a mile long aerosols in one hemisphere. In short,
parts of Earth cooled by almost a full and a football ield wide. A sensor- it would be bad. Releasing aerosols
degree Fahrenheit. studded gondola will dip back through in the Northern Hemisphere could
Volcanoes historically have caused the cloud to measure how aerosol suppress tropical cyclones. Doing the
some of the planet’s sharpest temperature particles interact with one same thing in the Southern
drops. In addition to ash and ire, they another and the atmosphere. Hemisphere would increase
belch sulfur dioxide that lingers as a ine “If [geoengineering is] Picture fleets their frequency in the
particle spray called an aerosol. These really going to be used in this of aircraft north. And both would
aerosols help Earth’s atmosphere relect
incoming light, creating a cooling effect.
sort of emergency climate
catastrophe scenario, then
ferrying sulfur shift monsoons critical to
tropical agriculture.
Some scientists speculate that seeding you’re not going to have that across the But if the world ramped
such sulfur aerosols — absent iery chance to learn about things stratosphere up aerosols in a measured
eruptions — could someday be a Hail going into it,” says climate way — say, 1 percent of
Mary to counteract climate change. The scientist Ken Caldeira of year-round. Pinatubo’s sulfur emissions
idea is called geoengineering. Picture the Carnegie Institution for this year, 2 the next, and so
leets of aircraft ferrying sulfur across the Science. “You pretty damn well better do on — that might slowly and smoothly
stratosphere year-round. the research up front.” even out the rise in temperatures,
University of Exeter climatologist So far, computer climate models simu- Caldeira thinks.
Anthony Jones says developing aerosol- lating solar geoengineering have predicted That still leaves a more human
releasing technology might take a few signiicant reductions in global warming, concern, though. In behavioral
years — and likely won’t happen for Caldeira says. economics, it’s called a moral hazard:
decades — but it is possible. Yet researchers are hardly optimistic. When humans feel protected, we’re
Cost estimates range from around “If you ask me today to vote whether more likely to take risks — like
$1 billion to $10 billion per year. That’s we should geoengineer, or never, ever do driving recklessly after putting on a
less than current spending on climate it, I would be on the never, ever side,” seat belt. If we see scientists trying to
research and mitigation, and far cheaper says Gernot Wagner, executive director save us, we may stop worrying about
than coping with its consequences. Sulfur of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering greenhouse gases. And geoengineering
is even easy to get. It’s a byproduct of Research Program. isn’t a real ix — sulfur only covers up
fossil fuel production so abundant that Many climate scientists agree. climate change.
a mining outit in Alberta, Canada, is One reason is that aerosols aren’t the That leaves many climate scientists
stacking the stuff into a sulfur pyramid opposite of carbon dioxide, says Peter concerned about overselling geoen-
that could eventually dwarf Egypt’s. Irvine, a Harvard expert in climate gineering’s potential. Researchers on
The problem? We don’t fully models. Aerosols counteract some Harvard’s SCoPEx team even declined
understand the consequences of symptoms of excess greenhouse gases, interviews for this piece, saying their
geoengineering. Few real-world tests but not others, like ocean acidiication. project “gets too much hype.”
have taken place. And that’s driving And sulfur depletes Earth’s ozone layer. “Will somebody, somewhere, try
BULLIT MARQUEZ/AP PHOTO
a surge of new research. It’s also a long-term commitment: Stop things? That’s a yes, within 50 or 100
Later this year, a Harvard University pumping out aerosols, and the climate years,” Wagner says. “Will it happen as
team hopes to gather some of the irst would snap back. In fact, a January study part of a semi-rational climate policy
real-world data in the Stratopheric in Nature Ecology and Evolution showed globally coordinated? That’s a bigger
Controlled Pertubation Experiment sporadic geoengineering could be more question.”  NATHANIEL SCHARPING

THE CRUX
SNAPSHOT
Settlers of the Sea

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THESE STAR-SHAPED CEMENT TILES act as mobile nurseries for where the star shape really shines. Rather than manually attaching
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THE CRUX
ReDISCOVER
Where’s That Viagra

for Memory?
Nearly 20 years later, we’re still searching
for the little blue pill for learning.
IN JUNE 2000, Discover published an low levels. In a setup to test

article about how we could someday learning rates, high-CREB flies
be speedier learners. Want to memorize knew, after one zap, to avoid
a Shakespearean play? Just read it a smell associated with getting
through once. Want to learn another shocked. The results led the team
language? Give yourself about a month. to consider possible brain gains for FDA approval is another decade.
All this with the help of a memory- in humans. “I’m 63, so I’m really starting to get
enhancing pill. At the time of our original coverage, worried about this,” he jokes.
At the center of the article (“Smart researchers estimated human trials However, the treatment currently
Pills: How About a Little Viagra for Your would start in two to five years, but under development isn’t targeting
Memory?”) was a protein called CREB, those plans didn’t quite pan out. memory boosts, but rather brain trauma
or cyclic AMP response element binding Now, after almost two decades, that stroke patients experience. Just as
protein. It works as an on-switch in the several human trials of CREB-boosting high CREB levels increased connections
brains of humans and many animals, drugs are finally underway. The most in the fruit flies, the protein could help
promoting new connections between advanced treatments have passed the stroke victims reestablish damaged or
neurons to help build long-term FDA’s initial safety phase and are in lost connections.
memory. proof-of-concept studies with humans, Tully expects that, once they’re
Scientists at New York’s Cold Spring says Tim Tully, one of the scientists then available, results from human trials will
Harbor Laboratory, featured in the with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who be concrete evidence of the treatment’s
2000 article, were inspired by fruit flies. was featured in the story. effectiveness. “If the patient can move
They had genetically engineered one Tully, who went on to work his arm again, he’s moving his arm
group of the insects to produce high at a pharma startup called Dart again,” Tully says. “You don’t have to
CREB levels and another to produce NeuroScience, says the realistic timeline debate.”  MICHAEL STONE
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THE CRUX
INFOART
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A Mighty
iss
M
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iss
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R.
R.
R.
io
Ar Oh
Model
ka
nsa
sR
.
Mississippi River
drainage basin
Big science does

the Big River justice. AREA OF STUDY
IN A CAVERNOUS BUILDING in Baton

Rouge, Louisiana, just steps from
the Mississippi River, environmental LOUISIANA
engineer Clint Willson lifts a beaker
filled with dark plastic crumbs. They
look like black lava salt, but in this
room, the granules are a stand-in
for river sediment. The tiny particles Mississippi
are an essential part of the massive River Delta
Lower Mississippi River Physical Model: a Source:
National Park Service
working, flowing simulation of the river.
The model, bigger than two
basketball courts — with bleachers on top of land. You put levees around
— elicits gasps from first-time visitors. the river system and you have no more
Carved into the surface of a huge of that.” The land washes away without
white table is a precise re-creation of constant replenishment from the wild
14,000 square miles of southeastern river; another 2,250 square miles or more
Louisiana, gleaned from more than could drain away over the next 50 years.
4 billion data points. A deep winding To help restore some of that lost
channel crosses the entire model, land, CPRA has proposed eight sediment
representing 179 miles of the mighty diversion structures — high-tech gates
Mississippi from just south of Baton in the water that would release slurries
Rouge to the delta. Projectors beam of replenishing soil into the bayou —
satellite views onto the table, turning along the lower Mississippi. But where
the white surface into a photorealistic they should go is hard to pin down.
replica of the terrain, and real water This giant model will give researchers
moves the artificial sediment, mimicking a powerful tool to understand river
how the river moves sand. dynamics, sediment movement and
Researchers are using this model to how planned diversion structures
find ways to stem alarming land loss in will affect one another.
the lower Louisiana bayou. Nearly 1,900 Though numerical models and
square miles have disappeared since the computer simulations are valuable,
1930s, when hundreds of miles of levees the physical model generates a steady
went up in response to the Great Flood stream of data that fills in digital gaps.
of 1927, one of the nation’s worst. It allows CPRA to investigate different
“The river, before the levees were put scenarios to see how the river responds
in, acted like a garden hose that was left not just in one year, “but really five,
unchecked,” says Jason Lanclos, deputy 10, 25, 50 years into the future,” says
executive director of Louisiana’s Coastal Willson, the Louisiana State University Above: Louisiana State University
MAP: ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER
Protection and Restoration Authority professor who heads the research. Big as environmental engineer Clint Willson
(CPRA), which funded the model. “The it is, the model is still just a small piece of holds plastic particles created specifically
river would basically spray everywhere a 50-year, multibillion-dollar master plan for the physical model. They will behave
for coastal restoration. and flow just like the river’s sediment.
across the coast and deposit sediment,
fresh water, and continue to build land  STORY AND PHOTOS BY ERNIE MASTROIANNI Right: Willson works at the upstream end
of the physical model, adding a slurry of
water and plastic particles into the model.
BY THE
NUMBERS
COST
$18 million for model,
displays and building
DIMENSIONS
120 feet by 90 feet, simulating
14,000 square miles
SCALE
• 1 foot equals about 1 mile
• 50 hours of the model’s
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of real-world river time
COMPONENTS
• 1 mile of steel support beams
• 20-inch-thick concrete
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• 20 high-definition
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• 216 high-density foam core
panels at 5 by 10 feet,
each 700 pounds
• 864 individual jack stands
• 6,000 gallons of water
to replicate sea level
A movable bridge allows

researchers and engineers
to get a closer look at the
Lower Mississippi River
Physical Model at the LSU
Center for River Studies
in Baton Rouge. Twenty
overhead projectors work
together to superimpose
data over the model,
such as satellite imagery,
shown here.
At the model’s upriver entrance is an acoustic gauge that measures the height
of the water in the simulation. The location of this and other gauges match
those placed in the real river by the Army Corps of Engineers, so model
operators know exactly how close their water level matches the level of the Underneath the model are 864
river on a given date. Roads are elevated lines, and the elevated rectangles are automotive jack stands, which
fertilizer and ammonia plants. support the 216 foam panels.

THE CRUX
CLOSE UP
PESTICIDE PUZZLER
Colorado potato beetles have pestered farmers around the world since the late 19th century. The bugs are extra tough to kill because of their
annoying habit of quickly developing resistance to pesticides. To better fight the beetles, University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist
Sean Schoville helped sequence their genome — only to find it resembled the genomes of less-resistant beetles. “It wasn’t diversifying their
genome, adding new genes, that would explain rapid pesticide evolution,” he says. “So it leaves us with a whole bunch of new questions.”
But Schoville’s team did find a kind of genetic insecticide, giving farmers a way to target the beetles’ cellular machinery.
 ERNIE MASTROIANNI; PHOTO BY ZACH COHEN
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THE CRUX
TRENDING BY LACY SCHLEY
Building Blocks
The Great State of Water
Looks like boring ol’ water is more
interesting than we thought. In a recent
paper in Nature Physics, scientists
describe a new state of the substance,
The Chemtrail Conspiracy called superionic water. Here on
Earth, we’re used to seeing water
Lives On in either its liquid form or as solid
ice. Now, it seems the life-supporting
compound can exist as both a liquid
Look, up in the sky! It’s Completely and a solid simultaneously. Though not
a plane! And that puffy false found naturally on our planet, superionic
streak in its wake? It’s
called a contrail: a water-
32% water could be present in extremely high-pressure
environments, like those on the ice giants Uranus and
vapor byproduct that Neptune. The discovery could help researchers better
jet-engine planes spit out understand these frozen worlds.
at high altitudes. Some
people, however, think Hope for Huntington’s
Huntington’s disease — a genetic, neurodegenerative
these contrails are actually
Somewhat disorder that leads to a buildup of toxic proteins in
a covert government true the brain — is fatal and currently incurable. But in a
scheme to douse the
planet with chemicals that 19% Frontiers in Neuroscience paper, experts explained how
they’ve used a more precise version of the gene-editing
could do any number of tool CRISPR/Cas9 on human DNA samples with the
things, from making us Unsure Huntington’s mutation. Normally, CRISPR/Cas9 will snip
CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: CHEMTRAIL CHART BY DAN BISHOP/DISCOVER, AIRPLANE PHOTO BY ZULFACHRI ZULKIFLI/SHUTTERSTOCK; NASA; CARLOS YUDICA/SHUTTERSTOCK
all victims of mind control
to artificially manipulating
25% out sections on both strands of a DNA’s double helix.
But in this case, the researchers used a variation that
the climate. All this, despite allowed them to alter only one DNA strand. After the
the fact that the EPA, Somewhat edits, the mutated bits of the DNA were inactivated,
false and production of the toxic proteins shut down.
scientists and independent
journalistic investigations 15% Everything the Light Touches
have repeatedly debunked
Completely Light’s a fickle thing. Photons — the
the idea, often called the
true particles that make up light — usually
chemtrail theory. But a don’t like hanging out with other
recent study based on 9% photons. It’s why flashlight beams
a 1,000-person poll from simply pass through each other.
2016 found that the But experts have figured out a way
conspiracy is still alive to coax these particles to cozy up
Beliefs in whether the enough to form bonds like those we
and well.
government is using
see from regular atoms. Researchers
chemtrails
explain that these new interactions,
Source: “Solar geoengineering and the chemtrails conspiracy on social media,” Palgrave Communications, 2017. detailed in a paper published in Science,
could be useful in quantum computing and information
storage, though we’re still a long way off from those
applications.
Closing in on Cancer
In a human trial of 55 patients from 4 months to 76 years
old, roughly 75 percent responded positively to a new
cancer drug. The trial, outlined in a New England Journal
of Medicine study, examined the effects of larotrectinib,
a drug that targets all sorts of cancers that evolve
from a mutation in the gene responsible for creating
tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK). TRK is a family of
protein receptors usually present in brain cells; recently,
oncologists realized TRK is involved in triggering tumor
growth. The drug’s promise is twofold: Larotrectinib, a
TRK inhibitor, was engineered based on genetics rather
than tumor type, and it’s effective in patients within a
wide age range.
Mountains’ Majesty Melting
When it comes to shrinking glaciers, decades. The team pulled previous
researchers usually keep track by elevation measurements from
periodically photographing the frozen U.S. Geological Survey maps from
masses via satellite. But some glaciers the days before satellite, and more
sit atop lofty mountains, so why recent data comes from a satellite
not add elevation measurements to imaging technique that results in
better monitor those losses? That’s a three-dimensional rendering of
what a team from the University the mountaintops. In this image of
of Washington has done to keep Mount Rainier, losses are represented
tabs on the diminishing coverage by warmer colors, with some areas
and thickness of glaciers in the having shrunk roughly 130 feet in
continental U.S. over the last four height.
1970-2016
DAVID SHEAN/UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
2 km
40 30 20 10 0 -10 -20 -30 -40

Elevation Change in Meters

Vital
Signs
Helping Hands He maneuvered to relieve the surgeon.

A woman in the crowd spoke up. “I’m
an operating room nurse. Shouldn’t you
A middle-aged man collapses and, for 15 minutes, has no pulse.
be doing mouth-to-mouth?”
Can he return to life? “We’re OK,” I told her. The man’s
BY TONY DAJER face had lost color.
But studies show
that hands-only
→ “Is there a
doctor?”
The call rippled
CPR moves enough
air in and out of
the lungs to sustain
through the packed blood oxygen levels.
rush-hour train Estimates vary,
soon after we had but a recent study
pulled away from in The New England
the platform. Journal of Medicine
Recalling false found that 61
alarms on airplanes percent of sudden
(usually fainting cardiac arrests stem from ventricular
spells from too much alcohol and too ibrillation, or V-ib, an electrical misire
little oxygen), I hesitated. he math is simple: sparked by diseased or stressed heart
But this was the 5:37 express, not a cells. A heart attack, which is a sudden
plane. It could be something serious.
Deprived of oxygen, blockage of blood low in a coronary
I set my book down and stood up. a brain starts dying artery, is probably the most common
Stepping down the aisle, I came to cause of V-ib. But many cases do not
a ring of onlookers peering down at a in four minutes. happen that way.
middle-aged man slumped across two V-ib’s random discharges trigger
seats. He wore a creased, stylish shirt My focus stayed on the chest. Up, neighboring cells to ire chaotically
open at the collar. down. Up, down. Do not stop. rather than follow the heart’s pacemaker
“Sir, are you OK?” I asked, jostling A man crouched across the aisle. cells. This sends out a steady beat of
a shoulder. No response. I pressed two “Want to switch?” he asked. “I’m a electrical impulses from their perch in
ingers on his neck. No pulse. doctor.” Compressing a chest is hard the heart’s right atrium.
I tore open his shirt, locked my work, best done in shifts. An automated external deibrillator,
hands over his sternum and started “Sure,” I said. or AED, can remedy the situation. It
chest compressions. But the angle was Leaning partly over one of the seats, delivers an electric charge that silences
wrong. He needed to be horizontal he took over. From my angle, his hands every cell simultaneously, allowing the
on a lat surface for my compressions seemed off the sternum. “Here, like pacemaker cells to ire irst and regain
to be effective. Sliding him partially this,” I said, cupping his hands and control of the heartbeat. AEDs are
off the seat dropped his head like shifting them over. “Keep the heels ubiquitous in airports, train stations FROM LEFT: NUTTHAPOHN/SHUTTERSTOCK; CHARNSTIR/SHUTTERSTOCK
a trussed deer’s. on top of each other. Make them a and other public spaces.
“Please hold the head,” I urged a pile driver.” “We need your AED!” I shouted at
woman looking on. She cradled it, He shot me a wry look. the conductor.
and we shimmied him lengthwise into “What kind of doc?” I asked. “We don’t have one!” she hollered.
the aisle and onto his back. With my “Hearts.” Oh Jesus, I thought. CPR generates
hands on his chest, I locked my elbows “Oh, cardiologist?” roughly a third of the heart’s normal
and pushed down hard at a rate of 100 “Cardiothoracic surgeon.” output of oxygenated blood. And every
per minute, each time letting the chest “Ah.” I grimaced. “Sorry.” minute of delay to deibrillation drops
fully re-expand. “No worries,” he said, smiling. the odds of survival by 10 percent. We
“Pull the emergency brake!” A third doc arrived. “I’m a were already six minutes in.
someone shouted. The train shuddered dermatologist, but ER was my second “Call 911. Get us back to the
to a stop. choice,” he said excitedly. platform!” I urged.
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Vital
Signs
PUBLIC SHOCK The deibrillator’s robot voice oxygen. The brain uses 20 percent of the
Every year, 360,000 Americans suffer intoned: “Analyzing.” Twenty seconds oxygenated blood pumped by the heart,
sudden cardiac arrest. Less than 10 later: “Shockable rhythm. Stand clear. which means CPR’s one-third output is
percent survive. One of the wrenching Shock advised.” plenty to keep the brain healthy.
aspects of being an emergency room One of the paramedics pressed a I touched his face as much to prove I
doc is to restart a heart, only to have the red button. The man’s body jerked. wasn’t dreaming as to soothe him. “You
patient never wake up because, before I felt blind without a heart monitor just died,” I said. “You should do what
getting to the ER, the brain had been to tell if the shock had worked. the medics suggest.”
starved of oxygen. Following protocol, the paramedics He blinked. “What?”
Even more tragic is that V-ib is resumed compressions for two more “Your heart stopped. We shocked
eminently treatable in public places. In minutes. you.”
Las Vegas casinos, people shocked in “Strong femoral pulse,” the surgeon
less than three minutes have a stunning announced. HEARTFELT VISIT
74 percent chance of survival. Sure, The next day, I visited the man in his
the world is not a casino festooned I touched his face hospital room. Sitting up in his bed, he
with deibrillators, but a lifeline exists looked healthy and chipper. His wife
between collapse and deibrillation: as much to prove and two grown children were sitting
cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR. around his bed, looking relaxed.
First proved effective in 1960,
I wasn’t dreaming “I came to apologize for the shirt,”
CPR included chest compressions as to soothe him. I said.
plus mouth-to-mouth breathing. But He stared blankly, then: “Oh my
evidence mounted that mouth-to- “You just died,” I said. gosh, it’s you!”
mouth was unnecessary. Besides, very “I have to give you a hug,” I said.
few people will lock lips with a dead Other paramedics wheeled in a His wife’s eyes welled up.
stranger. When done right, hands-only stretcher. They strapped an oxygen Tests on him later showed no
CPR is highly effective. In 2008, the mask to the man’s face. He pinked up. coronary artery blockages and healthy
American Heart Association upended My stomach clenched. Should we have heart muscle.
dogma and endorsed CPR using only given him mouth-to-mouth? Then the One of the mysteries of V-ib is the
chest compression. man’s lips twitched. frequent lack of an obvious trigger.
The math is simple: Deprived of The signs of life were great to see. The cardiologists’ best guess was that
oxygen, a brain starts dying in four But even the most advanced care after scar tissue from a prior heart procedure
minutes. To generate oxygen for cardiac arrest wasn’t getting us those had disrupted the man’s electrical
the brain, compressions must start 15 minutes back, during which his brain rhythm. Two days later, to ward off a
immediately and continue non-stop might not have received enough oxygen repeat performance, surgeons placed
until deibrillation. A study involving to prevent brain damage. The medics an automated implantable deibrillator
Phoenix emergency medical dispatchers hoisted him onto a stretcher. in his chest.
showed that when they coached “No. Wait. I don’t want to go to the I called him two weeks after his
bystanders over the phone on CPR, hospital.” surgery.
compressions began on average We all did double takes. The voice was “I’m doing great! Back at work like
3.5 minutes after heart stoppage rather coming from the stretcher. The man’s nothing happened,” he told me. “All I
than 4.5 minutes. Survival leaped. eyes were open. remember is feeling queasy for a minute,
“I’m OK. Why are you doing this?” then waking up.”
MODERN-DAY LAZARUS he said through the oxygen mask. CPR is a way for thousands more
We had been doing CPR for 15 minutes I’ve had patients wake up after being who suffer cardiac arrest to have a
when the train inched back to the deibrillated in the ER, but never alert chance of waking up, too. Look Ma,
platform. Grabbing limbs, we scooted and talking right after bystander CPR. only hands. D
him to the train’s exit doors. Two I was amazed. For 15 full minutes, the
paramedics met us and opened their CPR had kept oxygenated blood lowing Tony Dajer is director of the emergency
portable deibrillator box. They applied to his brain. Look Ma, only hands. department at New York-Presbyterian/Lower
the sticky pads to his chest: one to the A thought struck me: When you’re Manhattan Hospital. The cases described in
upper right part and the other to the dead, nothing moves, so your body’s Vital Signs are real, but names and certain
lower left part. organs and muscles consume almost no details have been changed.
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Mind
Over
Matter
The Power of Three University who has studied how people

make decisions on Airbnb. But the
platforms do much more, enabling
How third parties can keep everyone honest.
strangers to trust each other, Abrahao
BY MARINA KRAKOVSKY
points out. “Otherwise, you could just
go to Craigslist.”
Social scientists have long
→ Back in 2008, on a trip

to Russia, I got lost. My
husband was working at his
known that without information
about who’s trustworthy, people
tend to favor those who seem
employer’s Moscow ofice, and I similar to them — and this
had gotten off at the wrong bus can lead to discrimination.
stop on my way to meet him. Researchers also have found
With no way to tell him I’d be that having a solid reputation
late, I thought I’d take a taxi. instills a certain degree of trust.
But there were no yellow cabs in But to what degree did someone
sight, and back then, Uber was need a stellar reputation
still just a German word. Hailing to prevent discrimination?
one of the city’s gypsy cabs — Airbnb and Abrahao’s team of
unmarked, unlicensed cars often sociologists and data scientists
driven by people unassociated wanted to answer that question.
with any company — seemed
like my best bet. KEEPING TABS
Still, I was wary of hitching a The researchers conducted an
ride with a random stranger. As I experiment on nearly 9,000
spotted another pedestrian with volunteer Airbnb users, forcing
his arm stretched out for passing cars, I Social scientists have them to choose between trusting
had an idea: Maybe I’d be safer getting someone completely similar (for
into a total stranger’s car if this other long known that without example, another middle-aged woman)
stranger got in with me. and trusting someone different but
Sure enough, I arrived on time and
information about who’s with a better reputation than anyone
unscathed — and my fellow passenger trustworthy, people else. In the study, published in 2017
wouldn’t take a ruble from me to split in the Proceedings of the National
the fare. tend to favor those who Academy of Sciences, Abrahao’s
seem similar to them team showed, among other indings,
THREE’S COMPANY that seeing even one positive review
I’ve thought of this incident many — and this can lead to (compared with none) was enough to
times in the years since, especially offset people’s natural instincts to trust
while working on a book about discrimination. other people similar to them.
middlemen. Many of us see third That inding explains much of the
parties as extraneous. We’re often eager And there’s a large body of research early success of eBay. The auction
to cut them out, assuming trade would pointing to a key role that middleman website’s feedback system, which lets
be quicker and cheaper without an platforms like these play: keeping both buyers and sellers rate each other,
intermediary. That was the promise sides honest. eased the way for people to send
with the internet, whose connections “When people talk about these money and goods to strangers from
would, it seemed, enable everyone to companies [like Uber and Airbnb], all over the world. Similarly, whenever
communicate and do business directly. they talk about ‘peer-to-peer’ or I step in a rideshare today, I trust the
But that didn’t really pan out. In fact, ‘sharing economy,’ as if it’s just putting driver to give me a safe ride — even if
middleman businesses like Amazon, two people together and making the driver’s in-app photo makes him
AXLLLL/ISTOCK
Airbnb and Uber wouldn’t even exist them interact,” says Bruno Abrahao, look sketchy.
without the internet. a computer scientist at New York Even when third parties don’t
track reputations, they can still create even one without a reputation — can take care of ourselves,” explains Ernan
accountability. That’s because these affect behavior for the better. Haruvy, an economist at the University
people often have reputations of their Consider the so-called Trust Game, of Texas at Dallas who co-authored
own, already known to others to which social scientists often use in the the paper. A third party helps resolve
punish wrongdoing. Diego Gambetta, lab. Usually there are two players, and that conlict.
a sociologist at Nufield College, the irst player can send money to the Does Haruvy’s logic explain why I
Oxford, has studied how the Sicilian second. And the more trust there is felt safer in Moscow sharing a car with
maia helps guarantee contracts when a between the players, the more money two strangers, rather than just one? Yes
weak government fails to do so. In his they can get. For example, if I send and no. Although I wasn’t thinking
classic 1993 book about this research, you $2, the game will triple that to $6. the driver would want to make a good
he summed up the role by quoting a Now you have $6 and I have nothing. impression, I did believe a potential
cattle rancher who does occasional But if you send $3 of that back to me, criminal wouldn’t want witnesses.
business with a butcher. “When the we’ll each have more than we started Scientists have hypothesized that
butcher comes to me to buy an animal, with. So, the more I send you, the more people’s concerns with their public
he knows that I want to cheat him,” the I stand to gain by trusting you to send image run so deep, even hints of
rancher explained. “But I know that he me money back. But you can abuse my oversight might elicit good behavior.
wants to cheat me.” With such mutual trust by keeping more than your share. A 2007 experiment had the image
distrust, it seems there’d be no deal at of a big-eyed robot named Kismet
all — so the two men turn to a third, a DO THE EYES HAVE IT? “watch” participants playing a game
maioso named Peppe. “We need Peppe Fewer people take advantage of the in which they could contribute
to make us agree. And we both pay irst player when the experiment resources to a common pool; a
Peppe a percentage of the deal.” introduces a third player who watches control group played the same game
How does this tie into my ride in over the other two, according to a 2017 without Kismet. The Kismet group
Moscow? Sure, the unlicensed cabbies paper that examined the effects of contributed 29 percent more.
were unregulated, but it’s not as if my adding a third player to the trust game. Since then, other studies seem to
fellow passenger was a known tough “As individuals, we want to be good, have found similar effects. But Stefanie
guy. Yet having a third party around — to do what’s right, but we also have to Northover, a psychology doctoral
student at Arizona State University,
recently conducted two reviews of
Playing the Trust Game such research and is skeptical. In each
study she scrutinized, hints of artiicial
Having a third set of eyeballs pays off.
$3 $3 $3 supervision only occasionally elicited
good behavior. For example, in some
$3 Whatever studies, watchful eyes worked on men,
amount P1 sends not women. Other studies found they
gets tripled before
$10 being sent to P2. This improved behavior only when very few
people were around. In other words,
Player 1 (P1) gets $10 tripling represents
the gains from trust. After P2 don’t count on supposed surveillance
at the start of the game gets the tripled to protect you.
and needs to decide how ?? amount, P2 can Human oversight is better, though
much to transfer to player choose how to
2 (P2). The amount player 1 we can’t rely on the kindness of
share these gains
sends is a measure of their with P1. Zero?
strangers: Some will give you a free
trust in player 2. Half the tripled ride, some will charge you for a ride,
amount? Or just and others might take you for a ride.
When the game introduces a third player (P3), whatever P1
originally sent?
But as my Moscow experience reminds
me, two strangers are usually better
whose only role is to see how the others are playing, The amount
P1 sends an average of 23 percent more than in a two- P2 sends back
than one. D
player game. P2 returns more as well. The upshot: Having is a measure
a third party increases both trust and trustworthiness. of this player’s Marina Krakovsky, author of The Middleman
trustworthiness. Economy, writes and speaks about the social
sciences.

Long
Tooth
in the
Teeth, like trees, grow in rings.

Reading this record may expose new
links between toxins and disease.
BY RACHEL CERNANSKY
TREE RINGS: TOOYKRUB/SHUTTERSTOCK; TOOTH: OCSKAY BENCE/SHUTTERSTOCK
June 2018 DISCOVER

29
Manish Arora studies a young boy’s tooth
on his computer screen, searching for crucial
details about the child’s past. he boy, 10 — we’ll
call him Max — lives outside a poor community
in Mexico City where lead exposure is a chronic
problem. And it shows in the tooth. Max has
been around lead from polluted air and water —
and even food, because the metal leaches from
lead-glazed pottery.
he image on the screen is essentially a color-
coded map of the boy’s tooth. It shows Max had
a spike in lead exposure just before birth, in the
inal months of fetal development. After birth,
his exposure dropped of to a level common in
the local population.
Blood tests can detect lead at any given
moment, but they don’t reveal past exposures or
time-stamp when they happened. Teeth, Arora
has discovered, can do both — not just for lead,
but for a growing number of other elements and
chemicals, too. hat inding holds tremendous
potential for environmental health research,
like trying to unravel causes of autism spectrum
disorder. And it’s why scientists around the
world, from Mexico to Sweden to Iraq, have been
flocking to Arora, a dentist and exposure biology
director at Mount Sinai’s Frank Lautenberg
Environmental Health Sciences Laboratory.
He’s turning teeth into time machines.
“Imagine if you measured
blood lead level here,” Arora
TEETH FORM
says, pointing to a part of the A DISTINCT
tooth that had grown after
birth. “You’d think there’s RING ON
less risk. But travel back THE DAY OF
in time. Just before birth,
there’s a huge spike in lead BIRTH, THE
exposure.”
Steps from Arora’s surpris- NEONATAL
ingly modest upper Manhat- LINE.
tan ofice, where his desk is
dotted with pictures of his
young triplet daughters, his
sprawling lab is illed with unassuming-looking equip-
ment. But in a matter of hours to a little more than a
day, Arora can determine what a tooth — often one dug
up from years of sentimental storage — was exposed to
over the course of its lifetime. For baby teeth, that often
extends back to the end of the irst trimester. This time
machine has not only turned Arora into something of a
celebrity in environmental health, it is also revolutionizing
a ield that has long focused on the dose of a substance a
person is exposed to when evaluating its toxic effects.
Teeth form rings as they grow — just like trees, but
every day rather than every year. They also form a dis-
tinct ring on the day of birth, the neonatal line. Arora uses
these rings to measure, with surprising speciicity, when
the body was exposed to certain substances. In the pro-
cess, he’s shown that timing can be critical in determining
the type and severity of harm from a chemical exposure.
YOU KNOW THE DRILL

A soft-spoken man, Arora had a dental practice in India,
but gave it up to pursue ways of integrating the environ-
ment into his work. He didn’t discover that teeth store
records of past exposures; he had studied the work of A tiny baby tooth like this one, held by Manish Arora, can reveal
environmental scientists who’d used ground-up teeth to an enormous amount of information about environmental toxins.
measure the total amount of a metal in the tooth. He
also wasn’t the irst to use a laser to reveal chemical in- small grants and eventually a sympathetic geologist who
gerprints — geologists had long used them on rocks. But let him use his earth and planetary sciences lab when
Arora says nature inspired him to combine the techniques. it was empty. He didn’t have his own key, though, and
He knew that tree rings record environmental conditions there were no restrooms inside the lab. With no way to
in speciic years, and he thought surely the growth rings in re-enter, he learned quickly to moderate his water intake
teeth could be used for a similar purpose. before his long nights would begin. Eventually he got
At the time, however, in the early 2000s, he was a strug- used to trapping himself in the lab at night, alone, for
gling graduate student in Australia. When he sought months on end, trying to see if teeth served as biomark-
funding to test his unconventional concepts, grants didn’t ers of lead exposure.
exactly roll in. He was also taking an unconventional Now, he runs his own lab and employs researchers whose
approach to research, mixing disciplines and talking with expertise ranges from histology — the detailed study of
nuclear physicists, geologists, biostatisticians and others biological cells and tissue — to hummingbird songs.
YANA PASKOVA
rather than looking to mentors in his own ield. “I kept It’s an unusual mix. In a research group focused on
reaching outside my training, which was scary,” he says. teeth, he’s the only dentist. “I’m not really interested
Conident he was onto something, he persisted, inding in treating tooth decay,” Arora says. “I’m interested in

Researchers use a precision saw to slice a tooth in half
before studying it in Arora’s lab at the Icahn School of
Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
people who can look at any human tissue and see what SCIENTISTS the babies were absorbing
information it is carrying.” lead — which the body can
ARE LEARNING mistake for calcium — from
CHASING LEAD their mothers’ bones during
The whole process starts in a small room where a saw sits THAT LEAD the latter half of pregnancy.
at the edge of a long counter. IS STORED That’s the time when a
Here, Arora or one of his lab researchers divides a rapidly growing fetus needs
tooth in two using a special blade, then polishes the result- ALONGSIDE huge amounts of the bone-
ing surface with a paste containing ine diamond particles building mineral.
until it’s smooth. Then he feeds it into a laser that creates CALCIUM IN And there was a clear
tiny craters and detects metals. Or, if he’s searching for OUR BONES, exposure pattern. “We’re
organic chemicals in the tooth, he hands it off to a robot seeing very consistent dis-
that can suss them out using a mass spectrometer that ACCUMULATING parities along racial and
produces a series of numbers, like points on a map. These ethnic lines in lead expo-
instruments tell Arora what compounds are in the tooth OVER TIME. sure,” Cassidy-Bushrow says.
and where they’re located. Each data point, he explains, “African-American children
adds a pixel to his overall map of the tooth. are at much higher risk of
Arora is chasing exposures to a range of chemicals. But lead exposure than Caucasian children, and this persists
often, he’s looking for lead exposure. Lead is found all even when we take into account where they live, the age
around us, and it can harm a signiicant number of vital of their housing and their household income — anything
systems and organs. That’s because lead competes with you think might be a cause.”
essential minerals like calcium and zinc in the body. It’s For Arora, this disparity is an environmental justice
especially dangerous for kids because their growing bod- issue. Women, even those who do everything they can
ies absorb more lead and their nervous systems are more during pregnancy to give birth to healthy babies, essen-
sensitive. Scientists are also learning that lead is stored tially pass down their prior lead exposure. That happens
alongside calcium in our bones, accumulating over time. with any woman regardless of race. But because African-
Using Arora’s lab, Henry Ford Health System epidemi- American women tend to have had greater exposure to
ologist Andrea Cassidy-Bushrow and her team discovered lead in their lifetimes than white women, their children
that some children in Michigan were exposed to lead more often enter the world with an automatic disadvan-
before they were born, and the lead exposure declined tage. While there are many ways to prevent lead exposure
after birth. The babies likely absorbed lead that their in the irst place, these women and children can’t do any-
mothers were exposed to years, perhaps decades, earlier. thing to prevent or ix it in their circumstances.
“I’m sitting here kind of dumbfounded,” says Barbara “African-American kids have more lead, we know
Williams, a Detroit mother who took part in the study. that,” Arora says.
“When you’re pregnant, you think about everything you “It just seems like something that should be unaccept-
are intaking. . . . You don’t think about how something you able in a First World country like ours,” he adds. “Why
did maybe six months ago might affect your pregnancy.” are you inheriting such an injustice even before you
Researchers believe that instead of absorbing calcium, were born?”
{ Life in
Layers { WHAT CAN A TOOTH TELL ABOUT A PERSON’S LIFE?
Quite a lot, it turns out — each layer tells a story.  ALISON MACKEY
TEETH: THE BASICS Enamel

A tooth is divided into two parts: the roots embedded in the jaw, and a Crown
Dentin
crown that erupts above the gum line. The crown is covered in a protective
layer of enamel. Beneath the enamel, a layer of hard tissue called dentin Gum line
makes up the bulk of the tooth, surrounding and protecting nerves and blood
vessels in the dental pulp. Pulp Roots
cavity
DEVELOPING BABY TOOTH (side view, crown only)
Neonatal Teeth begin forming in the womb

line and create daily growth lines in
the dental tissues. The day of birth
is recorded in a prominent neonatal
line. Researchers use these lines to
OPPOSITE: YANA PASKOVA. THIS PAGE: ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER; LARGE TOOTH ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF IAN HARROWELL, CHRISTINE AUSTIN AND MANISH ARORA; DENTIN INSET BY BIOPHOTO ASSOCIATES/SCIENCE SOURCE
Dentin estimate a child’s age.
GESTATION BIRTH POSTNATAL

(weeks 14 – 19) (months 2 – 11)
Dentin (left) and
enamel (right) grow
in opposite directions
HOW TO READ A TOOTH

A record of chemical exposure over time is also etched into our teeth. To
reveal this history, Manish Arora and his team use a wordy technique called
laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Once a
tooth is prepped, scientists use a laser to blast the surface, creating tiny holes
where material is ejected. The tooth material that shoots out is read by a mass
spectrometer, which can identify elements and their concentrations.
Laser INTENSITY OF ELEMENT

Type of element
Intensity
Low High
Ejected
Teeth
material
are split Time The intensity of an element
open for can be plotted on a
analysis MASS SPECTROSCOPY spectral map
Sources: Morishita, Hirofumi et al., “Tooth-Matrix Biomarkers to Reconstruct Critical Periods of Brain Plasticity,” Trends in
Neurosciences, 2017; Arora, M. et al., “Fetal and postnatal metal dysregulation in autism,” Nature Communications, 2017.
85,000 CHEMICALS is used in fungicides. It’s an essential nutrient for plants and
Arora irst used his tooth time machine to detect lead. animals, but at high levels, it can harm the central nervous
Now, he and his colleagues are trying to expand their Detroit system, including brain function. Arora’s team tied those high
study to lead-stricken Flint, Michigan, and beyond, looking manganese levels — seen before and just after birth — with
for additional impacts from the widespread recent lead expo- negative behavioral patterns in kids aged 7 to 10. They even
sure. He’s also shown that teeth record weight changes and showed manganese levels were higher when farmworkers
stress. And he’s now examining a range of other substances brought their work shoes or clothes inside.
that the technology can detect in teeth, including other min- Ultimately, his vision is to revolutionize how we understand
eral elements, and chemicals like pesticides and phthalates — environmental health. First, he wants scientists to appreciate
a potentially harmful compound in many consumer goods. the timing of exposures, as opposed to just the dose. He’s also
His team studied the children of California farmworkers, trying to help shift the ield away from studying chemicals
for example, and found elevated levels of manganese, which one by one, and toward studying how mixtures of substances

Arora (left) is tracking exposure to pesticides,
lead and other elements during specific times
in a child’s life — even in the womb — all
using their teeth (above).
— which is how people are exposed to things in real life — ARORA SEES In the past, scientists have
affect human health. used personal history question-
In doing so, Arora is advancing an emerging ield called THIS TOOTH naires to assess exposure to
the exposome; he wants to study a lifetime of exposures lead and other toxins. But such
and the resulting health impacts. The ield has gained
TECHNIQUE surveys are imperfect; people
momentum among environmental health researchers and AS AN EQUAL- rarely self-report accurately
with government funding from agencies like the National because they’re unaware of
Institutes of Health (NIH). OPPORTUNITY their exposures. “That’s the real
But it also faces intense skepticism. Exposome research breakthrough that Manish’s
could be compared to casting a vast ishing net, whereas
ASSISTANT work has generated,” Wright
the conventional scientiic method is more like using FOR STUDYING says. “We can measure expo-
individual ishing rods. The single rod — a focused sures objectively going back
hypothesis to test in a traditional experiment — is great DISEASES OF in time.”
if you know what you’re looking for and where it is. But Wright is now expanding this
researchers have realized the wider net is useful when you
ALL KINDS. approach to do population-level
recognize how much you don’t know, and you want to studies. He’s measuring air pol-
account for all possibilities that may exist. lution levels back to 2005 to bet-
“It’s a completely different way of doing research than ter understand how the pollutants affect people’s health.
everybody in the ield was trained to do,” says Robert It’s a far cry from looking at individual teeth, but it builds
Wright, director of Mount Sinai’s Institute for Exposo- on Arora’s work.
mic Research.
Wright is an exposome proponent, and he helped bring CONNECTING AILMENTS TO EXPOSURES
Arora to Mount Sinai and helped ind resources for his Arora sees this tooth technique as an equal-opportunity
lab. And he says the exposome is gaining traction, but it assistant for studying diseases of all kinds, and it may be
was once controversial enough that just mentioning it in a starting to ill in knowledge gaps on causes of conditions
proposal might kill funding. that have long eluded scientists.
This wider-net approach could be crucial if researchers Sven Bölte and Kristiina Tammimies, researchers at
are going to catch up to the realities of modern environ- Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, have been studying envi-
mental health risks. Studying one chemical at a time — ronmental connections to autism spectrum disorder for
like lead or bisphenol A, a common additive in plastics years. Bölte says they’ve controlled for genetic causes as
— will never make a dent in understanding the impacts much as they can. Now he hopes Arora’s techniques will
YANA PASKOVA (5)
of the 85,000-plus chemicals on the market today. And let them identify environmental factors. Discordant twins
from the beginning, Arora has made a point of defying — twins who don’t share the same physical disorders or
traditional approaches. traits, such as one with asthma or autism and one without
Families and dentists from
all over the world send baby
teeth (left) to Arora’s lab for
analysis. Those samples get
zapped by lasers, creating
tiny craters (below) along
the tooth. The particles
blasted from the tooth
are then analyzed (right)
for trace metals and other
potential toxins.
Laser sampling marks
Neonatal line
— provide opportunities to look at environmental factors disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease.
while also eliminating genetic variables. A tooth offers a Arora has intentionally avoided a more conventional
time capsule of what a child was exposed to before autism focus on one particular disease. His goal is to understand
appeared. “Everything else, we collect when the symptoms many diseases and the impacts of many exposures — and
are already there, or children are already diagnosed,” he to move the entire ield of environmental health toward
says. Hair could have been one other possibility, he con- studying a bigger picture, rather than one disease or
tinued, but it doesn’t go as far back as teeth, and some chemical at a time.
children aren’t born with hair. “If the environment is important to our whole physiol-
When Arora examined the teeth collected by Swedish ogy, then by that deinition it’s also important to many
researchers, he uncovered a surprising pattern. Children perturbations of that physiology, so it’s important to
with autism had lower levels of zinc and manganese in many diseases,” he says.
the third trimester of pregnancy — and lower levels of With excitement for the future, Arora says he aims
manganese after birth — than their twin siblings. “From to analyze teeth for tens of thousands of chemicals at a
the irst study, I was really amazed about the timing,” time. He has proposed working with the Undiagnosed
says Tammimies. “That is one of the key impacts. We can Diseases Network to study rare, poorly understood
use [Arora’s] tools to start pinpointing the exact timing diseases, and he is trying constantly to igure out new
of the exposure.” ways to understand the environment’s inluence on
Starting in 2015, Arora led an NIH study that reached human health.
similar results. Again looking at twins, his team found that Sitting in his ofice, between phone calls with distant
baby teeth from kids with autism had higher levels of lead collaborators and consulting with his lab staff, he looks
and lower levels of manganese and zinc. Their indings at the boy’s tooth from Mexico City. The lead analysis
suggest that exposure to metals — and how the body pro- was part of an ongoing study he’s conducted with part-
cesses them — could be important to the risk of autism. ners including the National Institute of Public Health of
Arora and his colleagues have since replicated these early Mexico, which wants to reduce lead exposure.
results in a larger study presented to the NIH in February. “Their mission is to bring about positive changes for
Right now, Arora has collaborations with researchers public health,” he says.
all around the world — looking at autism in Sweden and Ultimately, that’s what he wants the tooth-as-time-
Mongolia, neurodevelopmental disorders in Mexico machine technology to be used for. The more we learn
City, impacts of arsenic in Bangladesh, plus lead about which things in the environment are harming our
in Michigan, among others. In New York City, he’s health and when, the more we can avoid them when it
collecting teeth shed by children born around 9/11, matters most. D
analyzing what they were exposed to and how those
exposures may be inluencing their health. He’s also Rachel Cernansky is a science, environmental and health journalist
looking at health problems in adults, such as Parkinson’s in Denver.

New and ancient threats emerge
as permafrost thaws. Are we ready?
BY BRIDGET ALEX
Erosion along the Arctic coast in

Alaska’s Teshekpuk Lake Special Area
BRANDT MEIXELL/USGS
lays bare pale permafrost just beneath

the ground’s surface. Caused by the
disappearance of sea ice, the rapid
erosion is one of several problems
in the area caused by climate change.

HOMES ARE SINKING AND TREES ARE TIPPING OVER
in Alaska. Mammoth bones are surfacing in the Russian
Far East — so many that people have begun selling the tusks
as a substitute for elephant ivory. And in 2016, more than
70 people in western Siberia were hospitalized for exposure
to anthrax, likely spread from a decades-old reindeer carcass
that thawed from frozen ground.
In 2016, meltwater seeped into the entrance way to mush,” says archaeologist Jeff Rasic,
tunnel of the Global Seed Vault, a subterranean chief of resources for Gates of the Arctic
facility in Arctic Norway nicknamed the National Park in Alaska. Warming ground
Doomsday Vault. There, millions of collected leads to erosion, sinking and structural damage.
seeds are supposed to stay frozen indeinitely, Frozen organisms, including pathogens that can
with little upkeep, a safeguard to restart infect living hosts, also thaw.
agriculture should the world’s crops be lost in And the worst is yet to come. Organic matter
a large-scale disaster. No seeds were harmed — trapped in permafrost — everything from
the water refroze long before reaching the vault mammoth carcasses to ancient fruit — contains
— but the breach made the world wonder: Will massive stores of carbon, an estimated 1,500
the Doomsday Vault last until doomsday? billion tons, or nearly twice the carbon currently
The events are connected, caused by the same in the atmosphere. As the ground warms, the
phenomenon: They occurred in regions covered long-frozen material will decay and release the
in permafrost, ground that should stay frozen carbon as greenhouse gases.
throughout the year but is now thawing because “The more carbon we have in the atmosphere,
of global warming. the more warming we have, and that creates a
Permafrost covers about 25 percent of all feedback,” says Northern Arizona University
ice-free land in the Northern Hemisphere. ecologist Christina Schädel, who coordinates a
For millennia, much of this ground has been global network of scientists studying the impact
a cemented mass of soil, rock and ice, along of permafrost thaw.
with bits of organisms preserved from decay in As researchers scramble to predict the effects
Originally built a deep freeze. of climate change on permafrost, Arctic people
on a bluff, a cabin But as temperatures rise, “the ground’s giving are already witnessing it, right beneath their feet.
on Alaska’s Arctic
Coast is claimed
by the sea, a victim
of erosion linked
to permafrost thaw
and climate change.
EUROPE
ICELAND
PERMAFROST Atlantic Ocean
PLANET
Defined as ground —
including rock, soil, ice GREENLAND
and other organic
material — that
remains frozen RUSSIA
for at least two Arctic Ocean
consecutive years,
permafrost
covers much of
the Northern
Hemisphere’s
CANADA
upper latitudes,
but it’s not
OPPOSITE: BENJAMIN JONES/USGS. THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY MAP BY JOSHUA STEVENS; QAI PUBLISHING/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES; JEFF VANUGA/GETTY IMAGES; BO ELBERLING (CENTER FOR PERMAFROST, CENPERM)
remaining
frozen anymore.
As global
temperatures ALASKA
rise, especially in
polar regions, vast
amounts of it are
thawing, creating a
host of problems. PERMAFROST COVER
Pacific Ocean
Continuous
Discontinuous
Sporadic
TYPES OF PERMAFROST COVER
Isolated
Source: National Snow
and Ice Data Center
Isolated patches
Permafrost
covers about
Discontinuous/
Sporadic 25 percent of
Continuous
all ice-free land
in the Northern
Soil, ice and
air bubbles Hemisphere.
permeate a chunk
of permafrost.
Also present
but not visible:
microorganisms.
Beneath a thin layer of active soil and vegetation, icy-looking permafrost

thaws on the Arctic island of Svalbard, home to the Global Seed Vault. The
facility holds millions of seeds collected from around the world to safeguard
crops and other plants, but a meltwater breach in 2016 raised questions
about whether the “Doomsday Vault” would last until doomsday.

virus evolution, thought, “If they were able
to revive a plant, we should be able to revive
a virus.”
REVIVING ANCIENT PLANTS AND VIRUSES
Within four years, his team resurrected
Permafrost is cold, dark, oxygen-free and two never-before-seen viruses from the same
has a neutral pH — that is, neither acidic nor 30,000-year-old deposits. Both reawakened
basic, like water. “It’s really the best place to in laboratory dishes and infected living
keep alive something that doesn’t need any amoebas.
kind of metabolic activity,” says Jean Michel Through these experiments, researchers
Claverie, a microbiologist at Aix-Marseille can directly study how viruses and life-forms
University in France. That means microbes, evolved over time. “I think we can really try
seeds and spores, frozen in a dormant state, to understand better the origin of life,” says
could awaken with a little warming. Claverie. “Permafrost is important because
This was proven in 2012, when we can go deeper and ind ancestors of those
researchers from the Russian Academy viruses.” Currently, his team is preparing to
of Sciences sprouted three dozen Silene analyze samples taken from more than 500
stenophylla, herby white tundra lowers, feet deep in the permafrost, dated to about
from 30,000-year-old fruits. The specimens 600,000 years ago.
were recovered from ancient squirrel bur- Although the scientists have only worked
A flowering specimen of Silene rows, 125 feet deep in the permafrost of on amoeba-killing viruses, the research
stenophylla sprouted normally
from fruits frozen for 30,000 northeast Russia, according to the study heightens concerns that pathogens infec-
years in Siberian permafrost. published in Proceedings of the National tious to humans will also emerge — outside
The deposits also contained two
still-viable viruses new to science,
Academy of Sciences. After sprouting in of the laboratory — as permafrost thaws.
raising concerns about possible nutrient-rich test tubes, the seedlings had This is already an issue in the Russian
ancient pathogens that might run-of-the-mill plant lives: They grew into Arctic, where anthrax outbreaks in the early
emerge from the world’s
thawing permafrost. fruit-bearing lowers in plastic pots and 20th century killed an estimated 1.5 million
soil, resuming normal biological activity reindeer. Many of these animals, along with
after being frozen for 300 centuries. infected cattle, are buried in near-surface
Seeing the study, Claverie, who researches permafrost — the so-called active layer
On Siberia’s Kurungnakh
Island, thawing layers
of permafrost slump and
erode away, a process that
can destabilize buildings
and also expose long-
dormant viruses and other
potentially deadly threats.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES FOUND — AND LOST
Permafrost thaw is opening other windows to the past at archaeological
Researchers discovered two ancient viruses in the sites. “It’s this incredible archive of information,” says Rasic, who works
same sample of permafrost: Mollivirus sibericum at digs in Arctic Alaska. “Things that should have rotted away a long time
(left), found in 2015, and Pithovirus sibericum
(right), described in 2014. After “reawakening”
ago have been frozen and preserved.”
Perishable items, like basketry, wooden tools and clothing, can be
CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION FROM PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, S. YASHINA ET AL. MARCH 6, 2012. 109 (10) 4008-4013; INFORMATION GÉNOMIQUE ET STRUCTURALE, CNRS-AMU; UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA MUSEUM OF THE NORTH;
in the lab, both viruses infected living amoebas.
preserved for millennia in permafrost, and show how ancient peoples
that thaws in summer and freezes in win- survived one of the toughest environments on Earth.
ter. When warmed, the carcasses release For example, at Birnirk, a site in far north Alaska dated to
anthrax spores, which readily reactivate into A.D. 600-1300, archaeologists recovered parkas, boots and even baby
infectious bacteria. The phenomenon likely clothes made from sealskins and
caused a 2016 outbreak that hospitalized 72 polar bear fur — “incredibly high-
Nenets reindeer herders. performing garments out of all natural
And it’s not just anthrax from rotting materials,” says Rasic. “They made
reindeer. Cemeteries across permafrost ine needles and threads and could
zones of North America and Russia contain sew watertight seams in a time before
victims of smallpox, plague and inluenza. Gore-Tex and all the high-tech ibers
However, Claverie believes there is low we have now.”
risk of a global pandemic from these dis- At another Alaskan site, Raven Bluff,
eases in permafrost. “If it’s an old known bones were so well preserved that Rasic Ancient footwear emerged from
disease like smallpox, it will be sad for the assumed they were a few hundred years thawing permafrost in remarkable
shape at northwestern Alaska’s
poor people who get it, but it could be OK old. But results from radiocarbon dat- Birnirk archaeological site, which is
because it could be recognized quite easily, ing brought a shock: Raven Bluff was more than 700 years old.
and you put the people in quarantine.” inhabited 11,000 years ago. Permafrost
He is more concerned about unknown sites of this era are key to understanding how Ice Age people migrated
diseases deeper in the permafrost being from Siberia and settled the Americas.
brought suddenly to the surface by mining Permafrost thaw may help archaeologists discover sites because the
and industrial development in the Arctic — warming ground leads to erosion, which exposes artifacts, but it’s a
prehistoric pathogens, for which we have no double-edged sword. Unless the sites are quickly excavated, the perishable
defense. artifacts rot away, and there are not enough Arctic archaeologists to keep
pace with the thaw. “We’re resigned to always losing more sites than we
can ever address or save, but there’s a real pressure right now to be very
eficient with our triage decisions,” Rasic says. “It’s a matter of collecting
information before it disappears.”
KARL HOREIS/POLARTREC/ARCUS; PAOLO VERZONE/AGENCE VU/REDUX
A team digs up artifacts at Raven Bluff, another Alaskan archaeological site revealed
CREDIT
by thawing permafrost. Originally thought to be only a few centuries old, bones

found at the site turned out to be more than 10,000 years old.

A TOXIC THREAT LIFE ON SHIFTING GROUND
Permafrost thaw isn’t the only threat: Melting ice sheets bring
additional risks. Modern human settlements are also in peril.
Last summer, climatologist William Colgan, a researcher for the Permafrost includes ice that is both pervasive —
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, led an expedition binding soil components together like glue — and
of scientists to Camp Century, an abandoned U.S. military base
concentrated in thick, pure chunks. When gluelike
buried in the Greenland Ice Sheet.
“When you get to Camp Century today, it’s totally flat white. ice melts, the soil becomes mud, causing gradual
There’s nothing showing above the surface. It’s just a pancake, sinking and erosion. When ice chunks melt, the
white, ice sheet,” says Colgan. overlying ground can suddenly collapse.
But 10 stories beneath the surface are the remains of the But buildings can lose structural integrity and
facility, which in the 1960s spanned more than 100 football fields
and housed as many as 200 soldiers from the U.S. Army. One
become unstable even with modest increases in
mission was top secret and code-named Project Iceworm: install ground temperature, well before all-out melt. In
ballistic missiles under the ice sheet, within range of Russia. Alaska alone, the destruction of buildings and in-
By 1967, the Army had abandoned the project, leaving frastructure due to permafrost thaw over the next
behind hazardous wastes including sewage, radioactive coolant century could cost more than $2 billion, according
and carcinogenic industrial chemicals, as well as diesel fuel.
Engineers at the time assumed these toxins would be preserved to a 2017 study.
indefinitely under ice. Regions affected may seem remote and largely
But the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting, and faster than once uninhabited to outside eyes, but permafrost lands
projected. From 2007 to 2011, the ice sheet shrunk by about 290 contain settlements ranging from small villages to
billion tons per year. Compare that with an average loss of 83
industrial cities with populations over 100,000.
billion tons per year from 1900 to 1983.
According to Colgan, the good news is that if countries meet Norilsk, Russia, typiies the urban Arctic.
goals laid out in the Paris Agreement and other climate change- Erected in 1935 as a gulag work camp, Norilsk has
fighting guidelines, the site should stay frozen. grown into a nickel mining and smelting center.
The bad news: If current warming trends continue unabated, With 178,800 residents, it’s about the size of Fort
the toxic wastes will likely begin
Lauderdale, Florida, but similarities end there.
to melt out of the ice sheet,
irreversibly, within 75 years. Norilsk is one of the world’s northernmost cities
To make these predictions, the and Russia’s most polluted. In December, the sun
authors estimated the extent of does not rise, and temperatures dip below minus 20
debris using historical records and degrees Fahrenheit.
maps from the camp. The goal of
the 2017 expedition was to set up
Like most cities in the Russian Arctic, Norilsk
long-term monitoring of the site. was custom built for permafrost. “The colder
The scientists couldn’t the permafrost, the harder or stronger the freez-
physically enter Camp Century ing force that holds foundations,” says Dmitry
because decades of snow and Streletskiy, a geographer at George Washington
ice accumulation have sealed the
entrance. “It doesn’t look like University who studies the effect of permafrost
there’s any air space left in the thaw on human habitations.
tunnel network, so even if we Twentieth-century engineers calculated how
were to dig down to 30 meters much weight foundations could support based on
to one of the access points, it
ground temperatures — but those temps have risen
looks like all the tunnels are
just crushed completely shut,” by up to 3.6 degrees across Russian permafrost
Colgan says. zones in the past three decades. “Those designs
Instead, the researchers were not accounting for such a fast pace of climate
collected ice cores for analysis change,” says Streletskiy.
and installed weather and
In his research, Streletskiy does that account-
ice-monitoring devices,
which transmit real-time data ing. Instead of temperatures from the time of
back to lab headquarters in construction, he subs in current climate data. The
A researcher drills a borehole Copenhagen. Donning cross-
240 feet deep into the
result of a study he authored in 2012: Foundations
Greenland Ice Sheet to insert country skis, they also towed across Siberian cities can bear up to 46 percent
sensors that will monitor ice-penetrating radar across the
temperatures around the surface to produce more accurate
less load in 2010 than in the 1960s, putting them
subsurface of Camp Century. maps of subterranean debris. at risk of collapse.
The radar data showed that In Norilsk, hundreds of residential buildings
waste is spread about a mile across — double the area expected are visibly deformed because of ground thaw, ac-
WILLIAM COLGAN/GEUS
— and in some spots is at a depth of less than 100 feet. cording to the municipal government’s last count
Despite the extensive spread, Colgan believes the waste could
remain trapped in ice. “Whether or not Camp Century becomes a in 2015. In other permafrost cities, 10 to 80 percent
problem has very much to do with our choice of climate pathway of structures are in potentially dangerous states.
as a society,” he says.  B.A. In some cases, engineers have saved buildings
Seen in the gloom
of a November day
by installing thermosyphons, devices that cool the in Siberia, Norilsk
ground through evaporation and condensation. (top) is Russia’s
northernmost city,
But “those are pretty much point solutions. You and its most polluted.
have a couple meters around it where it works,” Thawing permafrost
is causing hundreds
says Streletskiy. “They can save one building, but
FROM TOP: SERGEY PONOMAREV/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX; RYERSONCLARK/ISTOCK; MICHELLE HOLIHAN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
of buildings there to
they don’t save an entire city.” crack and destabilize.
While Arctic urbanites grapple with collapsing Permafrost thaw is also
buckling roads in the
buildings, traditional coastal villages face total Canadian Arctic (right)
destruction. Over the past ive decades, shore- and turning cemeteries
in Barrow, Alaska, into
lines throughout the Arctic have receded by an swampy sites (below).
average of 1.5 feet annually. Some spots have lost
as much as 70 feet in mere hours during violent
storms. These Arctic coasts are disappearing due
to the combined effects of permafrost thaw, sea
level rise and longer summers when the seas are
ice-free. In short, more waves are crashing farther
onto softer land.
This will mean the end for some communities.
A report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
concluded that Kivalina, a native Iñupiaq village
of 85 homes at the tip of an 8-mile leck of land in
northwest Alaska, will likely be “lost to erosion”
within the next decade. Yet the 374 residents re-
main. Relocation would cost over $95 million and
jeopardize their lifestyle, which depends on hunt-
ing and ishing coastal resources. They are tethered
to the sea, as it consumes their village.

METHANE AND MYSTERIOUS CRATERS
To the untrained eye, they appear to be
1 mile meteor impacts: massive, funnel-shaped
craters, about 80 feet across and 15
stories deep, that suddenly appear in
Batagaika
Crater the Russian tundra. But according to
Vladimir Romanovsky, a geophysicist at
the University of Alaska who has been
monitoring permafrost since the 1970s,
“nothing like this was described in any
scientiic or even not-scientiic literature.
“We don’t even have a good name for it
yet,” he adds.
Aug. 27, 1999
At last count, at least nine craters have
been conirmed in Yamal, a Russian territory
jutting 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, A giant crater discovered
and neighboring Gydan. Yamal is home in Siberia’s Yamal territory
dwarfs the human visitors
to more reindeer than people, as well as standing above it.
Russia’s largest natural gas deposits and the
infrastructure to exploit them.
The cause of the craters is uncertain the periphery for thousands of feet. Satellite
— no one has witnessed one form — but images from previous years showed the
researchers have a hypothesis: Icelike craters were once small hills, bulging from
mixtures of methane and water, trapped the tundra.
below and within the permafrost, expand “The fact that they have appeared and
as they warm, heaving up the ground until weren’t really predicted tells me that there
July 23, 2013
it erupts. are probably surprises out there that we
Mysterious and explosive craters Supporting this explanation, local reindeer don’t know about yet, that I’m sure we’ll be
appear suddenly in the Arctic, but
Siberia’s massive Batagaika Crater herders reportedly heard loud booms soon seeing soon,” says Ted Schuur, a permafrost
is no overnight sensation. Tracked before craters were irst noticed. At the sites, researcher at Northern Arizona University.
by satellite imagery for decades,
the crater is a “megaslump”
researchers found explosively high methane Although the craters have never been
induced by permafrost thaw, concentrations and chunks of earth littering observed before, bulging hills are common in
and it continues to grow.
OUR CARBON FEEDBACK FUTURE
To see what other surprises permafrost thaw will bring, Schuur is speeding
up global warming — experimentally — in a dozen plots of permafrost
land in the tundra of central Alaska. Since 2008, the plots, each about
half a tennis court in size, have been passively heated a few extra degrees:
In winter, surrounding fences accumulate an insulating blanket of snow
and in summer, the team installs open-topped, greenhouse-like structures
made of clear plastic to maximize warming.
“We cause the permafrost to degrade and look at the impact of that,
to try to push the tundra into a future
state,” Schuur says.
The project is one of many trying
to understand the permafrost carbon
feedback: The idea that thawing per-
mafrost will allow long-frozen organic
matter to be decomposed by soil mi-
crobes, which will release greenhouse
gases, accelerating global warming.
The feedback was irst described in
a 2006 Science paper. Yet permafrost
permafrost regions. Systematic surveys, carbon has not been included in most
CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY/JESSE ALLEN (2); VASILY BOGOYAVLENSKY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; THOMAS NASH/NASHPIX.COM; MIRIAM JONES/USGS; YURI KOZYREV/NOOR/REDUX
using helicopters and satellites, counted climate projections. There are just too
7,000 such mounds in Yamal and Gydan many unknowns, including how much
and 1,350 in the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula carbon is in the permafrost, how eas-
of northwest Canada — at that rate, ily it could degrade and how quickly it
there could easily be 100,000 such might be released.
potential time bombs across the Arctic. To address these questions, experi-
Most are likely due to frost-heave, when mental heating studies like Schuur’s
the water in saturated soil freezes and are being combined with observations
expands, pushing the ground up. But of permafrost thawing naturally. Sci-
an unknown number could be methane entists now systematically measure
mounds on the verge of eruption. ground temperature and depth of sea-
sonal thaw at hundreds of locations.
In 2015, Schuur and Schädel were
Ted Schuur, a permafrost expert at
co-authors on a landmark paper in Northern Arizona University, checks
Nature that synthesized the available on monitoring equipment set up
near Healy, Alaska, to track how
observations and experiments. They the once-frozen ground degrades
concluded that a portion of the per- and releases stored carbon.
mafrost is destined to thaw, which
will add about 150 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere over the
next century. That’s comparable to the projected amount contributed by
land-use changes such as deforestation, or roughly one-tenth the carbon
of fossil fuel emissions.
Beyond this inescapable amount, it’s hard to predict how much more
permafrost will thaw — mainly because that depends on human decisions.
According to a 2017 study in Nature Climate Change, if countries stick to
the Paris Agreement, holding global average temperature to 1.5 to 2 C (2.7
to 3.6 F) above pre-industrial levels, then 55 to 70 percent of permafrost
land area could be saved, compared with its near elimination under our
Bubbles of methane (above) are trapped current warming trajectory.
in an icy lake, the result of permafrost Says Schuur, “If we follow the Paris accord, if we reduce our emissions
thaw. The creation and slow expansion of
Siberia’s Batagaika Crater (left) is also due to elsewhere, it will just slow everything down and help keep carbon in the
permafrost thaw: As the ground continues ground, in the Arctic where it is now.” D
to soften and erode, the “megaslump”crater
grows in size, occasionally revealing animal
remains that were frozen for millennia. Harvard University anthropologist Bridget Alex is a frequent contributor to Discover.

Whatever
Happened to the
FUTURE?
Jetpacks, flying cars and other cool
inventions still aren’t standard issue.
BY BILL ANDREWS
Clockwise from top:

Legendary artist
Chesley Bonestell’s
winged rocket from
a 1952 Collier’s
magazine cover. A
1956 illustration of
the H.G. Wells classic
The Time Machine.
Comic book illustrator
Alex Schomburg’s
1953 cover art for
Science Fiction Plus.
T he future’s not what it used to be.
By all accounts, it should be here by
now. It’s 2018. The new millennium is
Clockwise from top left:
NBC’s Timeless, a show in
which a group of heroes
saves history. Back to the
Future’s DeLorean, useful
old enough to vote. NASA has been for saving history and
the future. The JetLev
in space for half a century. Virtually water-propelled jetpack,
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF THE ESTATE OF ALEX SCHOMBURG; FIRST CLASSICS INC., FROM THE COVER OF CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, VOL. 133, 1956 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED;
which saves the rich

every house has a computer, and every
COURTESY OF BONESTELL, LLC; NBC UNIVERSAL/GETTY IMAGES; MCA/EVERETT COLLECTION; JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES; WARNER BROS./EVERETT COLLECTION; TERRAFUGIA
from boredom. Neo from

pocket a smaller, cuter one. The Matrix Reloaded,
a film that could have
And yet the promised future is used some saving. And
finally, Terrafugia’s hope
incomplete. Where, as the refrain for the future, the TF-X.
goes, is my flying car? Our jetpacks?

Why does it even still rain on us? Is it
not the future?
Well, yes and no. Some of our
promised future gizmos have already
arrived — even if they’re prohibitively
expensive — and some are literally
impossible. As novelist and future
fabulist William Gibson has said, “The
future is already here — it’s just not
very evenly distributed.”
Ultimately, the future is whatever
you make it, Doc tells us in Back to
the Future Part III.
So here’s what we’ve
made of some
of the most
popular promised
technologies.

Clockwise from top left:
This free-flying astronaut
couldn’t get far in outer
space without a jetpack.
Disney’s 1991 film The
Rocketeer — based off
a comic book — was
set in the 1930s, but
remains fantasy. But the
Flyboard Air, a jetpack
on your feet, is trying to
change that. And JetPack
Aviation has already
proven itself by circling
the Statue of Liberty —
just don’t try to buy one.
Fun Fact
George Jetson’s workweek
consisted of pushing a
button for an hour a
day, two days a week.
Clearly, some of the show’s
predictions were more
realistic than others.
CREDIT
Jetpacks
What is it?
A machine worn as a backpack that lets you fly, usually via jet engine. Fun Fact
The Rocketeer wasn’t all
Where you’ve seen it lies. The Nazis really did
The Rocketeer, The Jetsons, Iron Man (though not a back-based variation) try to get their hands on
jetpack technology over 80
Why it’d be so cool years ago. Luckily, creating
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One of our most primal urges is to soar around as easily as birds. The a flying backpack wasn’t
jetpack lets us do it in the most “natural” way: no cockpits shielding us any easier back then.
from the wind, no hot air balloons leaving us at the mercy of air currents,
just pure high-flying action. You could take the fastest route to work every
day, literally as the crow flies. Or shoot over to the neighboring country to
see the sites. And let’s not forget about the military advantages if a jetpack came
standard with every soldier’s uniform. Ultimately, the jetpack is about freedom. Fly in or out of
any situation you want, and look badass while doing it.
When were we supposed to have it

Although usually shorthand for “the future,” The Rocketeer’s jetpack came about in the 1930s, so
we’re way behind on that score.
How close are we?

You could fly around in a jetpack right now … if you’re in the right environment.
In space, astronauts have been scooting around in so-called manned
maneuvering units since 1984. Not an astronaut? You’ll have better luck over
water. Hydro jetpacks, including the name brand Flyboard, use Jet Ski-
like technology to shoot water instead of a gas propellant. The catch:
It needs a fuel source. So while these machines look and apparently
feel an awful lot like traditional flying jetpacks, they’re still literally
tethered to the water.
So what about the real deal? It’s possible, but not exactly as
consumer tech. JetPack Aviation, whose CEO flew around the Statue
of Liberty in 2015, offers promotional flights and training; no FAA
pilot’s license required. Or how about the Flyboard Air, a jetpack for
your feet? The catch: It lasts only 10 minutes, costs $250,000 and isn’t
actually for sale yet.
Ultimately, there’s a reason consumer jetpacks are not
more available in real life. The jet itself would be
extremely dangerous to other fliers and careless Above: A Flyboard
in Japan provides
pilots — to say nothing of the flames shooting thrills via a jet of
out — and it would probably be uncomfortably high-pressure water.
Left: Astronaut Bruce
loud and cumbersome. And, basically, humans McCandless II flies
just aren’t very aerodynamic, so controlling such through space using
the nitrogen-propelled
a device at any speed is tricky. manned maneuvering
Still, at least there are options. unit in 1984.

Flying Cars
What is it?
It’s a car … that can fly. (Usually a sportier Left: This Convair
model.) Model 118 actually
flew in 1947. The
company hoped
Where you’ve seen it to make flying cars
mainstream after
Back to the Future, Blade Runner, World War II. Below:
Futurama, The Fifth Element Ford floated the
idea of a levitating
car in 1959 with its
Why it’d be so cool Mach I Levacar —
no wheels needed.
Controlled flying is a relatively recent
development for our species — the first
airplane flew only about 115 years ago.
It still feels cool and futuristic to picture
ourselves, as a species, casually puttering
around in the air. Just as a prosperous
family could enjoy a personal boat trip or car ride,
the personal flying car symbolizes one more realm
we’ve mastered, another technological hurdle we’ve
cleared. Plus, the views are nicer, the traffic less
congested, and it looks like so much fun.

The Back to the Future trilogy optimistically
suggested they’d be
ubiquitous by 2015, and
Fun Fact
Blade Runner in 2019.
Either way, the not-too-
The idea of flying cars goes distant future.
back further than you may
think. The first patent for How close are we?
one was issued in 1918. Surprisingly close!
Flying cars already exist
as prototypes. Right now for a
cool $10,000 deposit, you can reserve an honest-
to-God flying car from Terrafugia, called the Transition. The problem
is they’re more like drivable planes. You’d still need a special area for takeoffs and landings,
and, oh yeah, you need to know how to fly a plane. And another thing, the Transition isn’t
currently in production; it’s still a few years away. (In other words, the not-too-distant future.)
Ultimately, planes are plane-shaped for a reason, and it’s much more practical to use one to
fly, and a car to drive. After all, we don’t try to combine power saws and flamethrowers into
one ultracool multitool.
Still, the basic technology is there, and combined with autonomous driving possibilities —
Uber is promising flying drone cars by 2020 — it just might be possible that we’ll have our
flying cars after all.
CREDIT
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This page, clockwise from

top left: This 1958 ad from
America’s Independent
Electric Light and Power
Companies pushed a flying
car for the “modern”
family. Flying cop cars
feature in both 1997’s The
Fifth Element and 1982’s
Blade Runner. The Jetsons,
the ultimate modern family,
never even landed their
flying car on solid ground.
HANNA-BARBERA/EVERETT COLLECTION; TERRAFUGIA (2)
A more realistic flying car

— Terrafugia’s Transition
— could be available for
purchase in the years
ahead.

Time Machine
What is it?
A contraption that lets you explore different
time periods.
Where you’ve seen it

The Time Machine, Back to the Future,
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Doctor Who
Why it’d be so cool

We’re a species that likes to roam, to
explore the wild blue yonder. What greater
unexplored realms are there than the past and
the future? Historians could answer all their
unsolved questions, and scientists could get
a leg up on upcoming technology. You could
spend time with departed loved ones, and see
what awaits your family — and species — in
the years to come. The possibilities are as
endless as time!

The Time Machine came out in 1895, so at
least since then. They’re usually depicted as
contemporary technology taking
place whenever the story
happens, so really,
Fun Fact
they should be
here already.
Because they’re farther
from Earth’s gravity, How close
astronauts who spend are we?
six months in space have Not at all.
aged some 0.007 seconds Technically,
slower than everyone simply by Top: In a 1960
who stayed on the existing we are film adaptation
of H.G. Wells’ The
TOP: EVERETT COLLECTION. BOTTOM: NBC UNIVERSAL/GETTY IMAGES
ground. Baby traveling forward in Time Machine, actor

steps? time at 1 second per second, so in that Rod Taylor plays a
Victorian-era inventor
sense everything is a time machine. Physics who journeys into
has also taught us ways to toy with that flow of time the fourth dimension
on a sled attached
a little bit. You age faster the closer you are to a large mass like to a large clock. Left:
Earth, for example. Lucy Preston (Abigail
Spencer) poofs in and
But as for a machine that transports you wherever you want in time out of eras via a giant
and, presumably, space? Nope. It’s pretty much impossible, as far as sphere in Timeless.
we know. Sorry.
Warp Speed
What is it?
The ability to travel faster than the speed of light — often at multiples of it.

Star Trek, Star Wars, The Last Starfighter — pretty much anything with
“star” in the name

“Space,” Douglas Adams informs us, “is big. Really big.” In order to get
anywhere, either you need to plan for years’ worth of travel, or you need to
travel faster than the speed of light — the current speed limit for matter, if Albert
Einstein is to be believed. But if we could somehow achieve superluminal speeds, we’d Above: The Enterprise
be free to travel almost anywhere, “boldly going” wherever we jumps to warp speed
in 1979’s Star Trek:
like, the solar wind in our hair. The galaxy, and The Motion Picture.
possibly the universe itself, opens up to us. Left: We now know
Chesley Bonestell’s
winged rocket,
When were we supposed to have it illustrated in 1959,
could never hit light
The only firm date seems to be when speed. But its design
Star Trek’s Zephram Cochrane invents a does recall today’s
space planes.
warp drive in 2063; otherwise, it’s just a
background staple of sufficiently
advanced societies.
How close are we?

Not very.
Einstein’s theories have been
Fun Fact
Pluto is over 5 light-hours
verified enough to suggest if we away, and it would take
ever can break the cosmic speed more than four years
limit, it’s going to take more
TOP: PARAMOUNT/EVERETT COLLECTION. BOTTOM: CHESLEY BONESTELL/COURTESY OF BONESTELL, LLC
traveling at light speed

than just going really fast. to reach the nearest star.
Mexican theoretical physicist That’s a lot of sitting
Miguel Alcubierre came up with a way to around.
sort of do it: Simply warp space-time around a spaceship
to create a moving bubble within the fabric of the universe. Make
the bubble just right, by shrinking the space in front of it and expanding
the space behind, and it could zip around the universe much faster than light.
The ship and its immediate surroundings wouldn’t be traveling faster than light — they
wouldn’t even feel the effects of the movement — it’d be the universe itself moving the
bubble around. And that’s OK by Einstein. It’s an elegant solution, but unfortunately it requires
currently impossible technology to work (such as creating something with negative mass).
Einstein also doesn’t forbid warp drives that tap into a hidden dimension — like Han
Solo jumping to “hyperspace” — allowing spaceships to take faster-than-light shortcuts
throughout the cosmos. But again, there’s no evidence any of that is actually possible; we
just can’t say for sure that it isn’t.

Your Virtual Self/Avatar
What is it?
A way to appear exactly as you’d like to be seen; often limited to digital spaces.

The Matrix, Ready Player One, Snow Crash, Blade Runner 2049

You could easily become everything you’ve ever wanted to be. What’s not
Fun Fact
As virtual reality becomes
to love? Shave a few pounds, or show off the curls you’ve always dreamed more widespread,
about. Or go further and let people see you as the mythical beast you programs like VR
see yourself as. The race and sex you were Chat and Sansar make
born with need no longer affect you. Suffer interacting with other
from a physical disability, or confined to users’ avatars easier
bed rest due to an illness? Now it wouldn’t and more realistic.
even matter. Traveling the world, or digital
worlds, from the safety of your computer,
looking exactly how you envision yourself, is
the ultimate way to live life on your own terms.

Usually this is a near-future technology; most of the examples above
take place over the next few decades.
How close are we?

We’re there! Sort of.
Video games and internet forums have used a form of this for years,
allowing players and users to customize their appearance, often called
their avatar (as in Snow Crash). As the technology has improved, so has the
virtual you, appearing ever more intricate and complex — possibly even
photorealistic at this point. Whether it’s an actual photo or illustration
appearing next to your words, or a fully designed three-dimensional
body moving around the space, this is how the digital world sees you.
The only problem is that the rest of the actual world doesn’t see you
as your bitmoji. To get to that point, the majority of our interactions
must be digital. And right now, the real world is still just too convenient a
meeting space.
But it’s possible we’re heading in that direction. Second Life — a “virtual
world” that exists as a fully functional alternative place to create, entertain
From top: A hologram
ad appeals to K
and do business with others — peaked at over a million monthly visitors
(Ryan Gosling) in and $3.2 billion in total transactions after its first 10 years. Other online
Blade Runner 2049. In
Surrogates, everyone
universes like the communal video game World of Warcraft boast even
lives via avatars. higher user numbers. So the dream is already real for an awful lot of
That’s much like The
Matrix — except there,
people, and if our growing time online is any indication, a digital lifestyle
people don’t know it. may be in all our futures.
We’ve Come a Long Way
Sometimes the transition from science fiction gadget to
everyday tool goes smoothly. Here are some now-mundane
technologies our ancestors once only dreamed of.
Personal computers From the storytelling engine

OPPOSITE FROM TOP: WARNER BROS./EVERETT COLLECTION; WALT DISNEY CO./EVERETT COLLECTION; WARNER BROS./EVERETT COLLECTION. THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: HANNA-BARBERA/EVERETT COLLECTION; PARAMOUNT/EVERETT COLLECTION; NASA; SPACEX
in Gulliver’s Travels to Isaac Asimov’s Multivac supercomputer,

computational devices are common throughout literature.
And thanks to technological advances of the past decades,
they’re now as ubiquitous as McDonald’s, with over a billion
PCs currently in use.
Television What could be more futuristic than the

idea of capturing a moment’s sights and sounds, seeing
and hearing a story or news report a world away? And yet,
since the first models appeared almost a century ago, we’ve
become bored with the devices. High-fidelity sound, perfect
— even 3-D — pictures and still, nothing worth watching.
Cellphones Star Trek may have had some

questionable technology, but
the communicators of the
original series are nothing but
classic Motorola RAZRs. We’ve
actually improved: More than
three-quarters of Americans
own smartphones (enabling
the sci-fi dream of video calls in
the process), most of which are
hundreds of thousands times
more powerful than NASA’s early
spaceships. To boldly go indeed.
Space travel Once we

figured out flying, it took only
From top: Jane Jetson relaxes
a few decades to get to the with Rosie while a prescient
moon. A successful mission to the robot vacuum cleans the floor.
Capt. Kirk (William Shatner)
International Space Station doesn’t even chats with the Enterprise. The
warrant news coverage these days. International Space Station
keeps quietly ticking along.
Robot vacuums It’s not all Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster
and its “Starman” gained fame
society-altering stuff. Sometimes the earlier this year. Forget flying
cars — this one’s in space.
cool little things work out, too. Take the
idea of robot vacuums, as seen in The
Jetsons and other comic sci-fi settings, Bill Andrews, senior associate
made into reality by Roomba (among editor of Discover, remembers
others) over 15 years ago. We really are looking forward to the future.
living in the future. D He’s still waiting.

BEYOND TIME
THE MORE WE TRY TO GRASP IT, THE MORE IT SLIPS AWAY.
BY CARLO ROVELLI
We conventionally think of time as

something simple and fundamental.
It flows uniformly, independent
of everything else, from the past
to the future, measured by clocks
and watches. In the course of time,
the events of the universe succeed
each other in an orderly way: pasts,
presents, futures. The past is fixed,
the future open . . . and yet all of
this has turned out to be false.
One after another, the character-
istic features of time have proved
to be approximations, mistakes
determined by our perspective,
just like the flatness of Earth or the
revolving of the sun. The growth
of our knowledge has led to a slow
disintegration of our notion of time.
What we call “time” is a complex
collection of structures, of layers.
Under increasing scrutiny, in ever-
greater depth, time has lost layers
one after another, piece by piece.
LEFT: AGSANDREW/SHUTTERSTOCK. RIGHT: JURIK PETER/SHUTTERSTOCK

THE ELASTICITY OF TIME had circumnavigated the Earth. At the beginning of the
Let’s begin with a simple fact: Time passes faster in the modern era, the Polish mathematician and astronomer
mountains than it does at sea level. Copernicus understood the Earth turns long before
The difference is small, but it can be measured with astronauts had seen it do so from the moon.
precision timepieces that you can buy on the internet for In the course of making such strides, we learn the
a few thousand dollars. With practice, anyone can wit- things that seemed self-evident to us were really no more
ness the slowing down of time. With the timepieces of than prejudices. It seemed obvious the sky was above us
specialized laboratories, researchers can detect this slow- and not below; otherwise, the Earth would fall down. It
ing down of time between levels just a few centimeters seemed self-evident the Earth did not move; otherwise, it
apart: A clock on the loor runs a little more slowly than would cause everything to crash. That time passed at the
one on a table. same speed everywhere seemed equally obvious to us. But
It is not just the clocks that slow down: Lower down, just as children grow up and discover the world is not
all processes are slower. Two friends separate, with one as it seemed from within the four walls of their homes,
of them living in the plains and the other going to live in humankind as a whole does the same.
the mountains. They meet up again years later. The one
who has stayed down has lived less, aged less, the mecha- FALLING OBJECTS
nism of his cuckoo clock has oscillated fewer times. He Einstein asked himself a question that has perhaps
has had less time to do things, his plants have grown less, puzzled many of us when studying the force of gravity:
his thoughts have had less time to unfold. Lower down, How can the sun and Earth “attract” each other without
there is simply less time than at an altitude. touching and without utilizing anything between them?
Is this surprising? Perhaps it is. But this is how the He looked for a plausible explanation and found one
world works. Time passes more slowly in some places, by imagining the sun and the Earth do not attract each
more rapidly in others. other directly. Instead, each of the two gradually acts on
The surprising thing, perhaps, is that someone under- that which is between them — space and time — modify-
stood this slowing down of time a century before we ing them just as someone immersed in water displaces
had clocks precise enough to measure it. His name, of the liquid around them. This modiication of the struc-
course, was Albert Einstein. ture of time inluences the movement of bodies, causing
The ability to understand something before it’s them to “fall” or gravitate toward each other.
observed is at the heart of scientiic thinking. In antiq- What does it mean, this “modiication of the structure
uity, the Greek philosopher Anaximander understood of time”? Precisely the slowing of time described above.
that the sky continues beneath our feet long before ships A mass slows down time around itself. The Earth is a
CREDIT
large mass and slows down time in its vicinity. It does so As before, the two friends experience different dura-
more in the plains and less in the mountains, because the tions. The one who moves ages less quickly, his watch
plains are closer to it. This is why the friend who stays at marks less time passing, he has less time in which to think,
sea level ages more slowly. the plant he is carrying takes longer to germinate, and so
Therefore, if things fall, it is due to this slowing of on. For everything that moves, time passes more slowly.
time. Where time passes uniformly, in interplanetary But one must move very quickly for this effect to
space, things don’t fall — they loat. Here on the surface become perceptible. It was irst measured in the 1970s,
of our planet, on the other hand, things fall downward using precision watches on airplanes. The watches
because, down there, time is slowed by the Earth. aboard planes display a time behind that displayed by
Hence, even though we cannot easily observe it, the the ones on the ground. Today, the slowing of time can
slowing of time nevertheless has crucial effects: Things be observed in many physics experiments.
fall because of it, and it allows us to keep our feet irmly Even before this 1970s demonstration, Einstein had
on the ground. If our feet adhere to the pavement, it is already igured out that time slows down — when he was
because our whole body inclines naturally to where time just 25 years old and studying electromagnetism.
runs more slowly — and time passes more slowly for It turned out to be a not particularly complex deduc-
your feet than it does for your head. tion. Electricity and magnetism are well described by
Does this seem strange? It’s like when watching the the equations of James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish math-
BACKGROUND: BRUCE ROLFF/SHUTTERSTOCK. EINSTEIN: ERNST HAAS/GETTY IMAGES
sun set, disappearing slowly behind distant clouds, we ematical physicist. These equations contain the usual
suddenly remember that it’s not the sun that’s moving time variable t but have a curious property. If you travel
but the Earth that’s spinning. And we envision our entire at a certain velocity, then for you Maxwell’s equations
planet — and ourselves with it — rotating backward, are no longer true (that is, they don’t describe what you
away from the sun. measure) unless you call time a different variable: t´.
Mathematicians had become aware of this odd feature
SPEED AND TIME of Maxwell’s equations, but no one had been able to
Ten years before understanding that time is slowed down understand what it meant.
by mass, Einstein realized that it was slowed down by Einstein, though, grasped its signiicance. t is the time
speed. The consequence of this discovery for our basic that passes if I stay still; t´ is “your time.” That is, t is the
perception of time is the most devastating of all. time my watch measures when it’s stationary, and t´ is
The fact itself is quite simple. Instead of sending the the time your watch measures when it’s moving. Nobody
two friends to the mountains and the plains, respectively, had imagined previously that time could be different for
let’s ask one to stay still and the other to walk around. a stationary watch and one in motion.
CREDIT

A moving object therefore experiences a shorter dura- say a few nanoseconds, a tiny fraction of a second.
tion than one that’s stationary: A watch marks fewer Therefore, you’re not quite seeing what she’s doing now
seconds, a plant grows more slowly, a young man dreams but what she was doing a few nanoseconds ago. If she’s
less. For a moving object, time contracts. Not only is in New York and you phone her from Liverpool, her
there no single time for different places — there isn’t voice takes a few milliseconds to reach you, so the most
even a single time for any particular place. A duration you can claim to know is what your sister was up to a few
can be associated only with the movement of something, milliseconds ago. Not a signiicant difference, perhaps.
with a given trajectory. But, if your sister is on Proxima b, light takes four
“Proper time” depends not only on where you are and years to reach you from there. Hence, if you look at her
your degree of proximity to masses; it depends also on through a telescope, or receive a radio communication
the speed at which you move. It’s a strange enough fact from her, you know what she was doing four years ago
in itself, but its consequences are extraordinary. Hold on rather than what she is doing now. Now on Proxima b
tight, because we are about to take off. is deinitely not what you see through the telescope, or
what you can hear from her voice over the radio.
NOW MEANS NOTHING So perhaps you can say that what your sister is
What is happening now in a distant place? Imagine, doing now is what she will be doing four years after the
for example, your sister has gone to Proxima b, the moment that you see her through the telescope? But no,
recently discovered planet that orbits a star approxi- this does not work. After you have seen her through the
mately 4 light-years away from us. What is your sister telescope, four years ago in her time, she might already
BACKGROUND: BRUCE ROLFF/SHUTTERSTOCK. EARTH AND SUN: NASA
doing now on Proxima b? have returned to Earth and could be (Yes! This is really
The only correct answer is that the question makes no possible!) 10 terrestrial years in the future. But now can-
sense. It’s like asking, “What is here, in Peking?” when not be in the future …
we are in Venice. It makes no sense, because if I use the Perhaps we can do this. If, 10 years ago, your sister left
word “here” in Venice, I am referring to a place in Ven- for Proxima b, taking with her a calendar to keep track
ice, not in Peking. of time, can we think that now for her is when she has
If you ask what your sister, who is in the room with recorded that 10 years have passed? No, this does not
you, is doing now, the answer is usually an easy one: You work, either: She might have returned here after 10 of
look at her, and you can tell. If she’s far away, you phone her years, arriving back where, in the meantime, 20 years
her and ask what she’s doing. But take care: If you look have elapsed. So when the hell is now on Proxima b?
at your sister, you’re receiving light that travels from her The truth of the matter is that we need to give up
to your eyes. That light takes time to reach you — let’s asking the question.
There is no special moment on Proxima b that cor- that will happen after the moment from which we can
responds to what constitutes the present here and now. see the here and now. Between this past and this future,
Dear reader, pause for a moment to let this conclusion there is an interval that is neither past nor future and
sink in. In my opinion, it is the most astounding conclu- still has a duration: 15 minutes on Mars, eight years on
sion arrived at in the whole of contemporary physics. Proxima b, millions of years in the Andromeda galaxy.
It simply makes no sense to ask which moment in the It is the expanded present. It is perhaps the greatest and
life of your sister on Proxima b corresponds to now. strangest of Einstein’s discoveries.
It is like asking which football team has won a bas-
ketball championship, how much money a swallow A WORLD’S ESSENCE
has earned or how much a musical note weighs. They The growth of our knowledge has led to a slow disinte-
are nonsensical questions because football teams play gration of our notion of time. What we have been left
football, not basketball; swallows do not busy them- with is an empty, windswept landscape almost devoid of
selves earning money; and sounds cannot be weighed. all trace of temporality. A strange, alien world that is
“Basketball champions” refers to a team of basketball nevertheless still the one to which we belong. It is like
players, not to footballers. Monetary proit refers to arriving in the high mountains, where there is nothing
human society, not to swallows. The notion of “the but snow, rocks and sky. A world stripped to its essence,
present” refers to things that are close to us, not to glittering with an arid and troubling beauty. The physics
anything that is far away. on which I work — quantum gravity — is an attempt to
Our present does not extend throughout the universe. understand and lend coherent meaning to this extreme
It is like a bubble around us. and beautiful landscape. To the world without time. D
How far does this bubble extend? It depends on the
precision with which we determine time. If by nanosec-
onds, the present is deined only over a few meters; if
by milliseconds, it is deined over thousands of kilome- From the book THE ORDER OF TIME
ters. As humans, we distinguish tenths of a second only by Carlo Rovelli. Translated by Erica Segre
and Simon Carnell. Copyright © 2017
with great dificulty; we can easily consider our entire by Carlo Rovelli. Translation copyright
planet to be like a single bubble where we can speak of © 2018 by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell.
the present as if it were an instant shared by us all. This Published by Riverhead Books, an imprint
is as far as we can go. of Penguin Publishing Group, a division
of Penguin Random House, LLC.
There is our past: all the events that happened before
what we can witness now. There is our future: the events

Prognosis
In the
Blood
Researchers work to fine-tune
a test that could better
detect lingering disease
in cancer patients.
BY DELIA O’HARA
→ A diagnosis of cancer is scary

enough on its own. But cancer
cells’ ability to hide out in the body DNA ingerprint,” says Scott Kopetz, loating DNA, and we have increasingly
after an initial round of treatment a specialist in gastrointestinal cancer at sensitive ways of looking for low levels
is especially insidious. And it isn’t the University of Texas MD Anderson of that cancer DNA,” Oxnard says.
possible yet to tell which patients still Cancer Center in Houston. A major challenge with the
have any residual disease. Liquid biopsy can detect the technology is developing tests that are
Even a few surviving cancer cells can distinctive DNA from cells a tumor sensitive enough to detect even very low
multiply over time, moving out of the sheds into bodily luids, and it does so concentrations of cancer DNA loating
original site — the breast or colon, for quickly. It’s also often more perceptive among millions of blood cells.
example — to form a tumor in another than a CT scan. Blood is the preferred “Even with a patient with stage IV
part of the body. By the time that medium for liquid biopsy for now, cancer, the tests still can’t see the cancer
new tumor has grown large enough to 20 to 30 percent of the time,” Oxnard
show up on a CT scan, the cancer is says. So if a liquid biopsy test comes
likely incurable. Liquid biopsy is back negative, physicians must continue
When cancer patients seek treatment, the result of decades to fall back on standard biopsies for
scars from initial therapies like radiation their patients.
can make detecting new and old tumors of gene research, But liquid biopsy is even now
dificult. And a traditional biopsy, a pointing the way toward more tolerable
tissue sample a pathologist scrutinizes
which has led to a treatment for some patients with
under a microscope for telltale signs of solid understanding advanced lung cancer. “If patients
cancer, can be hard to obtain from an with stage IV non-small-cell lung
internal organ like the lung. of cancer DNA. cancer have speciic alterations in [a
For all these reasons, doctors have speciic] gene, they can get a highly
high hopes for a technology still in though eventually, other luids like effective oral targeted therapy with
its infancy called liquid biopsy, which urine and saliva may come into play few side effects and a dramatic
looks for cancer in bodily luids. It for some cancers. But virtually any response,” Oxnard says. The alternative
may identify cancer patients whose clinic can do a blood draw, and cancer is chemotherapy, which may be less
disease has persisted past the primary DNA reliably migrates into the blood, effective and have more side effects.
treatment, and help home in on effective sometimes as fragments, which can be In a clinical setting, liquid biopsy
therapies for them. enough for many liquid biopsy tests to tests designed to detect one or two
read. genes might now cost hundreds of
ANUCHA PALAMA/SHUTTERSTOCK
HUNTING CANCER Geoffrey Oxnard, an oncologist dollars; larger panels, with more genes,
Liquid biopsy is the result of decades specializing in lung cancer at the can cost several thousand dollars.
of gene research, which has led to a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in
solid understanding of cancer DNA. Boston, works with liquid biopsy in his DETECTING DISEASE
Doctors know now that a tumor has practice. “We can see evidence of the The next frontier in liquid biopsy will
its own molecular pattern. “It’s like a cancer genome within the patient’s free- be putting the technology to work
identifying patients who have had biopsy to look for residual cancer in eventually serve as a screening tool to
treatment for some types of early patients who have had surgery for spot early cancer in individuals who
cancer, and who seem, based on CT early stage colorectal cancer, but have don’t have a diagnosis, but may have a
scans, to be cured, but actually still displayed no evidence of residual high risk for developing cancer, such as
have residual disease. disease on CT scans. He anticipates women with BRCA gene mutations for
A different type of therapy might liquid biopsy will detect cancer cells in breast cancer.
give those patients a second chance, about 10 percent of patients, who will
says Ben Ho Park, a researcher then be offered chemotherapy. INCREASED SENSITIVITY
and clinician at the Sidney Kimmel Another possible future use of In addition to attempting to prove
Comprehensive Cancer Center at the liquid biopsy is monitoring ongoing liquid biopsy’s worth in clinical
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in treatment in advanced cancer — trials like those Park and Kopetz are
Baltimore. Because there’s no reliable alerting physicians to drug resistances conducting, researchers continue to
way to tell who still has microscopic developing within patients and steering reine their tests to eliminate false
cancer cells in their bodies and who them away from therapies that aren’t negatives, as well as false positives
doesn’t, standard care now often working. Currently, oncologists might that arise from sequencing errors or
involves simply treating almost treat a tumor for two to three months, other factors.
everyone with the follow-up therapy. and then do another CT scan. “If One promising liquid biopsy test is
Researchers hope that eventually you’ve guessed wrong,” says Park, the CAncer Personalized Proiling by
liquid biopsy tests will identify people “you just spent two or three months on deep Sequencing, or CAPP-Seq. In a
with residual cancer, sparing those worthless therapy.” 2014 study, it identiied 100 percent of
who have no signs of the disease from Park also hopes to see liquid biopsy patients with advanced lung cancer,
unnecessary treatment and leading with few false positives. Max Diehn,
to more effective treatment for those a radiation oncologist specializing in
who need it. Liquid Biopsy thoracic cancer at Stanford University,
Liquid biopsy tests must prove their developed CAPP-Seq with colleagues.
Cancer can migrate into
worth in clinical trials before they can the bloodstream, as single Diehn believes liquid biopsy’s
be used as standard care, and those cells or free-floating bits of potential extends well beyond cancer to
trials can take years. Park is halfway DNA. In the future, liquid such possible applications as detecting
into enrolling 229 patients in a multi- biopsy could offer a way infections, Alzheimer’s,
to detect residual signs of
institutional study of women who have autoimmune diseases and
cancer without invasive
“triple-negative” and “HER2-positive” surgery. Information from the early signs of rejection of
cancers, two types in which he can the biopsy could also be transplanted organs.
expect at least 20 percent of patients used to create targeted For now, liquid biopsy isn’t
to be cancer-free after a irst round of treatments for individuals likely to replace tissue biopsy.
who need it, in addition
treatment with chemotherapy. to monitoring ongoing
“There’s still a lot of information
Then, a liquid biopsy test will treatments. that comes from looking at a
check for cancer. All patients in cancer cell under the microscope,”
the trial will go on to surgery Cancer cell says Kopetz.
to remove the tissue where Cancer DNA But it does show great promise
the tumor was originally as a diagnostic and prognostic
detected. The goal is to tool, and researchers are excited.
prove that liquid biopsy can “The idea of molecularly
accurately lag the women investigating a patient’s disease
ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER; DESIGNUA/SHUTTERSTOCK
ORIGINAL TUMOR
who still have cancer — that the status through the blood, I think,
disease will then be found in will affect many other parts of
those women, and only those medicine in the future,” Diehn
women, during subsequent says. “These tests open possibilities
surgeries. for new, personalized treatment
Kopetz, of MD Anderson, strategies.” D
says he, too, is gearing up to
enroll over 1,000 people in Delia O’Hara is a freelance writer based
Blood cells
a study that will use liquid NEW TUMOR in Chicago.

Origin
Story
Was Science Wrong “It doesn’t matter where you

ind them, humans have that ratio,”
says retired University of Kansas
About Being Right? anthropologist David Frayer. Across

history and geography, our species has
shown remarkable consistency. And
Handedness is an ancient trait, but researchers are rethinking no other species appeared so strongly
its roots. BY GEMMA TARLACH biased toward right-handedness.
The trait’s emergence in our species
alone, the thinking went, was yet
another indication of our superiority,
a preference controlled by the brain
and directly linked to our capacity for
language and tool-making.
Um, no.
As researchers have reined
methods and unearthed new
evidence, it seems much of what we
thought we knew about handedness
was anything but right.
Fossils reveal that right-handedness
goes much further back in our
evolutionary story than once believed.
Recent research has shown that
handedness and language do not,
er, go hand in hand, at least in the
way we once thought. And in 2017,
neuroscientists suggested that the origin
of handedness is not even in the brain.
OLD HANDS
The fossil record of hominins —
humans, our ancestors and closest
evolutionary kin going back to the
split from other primates about
7 million years ago — is mostly
fragmentary, making it impossible to
determine handedness by studying
→ Much of what deines us as

a species is all in our heads.
First and foremost, we’ve got
Recent research
has shown that
limb bones.
In the 1980s, researchers analyzed
stone tools, trying to gauge hand
these big, powerful brains, and small dominance from the direction the
faces tucked underneath a skull
handedness and material was laked, or chipped.
that expanded to house our most language do not, er, While initially promising, the idea
precious organ. proved unreliable.
MARIANOCECOWSKI VIA WIKIMEDIA
There’s another trait that go hand in hand, Then, Frayer began to look at
researchers once assumed was a striations on Neanderthal teeth.
Homo sapiens hallmark, based in the
at least in the way These furrows appeared only on
brain but most obvious in the upper we once thought. the outer faces of mostly the upper
limbs: Nine out of 10 humans are teeth, at the front of the mouth. One
considered right-handed. direction of diagonal marks, either
Origin
Story
from upper right to lower left or upper

left to lower right, would dominate.
Individuals working with tough,
ibrous material, Frayer reasoned,
could have held it between their teeth
and one hand, then used an edged
stone tool to saw off a small piece
with the other hand. Every now and
then, the tool edge would hit (ouch)
the outer face of the upper teeth.
The angle of tool-on-tooth contact
could tell researchers whether the
individual was holding the tool in
the right or left hand. And “one of
the nice things about looking at the
scratches,” says Frayer, “is that you
just have to have a single tooth.”
Frayer and his colleagues have
been able to analyze samples
from across our genus. The oldest
specimen, 1.8 million years old from
Tanzania, belonged to H. habilis: the
earliest member of the genus Homo Researchers can
and at least four times older than our determine handedness
in hominins by the
own species. dominant direction
In December, Frayer’s team of teeth striations
published a study in Evolutionary from individual fossil
remains going back
Anthropology that conirmed inding as far as Homo habilis,
the same 9-1 ratio of handedness the first member
of our genus.
across the hominin fossil record as
in modern human populations. It
destroyed the idea that H. sapiens is
uniquely right-handed. researchers typically determine “Humans have more objects and
“We have 50 right-handers and handedness in humans through self- are doing more object-driven things,”
four left-handers at last count,” reported surveys (“which hand do you Forrester says. “If we narrow down
Frayer says of the ancient hominins write with,” for example), they often hand dominance in apes to tool use . . .
studied. “You’d have to ind a pile use observation of general behavior we ind apes are certainly signiicantly
of left-handers at this point to make for other species. right-handed for tool use.”
it 50-50.” “When we ask humans about hand In fact, animals as different as
dominance, we ask about tool use chickens and ish show preferences,
TWO SIDES TO EVERY TASK rather than, say, hugging or picking if not for handedness per se, then for
DRAWING: JAY SMITH. PHOTOS: DAVID FRAYER AND LUCA BONDIOLI
You know where you can ind a pile your nose,” says Gillian Forrester. favoring the use of a particular side of
of left-handers? Certain species As a comparative psychologist at the body for a particular task.
of kangaroo. Recent research on a Birkbeck, University of London, she “Motor biases are seen throughout
number of animals nixed the earlier studies both the evolutionary and the animal world, all the way back
notion that only humans have a developmental pathways to behaviors to 500 million years ago and the
species-wide bias toward handedness. such as handedness. Forrester believes emergence of vertebrates, and possibly
Among chimps and other apes, that the differences between testing even older than that,” says Forrester.
however, handedness appears to vary methods across species may make Favoring one side of a
based on the method of evaluation. humans appear more biased toward symmetrical body over the other
Comparing humans and other species general right-handedness, beyond tool for a particular task is linked to
can be especially problematic: While use, than we actually are. cerebral lateralization: Essentially,
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Origin
Story
the left and right hemispheres of the altering the DNA sequence itself. The
brain divvy up processes for greater research is preliminary, however, and
eficiency. Most researchers believe scientists have not identiied what
that lateralization explains how causes these epigenetic changes.
handedness arises, including our
consistent 9-1 right-handedness ratio.
Early signs of THE SINISTER SIDE
“Lateralization is not unique to handedness appear to Regardless of how 10 percent of us
us, but there are characteristics of become left-handers, that minority
lateralization in humans that are be linked to lopsided has historically faced a range of
unique,” says Emory University superstitions and worse. Left-
archaeologist Dietrich Stout.
epigenetic activity: handedness has been falsely linked to
“Lateralization is ancient, but we take chemical changes evil, perversion and criminality.
it to the extreme.” “People see this difference and think
Stout, who studies the evolution of that effectively turn it must mean something. We’re always
cognition and tool-making, cautions certain genes on or off trying to understand, and to suppress,
that terms such as “right-handed” may difference,” says Howard Kushner, a
oversimplify the complex processes without altering the historian of science and medicine.
made possible through lateralization. Kushner’s 2017 book, On the Other
“It’s not like the right hand does DNA sequence itself. Hand: Left Hand, Right Brain, Mental
everything and the left hand does Disorder, and History, explores how
nothing,” Stout says. “It’s not so much says Forrester. “But 70 percent studies associating left-handedness
that we’re right-handed as that we of left-handers are identical in with a variety of mental conditions
have a characteristic division of labor organization to right-handers.” often fall apart under closer scrutiny.
between the hands.” And although “there’s an But as the scientiic view of left-
The right hand may do much of the evolutionary-genetic component to handedness as a pathology has lost
more noticeable work, such as writing it,” Stout says, “even the people who momentum, so too have claims that
or cutting up food, but the left hand is study the genetic basis of handedness left-handers are, on average, more
just as busy, often providing stability. don’t really know how it happens.” creative or more intelligent.
Forget headlines about inding That said, says Kushner, “I hang
NOT IN YOUR RIGHT MIND “the left-handed gene.” Science has around a lot of smart people, and the
Southpaws, if you’re wondering not reached a consensus about the number of left-handers is always more
how you and other lefties it role DNA plays in handedness — or than one would assume. It may have
into this evolutionary picture, so even that it originates in the brain. to do with resilience.”
are researchers. Last year, one team concluded that A lifetime of being seen as different
Once thought to be an aberration handedness actually arises in the — and dealing with such indignities
potentially caused by brain damage spinal cord. as right-handed scissors — may make
at birth, left-handedness may be Previous research has shown southpaws more adaptive, though we
more benign. Says Frayer: “I don’t that human embryos demonstrate have yet to turn up hard evidence.
think it’s a pathology. It’s part of a a preference for moving the left Frayer notes that even with
normal variation.” or right hand as early as 8 weeks. nearly 2 million years of hominin
And what does it mean to your Writing in the journal eLife in handedness in the fossil record,
brain to be left-handed? Maybe not as 2017, neuroscientists found that uncertainty about its causes and
much as researchers once thought. this preference appears to be seated consequences remains: “The key thing
You’ve probably heard the saying, in the spinal cord, which, at that is that we know right-handedness is
“Since the right side of the brain developmental stage, is not even commonly found in all populations
controls the left side of the body, only connected to the motor cortex, the [of our species] and that it differs from
MARIANOCECOWSKI VIA WIKIMEDIA
lefties are in their right mind.” Nope. brain’s movement control center. what we ind in chimps. To go any
We now know that handedness is not The team found that these early further is risky.” D
so closely correlated with how the signs of handedness appear to be
brain’s hemispheres divide tasks. linked to lopsided epigenetic activity: Senior Editor Gemma Tarlach writes, fences
“A lot of people think, ‘If I’m chemical changes that effectively and shoots left, but runs with scissors in her
left-handed, my brain is reversed,’ ” turn certain genes on or off without right hand.
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P32363
Out
here
As the Mighty
Quasars Flow
Are billions of black holes behind some of the universe’s
mysterious energy signals?
BY STEVE NADIS
→ Gaze up at the sky on a clear

night, far from the city lights,
and you might see the moon and some
its journey over the past 13.8 billion
years. Studying the CMB has led to
tremendous insights about the structure
stars, a few planets and maybe even and composition of our universe, its
the fuzzy glow of the Milky Way. “In exact age and even its shape.
between, there seems to be nothing but In the decades since, astronomers
emptiness and darkness,” says Xiawei have learned there’s much more
Wang, an astronomy graduate student to the unseen universe, inding
at Harvard University. “At least that background radiation at practically
was our view of the cosmos until 50 every wavelength observed. The
or so years ago when astronomers highest frequency and most energetic
realized that space background signals
was not as empty as Unlike the they’ve found are made
we once thought.” up of a form of light Black holes, such as the
In 1964, astronomers CMB, the called gamma rays, plus one in galaxy NGC 3783
illustrated above, are
were surprised to discover source of these exotic particles called some of nature’s most
prodigious spewers of
a uniform sea of radiation neutrinos and cosmic
coming from all directions, emissions is rays. And, unlike the
energy. Could that energy
be enough to account for
all the time. Later dubbed CMB, the source of a long-standing mystery?
the cosmic microwave still enigmatic. these emissions is still
background (CMB), this No one knows enigmatic. No one knows
low-energy light turned where they come from. but literally billions.
out to be the residual where they In three recent papers, It all comes down to a phenomenon
radiation from the Big Wang and her adviser, called quasar outlows.
Bang itself, cooled during
come from. Harvard astronomer
Avi Loeb, advanced a A CHORUS OF QUASARS
new idea that suggests Quasars are among the most luminous
not one source for this objects in the universe. Each one
high-energy background, greatly outshines the combined output FROM LEFT: NASA; NASA/WMAP SCIENCE TEAM; ESO/M. KORNMESSER
Initially discovered as unexplained signals picked

up by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell
Laboratories (above), the cosmic microwave
background (right) — the universe’s oldest light
— is now mapped with incredible accuracy.
eat, or shoot away in jets, it lings off
at relatively moderate speeds — a few
thousand miles per second, or about
1 percent the speed of light. After
interacting with the local gas, these
outlows can ultimately produce small
amounts of all three components of the
high-energy background: gamma rays,
neutrinos and cosmic rays.
Individual outlows don’t release
enough energy for us to notice, which
is why no one really considered them
before — but a big enough number of
them would add up. And in Wang and
Loeb’s scenario, the process is taking
place at every quasar in the universe.
A little energy times a lot of sources
could, in theory, produce all that
mysterious energy.
RUNNING THE NUMBERS

Wang and Loeb set out to see if the
numbers backed up their premise.
In 2015, they started by focusing on
gamma rays. Step one was trying to
determine the tiny amount coming
from each source. It wasn’t easy.
They had to approach the problem
theoretically because the emissions
from an individual quasar are actually
too weak for direct measurements.
Drawing upon emissions in other
of all the stars in their host galaxies. everything in sight; its mouth is wavelengths that they could observe for
(For instance, in 2015 astronomers simply not big enough. Some of the guidance, Wang and Loeb eventually
announced they’d found a quasar that surrounding material gets ejected in came up with an estimate.
shines some 400 trillion times brighter different ways. Ten percent of known The next step was to factor in
than our sun.) quasars shoot out matter — at more contributions from the billions of
All large galaxies have giant black than 99 percent of the speed of light — quasars in our universe to igure out
holes at their centers, and a quasar through a pair of spectacular jets. the total gamma-ray signal from all
forms when one actively starts feeding, Astronomers seeking a source for quasar outlows. This calculation was
pulling in matter like gas and dust. But that exotic, high-energy radiation took also complex, incorporating estimates
this stuff doesn’t fall directly into the a close look at these powerful jets. of the total number of quasars, their
black hole — it circles around the abyss But observations showed they weren’t general distribution in the sky and the
at ever-increasing speeds while spiraling enough: All the universe’s quasar jets range in observed brightness. (Brighter
inward. Eventually, the cosmic food could account for only about half the quasars emit more gamma rays.) In the
becomes so hot (from friction) that it gamma rays, and none of the neutrinos end, the total value Wang and Loeb
pours out light before some of it makes and cosmic rays. arrived at, miraculously, was about half
its way into the black hole. The object The unexplained emissions, the gamma-ray background signal —
that generates this prodigious amount according to Wang and Loeb, may perhaps comprising the “missing” half
of light — the black hole and cloud of stem from a more subtle feature of quasar jets could not explain.
debris swirling around it — is a quasar. every quasar: their milder but steadier Encouraged, they repeated this
But a black hole doesn’t eat outlows. What a black hole doesn’t exercise in late 2016 and early 2017

Out
here
An active black hole

lies at the center of
galaxy Centaurus A.
for neutrinos, and then “Sometimes, neutrinos and cosmic rays loud enough to drown out any of
cosmic rays. In both cases, are in the works. the dozens of individual string
their tallied sums closely the answers If their quasar outlow instruments in a full orchestra. But
matched experimentally idea is ultimately conirmed, when you put all the strings together,
obtained values for the to the it would do more than just their contribution is substantial. In
neutrino and cosmic- biggest clarify a long-standing the same way, the cumulative output
ray backgrounds. The astronomical puzzle. “It of quasar outlows could make a
numbers could work, questions would be another step difference on a cosmic scale.
suggesting they might have toward answering the So the next time you look at the
found the answer to the in science question of what’s out there night sky, “remember that what we
ESO/WFI/MPIFR/APEX/A.WEISS ET AL./NASA/CXC/CFA/R. KRAFT ET AL.
high-energy background lie in in the universe and where see with the naked eye is a tiny, tiny
problem. it comes from,” says Wang. fraction of the things happening in the
small and “Sometimes, the answers cosmos,” says Wang. Appreciating the
THE FULL SCORE to the biggest questions piano concerto of the universe involves
Unfortunately, the idea subtle things.” in science lie in small and learning to hear all the instruments, no
remains hypothetical subtle things. These less matter how faint and unimportant they
until astronomers can get direct visible entities are often neglected, but might seem. D
measurements of all three forms of in the aggregate, they can be brighter
radiation coming from a single quasar and more powerful.” Steve Nadis, a contributing editor to Discover
outlow. Luckily, more sensitive She compares the situation to and Astronomy, plays handball in Cambridge,
instruments for detecting gamma rays, a piano concerto. The piano is Massachusetts, where he also lives.
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20 Things You Didn’t Know About …
Kamoamoa,
Hawaii
Sand BY SYLVIA MORROW
Tunga penetrans, better
known as the sand flea.
1 Got sand? You probably do, in your kitchen pan- devastating in regions prone to tsunamis. Without
try. Sand is deined as any material made up of sandy buffers, the deadly waves are even more
grains within a speciic size range. Sugar and salt destructive, and a retreating tsunami drags sand into
Kangaroo
Island, Australia typically qualify. 2 Much less common, however, the ocean, aggravating the problem. 12 The process
is gypsum sand, which gives White Sands of digging up sand can also contaminate groundwa-
National Monument in New Mexico its name. The ter or drive it deeper underground. As a direct result
site’s unusually high concentration of the rare variety of the practice, farmers in Sri Lanka have dificulty
Lake Kariba, started out as a shallow seabed about 280 million inding clean water to grow crops. 13 When sandy
Zimbabwe years ago. 3 The material most commonly thought habitats are mined, plant and animal life can get car-
of as sand is silica, made of quartz crystals that have ried away with the haul and invade new areas, crowd-
broken down about as far as they will naturally, to ing out native wildlife. 14 Some nasty species live in
about a millimeter in diameter. 4 At the beach, silica sand, too, such as parasitic insects called sand leas.
COUNTERCLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; BIGFOOT PRODUCTIONS/SHUTTERSTOCK; XPIXEL/SHUTTERSTOCK; GREGORY G. DIMIJIAN/SCIENCE SOURCE (5); NASA
Apo Island, sand mixes with fragments of coral, shell and other These tiny monsters burrow into a person’s skin and
Philippines material of biological origin. 5 While sand of all stay there for up to two weeks, eventually spewing
sorts is usually made by material breaking down into hundreds of eggs. 15 Look closer, and you’ll see
smaller pieces, in water with high concentrations of even more life: In 2017, researchers at the Max
calcium carbonate or certain other minerals, the Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology found
opposite can happen. A tiny particle gets coated whole communities of assorted microbes living on
over time by the minerals, resulting in a special the surface of single grains of sand. 16 Another
type of sand grain called an oolith. 6 Members reason to look at the stuff close up: Sand forensics
of Palythoa, a genus of coral, can be up to experts can sometimes tell from the minerals present
Long Island, 65 percent sand by weight; they use the material in a sample, as well as features like grain size, where
New York
to build their frame, making them more resistant the sand originated. 17 The investigative subield
to climate change effects such as ocean acidiication. is far from perfect, however. A 2016 study found
Beach sand
varies widely in
7 Humans also use sand as a construction material, that sand samples collected from rubber-soled shoes
composition (above). mining huge quantities of it to make concrete. revealed only the most recent material the individual
Sand mining to 8 There’s such high demand that an illegal worldwide walked through. 18 That same year, another team
create man-made
islands (below), sand market has exploded in recent years. A 2013 analyzed samples from a scenic spot on the Turkish
causes environmental estimate valued the shady business at about $16 mil- coast called Cleopatra’s Beach. Legend has it Mark
damage.
lion a month. 9 India’s sand maia (yes, it’s a thing) Antony shipped barges of sand across the Mediter-
is notorious for using violence, bribery and ranean to create it for his queenly consort. The
coercion in the course of illegally collecting research results? Likely just a legend. 19 In modern
and selling the material. 10 More than times, large quantities of sand do get shipped across
legitimate business is at risk: Sand seas on a regular basis. Small coastal countries such
is a inite natural resource which, as Singapore and the United Arab Emirates have
like fossil fuels, takes centuries to imported vast quantities of sand to extend their land
form — and which humans are out in the ocean via man-made islands. 20 Builder
using at accelerating rates. In of countries and coral, highly sought and the stuff
2014, the U.N. Environmental of legends, sand is out of this world. Really. In 2016,
Program declared that sand min- researchers relied on measurements of sand dunes
ing was causing “unequivocal” past and present on Mars to better understand the
environmental problems. 11 A Red Planet’s ancient environment. D
2017 study linked the mining to
increased coastal erosion, especially Sylvia Morrow is a physicist at Vanderbilt University.
DISCOVER (ISSN 0274-7529, USPS# 555-190) is published monthly, except for combined issues in January/February and July/August. Vol. 39, no. 5. Published by Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027
Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Periodical postage paid at Waukesha, WI, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to DISCOVER, P.O. Box
62320, Tampa, FL 33662-2320. Canada Publication Agreement # 40010760. Back issues available. All rights reserved. Nothing herein contained may be reproduced without written permission of Kalmbach
Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Printed in the U.S.A.
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E R BY J U 5. Basic Structure of the Atom
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The Chemical Bond 40. Electron Exchange:
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ANCIENT THREAT AWAKENS P.36 I QUASARS’ MYSTERIOUS ENERGY P.

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Ancient permafrost is thawing

June 2018 DISCOVER 3

Helping Hands Was Science Wrong ®

man who collapses on a commuter Researchers try to get a grip on Flying

About Being Right?

A Little Blue Pill for Memory P.14

everyone honest. BY MARINA KRAKOVSKY mysterious signals emanate from

Stone Cold Fox

E very once in a while a timepiece comes along that’s so incredibly

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