Scientific American201908

ANIMAL RIVALS PAGE
46
FRINGE PHYSICS PAGE
58
How they decide whether to back off or brawl Wild ways to propel our species to the stars
SEA
CHANGE
The contest to control
the fast-melting Arctic
S
PLU
EVOLUTION VS. CANCER

A radical new approach
to drugs and prevention PAGE 52
THREE-BODY
PROBLEM AUGUST 2019
Can an ancient math ScientificAmerican.com
puzzle be solved? PAGE 66 © 2019 Scientific American

Au g u s t 2 0 1 9
VO LU M E 3 2 1 , N U M B E R 2
SP
EC I
AL REPO
RT
58
FU
C
TI
U
T
RE
C
R
OF THE A
26 Arctic Ambitions
28 Divide or Conquer
Five nations are using science
to assert rights to vast,
overlapping portions of
the Arctic Ocean seafloor.
By Mark Fischetti
34 Setting Boundaries
By Katie Peek
37 A New Reality
Climate change is dramatically
altering life at the top of the
world. By Mark Fischetti
38 Land of Change
By Katie Peek
40 Is Confrontation
Inevitable?
Political tensions are rising, but
cooperation could still prevail.
By Kathrin Stephen
44 The Busy North
By Katie Peek PHYSIC S
58 The Good Kind of Crazy
A N I M A L B E H AV I O R Traditional rockets won’t get us
46 When Animals Fight to the stars. With NASA backing,
Conventional wisdom holds that some scientists are pushing against
the ability to assess a rival’s fighting the edges of physics to find out
ability is universal in the animal what far-fetched ideas will.
kingdom. Recent research has By Sarah Scoles
shown otherwise. By Gareth Arnott M AT H E M AT I C S ON tHE C OVE R
and Robert W. Elwood 66 The Three-Body Problem Sea ice breaks apart on June 6, 2019, in the
Amundsen Gulf, far into the Arctic Ocean
MEDICINE Mathematicians know they can above Canada’s Northwest Territories. The
52 Darwin’s Cancer Fix never fully “solve” this ancient thawing seas have inspired Arctic states and
Principles of evolution and natural puzzle. That hasn’t stopped other countries to vie for seafloor rights to oil
selection drive a radical new drug them from studying it—and and natural gas deposits, shipping lanes and
even military positioning in the high north.
approach and prevention strategies. making intriguing discoveries Photograph by NASA Earth Observing
By James DeGregori and along the way. System Data and Information System
Robert Gatenby By Richard Montgomery (https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov)
Photograph by Spencer Lowell August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 1
© 2019 scientific American

4 From the Editor
6 Letters
8 Science Agenda
Give researchers the resources they need to find
solutions to the gun violence epidemic. By the Editors
10 Forum
A wild fix for climate change that just might work.
By Rob Jackson and Pep Canadell
12 Advances
What makes great white sharks afraid. Reporting sexual
harassment comes at a cost. Predicting space weather
8 blackouts. A breathing bag that could save lives.
22 The Science of Health

Preventing allergies in children. By Claudia Wallis
24 Ventures
We must match the breakneck speed of 20th-century
world-changing technologies. By Wade Roush
76 Recommended
Air pollution kills. A dream of the periodic table of ele-
ments. The Ebola saga continues. By Andrea Gawrylewski
77 The Intersection
Kids shouldn’t necessarily learn to code. By Zeynep Tufekci
12 78 Anti Gravity
Can we do physics with math alone? By Steve Mirsky
79 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago

80 Graphic Science
Viruses are thriving in Arctic waters. By Mark Fischetti
and Jen Christiansen
ON THE WEB
Water, Water Everywhere

The closer scientists look at Mars, the more evidence they find
that this freeze-dried world once harbored aqueous abundance.
But just how much water exists on the Red Planet today?
Go to www.ScientificAmerican.com/aug2019/water-on-mars
76
Scientific American (ISSN 0036-8733), Volume 321, Number 2, August 2019, published monthly by Scientific American, a division of Springer Nature America, Inc., 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, N.Y. 10004-1562.
Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40012504. Canadian BN No. 127387652RT; TVQ1218059275
TQ0001. Publication Mail Agreement #40012504. Return undeliverable mail to Scientific American, P.O. Box 819, Stn Main, Markham, ON L3P 8A2. Individual Subscription rates: 1 year $49.99 (USD), Canada $59.99 (USD),
International $69.99 (USD). Institutional Subscription rates: Schools and Public Libraries: 1 year $84 (USD), Canada $89 (USD), International $96 (USD). Businesses and Colleges/Universities: 1 year $399 (USD), Canada
$405 (USD), International $411 (USD). Postmaster: Send address changes to Scientific American, Box 3187, Harlan, Iowa 51537. Reprints inquiries: (212) 451-8415. To request single copies or back issues, call
(800) 333-1199. Subscription inquiries: U.S. and Canada (800) 333-1199; other (515) 248-7684. Send e-mail to [email protected].
Printed in U.S.A. Copyright © 2019 by Scientific American, a division of Springer Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains
a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
2 Scientific American, August 2019
© 2019 scientific American

FROM
THE EDITOR Mariette DiChristina is editor in chief of Scientific American.
Follow her on Twitter @mdichristina
What’s Next and other so-called greenhouse gases are affecting climate is the
story of our shared human experience globally. We at Scientific
American look at various impacts nearly daily online and in ev-
for the Arctic? ery print issue. In this edition, we present a special report and
cover story, “Future of the Arctic,” starting on page 26.
Coordinated by senior editor Mark Fischetti, the package
In 1894 John William Strutt, Lord looks at the geopolitical consequences of a fast-melting re-
Rayleigh—who later went on to gar- gion: how different countries are vying for control (“Di-
ner the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics— vide or Conquer,” by Fischetti), how rapid environ-
penned an appreciation in Scientific mental alterations are transforming life at the pu-
American about the work of John Tyn- tative top of the world (“A New Reality,” by
dall, an Irish physics professor, mathe- Fischetti), and what to do about rising politi-
matician, geologist, atmospheric scientist, cal tensions (“Is Confrontation Inevitable?”
public lecturer and mountaineer. by political scientist and scientific group
“The most important work,” Strutt wrote, leader Kathrin Stephen).
“that we owe to Tyndall in connection with Not all change is so far-reaching,
heat is the investigation of the absorption by of course. On a more prosaic note,
gaseous bodies of invisible radiation.” Tyndall’s I’ll soon become dean of the Col-
work showed the power of gases such as water lege of Communication at Boston
vapor and “carbonic acid”—today known as car- University, my alma mater. I love
bon dioxide—to absorb heat and later speculated Scientific American and am hugely grateful
on such gases’ effect on climate. Strutt himself re- for the privilege of my 18 years here, with the past
peated some of the experiments. As he wrote in his decade as its editor in chief (and first woman in the role since
1894 article: “When we replace the air by a stream of its founding in 1845). At the same time, I feel passionate about
coal gas, the galvanometer indicates an augmentation of heat, supporting young minds to help shape a better future for us all.
so that we have before us a demonstration that coal gas when In other words, I’ll be pursuing essentially the same mission of
heated does radiate more than equally hot air, from which we learning and sharing that knowledge—but from a different van-
conclude that it would exercise more absorption than air.” tage point. I’ll remain a contributor to Scientific American.
Today it is not a stretch to say that the way carbon dioxide More next month.
BOARD OF ADVISERS
Leslie C. Aiello Drew Endy Alison Gopnik Satyajit Mayor Daniela Rus
President, Wenner-Gren Foundation Professor of Bioengineering, Professor of Psychology and Senior Professor, Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor
for Anthropological Research Stanford University Affiliate Professor of Philosophy, National Center for Biological Sciences, of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Robin E. Bell Nita A. Farahany University of California, Berkeley Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Science and Director, CSAIL, M.I.T.
Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Professor of Law and Philosophy, Lene Vestergaard Hau John P. Moore Eugenie C. Scott
Earth Observatory, Columbia University Director, Duke Initiative for Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of Microbiology and Chair, Advisory Council,
Emery N. Brown Science & Society, Duke University of Applied Physics, Harvard University Immunology, Weill Medical College
Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical National Center for Science Education
Edward W. Felten Hopi E. Hoekstra of Cornell University
Engineering and of Computational Neuro- Director, Center for Information Terry Sejnowski
Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Priyamvada Natarajan
science, M.I.T., and Warren M. Zapol Prof- Technology Policy, Princeton University Professor and Laboratory Head of
Harvard University Professor of Astronomy and Physics,
essor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical Computational Neurobiology Laboratory,
Jonathan Foley Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Yale University
School Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Executive Director and William R. and Founder and CEO, Ocean Collectiv Donna J. Nelson
Vinton G. Cerf Gretchen B. Kimball Chair, California
Chief Internet Evangelist, Google Christof Koch Professor of Chemistry, Meg Urry
Academy of Sciences
Emmanuelle Charpentier President and CSO, University of Oklahoma Israel Munson Professor of Physics
Jennifer Francis and Astronomy, Yale University
Scientific Director, Max Planck Institute Allen Institute for Brain Science Robert E. Palazzo
Senior Scientist,
for Infection Biology, and Founding
Woods Hole Research Center
Morten L. Kringelbach Dean, University of Alabama at Michael E. Webber
and Acting Director, Max Planck Unit Associate Professor and Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,
for the Science of Pathogens Kaigham J. Gabriel
Senior Research Fellow, The Queen’s Rosalind Picard and Associate Professor,
President and Chief Executive Officer,
George M. Church College, University of Oxford Professor and Director, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory
Director, Center for Computational Robert S. Langer Affective Computing, M.I.T. Media Lab University of Texas at Austin
Genetics, Harvard Medical School Harold “Skip” Garner
Executive Director and Professor, Primary David H. Koch Institute Professor, Carolyn Porco George M. Whitesides
Rita Colwell Department of Chemical Engineering, Leader, Cassini Imaging Science Team,
Care Research Network and Center for Professor of Chemistry and Chemical
Distinguished University Professor, M.I.T. and Director, CICLOPS, Space Science
University of Maryland College Park Bioinformatics and Genetics, Edward Via Biology, Harvard University
College of Osteopathic Medicine Meg Lowman Institute
and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Amie Wilkinson
of Public Health Michael S. Gazzaniga Director and Founder, TREE Foundation, Lisa Randall
Rachel Carson Fellow, Ludwig Maximilian Professor of Physics, Harvard University Professor of Mathematics,
Kate Crawford Director, Sage Center for the Study of
University Munich, and Research Martin Rees University of Chicago
Director of Research and Co-founder, Mind, University of California,
AI Now Institute, and Distinguished Santa Barbara Professor, University of Science Malaysia Astronomer Royal and Professor Anton Zeilinger
Research Professor, New York University, Carlos Gershenson John Maeda of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Professor of Quantum Optics, Quantum
and Principal Researcher, Research Professor, National Global Head, Computational Design + Institute of Astronomy, Nanophysics, Quantum Information,
Microsoft Research New York City Autonomous University of Mexico Inclusion, Automattic, Inc. University of Cambridge University of Vienna
4 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Nick Higgins
© 2019 Scientific American

LETTERS
[email protected]
ORGAN REPAIRS
The forgotten compound that can
repair damaged tissue PAGE 56
DENGUE DEBACLE
A vaccination program
gone wrong PAGE 38
HOW EELS GET ELECTRIC
Insights into their shocking
attack mechanisms PAGE 62
“Inspiration for the Inspiration for that experiment came
from Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dix-
Cavendish experiment on’s work to settle the boundary between
came from Charles Pennsylvania and Maryland. Cavendish
found that the plumb bobs they were us-
Mason and Jeremiah ing for the survey were affected by the Al-
Dixon’s work to settle legheny Mountains.
Mark Arnold via e-mail
MIND READER the boundary between
A new brain-machine interface detects what the user wants
Pennsylvania and Folger states that one of the significant
problems in doing quantum gravity experi-
Maryland.” ments is “the need for large superpositions
mark arnold via e-mail that last for seconds at a time and stay close
enough together so that gravity can entan-
gle them.” Achieving that scenario, such as
S
PLU
QUANTUM
and Sebastian Bonhoeffer, both then at the with one proposed experiment involving
GRAVITY University of Oxford, working with virolo- micron-wide diamond spheres, is difficult
IN A LAB
Could new experiments
pull it off? PAGE 48 gist George Shaw and others, published in a laboratory because the earth’s gravity is
April 2019 analyses and conclusions in the same 1995 enormous as compared with micron-sized
issue of Nature that were essentially iden- objects. And if you let objects fall in a vacu-
tical to those in the report by Perelson and um, as in the proposed diamond sphere ex-
THE BODY ELECTRIC his colleague David Ho. Their contribu- periment, the required length of the shaft
I enjoyed reading “Shock and Awe,” Ken- tions should not be overlooked. grows as the square of the duration.
neth C. Catania’s article on the electric eel. Strogatz’s statement that calculus “led It seems like such experiments could
I’m curious about what was done to deter- to triple-combination therapy [for HIV]” be carried out in an almost zero-g envi-
mine how the eel is protected from shock- also does not truly reflect the events of the ronment such as the International Space
ing itself. My guess is that the nervous sys- time. The various mathematical calcula- Station or even in a small test satellite.
tem is somehow insulated or shielded. tions did not drive the development of Then the duration could easily run to a
Bruce Rogers via e-mail multidrug combination therapy, although day or more, and the experiment could be
they did eventually guide how the drugs done multiple times.
CATANIA REPLIES: Rogers is in good might best be used. The key factor in effec- Robert H. Beeman Coral Springs, Fla.
company: lots of people are curious about tively suppressing HIV replication in vivo
why these eels don’t shock themselves— was the clinical development of protease Why does gravity have to exist at the
including me. No one seems to know the inhibitors in the decade preceding the two quantum level?
details, but I think Rogers is on the right 1995 papers. Bill Yancey St. Augustine, Fla.
track. It seems inevitable there are paths The complex series of events that took
of very low resistance, along with areas of place in the early 1990s, along with the FOLGER REPLIES: I had considered open-
electrical insulation, within the animals contributions made by many people, have ing my article with an anecdote similar to
(we do know the latter exists around their been thoroughly summarized in review Arnold’s: In the early 1770s British scientist
electrocytes—the biological batteries). But articles. Yet contemporaneous coverage by Nevil Maskelyne trekked to Schiehallion, a
I can say this much: the eels are just bare- the media has skewed public perceptions mountain in Scotland. Maskelyne wanted
ly protecting themselves. Sometimes an eel of what happened in the critical period to see if the mountain’s mass would deflect a
that has curled itself to amplify the electri- when HIV infection transitioned from be- plum bob and then use the result to estimate
cal effect on its prey ends up activating its ing almost always fatal to becoming a the earth’s density. The result, as calculated
own fins with each high-voltage volley. So manageable, chronic disease. Strogatz’s from Maskelyne’s data by mathematician
the experience is at least mildly shocking, article reinforces the oversimplification of Charles Hutton, was less than 20 percent
even to the eel. these important historical events. off today’s accepted value. Maskelyne’s
John P. Moore Weill Cornell Medicine work shows how ingenious Cavendish was:
HISTORY OF HIV TREATMENT and a member of Scientific American’s he didn’t need to use a mountain as a test
In “Outsmarting a Virus with Math,” Ste- Board of Advisers mass—only the heavy spheres in his shed.
ven Strogatz writes about the mathematics Regarding Beeman’s suggestion: Phys-
of HIV replication in humans (excerpted MASON-DIXON GRAVITAS icists have proposed a space mission
from his book Infinite Powers). He rightly “Quantum Gravity in the Lab,” by Tim Fol- to test quantum superpositions, called
praises immunologist Alan Perelson’s cal- ger, mentions the late 18th-century experi- MAQRO. But it hasn’t been funded yet.
culus skills in dissecting clinical data from ment in which British scientist Henry Cav- In answer to Yancey: If gravity doesn’t
antiviral drug trials. But Martin Nowak endish measured the mass of the earth. exist at the quantum level, then why does

ESTABLISHED 1845
EDITOR IN CHIEF AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

Mariette DiChristina
MANAGING EDITOR Curtis Brainard COPY DIRECTOR Maria-Christina Keller CREATIVE DIRECTOR Michael Mrak
it exist at our level? Where gravity comes
EDITORIAL
from—what its fundamental nature is—is
CHIEF FEATURES EDITOR Seth Fletcher CHIEF NEWS EDITOR Dean Visser CHIEF OPINION EDITOR Michael D. Lemonick
what physicists are trying to find out. FEATURES
SENIOR EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Mark Fischetti SENIOR EDITOR, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY Madhusree Mukerjee
SENIOR EDITOR, CHEMISTRY / POLICY / BIOLOGY Josh Fischman SENIOR EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY / MIND Jen Schwartz
TALKING ABOUT SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Clara Moskowitz SENIOR EDITOR, EVOLUTION / ECOLOGY Kate Wong
REGENERATION NEWS
SENIOR EDITOR, MIND / BRAIN Gary Stix ASSOCIATE EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY Sophie Bushwick
In “A Shot at Regeneration,” Kevin Strange SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Lee Billings ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Andrea Thompson
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, HEALTH AND MEDICINE Tanya Lewis
and Viravuth Yin discuss the compound
DIGITAL CONTENT
MSI-1436, which removes limits to the SENIOR EDITOR, MULTIMEDIA Steve Mirsky ENGAGEMENT EDITOR Sunya Bhutta
SENIOR EDITOR, COLLECTIONS Andrea Gawrylewski
body’s ability to regenerate cells by block-
ART
ing the enzyme protein tyrosine phos- ART DIRECTOR Jason Mischka SENIOR GRAPHICS EDITOR Jen Christiansen
phatase 1B (PTP1B). The article speaks of PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Monica Bradley ART DIRECTOR, ONLINE Ryan Reid
ASSOCIATE GRAPHICS EDITOR Amanda Montañez ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Liz Tormes
research being directed toward muscular
dystrophy. I am wondering if application COPY AND PRODUC TION
SENIOR COPY EDITOR Daniel C. Schlenoff SENIOR COPY EDITOR Aaron Shattuck
research on MSI-1436 would be appro- MANAGING PRODUCTION EDITOR Richard Hunt PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER Silvia De Santis
priate for arthritis or crippling spinal D I G I TA L
cord injuries. PRODUCT MANAGER Ian Kelly SENIOR WEB PRODUCER Jessica Ramirez
CONTRIBUTOR S
Chris Sfhofield via e-mail
EDITORIAL David Biello, Lydia Denworth, W. Wayt Gibbs, Ferris Jabr,
Anna Kuchment, Robin Lloyd, Melinda Wenner Moyer, George Musser,
Christie Nicholson, John Rennie, Ricki L. Rusting
STRANGE REPLIES: PTP1B is expressed ART Edward Bell, Bryan Christie, Lawrence R. Gendron, Nick Higgins, Katie Peek
in virtually all tissue and cell types, where
EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Ericka Skirpan SENIOR SECRETARY Maya Harty
it functions to inhibit receptor tyrosine
kinase (RTK) signaling. RTKs activate
PRESIDENT
multiple cellular processes that must work Dean Sanderson
together in a coordinated manner for re- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Michael Florek
generation to occur. By inhibiting PTP1B,
CLIENT MARKETING SOLUTIONS
MSI-1436 thus enhances the activity of VICE PRESIDENT, COMMERCIAL Andrew Douglas
PUBLISHER AND VICE PRESIDENT Jeremy A. Abbate
diverse, RTK-regulated cellular pathways MARKETING DIRECTOR, INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIPS AND CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT Jessica Cole
required for tissue regeneration. Given PROGRAMMATIC PRODUCT MANAGER Zoya Lysak
DIRECTOR, INTEGRATED MEDIA Jay Berfas
this arrangement, we suspect MSI-1436 DIRECTOR, INTEGRATED MEDIA Matt Bondlow
MANAGER, GLOBAL MEDIA ALLIANCES Brendan Grier
may have various disease indications SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR, EXECUTIVE SERVICES May Jung
whereby stimulating tissue repair and re- CONSUMER MARKETING
generation would be therapeutically valu- HEAD, MARKETING AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT Richard Zinken
MARKETING MANAGER Chris Monello
able. But a great deal of very careful sci- SENIOR COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS COORDINATOR Christine Kaelin
ence must be carried out before we know ANCILL ARY PRODUC TS
for certain. Our work to date has been fo- ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Diane McGarvey
CUSTOM PUBLISHING EDITOR Lisa Pallatroni
cused on heart and skeletal muscle injury. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS MANAGER Felicia Ruocco
C O R P O R AT E
BIPARTISAN CLIMATE ACTION HEAD, COMMUNICATIONS, USA Rachel Scheer
“Feverish Planet,” by Tanya Lewis [Advanc- PRINT PRODUC TION
es, March 2019], covers the direct health PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Madelyn Keyes-Milch ADVERTISING PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Dan Chen
effects of global warming. Remedies are

only briefly touched on: phasing out coal
LE T TER S TO THE EDITOR
and carbon-based fuels in vehicles. But
Scientific American, 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004-1562 or [email protected]
how do we do this? Letters may be edited for length and clarity. We regret that we cannot answer each one.
For the U.S., there is a simple answer: Join the conversation online—visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter.
pass the Energy Innovation and Carbon H O W T O C O N TA C T U S
Dividend Act, which is already in the Subscriptions Reprints Permissions
House of Representatives, with bipartisan For new subscriptions, renewals, gifts, To order bulk reprints of articles For permission to copy or reuse material:
payments, and changes of address: (minimum of 1,000 copies): Permissions Department, Scientific
support. The act taxes carbon emissions U.S. and Canada, 800-333-1199; American, 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4600,
Reprint Department,
and returns the funds to every U.S. resi- outside North America, 515-248-7684 or New York, NY 10004-1562; [email protected];
Scientific American,
www.ScientificAmerican.com www.ScientificAmerican.com/permissions.
dent. Climate scientists and economists 1 New York Plaza, Please allow three to six weeks for processing.
Submissions
have endorsed this concept. And the “cash To submit article proposals, follow the
Suite 4600,
Advertising
guidelines at www.ScientificAmerican.com. New York, NY www.ScientificAmerican.com has electronic
back” will appeal to voters and therefore
Click on “Contact Us.” 10004-1562; contact information for sales representatives
to members of Congress. We cannot return and are not responsible 212-451-8415. of Scientific American in all regions of
Charles M. Bagley, Jr. Seattle for materials delivered to our office. For single copies of back issues: 800-333-1199. the U.S. and in other countries.
August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 7

SCIENCE AGENDA
O PINI O N A N D A N A LYS I S FR OM
S C IENTIFIC A MERIC AN ’ S B OA R D O F E D ITO R S
Gun Research
Needs More
Firepower
A new bill promises millions of dollars
for lifesaving studies, and scientists
should use it wisely
By the Editors
When bullets fired from a passing car sliced through the St.
Louis night one Sunday in June, they hit two children, killing
three-year-old Kenndei Powell and seriously wounding anoth-
er little girl, age six. Police in the Missouri city were not imme-
diately able to identify or find the shooter, and Powell joined
the grim ranks of the 36,000 people killed by guns every year in
the U.S., on average. An additional 100,000 are injured. county or state to laws in another, for instance. But none has
That adds up to 136,000 Americans harmed or killed annual- had the power of large investigations that look at the effects of
ly by gun violence. Worse, the death side of this sad ledger is various kinds of interventions across the entire country and that
growing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Pre- involve tens of thousands of people. This is the kind of science
vention, in an upward trend that began in 2015. While mass that showed us the safety and health advantages of using seat
shootings in Sutherland Springs, Tex., or Parkland, Fla., dominate belts, quitting smoking and reducing air pollution.
headlines, people such as the St. Louis children, cut down singly Experts have identified many areas where our firearms igno-
or by twos or threes, make up the bulk of the victims. Guns are a rance is killing us, gaps that scientists should now move to fill.
clear and present danger in this country, where there are about For one, we cannot answer basic questions about people who
393 million civilian-owned firearms—more than enough to put commit gun violence—the percentage of them who legally pos-
one in the hands of every man, woman and child and amounting sessed the guns they used, for example, or how those firearms
to the highest rate of gun ownership in the world by far. were acquired. Studies of possession and acquisition patterns
The tremendous toll makes gun violence a huge public health would give us a sober assessment of whether existing permit-
problem. Yet unlike other pressing health threats, Americans have ting, licensing or background-check laws are actually being
few ideas about the most effective prevention strategies because used to disarm dangerous people—including those who intend
there has been almost no large-scale research on the issue. to harm themselves through suicide.
All that could change this year. In an appropriations bill this We also need information on the best ways to stop under-
spring, the U.S. House of Representatives included $50 million ground gun markets, where weapons are often sold to people
to be used for such studies by the cdc and the National Insti- who cannot obtain them from a licensed gun shop. The way to
tutes of Health—the first time in decades that this kind of sup- get a solid answer is through research that traces guns in a large
port has been given. If the U.S. Senate concurs and the bill number of cities with regulations of varying strictness. There is
becomes law, researchers need to jump at this opportunity. also a crying need to evaluate violence-prevention policies and
Congress created the research gap in the first place, so it is programs based on data about individuals who participate in
right for Congress to fix it. In 1996, after a series of studies large randomized controlled trials—the scientific gold standard
linked gun ownership to increased violence and crime and for determining causes and effects.
prompted an antiresearch campaign from the National Rifle None of this research infringes on Second Amendment
Association of America (NRA), legislators inserted language rights to firearm ownership. It does, however, promote other,
into the cdc’s budget bill that said no money could be used to unalienable rights set out in our Declaration of Independence—
“promote gun control.” Congress also zeroed out the agency’s “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”—and helps to stop
budget for firearms research. The message was clear, and feder- them from being taken away at gunpoint.
ally supported science in this area ground to a halt.
JOIN T HE CONVERSAT ION ONLINE
Since then, dozens of small-scale studies have been carried Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
out—research comparing the effects of licensing laws in one or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]
8 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Brian Stauffer

Pep Canadell
FORUM Rob Jackson chairs
Stanford University’s is a staff scientist
C OMM E N TA RY O N S C IE N C E IN
T H E N E W S FR OM T H E E X PE R T S Earth system at CSIRO in Australia
science department and executive
and the Global director of the Global
Carbon Project. Carbon Project.
A Crazy-Sounding
landfills and rice paddies; emerges from the digestive systems of
cattle and from the manure piles they leave behind; and more.
The good news about methane is that it remains in the atmo-
Climate Fix sphere for a far shorter time than CO2 does. The bad news is that
methane is vastly more efficient at trapping heat—more than 80
times more, in the first 20 years after its release—which makes
We should convert methane, a more it, pound for pound, a bigger problem than carbon.
We want to remove methane from the air and then use porous
powerful greenhouse gas, into CO2 materials called zeolites to turn it into carbon dioxide. Zeolites
By Rob Jackson and Pep Canadell can trap copper, iron and other metals that can act as catalysts
to replace methane’s four hydrogen atoms with two oxygens.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere blew past 415 parts per Because a methane molecule holds more energy than carbon
million this past May. The last time levels were this high, two dioxide, the reaction typically runs to completion if you can
or three million years ago, the oceans rose tens of meters, jump-start it. Furthermore, by releasing the carbon dioxide back
something likely to happen again as Earth’s ice melts over the into the air instead of capturing it, you make the process less
next 1,000 years. expensive and lengthen the life of the zeolites.
To replace bad news with action, we need hope—a vision for Researchers around the world are already studying zeolites
restoring the atmosphere. Think about the Endangered Species and other materials to convert methane to methanol, a valuable
Act: it does not stop at saving plants and animals from extinc- feedstock for the chemical industry. Making methanol is a halfway
tion; it helps them recover. When we see gray whales breaching point in our reaction, tacking one oxygen atom onto each meth-
on their way to Alaska every spring, grizzly bears ambling across ane molecule. No one seems to have considered finishing the job
a Yellowstone meadow, bald eagles and peregrine falcons riding by making carbon dioxide in the same way because carbon diox-
updrafts, we are celebrating a planet restored. Our goal for the ide is not valuable like methanol. We should consider it now.
atmosphere should be the same. Another surprise about our proposal is that you could restore
the atmosphere by removing “only” three billion met-
ric tons of methane. Doing so would generate a few
months’ worth of industrial carbon dioxide emissions
but eliminate up to one sixth of overall warming. That
is a good trade by any measure.
What we propose will not be easy to accomplish.
Methane is uncommon: whereas the atmosphere cur-
rently holds more than 400 molecules of carbon dioxide
for every million molecules of air, methane accounts for
only two or so out of a million. That makes pulling it
from the atmosphere harder than keeping it from enter-
ing in the first place. We will need other things to work
as well. To give companies, governments and individu-
als financial incentives to do this, there has to be a price
on carbon or a policy mandate to pay for removing
methane. We also need research on the large arrays
needed to capture methane from air. And of course, we
need to fix methane leaks and limit emissions from oth-
er human sources. But we cannot eliminate those emis-
sions entirely, so we would have to continue removing
As leaders of the Global Carbon Project, we have spent our methane from the atmosphere indefinitely.
careers working to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Today we Restoration of all the gases in the atmosphere to preindustri-
are making what may at first seem like a counterintuitive pro- al levels may seem unlikely today, but we believe it will occur
posal: we want to increase carbon dioxide emissions temporar- eventually. Such a goal provides a positive framework for change
ily to cleanse the atmosphere of a much more powerful green- at a time when climate action is sorely needed. Stabilizing glob-
house gas. al warming at 1.5 or two degrees Celsius is not enough. We need
Stick with us here. the planet to recover.
We are not saying increasing CO2 is a good thing in and of
itself. The gas that concerns us is methane, which leaks from Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
wells and pipelines; bubbles up when organic matter rots in or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]
10 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Francesco Ciccolella

ADVANCES
Even fearsome great white sharks may steer

clear of an area when orcas are close by.

D I S PATC H E S FR OM T H E FR O N TIE R S O F S C IE N C E , T E C H N O LO GY A N D M E D I C IN E IN S ID E
• Rivers, interrupted: how humans

restrict water flow
• Babies know what friendly laughter
sounds like
• UV lights keep birds at bay
• A faster method for imaging the brain
A N I M A L B E H AV I O R
Scaredy-
Sharks
Even great whites may have
something to fear
Salvador Jorgensen has spent more than

15 years studying great white sharks near
California’s coast. The senior research sci-
entist from the Monterey Bay Aquarium
and his team have attached tracking tags to
165 of the toothy predators, which routinely
visit islands west of San Francisco and prey
on elephant seals. But something odd hap-
pened one autumn: “In 2009, 17 of those
tagged white sharks were simultaneously
swimming around the Farallon Islands,
when they abruptly departed. Not just one
or two but all 17, in a matter of hours,” Jor-
gensen recalls. “Normally the sharks hang
around for weeks or months at a time.” So
why did they flee? Great white sharks are
perhaps the most widely feared predators
in the ocean, but it turns out they may have
RODRIGO FRISCIONE Getty Images
something to fear, too: orcas, also known as

killer whales.
Jorgensen and his colleagues drew this
conclusion in a recent study that combined
their shark-tagging data with a nearly
three-decade survey of wildlife abundance
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter

ADVANCES
around Southeast Farallon Island. Great

whites have been seen abandoning this
prime feeding area when killer whales come
too close for comfort—even if the mammals
are simply passing through for a few hours.
And the sharks do not just disappear for a
day or two—they stay away for the entire
season. Researchers recorded a fourfold to
sevenfold reduction in the number of ele-
phant seals killed by great white sharks dur-
ing years in which they were scared away.
The findings were described in a study pub-
lished in April in Scientific Reports.
Sharks have existed for at least 450 mil-
lion years, whereas cetaceans (whales and
dolphins) evolved just 50 million years ago.
“For sharks to have survived and thrived in
our ocean for so long, they have their bag
of tricks,” Jorgensen says. “One of those
tricks is knowing when to fold.” What was
An orca (killer whale) feeding on herring.
particularly surprising to him is that it can
take almost a full year before the sharks
feel comfortable returning. Some orcas feeding opportunities at the Farallon the orcas came and left, these sharks
specialize in eating salmon and other fish; Islands suggests that going elsewhere is showed up. “But they just poked [around]
others prefer pinnipeds (a group that preferable to sticking around and facing and left almost immediately,” he says. Per-
includes seals and walruses), and a third the risk—however slight—of becoming an haps they somehow sensed that the orcas
type feasts on sharks. At least one orca has orca’s next meal. were—or had recently been—in the area.
been observed killing and eating an adult Scientists are not sure how the sharks Ecologists often use the phrase “land-
white shark at the Farallon Islands, back in detect the orcas. The waters around the scape of fear” to describe the way preda-
1997. It is not clear whether the sharks Farallon Islands are murky, and great tors influence the movements and behav-
iors of their prey, resulting in a cascade of
impacts on the ecosystem. For example,
“[Sharks] have their bag of tricks. in one recent experiment, island-dwelling
raccoons that heard dogs barking spent
One of those tricks is knowing less time foraging on beaches and around
tide pools. That led to increases in fish,
when to fold.” worm and crab communities. And that in
turn led to decreases in snails—easy prey
—Salvador Jorgensen Senior research for a growing crab population.
How the sharks’ avoidance of orcas
scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium might likewise be affecting marine ecosys-
tems remains a mystery. “We know very
little about how these apex predators
avoid orcas out of fear of getting eaten or whites have been seen escaping the area might interact with each other in the wild
because they compete over the same seal even when their adversaries were far ocean,” Jorgensen says. That is in part
prey. Either way, this extreme caution may beyond sight or hearing range. Jorgensen because white sharks, orcas and elephant
simply be a prudent survival strategy for says the most likely explanation is that the seals are all still recovering from a century
the sharks. sharks “were able to smell something in the of mistreatment by humans. “The assump-
The eastern Pacific great whites do water that alerted them.” They could be tion is [these interactions] have been there
have other hunting grounds. “There’s a lot sniffing out the orcas themselves or some historically—it’s just that all these animals
more feeding habitat for white sharks chemical cue given off by another stressed- were basically eliminated from the ecosys-
because the [pinniped] rookeries are out shark after a run-in, he says. This idea tem for more than 100 years,” Lowe says.
GERARD SOURY Getty Images
expanding,” thanks to intensive conserva- has some support: Jorgensen and his col- “There’s no reason to believe that orcas
tion efforts, says ecologist Chris Lowe of leagues monitored the movements of a weren’t [hunting] both seals and sharks
California State University, Long Beach, group of great white sharks that were hun- 300 or 400 years ago, before people really
who was not involved with the new study. dreds of kilometers away from the Farallon started exploiting those animals.”
The sharks’ willingness to give up good Islands when orcas arrived. Sometime after —Jason G. Goldman

IN THE NEWS CANADA CHINA
Billion-year-old fungi have been found in the Scientists unearthed a fossil in 2017, in the north-
Quick Canadian Arctic with the use of radioactive dating
techniques. Previously the oldest known fungus fossils
eastern province of Liaoning, of a bat-winged
dinosaur that lived 163 million years ago. The size
Hits dated back to fewer than 500 million years ago. of a small bird, Ambopteryx longibrachium had
membranous wings very diffdifferent
erent from those of
By Tanya Lewis
other feathered dinosaurs.
U.S. AUSTRALIA
Washington became the first
first In what some experts view as a
state to allow human bodies setback for climate change action,
to be composted. The process, Australians voted to retain Prime
which turns a body into soil Minister Scott Morrison and his
over several weeks, is seen by right-wing Liberal-National
some as a greener alternative coalition. The opposition Labor
to cremation or burial. party had pledged, if elected, to
cut greenhouse gas emissions by
45 percent of 2005 levels by 2030.
BOTSWANA
The country’s government lifted
a five-year-old
five-year-old ban on hunting
elephants for sport, after a committee
found a “negative impact of the INDIAN OCEAN
hunting suspension on livelihoods.” Seafloor
Seafl oor mapping revealed the largest underwater eruption ever
observed, at a submarine volcano between continental Africa
For more details, visit
and Madagascar. Starting last year, it created a mound towering
www.ScientificAmerican.com/aug2019/advances 800 meters above the seabed in just six months, researchers say.

ADVANCES
H Y D R O LO G Y Number of the World’s Free-Flowing Rivers and Non-Free-Flowing Rivers
(greater than 1,000 kilometers long)
Damming Africa
Evidence Asia
Human infrastructure
restricts many of Free-flowing rivers
the world’s longest rivers Australia Connected to oceans
Not connected to oceans
Rivers are terrestrial arteries for the Non-free-flowing rivers
Europe
nutrients, sediment and freshwater that Connected to oceans
sustain healthy, diverse ecosystems. Their Not connected to oceans
influence extends in multiple dimensions— North America
not only along their length but below-
ground to aquifers and periodically into
nearby floodplains. South America
They also provide vital services for peo-
ple by fertilizing agricultural land and feed- 0 10 20 30 40 50
ing key fisheries and by acting as transpor-
Graphics by Melissa Thomas Baum, Buckyball Design
tation corridors. But in efforts to ease ship
passage, protect communities from flood-
ing, and siphon off water for drinking and dams or levees) to water consumption— Conversely, most rivers shorter than 100
irrigation, humans have increasingly con- along a river’s various dimensions. Rivers kilometers appeared to flow freely—but the
strained and fractured these crucial water- whose indices meet a certain threshold for data on them are less comprehensive, and
SOURCE: “MAPPING THE WORLD’S FREE-FLOWING RIVERS,”

ways. “We try to tame rivers as much as being largely able to follow their natural pat- some barriers might have been missed.
BY G. GRILL ET AL., IN NATURE, VOL. 569; MAY 9, 2019

possible,” says Günther Grill, a hydrologist terns were considered free-flowing. Only 23 percent of the subset of the longest
at McGill University. The researchers found that among rivers rivers that connect to the ocean are uninter-
In new research published in May in longer than 1,000 kilometers (which tend to rupted. For the rest, human infrastructure is
Nature, Grill and his colleagues analyzed the be some of those most important to human starving estuaries and deltas (such as the
impediments to 12 million total kilometers of activities), only 37 percent are unimpeded Mississippi Delta) of key nutrients. The
rivers around the world. The team devel- along their entire lengths (graphic). Most of world’s estimated 2.8 million dams are the
oped an index that evaluates six aspects of these big unhindered rivers are in areas with main culprit, controlling water flow and
connectivity—from physical fragmentation a minimal human presence, including the trapping sediment.
(by dams, for example) to flow regulation (by Amazon and Congo basins and the Arctic. The new research could be used to bet-
D E V E LO PM E N TA L P S YC H O LO G Y ability may be universally either like friends or

used to help read social strangers and paired
Friendly interactions. So the
researchers wondered:
those with the audio
recordings. The babies
Laughter Can babies distinguish
such laughter, too?
stared for longer at
clips paired with a mis-
Five-month-olds can tell chuckles Bryant and his fellow matched recording—
of friends and strangers apart researcher Athena Vou- for example, if they saw
loumanos, a developmen- friends interacting but
Most people can share a laugh with a tal psychologist at New heard strangers laughing.
total stranger. But there are subtle—and York University, played “There’s something
detectable—differences in our guffaws recordings of co-laughter between pairs of about co-laughter that is giving informa-
with friends. either friends or strangers to 24 five-month- tion to even a five-month-old about the
Greg Bryant, a cognitive scientist at the old infants in New York City. The babies lis- social relationship between the individu-
University of California, Los Angeles, and tened longer to the laughs shared between als,” Bryant says. Exactly what compo-
AARTI KALYANI Getty Images
his colleagues previously found that adults buddies—suggesting they could tell the two nents of laughter the infants are detecting
from 24 societies around the world can types apart, according to a study published remains to be seen, but prior work by Bry-
distinguish simultaneous “co-laughter” in March in Scientific Reports. ant’s team provides hints. Laughs between
between friends from that between The researchers then showed the friends tend to include greater fluctuations
strangers. The findings suggested that this babies short videos of two people acting in pitch and intensity, for example.

Causes of Lost River Connectivity
Sediment trapping Water use Urbanization
New Version!
Flow regulation
Fragmentation
The main causes of river interruption

(lost connectivity) are fragmentation by
impediments such as dams; changes to the
strength and timing of water flow by, for
example, dams or levees; and sediment
trapping behind structures such as dams.
ter understand how proposed dams, levees and

other such projects might impact river connec-
tivity, as well as where to remove these fixtures
to best restore natural flow. It could also help
inform our approach to rivers as the climate
changes, says Anne Jefferson, a hydrologist at
Kent State University, who was not involved in
the work. Existing infrastructure, she says, “has
essentially been built to a past climate that we
are not in anymore and are increasingly moving
away from.” —Andrea Thompson
Such characteristics also distinguish spon-

taneous laughs
taneous laughs from
from fake
fake ones. Many scien
ones. Many scien-
tists think unprompted laughter most likely
evolved from play vocalizations, which are
also produced by nonhuman primates, ro-
dents and other mammals. Fake laughter
probably emerged later in humans, along
with the ability to produce a wide range of
speech sounds. The researchers suggest that
we may be sensitive to spontaneous laughter
during development because of its long evolu- Over 75 New Features & Apps in Origin 2019!
tionary history.
tionary history. For a FREE 60-day
“It’s really
“It’s really cool
cool to
to see
see how
how early
early infants
infants are
are Over 500,000 registered users worldwide in: evaluation, go to
laugh-
distinguishing between different forms of laugh ◾ 6,000+ Companies including 20+ Fortune Global 500 OriginLab.Com/demo
ter,” says Adrienne Wood, a psychologist at the ◾ 6,500+ Colleges & Universities and enter code: 9246
University of Virginia, who was not involved in ◾ 3,000+ Government Agencies & Research Labs
the study.
the study. “Almost every waking
“Almost every waking moment
moment is is aa
social interaction for [babies], so it makes sense
that they are becoming very attuned to their
—Diana Kwon 25+ years serving the scientific & engineering community
social worlds.”

ADVANCES
G E N D E R E Q UA L I T Y
It serves as a reminder that barriers to
The Price of reporting sexual harassment “have not

gone away,” says Nancy Hauserman, pro-
Speaking Up fessor emeritus of management and entre-

preneurship at the University of Iowa, who
Women still face retaliation was not involved in the study. “I think it is
important to keep sexual harassment in
for reporting workplace
the scholarly gaze.”
sexual harassment The findings are bolstered by a 2018
report that analyzed 46,210 Title VII sexu-
Despite the gains of the #MeToo move- a male co-worker. Each incident was either al harassment discrimination charges filed
ment, women still hesitate to file work- self-reported or reported by a colleague. with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportu-
related sexual harassment complaints for A fifth group received the same file with- nity Commission and state Fair Employ-
fear of repercussions. Now a study suggests out any record of harassment. ment Practices Agencies. The report found
people may indeed penalize female employ- Hart then asked the participants to rate that 65 percent of women who filed such
ees for self-reporting such experiences. how inclined they were to recommend charges between 2012 and 2016 said they
Chloe Grace Hart, a doctoral candidate Sarah for promotion on a scale from lost their jobs after making their complaints.
in sociology at Stanford University, ran an 1 (“extremely unlikely”) to 7 (“extremely But Hart’s research did find a silver lin-
experiment five times between late 2017 likely”). Hart found that on average parti- ing. The participants in her most recent
and early 2018, each time involving about cipants were 0.37 points less likely to rec- study group were significantly more like-
200 people who identified as male, female ommend Sarah for promotion if she self- ly to promote Sarah when she self-report-
or another gender. Hart asked participants reported her sexual harassment than if her ed sexual harassment as compared with
to imagine they were the manager of a colleague reported it. They were also 0.16 those in the earliest group—which may be
company considering a fictional female points less likely to recommend her than if linked to the momentum of the #MeToo
sales associate, named Sarah, for promo- she self-reported nonsexual harassment. movement, Hart says. “I don’t think that
tion. Each participant was assigned to one Finally, the participants were 0.11 points the study indicates that the problem is
of five groups. Four groups received an less likely to recommend her than if her solved,” she says. “But if nothing else, it
employee file that contained information employment file made no mention of any indicates that we are able to shift our social
about harassment—either sexual or non- harassment. The study was published perceptions of people in a position of expe-
sexual—that Sarah had experienced from online in May in Gender & Society. riencing sexual harassment.” —Agata Boxe
E C O LO G Y T E C H
spring migration. “We need forward-think-
Flight Lights ing methods to protect not only large birds
that are inherently at greater risk from pow-
Ultraviolet illumination helps er lines but also millions of smaller migrato-
birds avoid power lines ry birds,” says Anne Lacy of the Internation-
al Crane Foundation.
Human activities are killing wildlife at Half of all avian species can see ultravio-
unprecedented rates, with causes ranging let light. So James Dwyer, a wildlife biolo-
from environmental pollution to the built gist at utility consulting firm EDM Interna- tool for use in hotspots where endangered
environment. For some bird species, night- tional in Fort Collins, Colo., had the idea of bird species nest and feed.
time collisions with power lines are driving using near-visible UV light to illuminate The researchers did not observe any neg-
substantial population declines. But now power lines. EDM’s engineering team and ative impacts on other species: insects did
scientists have come up with a clever way the Dawson Public Power District devel- not swarm toward the lights, nor did bats
to make the cables easier for birds to spot, oped such light systems and installed them or nighthawks do so in pursuit of a meal.
without being unsightly to humans. on a tower supporting a power line at And Dwyer says birds are unlikely to con-
Industry and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Rowe Sanctuary. Over a 38-night period, fuse such near-ground UV illumination with
guidelines recommend that utility compa- crane collisions decreased by 98 percent natural cues such as starlight.
nies mark their power lines with plastic when the lights were on, the researchers “I don’t want utilities to build lines
attachments to increase visibility, but birds reported in a study published online in May wherever they want because there’s
are still dying. Biologists reported that 300 in Ornithological Applications. a new tool,” says biologist Robert Harms
Richard Loughery, director of environ- of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, who
RANDY GREEN Alamy
Sandhill cranes perished in one month in

2009 from collisions with marked lines at mental activities at the Edison Electric Insti- was not involved in the work. But for exist-
the Rowe Sanctuary in Nebraska, where tute, who was not involved in the project, ing lines, he says, the UV system could be
the cranes stop over during their annual says the new UV system adds an important “absolutely amazing.” —Rachel Berkowitz
18 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Thomas Fuchs

C A N A D A
N
A
N
In
E
Amplitudes
C
O
(volts per kilometer)
10.00 – 25.44
SCIENCE
C
3.00 – 10.00
I
T 1.00 – 3.00
We Trust
N
0.60 – 1.00
A
L
0.30 – 0.60
T
0.05 – 0.30
Climate Science
A
Polarization axis
Vs. Blind Faith
fields in the underlying rock. The fields’
Magnetic storms induce high geoelectric fields fields’
amplitude and direction (polarization axis) can help inform utility companies about
where power grid interference and damage might occur. Join the nation’s
largest association of
GEOPHYSIC S freethinkers, atheists
& agnostics working
Stormy Space Weather to keep religion
New map reveals the risk of blackouts from geomagnetic storms out of government
and social policy.
A massive geomagnetic storm stunned instead, possibly threatening the grid.
Quebec in 1989, triggering blackouts across Fields greater than one volt per kilome-
the province. The storm—a disturbance in ter can interfere with a grid’s operation, and For a free sample of
Earth’s magnetic fifield
eld caused by a blast of much stronger fifields
elds can cause blackouts. FFRF’s newspaper,
charged particles from the sun—created The team found that the most hazardous Freethought Today
electric currents that raced through under- area is in Virginia, where fifields
elds can be as
ground power lines and overloaded the strong as 25.44 volts per kilometer during
grid. Now new research suggests the intense magnetic storms. Major cities,
specificc regions
composition of rock in specifi including New York, Boston and Washing-
influence
could infl uence the risks from such “super- ton, D.C., can also experience relatively
storms,” which occur about once a century. powerful fifields.
elds. These areas have meta-
SOURCE: “EXTREME-VALUE GEOELECTRIC AMPLITUDE AND POLARIZATION ACROSS THE NORTHEAST
Geomagnetic storms induce a local morphic rock (which has been changed by Call 1-800-335-4021
electric fifield
eld in the ground, producing cur- intense heat or pressure) and igneous rock
ffrf.us/reason
UNITED STATES,” BY JEFFREY J. LOVE ET AL., IN SPACE WEATHER, VOL. 17, NO. 3; MARCH 2019
rent. Geophysicist Jeffrey

Jeffrey Love of the U.S. solidified);
(lava that has cooled and solidifi ed); both
Geological Survey and his colleagues used are electrically resistive. Other areas, such
sensors throughout the U.S. Northeast to as the northwestern Appalachians, have a
determine the maximum electric field field such lot of conductive sedimentary rock, which
a storm could create. By combining these should have lower geoelectric hazards.
measurements with storm data, they pro- The team says the fifindings
ndings could help
duced a map identifying areas with a high- communities prepare for future storms,
er chance of blackouts (graphic). The results and similar studies are planned elsewhere.
were published in March in Space Weather.
They found that the type of rock in an
“There’s a lot of work going on in our indus-
scientificc community
try, with help from the scientifi
FFRF.ORG
area influences
influences the strength and direction in various parts of the world,” says David
of the electric field
field a geomagnetic storm Boteler, a research scientist at Natural FFRF is a 501(c)(3) educational charity.
can create. If the rock is a good conductor, Resources Canada, who was not involved
Deductible for income tax purposes.
the resulting current flows
flows easily through in the study. He says power grids are
the ground. But if the rock is resistive, the already being designed to handle the next
current may travel through power lines “100-year storm.” —Jonathan O’Callaghan
Graphic by Pitch Interactive August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 19

ADVANCES
H E A LT H T E C H
lina De Santiago, a bioengineer
Save Your on the Rice team.

A prototype of the Auto
Breath BVM ran for up to 11 hours in

laboratory tests before over
Device that automates breathing heating, on settings typically
used for adult patients, De San
bags could save lives
tiago says. It has not yet been
tested in people. Malya plans to
When someone has serious trouble Automated bag valve mask device work with a team of graduate
breathing, care providers often use a mask students to create another
with an attached bag—which has to be other treatable illnesses die because family version with a different motor that could
manually squeezed—to pump air into the members are too exhausted to continue increase its operating time. He also hopes
lungs until a patient can be put on an auto “bagging.” But now he has partnered with a to improve the device’s seals and filtration
matic ventilator. design team of Rice University undergradu system to make it suitable for disaster situa
In many highly developed regions, this ates to create a device that automatically tions and hot, dusty field environments.
“manual bag valve mask” is usually just a compresses the bag. He plans to test it in patients at Kwai River
shortterm, stopgap measure. But in places The team hopes the $117 machine, Christian Hospital next year.
with limited medical staff and few—if any— called the AutoBVM (short for automated Many people worldwide lack adequate
ventilators, “it’s up to you to keep your fami bag valve mask), could be used in disaster access to ventilators, which can cost as
ly members alive” by squeezing the bag for settings and emergency transport until a much as $100,000, says Abdullah Saleh,
much longer periods, says Rohith Malya, ventilator becomes available or even as an who directs the University of Alberta’s
director of emergency medicine at Thai alternative to one. The AutoBVM—which Office of Global Surgery and was not
JEFF FITLOW Rice University

land’s Kwai River Christian Hospital. The plugs into a standard wall outlet—consists involved in the work. Bag valve masks are
facility treats many refugees from the of two triangular plastic “pushers” at “ubiquitous across even remote and low
Rohingya crisis in Myanmar (formerly Bur tached to a geared frame and powered by resource areas,” he notes. “Automating a
ma), just across the nearby border, Malya a motor. Creating a batterypowered ver way to deliver air through them could
says. He sees people with pneumonia and sion is a priority for future work, says Caro address a real need.” —Rachel Crowell
NEUROSCIENCE TECH
functional MR elastography (fMRE), it od in humans. “We’ve got very nice data
Magnetic involves sending vibrations through tissue
and using magnetic resonance to measure
now showing that it works,” Patz says. If
everything pans out, the technique could
Vibes their speed. They move faster through
stiffer material, producing “elastograms,”
represent an important advance in brain
imaging. “We’d be in a much better posi
Faster imaging method makes or maps of tissue rigidity, that may corre tion to conduct ‘effective connectivity’
brain scans more responsive spond to brain activity. This is the first time analyses, where you try to figure out how
fMRE has been used to measure such information flows in brain circuits,” says
The invention of functional magnetic reso activity, the researchers say. neuroscientist Jonathan Roiser of Universi
nance imaging (fMRI) nearly 30 years In a study published in April in Science ty College London, who was not involved
ago revolutionized neuroscience by letting Advances, Patz, Sinkus and their colleagues in the work.
researchers visualize brain activity associat applied mild shocks to mice’s hind limbs to Patz’s colleague Alexandra Golby, a
ed with behavior. The technology is spatial induce signals in the brain, turning the neurosurgeon, hopes to use fMRE to iden
ly precise, but its main limitation is speed; stimulation on and off at various rates. tify critical areas to avoid during brain sur
fMRI measures blood oxygen level changes, Comparing fMRE scans taken during on geries. In about 30 percent of patients with
which take about six seconds—a snail’s and off periods allowed them to produce tumors, the mass blocks the changes in
pace as compared with brain signals them images showing which areas changed in blood oxygenation that fMRI measures,
selves. Other methods, such as electro stiffness as a result of the stimulation. The Patz says—“so [Golby] wanted a method
encephalography (EEG), are fast but impre researchers think certain brain cells soften that works differently.” The technique
cise and cannot detect deeper brain signals. when an associated neuron fires, meaning might ultimately help researchers under
Now physicists Samuel Patz of Harvard stiffness changes would correspond to stand and diagnose brain disorders involv
Medical School and Ralph Sinkus of King’s neural activity. By varying the stimulation ing circuit dysfunctions, such as schizo
College London and their colleagues have switching rate, they demonstrated that phrenia. “It could reveal a lot of informa
adapted existing tissueimaging technolo fMRE can detect brain signals at least tion that might be valuable for disease
gy to overcome fMRI’s speed limitation every 100 milliseconds. diagnosis [and] progression,” Patz says.
and tested it in mouse brains. Known as The team is currently testing the meth —Simon Makin

Oil droplets surround a large mitochon-
drion in an Acadian flycatcher eye.
E VO L U T I O N this distinctive sort of rocket-ship shape.”

Some other birds’ photoreceptors con-
Eye of the tain oil droplets—but usually just a single
large one, Tyrrell notes. In the flycatcher’s
Subscribe to our
Flycatcher case, “there are hundreds or thousands of
them, and they’re super tiny and packed
Collector’s Editions!
Structures in the birds’ retinas around these mitochondria, which is also
may be key to their motion- very abnormal,” he says. “Almost like Take Five Deep Dives a Year into
tracking abilities packing peanuts.” Tyrrell posted the study Today’s Most Exciting Science
on the preprint server bioRxiv in February
A subscription includes five print issues
Rather than chasing their prey in flight and has since submitted it to peer-
per year & digital access to these issues
like many other birds, Acadian flycatchers reviewed journals. online. Immerse yourself in riveting tales
prefer to ambush insects from a perch. wave-
The oil droplets filter out shorter wave of research & discovery at the cutting
Researchers recently discovered an odd lengths of light, allowing only longer ones edge of human knowledge in each issue.
structure in the birds’ eyes that may help (oranges and reds) to pass through. The
them track a moving insect while sitting researchers think these wavelengths might sciam.com/collectors-subscription
still themselves. prompt certain enzymes in the mitochon-
Visual ecologist Luke P. Tyrrell of the dria to produce more energy for the retinal
State University of New York Plattsburgh cell, as researchers have previously dem-
and his colleagues found that the photore- onstrated with mice, Tyrrell says. “That
ceptors, or light-sensitive cells, at the cen- energy could be used for the cell to fire
ter of the flycatcher’s retina contain extra more times per second,” he explains. “It’s
FROM “A NOVEL CELLULAR STRUCTURE IN THE PHOTORECEPTORS OF INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS,”
large mitochondria. These components like a higher frame rate on a camera.” He

(which produce energy for cells) are each says this might allow the flycatcher to track
BY LUKE P. TYRRELL ET AL. PREPRINT POSTED AT BIORXIV ON FEBRUARY 15, 2019
surrounded by hundreds of oil droplets, fastmoving prey more effectively.

forming an elongated blob. Scientists have Corbo urges caution in speculating
previously observed large mitochondria in about the structure’s energy-boosting role,
the eyes of zebra fish and tree shrews, and noting that if such a specialized adaptation
many birds’ photoreceptors contain oil exists for that reason, it would likely be
droplets for modifying light. But biologists more widespread among bird species. He
had never before observed an optical is not sure what function it might have
arrangement like the flycatcher’s. beyond filtering and funneling the different
The structure “comes as a bit of a wavelengths of light for some other pur-
shock,” says Joseph Corbo, a visual scien- pose. “I would guess this is [just] a kind
tist at Washington University in St. Louis, of fancy, modified oil droplet,” he says.
who was not involved in the study. “It’s Tyrrell is now investigating whether birds Scientific American is a registered trademark
just out of the blue. There’s nothing in closely related to Acadian flycatchers have of Springer Nature America, Inc.
any species, bird or otherwise, that has similar structures. —Jim Daley

THE SCIENCE Claudia Wallis is an award-winning science journalist whose
OF HEALTH work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, Fortune and the
New Republic. She was science editor at Time and managing editor
of Scientific American Mind.
and 11 months old led to an 81 percent lower rate of peanut aller-

gy at age five, compared with similar babies who were not given
that early exposure. Another trial, known as EAT (Enquiring
About Tolerance), published in 2016, found that after parents
carefully followed a protocol to begin feeding peanut protein,
eggs and four other allergenic foods to healthy, breastfed infants
between three and six months of age, the babies had a 67 percent
lower prevalence of food allergies at age three than did a control
group. The results were strongest for peanuts, where the allergy
rate fell to zero, compared with 2.5 percent in the control group.
Egg allergies also fell, but the AAP is waiting for more data on
eggs, says Scott Sicherer, a professor of pediatrics, allergy and im-
munology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and an
author of the April report. “We don’t want to tell people to do
something where there isn’t really good evidence.”
How food allergies develop and why they have become so
commonplace remain dynamic areas of research. Both the aller-
gies and eczema (a major risk factor) have been on the rise. A
2010 study by Sicherer and his colleagues found that the preva-
lence of childhood allergies more than tripled between 1997 and
2008, jumping from 0.6 to 2.1 percent.
A leading theory about how these allergies develop and the
role of eczema has been proposed by Gideon Lack, a professor of
If You Give a pediatric allergy at King’s College London and senior author of
both LEAP and EAT. The “dual allergen exposure hypothesis”
holds that we become tolerant to foods by introducing them oral-
Baby a Peanut ly to the gut immune system. In contrast, if a child’s first exposure
is through food molecules that enter through eczema-damaged
skin, those molecules can instigate an allergic response. Research
Feeding infants allergenic foods may be with mice strongly supports this idea, whereas in humans the ev-
the key to preventing allergies idence is more circumstantial. Lack points out that peanut aller-
gy is more prevalent in countries where peanuts or peanut butter
By Claudia Wallis is popular and widespread in the environment, mustard seed al-
lergy is common in mustard-loving France and buckwheat aller-
Few things are more subject to change and passing fancies than gy occurs in soba-loving Japan. “Parents are eating these foods,
dietary advice. And that can be true even when the advice comes then touching or kissing their babies,” Lack suggests, “and the
from trusted health authorities. A dozen years ago the standard molecules penetrate through the skin.”
recommendation to new parents worried about their child devel- A modern emphasis on hygiene may also contribute, Lack
oping an allergy to peanuts, eggs or other common dietary aller- notes: “We bathe infants and shower young children all the time,
gens was to avoid those items like the plague until the child was very often once a day or more, which you could argue breaks down
two or three years old. But in 2008 the American Academy of the skin barrier.” Researchers are examining whether applying
Pediatrics (AAP) dropped that guidance, after studies showed it barrier creams such as CeraVe can help stave off food allergies.
did not help. And in its latest report, issued in April, the AAP Eight foods account for 90 percent of food allergies: cow’s
completed the reversal—at least where peanuts are concerned. It milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soybeans.
recommended that high-risk children (those with severe eczema Some scientists believe this is so because these foods contain pro-
or an allergy to eggs) be systematically fed “infant-safe” peanut teins that are unusually stable to digestion, heating and changes in
products as early as four to six months of age to prevent this com- pH and are therefore more likely to cause an immune response.
mon and sometimes life-threatening allergy. Children with mild Early dietary exposure is now the confirmed preventive strat-
or moderate eczema should receive them at around six months. egy for peanuts and, pending more research, perhaps the other
These are not whimsical changes. They match advice from a foods, although this is more easily said than done. In EAT, parents
federal panel of experts and reflect the results of large random- had to get their babies to swallow at least four grams per week of
ized studies—with the inevitable cute acronyms. One called LEAP each of the allergenic edibles, and many found it to be challeng-
(Learning Early About Peanut Allergy), published in 2015, found ing. As Lack observes, “It’s just not part of our culture to feed sol-
that feeding peanut products to high-risk infants between four ids to very young babies.”
22 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Celia Krampien

VENTURES Wade Roush is the host and producer of Soonish, a podcast
T H E B U S IN E S S O F IN N OVATI O N about technology, culture, curiosity and the future. He
is a co-founder of the podcast collective Hub & Spoke and
a freelance reporter for print, online and radio outlets,
such as MIT Technology Review, Xconomy, WBUR and WHYY.
The Big breakneck pace set over the preceding 100 years—a period Gor-
don calls “the special century.”
Since 1970 the only notable outlier has been the exponential
Slowdown increase in computing power, which has trickled down to con-
sumers in the form of the Internet and our ever present mobile
devices. But in most other ways, Gordon argues, the lives of peo-
Major technological shifts are fewer and ple in developed nations look and feel the same in 2019 as they
farther between than they once were did in 1979 or 1989.
This is good in one small way, though bad in most of the ways
By Wade Roush
that count. Rapid and incessant change can be disorienting, and
On June 22, 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew into Dayton, Ohio, when things evolve at a more measured pace, people and insti-
for dinner at Orville Wright’s house. It had been just a month tutions do have more time to breathe and adapt. But speaking
since the young aviator’s first ever solo nonstop crossing of the as a Gen Xer, deceleration isn’t what I was taught to expect. And
Atlantic, and he felt he ought to pay his respects to the celebrat- in many areas of technology, the forward movement today feels
ed pioneer of flight. tragically slow, even nonexistent.
Forty-two years later, on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Consider consumer robotics. There’s enormous potential for
Armstrong was allowed to bring a personal guest to the Kennedy robots to help us with housework, education, entertainment
Space Center to witness the launch of nasa’s towering Saturn V and medical care. But home robotics companies seem to keep
rocket. Armstrong invited his hero, Charles Lindbergh. folding: social robot maker Jibo closed in March after raising
That’s how fast technology advanced in the 20th century. almost $73 million in venture capital, and in April robot toy
One man, Lindbergh, could be the living link between the pilot maker Anki shut down after raising at least $182 million. The
of the first powered flight and the commander of the first mis- only commercially successful home robot, iRobot’s Roomba vac-
sion to another world. uum cleaner, hit the market in 2002.
In our century, for better or worse, progress isn’t what it used Or consider access to space. In 2007 the XPRIZE Foundation
to be. Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon argues offered $30 million in prizes, funded by Google, to commercial
that by 1970, all the key technologies of modern life were in teams that would compete to land a robotic rover on the moon.
place: sanitation, electricity, mechanized agriculture, highways, When it became obvious that no team would be able to meet the
air travel, telecommunications, and the like. After that, innova- original deadline, the foundation extended the contest four times
tion and economic growth simply couldn’t keep going at the and finally pulled the plug in 2018. Although five teams had built
rovers, all had trouble raising enough money to buy launch con-
tracts. Companies such as Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries are
pioneering low-cost ride sharing into space for very small satellites,
but the cost per kilogram for getting large satellites and probes into
orbit is still, pardon the pun, sky-high. (Israel-based SpaceIL got its
Beresheet craft into lunar orbit in April, well after the competi-
tion’s cancellation, but it crashed after an error during descent.)
Our century’s one signature technology achievement is the
iPhone. And at this point, we’ve had smartphones in our pock-
ets long enough to begin to appreciate their dangers. Mean-
while the list of potentially world-changing technologies that
get lots of press ink but remain stubbornly in the prototype
phase is very long. Self-driving cars, flying cars, augmented-real-
ity glasses, gene therapy, nuclear fusion. Need I continue?
Granted, these are all hard problems. But historically, solving
the really big problems—rural electrification, for example—has
required sustained, large-scale investments, often with private
markets and taxpayers splitting the burden. In this century, we
urgently need to undo some of the consequences of the last great
boom by developing affordable zero- and negative-emissions tech-
nologies. That’s another hard problem—and to solve it, we’ll need
to recapture some of what made the “special century” so special.
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]
24 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Jay Bendt

E CIAL REPOR
SP T
ARCTIC
FU
C
TI
U
T
RE
C
R
OF THE A
AMBITIONS Suddenly, nations are jockeying to control seafloor and

exploit resources in the rapidly thawing north
IN BRIEF
ALEXANDER RYUMIN Getty Images
Five countries that border the Arctic Ocean are Arctic landscapes and seascapes are changing Russia is expanding its Arctic military presence,
claiming rights to large, overlapping sections of dramatically. Rising air and water temperatures, while NATO holds large Arctic exercises, signs
the seafloor. Three say the North Pole is theirs. shrinking ice and thawing permafrost are causing that aggression could mount. Yet conflict is not
Diplomats could slowly work out boundaries all kinds of living things—from algae and trees to necessarily inevitable: countries may decide they
based on geologic evidence unless rising geopoliti- fish and caribou—to expand their range, change have more to gain by cooperatively developing
cal tension makes the science moot. migrations or, in some cases, struggle to survive. the changing region.

DOUBLE TIME: The Russian icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy
clears a navigation lane. It is also used to carry tourists
to newly thawing destinations. Both activities are on
the rise as nations hasten Arctic development.


AL REPO
EC I RT
SP
FU
C
TI
U
T
RE
C
R
OF THE A
DIVIDE
OR
CONQUER
Five nations are asserting rights
to vast, overlapping portions
of the Arctic Ocean seafloor
By Mark Fischetti
Illustration by Peter Horvath
On August 2, 2007, three russian explorers crammed inside

a submersible underneath thick sea ice at the North Pole descended 4,300
meters to the dark seafloor below. They extended a robot arm from the
pod and planted a titanium national flag in the sediment there. After sur-
facing to the supporting nuclear-powered icebreaker, expedition leader
and parliament member Artur Chilingarov told an onboard reporter for
the Russian news agency Itar-Tass, “If 100 or 1,000 years from now some-
one goes down to where we were, they will see the Russian flag.” Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin phoned the ship, expressing his congratulations.
Canadian geophysicist David Mosher wasn’t impressed when he heard the news at his Bedford
Institute of Oceanography office in Nova Scotia. He glanced at a small cylinder of dried, dense mud
about the size of a bratwurst lying on a plastic tray on his bookshelf. It was a short piece of a 13-meter-
long sediment core extracted from the same North Pole seabed—in 1991, when Mosher was a Ph.D.

Mark Fischetti is a senior editor at Scientific American.
He covers all aspects of sustainability.
student at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He had ventured

there with 40 international scientists on two research icebreak-
ers from Germany and Sweden. The scientists sent a piston cor-
er to the seafloor, drilled down and extracted the sample from
the heavy sediment.
“We didn’t plant a flag,” Mosher quips. “We made the hole for
the Russians to plant one.”
Setting the flag was a political stunt done mostly to boost
the morale of Russians, who were suffering through a deep
recession. But the bald declaration for the North Pole made
clear to the other four Arctic coastal states that the time had
come to formally claim any portion of the Arctic Ocean seabed
they felt they had rights to.
One of those countries was on top of it; a year earlier Nor-
way had submitted geologic data and maps outlining three
patches of seabed to the international Commission on the Lim-
its of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), which reviews such claims
and determines whether science has been applied properly. The
Kingdom of Denmark, which includes Greenland, took several
more years to amass a huge amount of data and submitted a
pile of files in 2014, asserting it had rights to a large section of
the Arctic Ocean seafloor covering 900,000 square kilometers.
Russia handed in its paperwork in 2015, charting 1.3 million
square kilometers—twice the size of Texas—which overlapped
more than half of Denmark’s outline.
This May a Canadian team led by Mosher, who is now a geo-
physics professor at the University of New Hampshire, submit-
ted 2,100 pages of text, coordinates and measurements from
multibeam sonars, gravitometers and core samples to the CLCS,
stating that 1.1 million square kilometers of the seabed are part
of Canada. The expanse greatly overlaps the Russian and Dan- for several years. The Canadian review will conclude years after
ish claims. The U.S., the fifth state with an Arctic coastline that. The commission does not adjudicate overlapping claims
(along Alaska), will not present its pitch until at least 2022, but either, so once all the reviews are done countries will have to
its plot is expected to overlie Canada’s. start diplomatic proceedings, putting their CLCS determina-
For most of modern history, countries viewed the Arctic tions on the table and negotiating boundary lines, another step
Ocean as a largely useless slab of ice. But then it started to melt, that could take a long time. PRECEDING PAGES: GETTY IMAGES ( ice); THIS PAGE: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV Getty Images
exposing opportunities. A 2008 study by the U.S. Geological The mapping and submission process has been civil, even
Survey concluded that thick sediment in the Arctic could hold cooperative, firmly grounded in geology. But the glacial pace of
30 percent of the world’s yet to be discovered natural gas and the process is problematic. While the scientists methodically
13 percent of its oil. Valuable iron and rare earth minerals could work through the various countries’ claims, Putin is expanding
be waiting, too. Retreating sea ice meant shipping lanes could military bases across Russia’s long Arctic shoreline. His speech-
be opened and exploited. Seeing a bountiful future, each of the es and actions have made it clear that he thinks his nation
five countries became eager to secure as much territory as pos- should direct the polar region. Meanwhile NATO countries are
sible. “You never know what will happen,” says Flemming Get- reinforcing northern militaries, wary that Russia could take
reuer Christiansen, deputy director of the Geological Survey of over seabed the way it annexed Crimea in 2014. China is send-
Denmark and Greenland. ing ships up north to signal that it, too, wants a role.
The CLCS could take years to work through the submissions. The U.S. has historically paid little attention to the region,
It moves slowly, in part because it has more than 80 cases for but now it is throwing its weight around. In May, Secretary of
seafloor worldwide, from Nicaragua to Ghana to Vietnam. It is State Mike Pompeo arrived at an Arctic Council meeting in Fin-
not expected to finish evaluating Denmark’s or Russia’s tender land and declared that Russia was acting aggressively and Chi-

STORAGE TANKS to hold liquefied natural gas are built at the Yamal LNG complex, funded in part by China and France, at the expand-
ing Sabetta port on Russia’s Arctic coast. Nations bordering the Arctic Ocean are increasingly eager to explore for gas and oil under the
seafloor, and nations farther away are eyeing potentially lucrative investment opportunities.
na had to be watched closely. For the first time in 23 years, the matters, in 1982 more than 160 countries agreed to the United
meeting ended without the participants signing a declaration of Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It estab-
cooperation. All the posturing could make boundary negotia- lished that a nation bordering any of the earth’s oceans has an
tions contentious, with opposing sides disregarding the science exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, reaching from its shoreline 200
instead of compromising over it. Even worse, headstrong lead- nautical miles (370.4 kilometers) out to sea. It has all rights to
ers might simply run out of patience with the CLCS’s review resources in and under the water. Areas beyond that line are
and take what they think is theirs. international waters—free to all, belonging to none.
The convention left a door open. Article 76 says a state can
LOMONOSOV IS MINE establish sovereign rights to exploit seabed beyond 200 nauti-
For centuries nation-states saw the oceans as wild. In the 1600s cal miles if it can present detailed geologic evidence proving
they began to assert rights over the first three miles (4.8 kilome- that its continental shelf—the gently sloping seafloor that
ters) of seawater, based on the longest distance of a cannon shot. stretches from shore far out into the ocean before dropping into
That practice held until the 20th century, when countries started the deep sea—extends beyond the 200-nautical-mile line. Here
to unilaterally claim rights out to various distances, threatening a nation would have exclusive rights to resources on and under
the long-standing concept of freedom of the high seas. To settle the seabed but not in the water column above it (fishing and

navigation would remain open). Arctic countries did not focus MELTING ICE CAPS in regions such as Svalbard (shown) and
much on the provision, until sea ice began to retreat. Greenland are exposing shorelines that can be developed,
Article 76 presents rules a state must follow to delineate the while receding sea ice exposes seafloor and shipping lanes that
outer edge of a proposed extended continental shelf. It de- can be exploited throughout more of the year.
scribes two formulas to draw the lines as far out as geologic evi-
dence allows. It then describes two formulas that limit those
lines, so a country cannot claim a crazy proportion of any ocean. er far the ridge goes—but it does not define what a ridge is. The
Both the formulas for drawing lines are based on a contour language “is totally ambiguous,” says Larry Mayer, director of
called the foot of slope. Imagine standing on the shore looking the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of
out at sea. The seafloor gradually deepens over many kilometers, New Hampshire. Mayer is seen as the leading U.S. authority on
then drops down a slope to a much deeper bottom under the dis- Arctic seafloor and, as it happens, spent a decade as a professor
tant, central ocean. Along the base of the slope, scientists must at Dalhousie, where he was Mosher’s Ph.D. adviser.
determine the foot of slope—the place of maximum steepness— The ambiguity allows geologists, as well as the lawyers in
around their coastlines and islands. Generating the evidence for their country’s state department, to interpret ridge data differ-
the foot of slope “is where all the science is,” Mosher says. ently. The single feature causing the greatest overlap among
Each of the Arctic Five countries, as they are known, lies Denmark, Russia and Canada is the Lomonosov Ridge. It ex-
along the circular rim of the pie-shaped Arctic Ocean. As they tends 1,800 kilometers from Russia’s New Siberian Islands to
project their shelves from the perimeter toward the center, the Canada’s Ellesmere Island—right next to Greenland—dividing
pieces are bound to overlap: continental shelves end where the Arctic Ocean in half. Some of its peaks rise 3,500 meters
MICHAEL NOLAN Getty Images
plate tectonics has ended them. from the deep seafloor. The ridge is a gigantic relic from mil-
Following the formulas can lead to modest overlaps, but lions of years ago, when the neighboring North American and
another Article 76 provision creates a larger problem. It says a Eurasian continents began pivoting away from each other,
country can claim a wide band of seabed along an underwater twisting and deforming the expanding Arctic Ocean floor. The
ridge that extends from the country’s continental shelf, howev- ridge’s common heritage means Denmark, Russia and Canada

can say it naturally extends from their continental shelves, and be 2022 at the earliest, according to Evan Bloom, director for
they can outline turf along it to call their own. The most notable ocean and polar affairs at the U.S. Department of State and
spot that falls within those outlines? The North Pole. chair of the U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Project’s executive
The scientists say they are just outlining where the geology committee. Mayer says the U.S. has all the data it needs. “It’s
takes them. But their submission teams can also apply the sci- just a huge process to do the analysis,” he explains.
ence to serve certain national strategies. Russia could have out- The U.S. may be in the weakest negotiating position, howev-
lined extended continental shelf along the Lomonosov Ridge er, because it has never signed the UNCLOS, unlike the rest of
across the center of the Arctic Ocean, all the way to Canada’s the Arctic Five. Plenty of U.S. officials and several presidents
200-nautical-mile EEZ, but in its submission to the CLCS it have recommended signing it, but a handful of treaty-wary sen-
stopped just after the North Pole. It has not stated why. When I ators have stopped the convention from ever being ratified.
contacted two of its team experts, Eugene Petrov and Yuri Fir- That may now hurt the country’s own cause. “I wish the U.S.
sov, they declined to be interviewed, with Firsov e-mailing that knew how much it puts itself at a disadvantage by not being a
the issues are “rather complicated.” Rick Saltus, a senior re- party to the convention,” says Galo Carrera, a marine research-
search scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, who has er at Dalhousie, an honorary consul of Mexico to Canada, and a
long been involved in the U.S. work, says Russia may not have former CLCS chair.
had enough data near the Canadian end of the ridge; generat- As a result, the U.S. has no need to submit a claim to the CLCS
ing the details the CLCS looks for is expensive. or abide by its review. But Bloom says the U.S. will do both. It has
Alternatively, he says, Russia may have stopped where it did spent $89 million to obtain thorough data. It wants the rest of
as a matter of strategy. Why complicate future boundary nego- the world to see that it is following the same criteria as everyone
else. That gives the country “very strong
standing” in future negotiations, Bloom
If the Arctic Five countries’ says. And there really is no other way to
make a claim. The federal government
claims are upheld, only a small could publish a document declaring “this
area of seabed is ours,” but the world
bit of the Arctic Ocean seabed would not recognize it. In a boundary
negotiation, Saltus says, a country “would
may remain open to the rest of want the CLCS determination in its pock-
et.” In effect, the U.S. recognizes the
the world, instead of the entire UNCLOS as customary international law—

the legal practice the world follows.
region being a global commons. U.S. rhetoric is also making the Arctic
more politically complicated. In June the
U.S. Department of Defense released its
latest Arctic Strategy, which says that
tiations with Denmark and Canada? The long section of the although there has been a great deal of cooperation among Arc-
Lomonosov Ridge that Russia did include might be more than tic nations, it now anticipates an “era of strategic competition”
enough to exploit. and “a potential avenue for . . . aggression.”
Canada has taken a similar approach, outlining the Lomono- Russia’s actions could be interpreted as such. Ever since the
sov Ridge from its shores outward, stopping just beyond the country stormed into Ukraine, “the relationship has been
North Pole and overlapping Russia’s outline in that region. Den- strained between NATO and Russia,” says Rob Huebert, a polit-
mark, however, claims the ridge from Greenland across the ical science professor at the University of Calgary and a former
entire ocean right up to Russia’s EEZ. “We are not considering associate director of what is now the Center for Military, Securi-
whether any other states would have claims to the same area,” ty and Strategic Studies there. The Arctic coast offers Russia a
says Denmark’s lead scientist Finn Mørk, a geophysicist at the critical strategic position for military power, notably nuclear
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. It is up to nego- war deterrence, because it is home to important nuclear subma-
tiators, he says, to work out the overlaps—and who, in the end, rine bases. “You can’t separate the politics of the Arctic from the
can wave a flag from the North Pole. greater geopolitics” of the world, Huebert says, maintaining
that Putin “sees the expansion of NATO as a core threat, and he
POLITICS OR SCIENCE? will not allow that to happen.” He says Russian jets now buzz
Given the vaGueness of Article 76, the three declarations for the Sweden and Finland because those countries are considering
Lomonosov Ridge might all be legitimate, scientifically. But joining NATO. In March, Sweden hosted an enormous military
ultimately which nation secures rights to which territory is not exercise in its northernmost region with thousands of NATO
up to the scientists: it is up to diplomats or, potentially, militar- troops. Because of Russia’s Arctic buildup, U.S. Army General
ies. And rising geopolitical tension could overtake the orderly, Curtis Scaparrotti told a Senate panel that same month that the
science-based process. U.S. military has to do more up north as well.
First of all, the U.S. submission to the CLCS will add to the Russia may have another reason, beyond military strategy
overlaps, complicating negotiations. The extent of overlap will or oil and gas, for controlling big swaths of the Arctic seas. “It
not be revealed until the documents are handed in, which will is about nationalism,” says Andrew Holland, chief operating

SETTING BOUNDARIES Exclusive economic zone,
or EEZ (200 nautical miles)
Maps by Katie Peek, Text by Mark Fischetti Claim filed for extended
The five countries with coastlines along the Arctic Ocean are making a case to the continental shelf
Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for “extended continental shelf”—
Claim anticipated,
seafloor beyond their exclusive economic zones—to gain rights to resources on and based on estimated maps
under the seabed. (The water stays open to all people, according
to international law.) The countries will have to settle Seafloor depth (meters)
large overlaps, notably around the North
Pole and the Lomonosov Ridge. Only 0 5,000
a small parcel or two of seafloor
might remain open for the
rest of the world.
Iceland
Norway
Norway
Russia
Greenland
(Denmark)
North Pole
Lomonosov Ridge
Canada
Chukchi Plateau
Russia
U.S.

HOW COUNTRIES MAKE THEIR CASE
A country submits documents to the Formulas to delineate outer edge: Limits to outer edge: Final outer edge of the extended
commission outlining the outer edge continental shelf
of its extended continental shelf. It A line 60 nautical miles A line 350 nautical
uses one of two formulas ( A , B )
●● A from the foot of slope C miles from shore
to reach as far out as they allow,
starting at the foot of slope. That line 60 nautical miles
350 nautical miles Formula A
is then constrained by the more Foot of slope
reaches farthest
lenient of two limits ( C , D ).
●●
Limits do Formula B
Shoreline Continental shelf not impinge reaches
Slope farthest
A line where the thickness A line 100 nautical miles from

B of sedimentary rock is at D a slope depth of 2,500 meters Limit C
least 1 percent of the shortest restricts the least
Foot of slope Crust distance from the foot of slope Depth of 2,500 meters
(maximum change 100 nautical miles
Limit D
in gradient)
restricts the least
Sedimentary rock
Shore Shelf Slope
CHUKCHI CONUNDRUM
Resolving seafloor claims involves
political and scientific trade-offs.
Pliable Plateau
Russia and the U.S. could say the
Chukchi Plateau is a “natural prolonga
tion” of their shelf, depending on how
experts interpret the way continents have
separated over millions of years. But in
1990 the former Soviet Union and the
U.S. negotiated a maritime boundary
between their exclusive economic zones
Chukchi Plateau (EEZs); Russia elongated that boundary
in its submission for extended continen
tal shelf and did not cross it. The U.S.
says it will honor the boundary, too.
Economic Impasse
The U.S. and Canada disagree on their
EEZ border. Canada extends the 141st
meridian land boundary ( orange line);
the U.S. traces a line equidistant to the
meandering coasts ( red). The triangular
seafloor in between holds an estimated
U.S.-Russia 1.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
maritime
U.S. EEZ Canada EEZ
boundary
Seafloor depth (meters)
Boundary U.S. Boundary Canada

recognizes recognizes 0 4,000
2,000
Alaska
Yukon SOURCES: IBRU, DURHAM UNIVERSITY ( claim areas);
141st meridian UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF THE
SEA ( claim areas); MARINEREGIONS.ORG ( EEZs); GLOBAL
SELF-CONSISTENT, HIERARCHICAL, HIGH-RESOLUTION
GEOGRAPHY DATABASE ( coastlines); INTERNATIONAL
BATHYMETRIC CHART OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN,
VERSION 3.0 ( seafloor depths)

officer at the nonpartisan American Security Project. “ ‘We are ry of Denmark since 1953. Although Denmark granted Green-
the Russians. We are the Arctic power, and we should have land self-rule in 2009, the territory’s 2018 political elections
rights to all of this.’ ” were a referendum supporting full independence. What has
Other geopolitical experts say the potential for Arctic con- prevented secession is that the nearly 60,000 residents, who
frontation is overplayed. Heather Exner-Pirot, a research fellow sparsely populate the largest island in the world, depend heavi-
at the Center for Interuniversity Research on the International ly on Denmark for subsidies and defense. But as ice and snow
Relations of Canada and Quebec and an editor of the annual recede, China is investing in mining there. Other nations, in-
online Arctic Yearbook, which analyzes the state of Arctic poli- cluding the U.S., are investing as well. Greenlanders are think-
tics, disagrees with Huebert, her former Ph.D. adviser. “People ing they could stand on their own. Denmark has already given
think there is competition in the Arctic,” she says. “But what it Greenland the seabed rights to resources within the EEZ
is, really, is an oligopoly of five states that have a monopoly on around the island.
the Arctic Ocean. They are thrilled with this.” An independent Greenland could join NATO; the U.S. has a
The Arctic Five countries codified this situation in 2008, large air force base there. Or it could partner with China, or even
when they signed the Ilulissat Declaration, an agreement that Russia, to develop the thawing countryside. If Greenland be-
says each nation will work together to safeguard marine traffic, comes an independent state, Denmark could hand over the
extended continental shelf claims mapped
from the island’s long coast. In that case, shelf
negotiations might have to be recast with
Greenland as the government in control—
more potential delay.
END GAME
althouGh lead scientists from the Arctic Five
did not want to say much on the record about
future boundary negotiations involving over-
laps, some of them seem uneasy with the pace
of the CLCS process. Nine of them—including
Mosher from Canada, Mayer and Saltus from
the U.S., Mørk from Denmark, and Petrov and
Firsov from Russia—are working to set a com-
mon base of slope for the entire Arctic Ocean,
LOMONOSOV RIDGE (white band in center) extends across the Arctic Ocean seafloor and they are drafting a paper for a peer-re-
from Canada and Greenland (part of Denmark) (left) to Russia (right). All three states viewed journal. That would make a statement
say they have rights to exploit it because it is part of their underwater continent. that the countries have calculated their foot of
slope within the base of slope—the basis for
the formulas—in the same way. Seeing such an
prevent oil spills and peacefully resolve differences. It also says agreement, perhaps the CLCS would speed up its reviews.
the countries will block any larger international attempt to gov- If the CLCS signs off on the Arctic Five submissions as is, only
ern the Arctic, as well as any other nation that might show up a small bit of the Arctic Ocean seabed may be left unclaimed.
and try to drill for oil or gas without permission. No other coun- This space, known simply as the Area, might amount to two mod-
tries, and no Arctic indigenous peoples, were involved. est parcels far out at sea, Saltus says. The rest of the world may
If squabbling among members of the Arctic Five does not not be happy with that outcome. Sometimes the Arctic nations
jeopardize orderly resolution of seafloor claims, two other wild think the Arctic Ocean is their backyard, Carrera explains, but
cards could. China’s economic ambitions are one of them. In many other countries, as well as indigenous peoples, see it as a
2013 President Xi Jinping unveiled the country’s Belt and Road global commons. They believe they have a right to explore it for
Initiative, intended to create an economic network among resources and to conduct research there.
numerous nations by building extensive infrastructure in them Some of them think the world should formally establish the
all. China now heads projects in more than 60 countries worth Arctic Ocean as a commons. They cite the Antarctic Treaty Sys-
hundreds of billions of dollars. Some world leaders worry that tem as a model. In force since 1961, it sets aside all the land and
China’s real plan is to command an enormous alliance across all ice shelves as a scientific preserve and bans military activity. It
of Asia. Part of the initiative is known as the Polar Silk Road, also protects more than 20 million square kilometers of the
intended to develop Chinese shipping routes across the Arctic Southern Ocean around the continent. But no one lives in the
and business deals with countries along those corridors. In 2017 Antarctic. There are no coastal states. It is more remote and
MARTIN JAKOBSSON Science Source
Xi held individual summits with the heads of Arctic nations. more frozen. There is little insight about resources, and it offers
Not to be outdone, Putin, who has his own Eurasian vision, met no strategic advantage. As the Arctic warms, the once solitary
one on one with leaders of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Ice- home of indigenous peoples who lived off its wildness instead of
land during the fifth International Arctic Forum, held in April trying to master it will be diced up and developed like the rest
in St. Petersburg. of the world to its south. Whether science or politics drives that
The second wild card is Greenland, which has been a territo- development, it is underway.

AL REPO
EC I RT
SP
FU
C
TI
U
T
RE
C
R
OF THE A
A NEW
REALITY
Climate change is
dramatically altering life
at the top of the world
By Mark Fischetti
On Banks Island in Canada’s Northwest Territories, more than 4,000 slow-

motion landslides are creeping downhill as thawing permafrost slumps and crum-
ILLUSTRATION REFERENCE: CHRISTOPH WAGNER Getty Images ( reindeer); GETTY IMAGES ( snow)
bles. In Siberia, warming earth is forcing underground methane seeps to breach the
surface and explode, leaving craters up to 40 meters wide.
Across the Arctic, striking change is the new normal, as is incursion by countries and businesses.
LAND
Construction, oil and natural gas extraction, shipping and tourism are all on the rise. Climate and
human activity are leaving a mark on nature and on the four million people who live in the region. OF
As interactions widen, science will be important for informing agreements and policies, espe- CHANGE
cially concerning disaster preparedness, environmental protection, economic opportunity, food
security, human health and community resilience. Indigenous peoples may be among the most
valuable experts. For years they have closely tracked shifting temperatures and receding ice cov-
er, trekked mountains and forests, followed caribou herds, fished seas and maintained biodiver-
sity. Their communities and cultures are also the ones most affected by coming development.
Some indigenous leaders say the Arctic should be governed by cooperative organizations and
rules that transcend political boundaries. For example, land and marine spatial planning across
large expanses could lay out rights for people, environmental protection and means for construc-
tive dialogue. Ultimately, they say, sustainable use of the future Arctic depends on a healthy envi-
ronment and a healthy community.

LAND OF CHANGE
Maps by Katie Peek, Text by Mark Fischetti
Scientists are running out of words to convey how dramatically Arctic landscapes and seascapes
are changing. Physical factors such as rising air and sea temperatures, along with disappearing
snow and sea ice, are compounding the effects. As a result, living things from algae to trees to
Top of
caribou are flourishing, floundering or moving; virtually every part of the food web has to ad- the World
just. Thawing permafrost could impact the region and the planet the most, releasing enough The “Arctic” can be defined in different
greenhouses gases to double the global warming that has already occurred. ways. The maps here follow the
international Arctic Council’s outline.
Physical Changes
Air, sea and land are transforming 1950s 2010s 2050–2099
rapidly. Each characteristic is mapped
across the longest time interval for
which comprehensive data exist.
Hotter Air
Average winter air temperatures
at the surface in the 2010s have
been much warmer than in
the 1950s. The second half of
this century will be hotter still,
according to midrange projections.
Warmer Ocean
Summer sea-surface temperatures
have risen considerably and are
predicted to continue upward.
Temperature anomaly compared

with 1956–2005 average:
–4 °C 1956–2005 avg. +10 °C
Nature Responds
Life in all forms is adjusting to
changing conditions.
Tundra Is Greening
Satellite imagery shows how
much greener or browner land
areas appeared in 2017 versus
1982, based on vegetation cover.
Algae Are Growing

Warmer and more ice-free seas
allow phytoplankton to thrive.
Their extent, seen as green by
satellites, in summer 2017 was
greater than in summer 2003.
No change No data North American beaver

The Beaver Effect
Less green More green As trees migrate north, beavers follow. They fell the trees and build
dams, causing local flooding that thaws permafrost, which releases
carbon dioxide and methane. The gases enhance warming, and trees
grow farther northward. More beavers arrive, more dams go up,
more flooding thaws more ground and warming continues to increase.

MORGAN TRIMBLE Getty Images (beaver); ADRIAN
Less Sea Ice 1855 2010 WOJCIK Getty Images (Longyearbyen); SOURCES: NOAA’S
EARTH SYSTEM RESEARCH LABORATORY (air and sea-
Sea ice shrinks to a minimum surface temperatures); U.S. NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE
DATA CENTER (sea ice); NOAA’S NATIONAL CENTERS FOR
every September. Much more ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION (snow cover); MERRITT
disappears annually now. The R. TURETSKY University of Guelph ( permafrost); UMA S.
BHATT University of Alaska Fairbanks (tundra greening);
median year for 1850–1859 KAREN E. FREY Clark University ( primary productivity);
was 1855 (based on map, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE
UNITED NATIONS (cod habitats); STATE OF THE ARCTIC
sailing and explorer records); MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT, CHAPTER 3.4: “MARINE
FISHES.” CONSERVATION OF ARCTIC FLORA AND FAUNA
the median year for the most (CAFF), 2017 (cod abundances); BIRDLIFE INTERNATIONAL,
recent decade was 2010. 2018 (murre breeding locations); ARCTIC BIODIVERSITY
ASSESSMENT 2013. CAFF, ARCTIC COUNCIL, 2013 (murre
trends; polar bear trends; reindeer and caribou trends))
Ice extent in September
Sea ice present
Hotspot Svalbard
1970s 2010s Norway’s Svalbard archipelago is
Less Snow changing dramatically. Winters are
The number of weeks with seven degrees Celsius warmer and
snow cover has diminished two months shorter than in 1971. Rain,
significantly from the winter once uncommon, routinely floods the
of 1972–1973 (median for 1970s) thawing, slumping soil, as buildings
to 2008–2009 (median for sink into it. The rains can freeze
past 11 years). lichens and mosses, however, forcing
reindeer to eat the less nutritious kelp
Weeks with snow cover that washes up along softening shores.
Inland, the Global Seed Vault, once
buried in frozen ground, is losing its
20 50+ natural coolant.
Today
Types of permafrost Town of Longyearbyen on Svalbard
Softer Permafrost
Ground that used to be Year-round
frozen for most or all of
Discontinuous or
the year—permafrost—
thaws in summer
is thawing, slowly in some
places, quickly in others. Covers less than
a third of the area
Thawing fastest
Biomass in Barents Sea
4 million
metric tons
Atlantic cod
2
Polar cod
2004 2015
Local Population
Fish Range Atlantic cod Gaining Losing Steady Unknown

Polar cod
Fish Are Migrating Birds Are Shifting Polar Bears Are Dying Caribou Are Wavering
Polar cod rely on sea ice to spawn. Thick-billed murres nest in vast coastal Struggling polar bears are the Of the 23 tracked herds of
As oceans warm, their numbers colonies and are important prey for icon for a melting Arctic. Their caribou (reindeer), 16 are losing
are falling, whereas Atlantic cod humans and animals. Their numbers are demise is widespread. population, five are gaining and
are moving in from the south. waxing in some places, waning in others. two are holding steady.

AL REPO
EC I RT
FU SP
C
TI
U
T
RE
C
R
OF THE A
IS
CONFRONTATION
INEVITABLE?
Political tension is increasing,
but cooperation could still prevail
By Kathrin Stephen
five U.S. B-52 BomBerS were conducting a training mission on

March 28 high over the Norwegian Sea in the Arctic Ocean. F-16
fighter jets from Norway were also aloft, part of joint NATO exer-
cises involving 10,000 troops in northern Sweden. Unexpectedly,
two Russian Tu-160 bombers crossed into the same airspace.
Surprised, Norway scrambled the F-16s to follow the interlopers.
The Tu-160s continued toward the U.K., then circled back home, but their appearance
was worrisome. The U.S. and Russian bombers can carry nuclear weapons, and less than
two months earlier both countries announced they would withdraw from the Intermedi-
ate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because they were no longer interested in abiding by its
rules. Although the U.S. and Norwegian planes did not enter Russian airspace, Russia
could have interpreted the exercises as a signal from NATO that it can deliver nuclear
weapons close to the Russian border. Perhaps the Russian military felt it needed to remind
the allies that it has ample airpower, too.
It is reasonable to look at what is happening in the Arctic and worry that tensions are rising.
Easier physical access because of global warming has placed the region high on the political
agendas of the eight states with land or marine territory above the Arctic Circle: Russia, Fin-
land, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark (via Greenland), Canada and the U.S. Other influen-
tial players such as the U.K., Japan and China are paying closer attention to the new benefits a
thawing Arctic Ocean offers. The Arctic could hold as much as 13 percent of the world’s as yet
undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its natural gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Na-


tions are also eyeing increasingly ice-free shipping routes through
the Northeast Passage along Russia’s coast and the Northwest Kathrin Stephen is a political scientist and scientific
Passage along Canada’s coast, as well as potentially large fisheries. group leader at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability
Bigger than these factors is Russia’s apparent desire to dom- Studies in Potsdam, Germany. She is also a senior fellow
and editor in chief at the Arctic Institute, Center for
inate the region. At President Vladimir Putin’s direction, the
Circumpolar Security Studies in Washington, D.C.
country has invested heavily in reopening Arctic military bases
and ports. It is establishing an early-warning missile system
there. And Russia is expanding its icebreaker fleet to ensure
Arctic maneuverability year-round. The first of its new, brawny The country’s dependence on outside financing, as well as
nuclear-powered LK-60 icebreakers, the Ural, launched in May. technical expertise, provides an incentive for restraint, especial-
Other countries are responding. The U.K. recently announced a ly in areas of overlapping seabed claims. Russia and Norway—
new Defense Arctic Strategy. In February the U.S. Congress desig- the Arctic states with large stakes in offshore resources—must
nated $675 million for a heavy polar icebreaker, and in March the build a stable investment climate for outsiders. The two nations
U.S. Navy announced it would send multiple surface vessels intended exactly that when they resolved their boundary dis-
through the Arctic Ocean this summer. In April the U.S. Coast pute in the Barents Sea in 2010 in a matter of weeks, after a
Guard published a new Arctic strategy calling for greater invest- standoff that had lasted many years.
ment. At the Arctic Council’s 2019 ministerial meeting the follow- Oil and gas may not even provide much ground for argu-
ing month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sharply criticized Rus- ment. Only Russia and Norway are significantly interested in
sia (and China) for aggressive behavior in the Arctic. These actions exploiting the resource because it makes up a substantial part
could reflect a potential change in policy toward more assertively of their export revenues. The U.S. and Canada have much larger
balancing Russia’s influence there. Pompeo even emphasized uni- and much more easily accessible fossil deposits in non-Arctic
lateral action rather than cooperation. areas, such as oil in the Gulf of Mexico, shale gas in various U.S.
Strategically, the Arctic is tremendously important for Russia states and tar sands in Alberta.
and its rivals. Russia’s nuclear deterrent is heavily tied to its nu- Moreover, the vast majority of anticipated oil and gas resourc-
clear submarines, and its most important submarine bases are es lie within each of the five coastal Arctic nations’ exclusive eco-
along its Arctic coast. The flurry of recent activity has raised fears nomic zones (EEZs), which extend 200 nautical miles (370.4 kilo-
that a more accessible Arctic will lead to a proverbial “cold war” meters) from the coastlines. As UNCLOS lays out, each country
in the region. Since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in has control over its resources within its EEZ. Certainly some oil
2014, the relationship between NATO and Russia has been espe-
cially strained; the concern is that either side could use the Arc-
tic as a bargaining chip in negotiations over other fraught re-
gions such as Syria or the Ukraine. In March, Russia announced The Human North
it would tighten the requirements for foreign ships traveling Of the four million Arctic residents, about 500,000 are
through the Northern Sea Route. indigenous peoples. They have organized into six regional
Compounding matters, four of the five coastal Arctic nations groups that participate in the Arctic Council, a cooperative
have submitted claims to the United Nations, under the U.N. forum, along with eight country members. The Russian
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), for rights to exploit Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North is the largest
their extended continental shelves—seafloor far out into the Arc- regional group, representing 244,000 individuals.
tic Ocean. There are large areas of overlap, particularly among
Russia, Denmark and Canada. Russia has been following the Arctic Council Members: Gwich’in Council International
UNCLOS procedures because it has a lot to gain, given its very Inuit Circumpolar Council Aleut International Association
Russian Association of Indigenous Arctic Athabaskan Council
long Arctic coastline and shallow shelf. But if Arctic countries
Peoples of the North Saami Council
cannot resolve their overlapping claims politically, Russia might
not play nice and will have its Arctic military force ready to go. Swe de n No rw
and
Finl ay
c onflict is not necessarily inevitable, hofever. arctic nations a

Ic
ela
ssi
have good reasons to cooperate. And some of the moves they are
nd
Ru
making may not be as aggressive as they appear. For example,

THIS PAGE: SOURCE: PHILIPPE REKACEWICZ UNEP/GRID-ARENDAL
PRECEDING PAGES: GETTY IMAGES ( flags, tanks, ice and water);
conditions in the Arctic are so harsh that many civilian tasks—

s:
Arctic Circle
tate
such as exploring for oil or monitoring shipping traffic—can be

M embe r S
performed only with military equipment and personnel.

Russia’s leaders are also well aware that any open conflict
could doom development of Arctic oil and gas because that work
nlan d)
depends heavily on international partners, including Western na-

Gree
tions and companies. Extracting resources, even without ice on

the seas, is expensive and technically difficult. Building Russia’s
(via
Yamal LNG (liquefied natural gas) project, which is only partly off-
ark
shore and close to the coast, cost $27 billion. Russia was loath to
nm
De
fund this alone, so it took on partners from France and China.

a
ad
Can
42 Scientific American, August 2019 U.S. Map by Katie Peek

and gas deposits are expected farther out on the extended conti- fostered cooperation in monitoring and conserving the territory.
nental shelf, where the overlapping claims occur, but because The agreement led the parties to establish the Arctic Council in
UNCLOS rules would support large regions of Russia’s claims, 1996. It has become the central Arctic forum and consistently gen-
there is little reason to think its leaders would torpedo peaceful erates successful, cooperative initiatives and decisions. Today the
resolution of those overlaps. council also includes nongovernmental organizations, scientific
Above all, Arctic resources need to be profitable to be developed. bodies and U.N. associations. In 2018 the council was nominated
Oil at $80 a barrel—a price not seen since October 2014—might for the Nobel Peace Prize.
justify digging at some offshore fields, but certainly not those far The council has been criticized for not addressing military
away, in the extended shelf area. The fate of the Shtokman gas field, and security issues, yet these are excluded from its mandate.
inside Russia’s EEZ in the Barents Sea, is a case in point. Discov- Diplomatic channels are certainly needed to tackle security, but
ered in 1988, it is one of the largest fields in the world, with an esti- the council is not the place for that. States have already created
mated 3.8 trillion cubic meters of gas. In the early 2000s Putin as- some of these channels, such as the Arctic Security Forces
serted repeatedly that Russia would develop the field. But with the Roundtable and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, which are part
shale gas revolution in the U.S. and the glut of gas on the world of so-called confidence and security measures set up among na-
market by 2010, the project was eventually shelved. Any Arctic tions precisely to defuse potential tensions. To resolve overlap-
claims beyond the EEZs are mostly symbolic. They are about secur- ping seabed claims, states should negotiate directly, just as they
ing access to distant resources in case they become valuable some- do already over other frictions.
day, not about a “race” to exploit resources before other nations do. Conflict is often a matter of perception. Russia’s tighter rules
Aggression over Arctic shipping routes also does not seem like- for traversing the Northern Sea Route could actually be beneficial
ly. Despite the intrepid allure, most shippers do not consider the if they lead to safer navigation and greater environmental protec-
passageways to be competitive with global trade routes through tion. Rules for sea lanes close to coastlines are not unique to Rus-
the Suez and Panama Canals, even though those established sia or the Arctic; the Suez and Panama Canals have plenty of rules
routes are longer. The seasonal nature of the Arctic corridors (win- that shipowners must comply with. A new U.S. heavy polar ice-
ter ice will persist for years), plus harsh weather and insufficient breaker, the only one the country would have, could best be used
infrastructure for meeting schedules on time, considerably reduce to improve access to its own Arctic waters year-round. Further-
the relevance of the Arctic routes for international maritime trade. more, icebreakers are not military boats, and even if they were,
In September 2018 the first ever transit through the Northern one ship is not a credible threat to Russia’s large icebreaker fleet.
Sea Route by a container ship, operated by Danish shipping com- Actions that appear to be provocative may have other expla-
pany Maersk, was considered a one-time trial. It did not stand for nations. For many Russian citizens and indigenous peoples, the
the beginning of regular trade transits. The chief technical officer Arctic is central to their identity, building on centuries of explor-
at Maersk concluded: “Currently, we do not see the Northern Sea ing and mastering the north. When a Russian submarine expedi-
Route as a viable commercial alternative to existing east-west tion planted a flag on the North Pole seafloor in August 2007, the
routes.” Naval traffic in the high north could help bring in materi- stunt was not a land grab; it was a show, intended for a domestic
al for Russia’s new port in Sabetta and for shipping liquefied nat- audience, symbolizing Russia’s ability to reach even the farthest
ural gas out of the Yamal region, especially during the summer points in the Arctic.
months, but these tasks involve predominantly Russian ships and As it can anywhere in the world, confrontation could still arise,
have nothing to do with international maritime trade. perhaps from an unexpected source. Since 2013 Chinese ships
Many countries and companies had hoped to venture into have made at least 22 commercial voyages through the Northeast
the Arctic to catch more fish because important species such as Passage, among the largest non-Russian uses of the route. China
Atlantic cod and Pacific salmon are migrating north. But profits is also attempting to reframe the Arctic as a global theater. In Jan-
are highly uncertain. In 2009 the U.S. closed large areas of its uary 2018 the government released a white paper called “China’s
EEZ in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off the coast of Alaska to Arctic Policy” that declares that “the Arctic situation now goes be-
commercial fishing because data on the sustainability of fisher- yond its original inter-Arctic States or regional nature.” But Chi-
ies there were lacking. In 2015 the five countries with coastlines na’s arrival does not mean the stakes are higher. Russia and
along the Arctic Ocean adopted a de facto moratorium on com- Greenland are welcoming its investments. Economic cooperation
mercial fishing in the high seas (beyond their EEZs). Then, in could encourage political cooperation and carry the day.
2018, the countries signed a ban on commercial fishing there for
16 years; Iceland, the European Union, China, Japan and South
Korea also signed on. The main purpose is to create time to MORE TO EXPLORE
gather deep scientific data on fisheries and to design a sustain- Geologic Structures of the Arctic Basin. Edited by Alexey Piskarev, Victor Poselov and
able and orderly commercial utilization of them. Valery Kaminsky. Springer International Publishing, 2019.
Arctic Council: https://arctic-council.org
International Arctic Forum, St. Petersburg, Russia, April 9–10, 2019: https://forumarctica.ru/en
in assessing the likelihood of future conflict, it is United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: www.un.org/depts/los
important to remember that the Arctic region has historically
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
been a place of international cooperation: Arctic countries, some
The Aeroplane in Arctic Exploration. Burt M. McConnell; September 30, 1916.
non-Arctic states and representatives of Arctic indigenous na- The Arctic Ocean. P. A. Gordienko; May 1961.
tions have been working together peacefully for many years. In The Dinosaurs of Arctic Alaska. Anthony R. Fiorillo; December 2004.
1991 the eight states with Arctic territory and their native peoples
s c i e n t if i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a zi n e /s a
adopted the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy, which

THE BUSY NORTH
Map by Katie Peek, Text by Mark Fischetti
As the Arctic thaws, it becomes much more accessible—and desirable. An exhaustive 2008 U.S. Geological
Survey study determined that 13 percent (90 billion barrels) of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent
(1,670 trillion cubic feet, or 47 trillion cubic meters) of its undiscovered natural gas lie waiting (map). About
half the Arctic Ocean is less than 500 meters deep, readily reachable by drilling rigs where sea ice has re
treated. Countries, notably Russia, are building numerous airports, seaports and other infrastructure. And
they are expanding military installations to protect assets and sustain increasingly busy shipping lanes.
Populated places Population of Arctic states,

provinces or regions Population bubbles
Towns larger than 50,000 are connected to 1
their landmasses
Airports
1,000,000 (outlined in blue).
Seaports
500,000 *
Military installations
100,000 Iceland
Percent urban
Summer shipping routes Percent indigenous
6
4
Natural Resources 100 percent likely
Geologic provinces likely to contain at least one
undiscovered deposit of 50 million barrels of oil, 50–100 percent
or the natural gas equivalent, that could be
recovered with today’s technology. 30–50 percent
Six provinces may con- Oil (90 billion Natural gas (Equivalent
tain 75 percent of the barrels total) to 412 billion barrels of oil)
undiscovered oil; four
provinces may contain West Siberian Basin 1
70 percent of the natural 1 Arctic Alaska
gas equivalent.
2 Amerasia Basin
3 East Greenland Rift Basins 2
4 East Barents Basins 3

5 West Greenland–East Canada 4
6 Yenisey-Khatanga Basin
Other
Shipping on the Rise Vessels visiting Arctic waters every year

Large ships are required to Each circle represents 500 visits.
fly the country flag they are
Small vessels
registered under. Small

vessels are not.
Flag flown by large vessels 2010 2016

Russia
Norway
Other Arctic nation
Large vessels
Non-Arctic nation Russia
*Common practice uses circles scaled by area, but that can create an inaccurate visual impression of relative values.
Here circles are scaled with their radius = (population value)2/3.
†Indigenous and/or urban data not available.
SOURCES: U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (oil and gas data); GREG FISKE Woods Hole Research Center, WITH DATA FROM SPACEQUEST.COM ( shipping data); THE
INDIGENOUS WORLD 2019, EDITED BY DAVID N. BERGER ET AL. INTERNATIONAL WORK GROUP FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS, 2019 ( Sami and Inuit populations);
STATISTICS FINLAND; STATISTICS SWEDEN; STATISTICS NORWAY; STATISTICS ICELAND; STATISTICS GREENLAND; STATISTICS CANADA; U.S. CENSUS
BUREAU; RUSSIAN FEDERAL STATE STATISTICS SERVICE; ARCTIC PORTAL (Northwest and Northeast Passages); INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC
STUDIES (military installations); HERITAGE FOUNDATION (military installations); GEONAMES GAZETTEER ( populated places, airports); WORLD PORT INDEX ( ports)

Russia Finland Sweden Norway
Iceland
4 Greenland Sea
Kara 3
Sea
Svalbard
(Norway)
Barents
Novaya Sea 3
Zemlya Franz Josef
Land (Russia)
Northern Norway
Iceland
Northern Sweden†
Northern Finland
Greenland
Greenland
(Denmark)
assage
west pP
Northern European Russia† North
5
Ellesmere
Laptev Baffin Bay
Island
Sea
Northern Canada
Northern Siberia
New Siberian
Islands Alaska (U.S.)
East Siberian
Sea
No
Hudson Bay
rth
ern
S
ea
Beaufort
Rou
Sea
te
2
No
Chukchi
rth
eas
Sea
t Pa
ssa
ge
1 2
AArct
ic Cir U.S. Canada
cllee

A N I M A L B E H AV I O R
WHEN AN

IMALS
FIGHT
Conventional wisdom holds that the
ability to assess a rival’s fighting ability
is universal in the animal kingdom.
Recent research has shown otherwise
By Gareth Arnott and Robert W. Elwood

Gareth Arnott is a senior lecturer in animal behavior and welfare
at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. His research focuses
on animal contest behavior and animal welfare.
I giraffe, Western showdown music warbling on the soundtrack. “The old bull
animals engaged in aggressive contests. It’s not surprising, giv-

en the dramatic scenes that ensue. But have you ever wondered
about the decision-making processes that underlie these en-
counters? We have been lucky enough to devote a large part of
our research careers to this fascinating topic. And our work has
generated some surprising insights into what animals are think-
ing when they face off.
Animals compete for resources, such as territory, food and
Robert W. Elwood is professor emeritus of animal behavior
at Queen’s University Belfast and a former president of the
Association for the Study of Animal Behavior.
n a scene from the 2013 bbc documentary series AfricA, a giraffe approaches
from a distance, ambling across the golden sand of the Kalahari. “A young male,”
narrator David Attenborough announces. The newcomer heads toward another
won’t tolerate a rival,” Attenborough warns, as the giraffes begin to clash. “Pushing
and shoving, they size each other up. The young rival seems to think he has
a chance and attacks.” Moments later he slams his powerful neck into the old male’s, and
the fight is on—a bloody battle for territory. “The stakes are high,” Attenborough explains.
“To lose means exile in the desert.”
Wildlife documentaries commonly include such footage of terms. But relatively few of these species have actually been
shown to make these kinds of assessments. In fact, our own
research suggests that many creatures use different information
when deciding whether or not to compete.
DISPLAY OF FORCE
animals typically perform ritualized displays prior to engaging
in combat. For example, male deer stags competing for access to
females will engage in elaborate “roaring contests” and strut
mates. Sometimes these contests are mild and cause no physical side by side in “parallel walks.” Researchers have commonly in-
harm. Other times they are violent and end in severe injury or terpreted these behaviors as means by which each of the oppo-
death. Ultimately they result in unequal distribution of resourc- nents can provide information for the other to assess. If the dis-
es, have major effects on reproductive fitness and thus drive evo- play can settle the contest, there would be no need to engage in
lution. A creature that gathers information can benefit by avoid- a fight in which injury or even death is likely. It is better to spend
ing potentially lethal fights with bigger, stronger opponents. energy for a short time so that the opponent that perceives itself
We humans are remarkably skilled at assessing the fighting as the weaker of the two can withdraw, so the thinking goes. We
ability of others and quickly learn to not pick fights with individu- call this phenomenon mutual assessment, and it is central to a
als larger than ourselves. In laboratory tests, human subjects are game theory model of fighting known as sequential assessment.
able to accurately gauge the power of males after briefly viewing Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that was
photographs of their torsos or faces or listening to their voices. The initially developed by economists to model human strategic
judgment is spontaneous—members of both sexes reach it in less decision-making. Biologists were quick to spot the utility of
than 50 milliseconds. This ability reflects the importance of mak- game theory for evolutionary biology, with John Maynard Smith
ing accurate assessments of opponents during human evolution. and George Price being the first to use this framework for study-
Are nonhuman animals as good as we are at evaluating ing animal contests. The sequential assessment model proposes
rivals? Documentaries such as the ones Attenborough narrates that contests should be easily settled by displays if the oppo-
so eloquently often describe the animals’ motivations in such nents differ widely in prowess, with fights occurring only when
PRECEDING PAGES: VINCE BURTON Alamy
IN BRIEF
Scientists long thought that in competitions for Studies carried out in the past decade, however, Exactly what determines which strategy an animal
resources, all animals have the capacity to gauge have revealed that many species use different strat- uses is uncertain, but cognitive ability may play a
the fighting ability of their opponents in relation to egies in deciding whether to fight or retreat. Most key role, the idea being that mutual assessment is
themselves—a strategy called mutual assessment. seem able to assess only themselves and not rivals. more cognitively challenging than other tactics.

SIAMESE FIGHTING FISH assess one another’s fighting ability the lab of one of us (Elwood). In 1990 he and his colleagues doc-
and show greater aggression toward more formidable opponents. umented this tactic in amphipods, which are small, shrimplike
animals. In this species, males engage in a tug-of-war for females,
with one male literally grabbing a female from another male’s
they are closely matched. As the contest escalates, it will become clutches. Unsurprisingly, they found that larger males are more
increasingly costly, but it will also provide increasingly accurate successful than their smaller counterparts at making and resist-
information, and so mutual assessment will continue through- ing takeovers. And yet the competitors did not appear to be
out the contest. The model predicts that the greater the differ- assessing one another: whereas loser weight and contest dura-
ence in fighting ability between the opponents is, the shorter the tion showed a strong positive relationship, winner weight and
contest will be. And indeed for years biologists found exactly contest duration were not linked at all.
this negative relationship in the contests of virtually every spe- The biology community largely dismissed this finding as aber-
cies they studied. (To measure fighting ability in contests, biolo- rant. But there were other examples, such as that of Metellina
gists use a proxy measure, typically body size or weight.) As a mengei, a species of orb-weaving spider. During contests between
result of this body of work, mutual assessment came to be seen males for access to females, the spiders would stop grappling and
as a fundamental ability of all animals. stretch out their very long front legs, apparently comparing them.
In the rush to embrace the notion of a universal capacity for They looked for all the world like they were exchanging informa-
mutual assessment, however, some other interpretations of ani- tion. But here again winner size had no bearing on contest length,
mal contests went unnoticed for the most part. With mutual showing that this display did not affect the spiders’ decisions.
assessment, we would expect large losers to persist longer than The males were unable to evaluate one another, only themselves.
small ones in contests because the decision of the loser to quit is The discovery of self-assessment rather than mutual assessment
based partly on the animal’s own size or fighting prowess. And if in the orb-weaving spiders prompted zoologist Phil Taylor, now at
the loser gathers information about the winner, then it should Macquarie University in Sydney, to get in touch with Elwood. He
quit sooner if the winner is large. Although few studies exam- was preparing a paper on fights in a species of jumping spider and
ined these associations, some of them showed the predicted pos- was surprised to find self-assessment rather than mutual assess-
itive relationship between loser size and persistence. But there ment in that animal, too. This contact led to a collaborative inves-
was a hitch: the link between winner size and fight duration was tigation into why, if the animals use self-assessment, the most
not different from random. This finding suggested that in these common analysis predicted they would use mutual assessment.
instances the loser had information about itself but not about Taylor and Elwood used a computer simulation to model a
JANE BURTON Nature Picture Library
the opponent. These animals were either unable to gather the population of animals engaging in contests using self-assess-
information, or the information was too costly to gather, or they ment rules, in which the loser gathers no information about the
chose not to use information that would most likely enable them winner’s ability. The results showed a negative relationship
to make optimal fight decisions. In any case, they were exhibit- between size difference and contest duration—the more the
ing self-assessment rather than mutual assessment. opponents differed in size, the shorter the contest—exactly the
Some of these early examples of self-assessment came from same relationship predicted for mutual assessment. The reason

is that with a large size difference the loser would necessarily be 1
very small, whereas with a small difference the loser is more
likely to be somewhat bigger. Thus, if the result is driven only by
the loser, but the analysis uses the size difference, then it will
appear to support mutual assessment. In other words, the tool
that biologists had used for many years to study competing ani-
mals could give a false impression of their assessment abilities.
Studies of stalk-eyed flies—bizarre-looking insects whose
eyes are situated on the tips of antlerlike stalks that stick out
from their heads—illustrate the problem. Male flies compete for
food and females. An early study that relied on size difference
concluded that these animals compare their eye stalks to deter-
mine the winner. Researchers subsequently reanalyzed the orig-
inal data using the winner and loser size separately with fight
duration. This approach showed clearly that the loser uses infor-
mation about its own size in deciding whether to continue com-
peting but must not have information about winner size, be-
cause that factor has no effect on how long the contest lasts.
A positive or nonsignificant relationship between winner
size and contest duration, coupled with a positive relationship
between loser size or fighting prowess and contest duration, DECISIONS, DECISIONS
indicates what we call “pure self-assessment”—the participants the revelation that animals use different forms of assessment
are deciding whether to compete or retreat solely on the basis of when competing, along with the development of research proto-
the information they have about themselves. But if we detect a cols that can discriminate among these strategies, has led to a
negative relationship of winner size to contest duration, that resurgence of interest in animal contests. Studies of a wide range
does not necessarily mean that the loser is gathering informa- of species have emerged in the past decade and from them many
tion about the winner. Instead another decision process, dubbed new examples of creatures that use one or the other of these three
cumulative assessment, may be at work. With cumulative as- main strategies. Interestingly, most of them show self-assessment.
sessment, the animals can inflict costs on one another, and the Other studies have shown that some species use a combina-
larger the size difference, the greater the costs will be for the tion of approaches to figure out when to back down from a con-
smaller contestant, which then gives up as soon as a threshold of test and when to go to the mat. For example, in mangrove killifish,
costs is reached. It might seem like splitting hairs, but there is a individuals compete over territory. Researchers led by Yuying Hsu
major difference between cumulative assessment and mutual of National Taiwan Normal University found that opponents
assessment. The former does not involve any direct assessment decided whether to fight based on prefight displays. During this
of the opponent; the contest is settled only after costs have accu- phase of the encounter, the larger one opponent was, the more
mulated. The latter does not involve a threshold; rather the likely the smaller contestant was to back down before the encoun-
information gathered about the opponent and self informs the ter escalated to fighting. Those rivals that were closer in size tend-
decision to keep competing or throw in the towel. ed to escalate to fighting. They appeared to get no further infor-
Although cumulative assessment and sequential assessment mation about their opponents after the fight began, however. This
produce the same negative correlation between winner size and strategy, termed switching assessment, seems to be a mash-up of
contest duration, we have some tools for determining which of mutual assessment followed by self-assessment.
the two decision processes animals are using when they com- Our studies of hermit crabs revealed yet another form of deci-
pete. First, we can set up contests in the lab wherein partici- sion-making. Hermit crabs salvage the shells of dead snails and
pants in each contest are matched for size, but average size var- use them to protect their delicate abdomen. The crabs will fight for
ies from contest to contest. If the opponents are using cumula- access to a rival’s shell. We found that during these attempted take-
tive assessment, the eventual loser knows only its own state and overs the opponents get different information depending on their
thus large losers should persist for longer. In this case, we would role. Attackers seemed to receive little or no information about
MAXIMILIAN WEINZIERL Alamy (1 ); SUE DALY Nature Picture Library ( 2 );
expect to see a positive correlation between average size and defenders, whereas defenders were influenced by the way the
duration. In contrast, with sequential assessment the decision is attackers fought. Thus, within the same contest one role seemed to
based on relative size difference, and with size matching there is use self-assessment, whereas the other used mutual assessment.
no difference regardless of the absolute pairs. We would thus The existence of all these forms of assessment raises an intrigu-
expect to see no link between average pair size and contest dura- ing question: What determines which decision-making strategy
ALEX MUSTARD Nature Picture Library ( 3 )
tion if the opponents are using sequential assessment. an animal employs? One possible factor is cognitive ability. Some
We can also use the nature of escalation and de-escalation of experts have argued that just knowing one’s own state is simple
the contests to discriminate between the two decision strategies. but that integrating or comparing it with the state of the oppo-
Animals using cumulative assessment should exhibit phases of nent is more cognitively challenging. This idea remains to be sys-
escalation interspersed by phases of lower-cost activities. Those tematically tested, but a quick survey of taxa that differ in their
using sequential assessment, on the other hand, should progress cognitive sophistication provides tentative support for it. For
linearly from low- to high-cost activities. instance, sea anemones have a simple neural network, and analy-

2 3
FIGHT CLUB: House crickets (Acheta domesticus) (1) use cumula-

tive assessment to make decisions about fighting. Beadlet anem-
ses of their fights suggest they use self-assessment. At the other ones (Actinia equina) (2) employ self-assessment. In contests be-
extreme, complex animals with refined perceptual systems, such tween common hermit crabs (Pagurus bernhardus) (3), attackers
as cuttlefish, have been found to use mutual assessment. use self-assessment, whereas defenders use mutual assessment.
In line with this pattern, we expect that mammals, with their
large, highly developed brains, will use mutual assessment. But
few experiments of the kind needed to distinguish among the var- either the defender being dramatically evicted or the attacker giv-
ious assessment models have been carried out on mammals. A ing up and retreating empty-handed.
mammal for which we do have some experimental data on assess- We have found that the crabs consider multiple aspects of
ment is the domestic pig. One of us (Arnott) has been working with shells when determining how hard to fight for them. A key vari-
Simon Turner of Scotland’s Rural College and Irene Camerlink of able is the size of the shell relative to the size of the crab—the ide-
the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna to study pig aggres- al size is small enough to carry around with minimal energy
sion with an eye toward improving the welfare of farmed animals. expenditure but big enough to accommodate a certain amount of
Pigs naturally form dominance hierarchies. During pig farming it growth. The crabs modify their behavior depending on their
is routine practice to regroup pigs together at various stages of the assessment of their own shell and that of their opponent. When
production cycle. Whenever the animals are regrouped, a period attackers have poor shells and their opponents have good shells,
of intense aggression ensues as the animals hash out a new hierar- the attackers are more likely to escalate aggression and take their
chy. These repeated bouts of aggression pose a major welfare issue. opponents’ shell; when defenders have poor quality shells, they
When we took a closer look at this aggression, we determined will oppose the seizure less vigorously.
that pigs use mutual assessment but require prior contest experi- So next time you are watching a wildlife documentary with
ence to become proficient at it. The next step was to see if we could animals fighting, you will know there is a lot going on in that
provide the necessary experience in a manner that avoids costly interaction. In many cases, though—as in that of the giraffes—
aggression. To that end, we decided to experiment with manipulat- whether the creatures are truly “sizing each other up” remains to
ing the pigs’ early-life rearing environment. We found that piglets be determined, despite what the narrator may tell you.
that were allowed to mingle with another litter prior to weaning
subsequently developed enhanced social skills that enabled them
to have shorter contests when introduced to an unfamiliar indi-
MORE TO EXPLORE
vidual in later life. Our results suggest that simple early-life social-
Information Gathering and Decision Making about Resource Value in Animal Contests.
ization may be an effective, practical intervention that farmers Gareth Arnott and Robert W. Elwood in Animal Behaviour, Vol. 76, No. 3, pages 529–542;
can adopt to curb fighting among adult pigs during regrouping. September 2008.
One more aspect of contests warrants mention in the discus- Assessment of Fighting Ability in Animal Contests. Gareth Arnott and Robert W. Elwood
sion here. Although cognitive capacity probably helps to deter- in Animal Behaviour, Vol. 77, No. 5, pages 991–1004; May 2009.
Animal Contests. Edited by Ian C. W. Hardy and Mark Briffa. Cambridge University Press, 2013.
mine which kind of assessment an animal uses, it is not the only All by Myself? Meta-analysis of Animal Contests Shows Stronger Support for Self Than
factor at work. The value of the resource to be won or lost can for Mutual Assessment Models. Nelson S. Pinto et al. in Biological Reviews. Published online
itself influence decision-making. The shells of hermit crabs are a March 27, 2019.
prime example. During contests over shells, one crab termed the Video of a hermit crab contest from the authors’ lab: https://youtu.be/dlhzzEObnRs
attacker (usually the larger crab) approaches and grasps the shell FROM OUR ARCHIVES
of the defender, and the defender then withdraws into its shell. The Orca’s Sorrow. Barbara J. King; March 2019.
The attacker then vigorously hits its shell against the defender’s
again and again. This shell rapping, as it is known, ends with

C

D
A MEDICINE
R FIX
CANCER
W
Principles of evolution and
natural selection drive a radical
new approach to drugs
and prevention strategies
By James DeGregori and Robert Gatenby
I
Illustration by Maria Corte
T N’ his year at least 31,000 men in

the U.S. will be diagnosed with
prostate cancer that has spread
to other parts of their body,
such as bones and lymph nodes.
S
Most of them will be treated by
highly skilled and experienced
oncologists, who have access to 52 drugs
approved to treat this condition. Yet eventual-
ly more than three quarters of these men will
succumb to their illness.

Cancers that have spread, known as metastatic disease, are James DeGregori is a professor of biochemistry and
rarely curable. The reasons that patients die despite effective molecular genetics at the University of Colorado Anschutz
treatment are many, but they all trace back to an idea popular- Medical Campus and is author of Adaptive Oncogenesis:
ized in 1859 by Charles Darwin to explain the rise and fall of A New Understanding of How Cancer Evolves Inside Us
(Harvard University Press, 2018).
species of birds and tortoises. Today we call it evolution.
Think of a cancer cell like Darwin’s Galápagos finches, which
had slightly different beaks on various islands. Finches eat seeds, Robert Gatenby is a physician and chair of the
radiology department at the Moffitt Cancer Center
and seeds on each island had different shapes or other charac-
in Tampa, Fla. He is also a member of the integrated
teristics. The bird with a beak shape best matched to the local mathematical oncology department there.
seed got the most food and had the most offspring, which also
had that particular beak shape. Birds with less adaptive beaks
did not make it. This natural selection ensured that different
finch species, with various beaks, evolved on each island. The vent cells with an unwanted new trait—chemoresistance—from
key is that when two groups of critters compete in the same taking over. In a group of patients in which tumors usually
small space, the one better adapted to the environment wins out. start growing uncontrollably after 13 months, this regimen has
Cancer cells evolve in a similar manner. In normal tissue, kept tumors under control for 34 months on average—with less
regular noncancer cells thrive because they are a good fit for the than half the standard drug dose.
biochemical growth signals, nutrients and physical cues they The results of our prevention and therapeutic strategies may
get from surrounding healthy tissue. If a mutation creates a point to a way to ward off cancer before it becomes a danger to
cancer cell poorly adapted for those surroundings, it does not life and limb and to save many patients for whom a regimen of
stand much chance initially: normal cells outcompete it for giant, toxic drug doses has failed.
resources. But if the surroundings are further damaged by
inflammation—sometimes a growing cancer can cause this WHY DO WE GET CANCER?
itself—or old age, the cancer cell does better and starts to out- if you asked almost any doctor or cancer researcher, “Why is
compete normal cells that used to crowd it out. The change in aging, smoking or radiation exposure associated with cancer?”
the surroundings ultimately determines a cancer cells’ success. you would probably get a short answer: “These things cause
This is a theory we call adaptive oncogenesis, and we have mutations.” This assessment is partly true. Exposure to ciga-
found evidence that supports it in the way cancer takes off when rette smoke or radiation does cause mutations in our DNA, and
we change its cellular environment in experimental animals, mutations do accumulate in our cells throughout life. The muta-
although the internal workings of the cancer cell have not tions can provide cells with new properties, such as hyperactive
changed. Doctors have also observed this acceleration of cancer growth signals for cell divisions, reduced death rates or even an
in humans with tissue-disturbing ailments such as inflammato- increased ability to invade surrounding tissue.
ry bowel disease. The overall implication is that we can best Yet this simple explanation, focused on changes within cells,
understand cancer by looking at its surroundings rather than overlooks the fact that a major driver of evolutionary change in
solely focusing on the mutations inside a cell. By reducing tissue any single cell—or in entire collections of them, such as human
alterations caused by processes such as inflammation, we can beings—is outside, in the cell’s environment.
restore a more normal environment and—as we have shown in We know that the evolution of species on the earth has been
animal studies—prevent cancer from gaining a competitive edge. highly dependent on environmental perturbations, including
Our evolutionary perspective also has inspired a different dramatic changes to landmasses, the gases in the air and water,
approach to cancer therapy, one that we have successfully test- and ambient temperature. These changes led to selection for
ed in small clinical trials. Doctors dump a lot of chemotherapy new adaptive features in organisms, producing amazing diversi-
drugs on a cancer in an effort to kill every last trace of the ty. As Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species in 1859, “Owing
threat, and at first this often looks like it works. The tumor to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from
shrinks or goes away. But then it comes back and is resistant to whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an
the drugs that once killed these cells, akin to crop-destroying individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to
insects that evolve resistance to pesticides. In a clinical trial other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the pres-
with prostate cancer patients, one of us (Gatenby) tried an ervation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its
alternative to the scorched-earth approach, applying only offspring” (emphasis added). Darwin proposed that competition
enough chemo to keep the tumor tiny without killing it entire- for limited resources would drive selection for individuals with
ly. The goal was to maintain a small population of vulnerable traits that were best adapted to the environment. And when
chemosensitive cells. That population did well enough to pre- environments changed, so would these pressures, selecting
IN BRIEF
Medical efforts to defeat cancer typically focus A new concept emphasizes that cancer growth The evolutionary approach, tested in animals and
on malignant mutations within a cell and adminis- is stimulated by changes outside the cell, alterations humans with advanced prostate cancer, sharply
ter large doses of toxic drugs in an attempt to in the surrounding tissue that accelerate the evolu- limits the natural selection of cancer cells through
eradicate the disease. tion of cancerous traits. a more judicious use of chemotherapy.

Controlling Cancer
Oncologists typically treat aggressive cancers with strong respons- and they grow readily in ravaged and drug-saturated tissue. An
es. They hit the tumor with the “maximum tolerated dose,” or the alternative called adaptive therapy aims to use smaller doses that
heaviest amount of anticancer drugs that a patient can take. Because prevent the tumor from evolving total resistance. Tests in prostate
cancer drugs also affect normal cells, the dangerous effects on the cancer patients show that the first round of treatment shrinks the
patient’s body are the only real limit on dose size and treatment tumor but allows a few cancer cells that remain sensitive to the
length. But research that looks at tumor growth from an evolution- drug to survive. Those cells keep rival, drug-resistant cells from
ary perspective indicates this scorched-earth strategy may be one taking over the tumor if it grows back. Because the tumor contains
reason that tumors rebound and kill patients. Any cancer cells that these sensitive cells, a second round of treatment knocks the size
survive the initial assault have traits that let them resist the drug, back down, and subsequent rounds have similar effects.
Conventional Therapy
Cancer cells Initial tumor Maximum Tumor cannot be controlled
Chemotherapy- tolerated dose
sensitive of chemotherapy
Chemotherapy-
resistant
Time
Cancer cells die Chemoresistant cells outcompete sensitive cells
Adaptive Therapy
Initial tumor Maximum effective dose Tumor size maintained with continued therapy
of chemotherapy
Cancer cells die Chemosensitive cells outcompete resistant cells
for new traits that were better tuned to the new surroundings. inherent advantage to the cell and can, in fact, be disadvanta-
Similar Darwinian dynamics should apply to the evolution of geous if it makes that cell less able to use the resources of the
cancers in our body. Even though we trained as a molecular biol- tissue immediately around it.
ogist (DeGregori) and a physician (Gatenby), evolution and ecol- We were also inspired by the punctuated equilibrium theory
ogy have always fascinated both of us. Our extensive reading in of paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, who
these areas, while initially driven by what we thought was curi- noted that species often maintain stable traits through millions
osity unrelated to our day jobs, revealed unappreciated parallels of years of fossil records, only to suddenly evolve rapidly in
between the driving forces of evolution and our observations of response to a dramatic environmental change. This concept stim-
cancer development and cancer patients’ responses to therapy. ulated our ideas about the way that some tissues could be initial-
For instance, cancer researchers typically believed that a ly unfavorable to cell mutations, but changes in those tissues,
cancer-causing mutation would always confer an advantage to a such as damage and inflammation in a smoker’s lungs, could
cell that acquired it, but we recognized a classic evolutionary stimulate evolutionary change—sometimes leading to cancer.
principle at work: A mutation does not automatically help or We first saw this dynamic at work with aging-associated
hinder an organism. Instead its effects are dependent on fea- changes in bone marrow that led to the development of leuke-
tures of the local environment. In Darwin’s finches, there is no mias. Working with groups of young and old mice in DeGrego-
“better” beak shape per se, but certain beaks improve survival ri’s Colorado lab, Curtis Henry, now at Emory University, and
under certain conditions. Similarly, we reasoned that a muta- Andriy Marusyk, now at the Moffitt Cancer Center, created the
tion that turns on a cancer-causing gene does not provide an same cancer-causing mutations in a few of the mice’s bone mar-
Illustration by Mesa Schumacher August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 55

row stem cells. The results showed that
the same cancer-causing mutations can
have very different effects on the fate of
these cells, depending on age: the chang-
es promoted the proliferation of mutat-
ed cells in the old mice but not in the
young ones. And the determining factor
did not appear to be in the mutated cells
but in the metabolism and gene activity
of the normal cells around them. For
example, the activity of genes important
for stem cell division and growth was
reduced in nonmutated stem cells in the
bone marrow of old mice, but it was
restored in these cells when we intro-
duced the cancer-causing mutation. Yet
the mutation that helped these cells had
bad effects on the mice. These stem cells
normally generate key players in the
body’s immune system, but the popula-
tion explosion of the cancer-mutated
version of the cells instead led to the
development of leukemias.
EARLY TUMORS , such as this one (bright green) in lung tissue, grow because
On the other hand, the fit young stem
they develop traits that let them outcompete normal cells.
cells in the tissues of a young mouse
already had levels of growth and energy
use that nicely matched what their sur-
roundings could provide. Therefore, such cells did not benefit by reducing the nasty tendency of such cells to develop drug
from the cancer-causing mutations when we introduced them. resistance. The evolution of resistance happens in other realms.
The mutated cell populations did not grow. By favoring the sta- Perhaps the most familiar example is the centuries-old contest
tus quo, youth is tumor-suppressive. between farmers and crop-destroying insects. For more than a
Why does any of this matter? Although we can avoid some century pesticide manufacturers produced a steady stream of
mutations by not smoking and keeping clear of other mutagen- new products, but the pests always evolved resistance. Eventu-
ic exposures, many, if not most, of the mutations that we accu- ally manufacturers recognized that trying to eradicate the pests
mulate in our cells during life cannot be dodged. But this new by spraying high doses of pesticides on fields was making the
focus on tissue environments introduces a way to limit cancer: problem worse because of an evolutionary process termed com-
reversing tissue alterations caused by aging, smoking and other petitive release.
insults will reduce the success of cancer-causing mutations. The To understand competitive release, remember that all the
mutations will still occur, but they will be much less likely to insects within a large population occupying a field are continu-
give cells an advantage and thus will not grow in number. ously competing with one another for food and space, and they
Of course, there is no Fountain of Youth to reverse or prevent are not identical (as is also the case for cancer cells). In fact, for
aging. Doing the things we know we should, such as exercising, nearly every trait, including sensitivity to a pesticide, there is
eating a balanced diet and not smoking, can improve the main- inevitable variability within a population. By spraying a large
tenance of our tissues, which may be the best strategy we can amount of insecticide (or administering a large dose of chemo-
use for the moment. But if we can figure out what key tissue therapy), the farmer (or oncologist) may kill the vast majority
environmental factors favor cancer development, we should be of insects (or cancer cells). Yet a few insects (or cells) have
able to change these factors to limit malignancies. Indeed, in our traits that make them less vulnerable, and with the highly vul-
mouse experiments, we showed that when we reduced the activ- nerable organisms removed, the resistant ones begin to spread.
ity of inflammation-causing and tissue-damaging proteins in old A farming strategy called integrated pest management tries to
mice, cells with the cancer-causing mutations did not prolifer- deal with this situation by using pesticides sparingly. Rather
ate; normal cells maintained their dominance. But we must pro- than trying to eradicate the pests, farmers spray only enough to
ceed cautiously. Blocking inflammation in mice living in sterile control them and lower crop damage without resulting in com-
cages may reduce cancer, but a similar strategy in people in the petitive release. In this way, sensitivity of the pest to the pesti-
real world could limit defenses against infections because cide is maintained.
inflammation is part of our immune response. The medical community has learned a similar lesson with
antibiotics: excessive use must be stopped to curtail the con-
MOUMITA GHOSH
FROM PREVENTION TO THERAPY stant evolutionary cycle that produces the development of
in addition to primary prevention, an evolutionary understand- drug-resistant pathogens. But this lesson has not yet taken hold
ing can help make therapies for existing cancers more effective in the cancer field.

Like farmers who used to blast fields with huge amounts of gists, we developed a model of the evolutionary dynamics of
insecticides, doctors today typically give chemotherapy to prostate cancer cells during treatment. We used this model to
patients at “maximum tolerated dose (MTD) until progression.” simulate the responses of prostate cancer to a variety of drug
Nearly all cancer drugs also damage normal tissues in the body, doses administered by an oncologist. Then we ran these
and these side effects can be very unpleasant and even fatal. encounters over and over again until we arrived at a series of
MTD means the drugs are given in amounts that fall just short doses that kept the cancer in check for the longest time without
of killing the patient or causing intolerable side effects. Giving increasing the population of drug-resistant cells.
the same treatment “until progression” emerges from a tradi- Next we asked patients with aggressive prostate cancer that
tional metric of treatment success, based on the tumor’s change had already metastasized to other locations—the kind that doc-
in size. Drugs are deemed successful when the tumor shrinks, tors cannot completely eliminate from the body—to volunteer
and the treatment is abandoned if it gets bigger. for a clinical trial. So far the patients have had excellent out-
To most patients and doctors, treatment designed to kill the comes. Of the 18 people enrolled, 11 are still in treatment. Stan-
maximum number of cancer cells with relentless administration dard therapy typically maintains control of metastatic prostate
of the greatest possible amount of lethal drugs feels like the best cancer for an average of about 13 months. In our trial, average
approach. But as in the control of insects and infectious diseas- tumor control is at least 34 months, and because more than half
es, this strategy, in the setting of an incurable cancer, is often of our patients are still being treated actively, we cannot yet
evolutionarily unwise because it sets in motion a series of events place an upper limit on how well they do. Furthermore, this con-
that actually accelerate the growth of drug-resistant cancer cells. trol is being achieved using only 40 percent of the drug dose that
The other evolutionary lesson learned from pest control is patients would have received in standard treatment. But it is
that a “resistance management plan” can keep unwanted popu- still early days for this treatment approach. Just because it
lations in check, often indefinitely. Can this strategy also lead to works in prostate cancer does not mean it works in stomach can-
better outcomes for patients with incurable cancers? The cer, for instance. And it may be tough to convince patients, even
answer is not yet clear, but there are hints from experimental those with an incurable disease, that the best approach is not to
studies and early clinical trials that it could do just that. kill as many cancer cells as possible but as few as necessary.
An evolution-based strategy for a patient who, after a month
on an anticancer drug, had a 50 percent reduction in tumor size THE RULES OF CANCER
would be to stop treatment. This approach would be used only in many ways, the evolutionary model of cancer development and
when we knew from past experience that available treatments— treatment serves to dispel the “mystery” of cancer. The proclivi-
chemo, hormone therapy, surgery, immune system boosters— ty of the disease to strike without any clear cause, along with its
could not cure the cancer in this patient. Because a cure would ability to overcome and return even after highly effective and
not be achievable, the goal would instead be to keep the tumor often highly toxic therapy, can be viewed by patients and care-
from growing and metastasizing for as long as possible. By stop- givers as both hopelessly complicated and magically powerful.
ping therapy, we would leave behind a large number of treat- In contrast, understanding that cancer obeys the rules of evolu-
ment-sensitive cancer cells. The tumor would then begin to tion like all other living systems can give us confidence that we
grow back and eventually reach its previous size. Yet during this have a chance to control it. Even without a cure, by using our
regrowth period, because no chemotherapy would be adminis- understanding of evolutionary dynamics, we can strategically
tered, the majority of tumor cells would still be sensitive to the alter therapy to get the best possible outcome. And prevention
anticancer drug, not resistant to it. In effect, we would use the strategies can be geared toward helping to create tissue land-
sensitive cells that we could control to suppress the growth of scapes in the body that favor normal cells over cancer cells.
the resistant cells that we could not control. As a result, the For more than a century the cancer research community has
treatment would be able to maintain tumor control much longer sought “silver bullets”—drugs that can eliminate all cancer cells
than the conventional approach of continuous administration while sparing all normal cells. Cancer has been taking advan-
of maximum dose and, because the drug dose would be signifi- tage of evolution to sidestep these drugs. But we can use evolu-
cantly reduced, with much less toxicity and better quality of life. tion, too. We have the opportunity to expand the work of Dar-
Gatenby’s lab began by investigating the approach in 2006 win and his successors to develop more realistic approaches to
using mathematical models and computer simulations. Although both prevent and tame this deadly disease.
such models had rarely been employed in cancer-treatment plan-
ning, the large number of possible treatment options required us
to adopt an approach, common in physics, in which mathemati-
cal results help to define experimental methods that are likely to M O R E T O E X P L O R E
be successful. Our models defined the levels of drugs we wanted Integrating Evolutionary Dynamics into Treatment of Metastatic Castrate-Resistant
Prostate Cancer. Jingsong Zhang, Jessica J. Cunningham, Joel S. Brown and Robert A.
to test. The next step was to try those doses in mouse experi- Gatenby in Nature Communications, Vol. 8, Article No. 1816; November 28, 2017.
ments, and doing so confirmed that tumor control could be great- First Strike–Second Strike Strategies in Metastatic Cancer: Lessons from
ly improved by evolution-based strategies. the Evolutionary Dynamics of Extinction. Robert A. Gatenby, Jingsong Zhang and
The results were good enough to prompt a move into the Joel S. Brown in Cancer Research (in press).
clinic and a test on human cancer patients. We were joined in F R O M O U R A R C H I V E S
this effort by Jingsong Zhang, an oncologist at the Moffitt Can- The Cancer Tree. Jeffrey P. Townsend; April 2018.
cer Center, who treats men with prostate cancer. With the help
of Zhang, along with mathematicians and evolutionary biolo-

get s
oo d l r
ke
w
oc ome e ed will
na rs. S nst th hat
’t
on ntist
ts scie ges
HY
S IC
he G
S
f
r
s t
it i o
ad he st aga out
T ot
s h
pu ics to
a
ing find
i w
T ind o
P u
r e
a
p hys coles te
of ra h S
cen
t
Fa
D i well
Lo
Sa V in n c e
r
By n b y S pe
K razy
o y
at i yb
l u s t r ra ph
Il g
ot o
Ph


Sarah Scoles is a Denver-based freelance science writer, a contributing
writer at WIRED Science, a contributing editor at Popular Science, and author
of the book Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (Pegasus Books, 2017).
W when heIdI Fearn, a TheoreTICal physICIsT aT CalIFornIa sTaTe UnIversITy, FUllerTon,

returned from sabbatical in 2012, she found a surprise in the laboratory adjoining
her office: a man, an old man named James F. Woodward. Fearn knew him from
around—he was a professor of science history and an adjunct professor of physics.
With white hair and eyes perpetually peering over the top of his glasses, he fit the part.
Still, she thought, “What the heck is this guy doing in my back room?”
He was, it turns out, being shuffled around space-
time: The university had recently commandeered
Woodward’s office for a newly created Gravitational
Wave Physics and Astronomy Center. The institutional
authorities had transferred him into this relatively
unused spot.
At first, Fearn viewed him as an intruder, but soon
her perspective shifted. Woodward was researching a
fringe topic—one way outside Fearn’s normal purview.
She specialized in quantum optics, how light interacts
that graph daily. “Every time I walked past, the blip
seemed to get bigger and bigger,” she says. Eventually
Woodward asked if she wanted to help.
She had tenure, and she liked Star Trek, so “Yeah,
sure,” she said. Working together since then, the odd
couple has been developing MEGA: the Mach effect
gravity-assist drive. And although it is still on the out-
er limits of mainstream science, it has gained credibil-
ity. Three other labs have seen similar thrust from
copycat setups, and MEGA has netted two of nasa’s
with matter—a much more mainstream subject than most competitive grants.
IN BRIEF Woodward’s interest: a hypothetical form of spacecraft These are not just any grants, though. They come
Chemical rockets propulsion so powerful that—if real—it could poten- from the agency’s spaciest department: the nasa Inno-
and electrical tially push our species out to the stars. vative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, which
engines will never Or so he claimed. Fearn, whose shaved head and funds research that would be “huge if true.” In 2017 and
propel spacecraft smirk suggest constant skepticism, was not so sure. “I 2018 advanced propulsion—sending more mass
fast enough to reach wasn’t really convinced that what he was doing was cor- through more space in less time using less fuel than tra-
other star systems rect,” she says. When she walked by every day, what ditional rockets—has accounted for around 20 percent
in reasonable
Fearn saw resembled a Physics 101 lab experiment more of the awards. These projects range from really exotic
time frames.
nasa is funding
than a futuristic propulsion system. Woodward’s setup to merely eccentric, but they all diverge from the tradi-
studies of exotic had a bolted-down balance with a metal cage on one tional path and aim for somewhere new.
propulsion technol- side, wires running to and fro, and counterweights on
ogies that might the other side. “You can create some very large gravita- THE EDGE OF SCIENCE FICTION
turn out to be tional effects just by pushing on stuff,” Woodward prom- The nIaC granTs are trying to remedy the fact that pro-
crazy—but might ised her—specifically, the stuff inside the metal box. pulsion has stood relatively still since the mid-1900s.
also pan out. He claimed he could induce tiny, ultraquick varia- Most spacecraft use chemical propellants, the space
One project is inves-
tions in an object’s mass, making it lighter and then version of gasoline. In conventional rockets, these
tigating the so-called
Mach effect; the heavier. And then, by tugging and shoving it back and chemicals combine and react with one another to heat
idea is to use the forth strategically as its mass changed, he could create up and expand. Too big for their chamber’s britches,
principle of inertia thrust. He showed her little blips on the output graph, they shoot out the back of the craft, creating thrust.
to generate thrust. each a vroom. Right, Fearn thought. But she side-eyed Thrust is simply using force in one direction to create

IN THEIR
SHARED LAB,
James F. Wood-
ward (left) and
Heidi Fearn
(right) search for
a new means
of space travel.
an equal force in the opposite direction. When you times better than current technology, swooping in to
push into the wall of a swimming pool, thrust is what push on the sluggish status quo. In start-up-world-
pushes you back. speak, this would be called “disruption.”
Fuel, though, is heavy and inefficient. To get truly As an example, Derleth cites the work of Philip
huge thrust, a vehicle would need to carry so much gas Lubin of the University of California, Santa Barbara. A
that it would never get off the ground. For missions to few years ago Lubin proposed a project nicknamed
other solar systems or even travel within our solar sys- Starchip Enterprise: a tiny satellite equipped with a
tem at a much quicker pace, chemical fuel is just not “light sail” (a new iteration of an idea that predates the
going to cut it. “There’s only so much energy in those project). From Earth orbit, powerful lasers would
propellants,” says John Brophy of nasa’s Jet Propulsion shoot toward the sail. When they hit, the sail would
Laboratory (JPL). He leads another NIAC-funded proj- reflect the light, and its momentum would thrust the
ect called A Breakthrough Propulsion Architecture for spacecraft forward. NIAC awarded Lubin grants in
Interstellar Precursor Missions. “It doesn’t matter how 2015 and 2016, and he now works with a project from
smart you are, how big a nozzle you make, you can’t the Breakthrough Initiatives to send a laser-powered
beat that problem,” Brophy notes. light sail to the closest star. This is the good kind of
A few deep-space projects, like nasa’s Dawn mission crazy, which NIAC likes. “It’s just crazy enough that it
to the asteroid belt, have instead used electric propul- might work,” Derleth says. “NIAC is for going up to the
sion. Such systems typically use electric power to accel- edge of science fiction but not crossing over.” He adds,
erate charged particles, which can then shoot from the “We do our best to not cross over.”
rocket at speeds up to 20 times faster than traditional But the gap between science and fiction is fraction-
fuels. But these, too, have been stuck in a rut. “It turns al, at these low “technology readiness levels” (TRLs), a
out that almost all the electric thrusters that have been rating system nasa uses to assess how mature an inno-
invented were invented in the 1950s and 1960s,” says vation is. The solar panels on its Mars InSight lander
Dan M. Goebel, a senior research scientist at JPL. “It’s rate a TRL 9, meaning already out in space, working.
like there almost hasn’t been a new idea since then.” NIAC, though, seeks TRLs 1, 2 and, sometimes, 3—ear-
NIAC, though, is all about new ideas. The program ly-stage projects that need more baking before they
functions as nasa’s venture capital arm, in that it sup- are deployed in the real world.
ports technologies that might pan out, big-time. “Cra- Around 200 groups typically submit NIAC Phase I
zy” stuff, according to Jason Derleth, NIAC’s program proposals every year, and the agency okays just 15 to 18.
executive. “What I mean by ‘crazy’ is something no- With $125,000 apiece, scientists get nine months to do
body is thinking about,” Derleth says. Something 10 “a quick turn of the crank to see if something is really

background. Together—as Fearn pro-
claims the project belongs to Wood-
Mach Effect Thrust ward and Woodward protests with
equal and opposite force—they de-
To push a spacecraft faster than conventional rockets can, scientists are turning to novel, scribe how MEGA might work. It be-
sometimes exotic, concepts. One proposal is to harness the so-called Mach effect—the gins with inertia.
idea that when you accelerate an object, you can change its mass slightly, and that these It is a simple principle, one you expe-
fluctuations can achieve thrust—a push in one direction—without expelling propellant. rience every day: the tendency of things
to keep moving in the same direction
Step 1 Reaction Piezoelectric Fluctuating they already are or to stay stopped if
mass stack actuator mass they are standing still. But scientists lack
Two masses are separated by a stack
of piezoelectric disks, which are ceram a solid explanation for why inertia exists.
ics that expand and contract when It just kind of ... is. In the late 1880s Aus-
an alternating voltage is applied to trian physicist Ernst Mach came up with
the stack. As the stack expands, the seed of one idea: inertia is the result
the mass on the right becomes lighter.
Its inertia dips, making it easy to
of all the gravitational influence of all
push forward. the matter in the universe.
Anything inside a spacecraft engine,
Dip in mass and inertia then, feels a gravitational pull from
nearby stuff as well as that billions of
light-years distant. And an object’s
Step 2 mass will change a bit every time it ac-
As the piezoelectric stack contracts, the
fluctuating mass on the right becomes
celerates or decelerates relative to all
more massive. That bumps up its inertia, that stuff. Other physicists around the
making it harder to pull back. The con same time, including Benedict Fried-
stant mass on the left is dragged forward laender and August Föppl, held similar
more than the backward movement relativistic ideas.
of the fluctuating mass on the right,
But Albert Einstein is actually the
shifting the center of mass forward. Bump in mass and inertia
one who named this “Mach’s principle,”
after reading Ernst Mach’s earlier mus-
Step 3 ings on the subject. More modern phys-
As this cycle repeats, the center icists—including the late Donald Lyn-
of mass of the total system moves den-Bell, who in 1969 first proposed
forward and accelerates. that the centers of galaxies contain
supermassive black holes—have taken
up the cause. As a student, Lynden-Bell
became intrigued by the idea, and his
adviser gave him a 1953 paper by physi-
cist Dennis Sciama, who articulated
the most complete version of Mach’s
feasible,” Derleth says. If no deal breakers pop up, idea. Sciama’s work is what inspired Woodward, too.
researchers can apply for the $500,000 Phase II grant. Although Lynden-Bell maintained interest throughout
“It is one of the hardest proposals to write, with the his career, it was a side project; he subscribed to a
lowest win rate in aerospace,” he says. “I consider research philosophy almost the opposite of Wood-
these folks to usually be the cream of the crop.” ward’s: “Doing bread-and-butter science, straightfor-
Eight of the 47 projects funded in the past two years ward extensions of what is known in order to elucidate
and three Phase II selections have dealt with advanced new phenomena, is the main job,” he wrote in 2010.
propulsion. But NIAC is taking a gamble on every proj- “We should not spend all our time groping at great
ect—hoping at least some represent a true outside force, problems that may be beyond our capacity.”
something that can push propulsion in a new direction. Woodward disagrees, hewing more to a “go big or
go home” ethos. And so he has continued to try to
THE PRINCIPLE OF INERTIA apply Mach’s principle to spacecraft engines. Engineer
“ThIs has noT been an exploration guided by genius and Marc Millis, who used to head nasa’s Breakthrough
profound insight,” Woodward says one February day Propulsion Physics Program, sees promise here. “Un-
over a video conference call. He and Fearn are sitting like other claims, the [Mach effect thruster] . .. is root-
in the office that has become their joint headquarters, ed in open questions in physics,” he says.
where a box of tissues sits next to a pair of forceps. The idea of a thruster based on Mach’s principle
Fearn’s office, empty, shows on a screen, forest-tall goes like this: By deforming an object, you accelerate
metal bookshelves bungee-corded together in the its innards (imagine crumpling a piece of paper—when
62 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Jen Christiansen

you crush it, you are moving its parts). And when you “In the past, our work has been very solidly grounded in
accelerate something, you change its energy. If you engineering and physics,” he said, “and of course exotic
change its energy—according to Einstein’s revelation propulsion is a pretty controversial subject.” But, he
that E = mc2—you change its mass. If you change its went on, it has intrigued him for a long time. Science-
mass, you affect its inertia. And if you mess around fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once told him that if he
with inertia, you are messing with how the object wanted to get far from this planet—and come back—he
relates to the entire rest of the universe. needed one thing: “A physicist who will give you a
What this means, in a practical sense, is hard to say. straight answer to the question, ‘What is inertia?’ ”
But Woodward and Fearn have tried to bring these “I remembered those words,” Hudson said. “The first
ideas down to earth. Inside their space drive is a physicist I encountered who gave me a straight answer
clamped-together stack of “piezoelectric disks,” ceram- was Jim Woodward.”
ics that expand and contract (like pieces of paper And as the conference tripped along, others’ results
crumpling and uncrumpling) when shocked with a seemed to—at least to some degree—back up Wood-
voltage. Some of that acceleration changes the inter- ward and Fearn’s measurements. They showed thrust
nal energy of the disks, which then changes their from the MEGA setup when the thruster was turned on
mass: They grow heavier, lighter, heavier, lighter. If and not when it was turned off. On the third day, Nem-
you pull on them when they are light and shove them bo Buldrini of FOTEC Research and Technology Trans-
away when they are heavy, you get thrust—without fer, an Austrian engineering firm, stepped to the front
having to use any fuel. “Picture yourself standing on a of the room. He usually evaluates the effects of electric
skateboard with a 10 pound brick attached to you via thrusters, but a few years before, Woodward had sent
a bungee cord,” wrote Woodward’s former graduate him a Mach effect device.
student, Tom Mahood, in an attempt to make this all Buldrini brought up a plot showing his results, side
slightly understandable, which was posted on his Web by side with Woodward and Fearn’s. “The first thing
site in April 2012. “If you throw the brick away from that is evident is the shape of the curve,” he said.
you, you and the skateboard will move in one direc- Indeed, both showed a dip when the device turned on,
tion, and the brick will head in the opposite direction.” a constant thrust while it was powered up, and then an
Thrust! It is not a perfect analogy, Woodward points offset spike when it switched off. The thrust numbers
out—but he admits he has never been able to come up differed by an order of magnitude—perhaps, Buldrini
with a physical metaphor that both makes sense and said, a problem of calibration. Perhaps not. (Wood-
is totally correct. ward also notes that differences in the balance equip-
It sounds sketchy, and some scientists believe it vio- ment could account for differences in magnitude.)
lates the principle of conservation of momentum, but Two other groups had similar data with similar
some studies (and Woodward and Fearn) disagree. Yet thrust patterns. Martin Tajmar of the Technical Uni-
the idea caught the attention of Gary Hudson, presi- versity of Dresden had only preliminary results, but
dent of the Space Studies Institute, a California-based George Hathaway, an electrical engineer who runs his
organization once headed by famed theoretical physi- own consulting firm, had more data. During his pre-
cist Freeman Dyson. The group set up an Exotic Pro- sentation, he wore no shoes—only socks with rainbow-
pulsion Initiative in 2013, with first funds going colored Einstein faces splashed all over them. His lab,
toward Woodward and Fearn. he said, had done its work on antiseismic tables, to
Woodward soon began sending copies of his setup make sure the planet’s shaking did not mess up off-
to people at other labs, so they could try to replicate Earth travel results. And the thrust held up.
the thrust. And Fearn and Lance Williams, then a sci- After the workshop’s early-stage replications, NIAC
entist at Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded took notice and gave Woodward and Fearn a 2017
research and development center in El Segundo, Calif., Phase I grant. Which is not, of course, to say either that
suggested that the Space Studies Institute run a work- the thrust is definitively real and not some systematic
shop for advanced propulsers. error—or that, if it is real, the Mach effect causes it. In
Because Williams lived in Colorado and knew it was 2018 Tajmar presented a paper as part of his Space-
a pretty place to hole up even if all the participants Drive project, an initiative to try to replicate, or rule
reneged on their RSVPs, the group settled on Estes Park out, fantastic(al) propulsion claims. And, in fact, that
in the fall of 2016, when aspens on the steeply pitched study showed anomalously high thrusts—meaning the
mountainsides turn the red-orange-fire color of (con- blips might not be thrust at all but an error or some
ventional) rockets. The conference’s motto, “Bury the other phenomenon. At the Space Studies Institute’s
Hatchet,” urged cooperation between competitors, and 2018 workshop, a software engineer named Jamie
the meeting even had an official lapel pin: a hatchet Ciomperlik presented a simulation showing how
and shovel crossed into an X. vibrations in the system could masquerade as oomph.
In May 2019, moreover, Tajmar published another
REPLICATING THE RESULTS SpaceDrive paper online, and when he subtracted out
on The FIrsT day, Hudson stood before the gathered other effects that may masquerade as thrust, there
crowd, wood paneling and white boards behind him. was no thrust to see. “Our results challenge the validi-

MEGA, the
Mach effect
gravity-assist
drive, aims
to demonstrate
a new tech-
nique for pro-
ducing thrust.
ty of the genuine thrust claim on the Mach Effect lasers, Brophy’s lasers will shoot from orbit, beaming
thruster,” Tajmar says. “But further research is needed light to panels that—like solar panels—turn it into elec-
to definitely confirm that.” Woodward says he believes tric power. That electricity feeds into a propulsion sys-
the setup was not configured correctly. The team tem pumped full of lithium. The voltage whacks elec-
plans to present new data later this year, and Tajmar trons off the lithium atoms, leaving them with a posi-
says that even if the thrust returns, he does not think tive charge. An electric field then accelerates them and
the underlying theory is correct. routes them out the back of the spacecraft. Brophy
Millis tends to agree—both that teams could be wants it to travel 20 times faster than the Dawn space-
seeing a false positive and that, if not, the device is not craft’s ionic propulsion system—whose development he
necessarily demonstrating the Mach effect. In some led—for a speed of around 200 kilometers per second.
ways, though, the underlying theory matters less than But the project is still a moonshot. The team is not
the empirical demonstration. As Lance Williams said sure it can point the laser accurately enough or that it
during the 2016 propulsion workshop, “If you can lev- can assemble such a big laser array in space or make
itate a cannonball in front of us, we don’t care what light-converting panels that generate the necessary
the theory is.” 6,000 volts. “That’s why it’s a perfect NIAC study,”
“Skeptical doubt is healthy, and the only way to Brophy says. “[NIAC experiments are] intentionally
resolve doubt is irrefutable evidence,” says Millis, who right at the ragged edge of whether they are feasible
recently spent three months at Tajmar’s lab chasing or infeasible.”
that evidence. “Despite the replications, [the thrust] And some are trying to break away from the electric
still might turn out to be a common measurement arti- trajectory altogether. Another NIAC project is targeting
fact,” he says. “Then again, it may be a genuine new an antimatter engine by “cooling down” positrons,
phenomenon.” Although the science is far from settled, which have the same mass as electrons but the opposite
MEGA’s Phase I results impressed nasa enough that charge. In their natural state, these antimatter particles
the agency gave the group a Phase II grant in 2018. are hotter than the surface of the sun, making them hard
to work with and store. But cooled down, they can be
LASERS, ANTIMATTER AND NUKES kept and controlled and—as this project does—smashed
woodward and Fearn’s experiment is the most exotic of into electrons. The resulting gamma rays could fuel a
NIAC’s propulsion grants. And not all the other fusion reaction that then propels the spacecraft.
researchers who have NIAC funding agree that “exotic” Another idea braids a beam of neutrons and a beam
is the way to go. of laser photons so that the particles do not spread out,
Brophy’s A Breakthrough Propulsion Architecture or diffract, as they travel through space. The neutron
for Interstellar Precursor Missions is pinning its hopes beam corrals the photons by refracting them, or bend-
on lasers. Similar in some ways to Lubin’s light-sail ing their path, and the laser beam’s electric field “traps”

the neutrons. The team claims a beam made with a which technologies become reality. Whatever we send
50-gigawatt laser, shot onto a sail on the spacecraft, to space comes from Earth, where there are laws,
could accelerate a one-kilogram probe on a 42-year unburied hatchets, poorly understood physics and
mission to the nearest star system. unknown unknowns that seem too risky to put on a
And then, of course, there are nukes. Robert Adams costly spaceship. These are among the factors that
of nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center has a NIAC lead to proverbial inertia—the tendency to keep using
project called Pulsed Fission-Fusion (PuFF), which the same technologies and keep going the same way
combines two nuclear strategies. “The only way we’ve we have been going. But that outside kick to point the
developed anything fusion-related is with a fission field in a new direction could come at any moment.
trigger,” he says—in other words, using an easier-to- The jury is still out on MEGA, and the concept is
make fission reaction to create conditions extreme still a long way from being useful, if it ever will be at
enough to kick-start fusion. But a fission-fusion trigger all. The current devices provide just a small push—
is a lot like a bomb, so Adams started to dream up sys- counted in “micro newtons”—an apple exerts orders of
tems that could not be repurposed by a criminal, and magnitude more force on a kitchen counter. And the
he happened on a concept called the Z-pinch. If you apple is not going anywhere near Alpha Centauri. But
generate an electric current in a plasma (in this case, every shove has to start somewhere. With the Phase II
made of lithium), you can use the magnetic field it
induces to compress, or pinch, something—in this case,
a target made of uranium and deuterium-tritium.
The squished uranium goes critical, and its fission
When she walked by
energizes the deuterium-tritium enough to start
fusion. Fusion makes neutrons, which get involved every day, what Fearn
in more fission, which raises the thermostat and
therefore the fusion rate. The two-stage explosion has saw resembled a Physics 101
the power of a few kilograms of TNT. Nothing to end
the world with—but enough that, applied steadily and
with a bunch of parallel devices, a 25-metric-ton craft
lab experiment more than
could get to Mars in 37 days (compared with the nine
months or so it takes with a chemical engine). In 2018,
a futuristic propulsion system.
after applying for it five times, Adams finally got a
Phase II grant. grant, Fearn and Woodward hope to increase their
You can think of Adams’s biggest problem in thrust and place multiple devices in parallel so that
terms of a Twinkie. Try to squeeze the Twinkie—that they add up to something usable. And then, with what-
fission-fusion target—uniformly. Impossible! The ever funding they hope to get next, they will launch a
spongy yellow bread bleeds down into the white fill- mini satellite, equipped with a mini MEGA drive. With
ing; the filling squirts out the sides. In PuFF, that it, they will try to change the satellite’s orbit, showing
leakage means squished-away energy, leaving you that the Mach effect can act on the real world.
without enough to rev up fusion. In the past, that This year NIAC opened a new funding line—Phase III
issue was the end of the path for researchers. “They awards totaling $2 million. The two 2019 awards went to
gave up on it and started going down these other space mining and prospecting projects, helping the
roads,” he says. None of those roads, though, have led agency achieve its solar system exploration goals. In the
to giant leaps in space propulsion. future, though, awards may look deeper into space and
farther into the future—at projects like MEGA, provided
A NEW DIRECTION its results pan out. But first, Fearn says, “nasa is making
a hIsTorICal parallel to Adams’s project provides a les- sure this isn’t some spurious thing that a couple of peo-
son about one reason propulsion has stalled. From ple in southern California are wasting their time on”—
1958 to 1964 the military and nasa spent $11 million that it is, in fact, the good kind of crazy.
($93 million in today’s dollars) on an effort led by Free-
man Dyson to develop a nuclear-based propulsion sys-
MORE TO EXPLORE
tem named Orion, very similar to PuFF. The project’s
motto? “Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970.” It was not quite On the Origin of Inertia. D. W. Sciama in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 113,
No. 1, pages 34–42; February 1, 1953. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/113.1.34
military, but it verged on too explosive for nasa, so both Experimental Null Test of a Mach Effect Thruster. Heidi Fearn and James F. Woodward in
organizations wavered in their commitment. Finally, it Journal of Space Exploration, Vol. 2, No. 2, pages 98–105; 2013.
became a no-go when, in 1963, the U.S. signed the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, illegalizing necessary experi- spacetech/niac/index.html
ments. “This is the first time in modern history that a FROM OUR ARCHIVES
major expansion of human technology has been sup- Near-Light-Speed Mission to Alpha Centauri. Ann Finkbeiner; March 2017.
pressed for political reasons,” Dyson said at the time.
Merit, then, is not the only factor that determines


Richard Montgomery is a Distinguished Professor of mathematics
at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research focuses on the
N-body problem and the geometry of distributions.
M AT H E M AT I C S
The
Three-Body
Problem
Although mathematicians know they can never fully “solve” this
B
centuries-old quandary, tackling smaller pieces of it has yielded
some intriguing discoveries
By Richard Montgomery
Illustration by Chris Buzelli
y the spring of 2014 i had largely given up on the three-body problem.

Out of ideas, I began programming on my laptop to generate and
search through approximate solutions.
These attempts would never solve my problem outright, but they
might garner evidence toward an answer. My lack of programming
expertise and resulting impatience slowed the process, making it an
unpleasant experience for a pencil-and-paper mathematician like
myself. I sought out my old friend Carles Simó, a professor at the University of Barcelona, to
convince him to aid me in my clunky search.
IN BRIEF
One of the oldest quandaries in mathematics and Isaac Newton first posed this problem, along with the Mathematicians have nonetheless continued to chip
physics is called the three-body problem—the simpler “two-body problem.” Later, in the case of away at the question, discovering interesting solu-
question of how three bodies, mutually attracted three bodies, the question was found to be practically tions to specific cases. By studying the three-body
by gravity, will move in the future if their current “unsolvable”—it is essentially impossible to find problem, researchers have uncovered fascinating
positions and velocities are known. a formula to exactly predict their orbits. new principles of mathematics.

That fall I traveled to Spain to meet problem at a level of detail remotely ap-
Two Examples of 2-Body Orbits
with Simó, who had a reputation as one of proaching Newton’s complete solution to
the most inventive and careful numerical Mass of sun much greater than planet: the two-body problem. Yet through a pro-
sun’s elliptical orbit is tiny.
analysts working in celestial mechanics. cess called numerical integration, done ef-
He is also a direct man who does not waste Planet’s orbit ficiently on a computer, we can nonethe-
time or mince words. My first afternoon in less generate finite segments of approxi-
his office, after I had explained my ques- Path followed by sun’s center mate orbits, a process essential to the
tion, he looked at me with piercing eyes × Sun Planet planning of space missions. By extending
and asked, “Richard, why do you care?” Common focus (center of mass) the run-time of the computer, we can
The answer goes back to the origins of make the approximations as accurate as
the three-body problem. Isaac Newton we want.
originally posed and solved the two-body Two equal masses in elliptical orbits
problem when he published his Principia ECLIPSES
in 1687. He asked: “How will two masses simó’s words had knocked the breath out
move in space if the only force on them is of me. “Of course, I care,” I thought. “I
×
their mutual gravitational attraction?” Common focus
Common focus (center
(center of
of mass)
mass) have been working on this problem for
Newton framed the question as a problem nearly two decades!” In fact, I had been fo-
of solving a system of differential equa- cusing on a particular question within the
tions—equations that dictate an object’s problem that interested me:
future motion from its present position
Two Examples of 3-Body Orbits
and velocity. He completely solved his Is every periodic eclipse sequence the
equations for two bodies. The solutions, One of Euler’s eclipse sequence of some periodic solu-
also called orbits, have each object moving solutions tion to the planar three-body problem?
Three equal
on a conic—a circle, ellipse, parabola or
masses with
hyperbola. In finding all the possible or- one at the Let me explain. Imagine three bodies—
bits, Newton derived Johannes Kepler’s center: bodies think of them as stars or planets—moving
laws of planetary motion, empirical laws are always about on a plane, pulling at one another
collinear.
Kepler published in 1609 that synthesized with gravity. Number the bodies one, two
decades of astronomical observations by and three. From time to time all three will
One of Lagrange’s
his late employer, Tycho Brahe. Kepler’s solutions align in a single, straight line. Think of
first law says that each planet (or comet) The bodies these moments as eclipses. (Technically,
moves on a conic with the sun as its focus. form an this “eclipse” is called a syzygy, an unbeat-
equilateral
In Newton’s solutions, however, the two able word to use in hangman.) As time
triangle
bodies—the sun and a planet—move on at all times. passes, record each eclipse as it occurs, la-
two separate conics. These conics share beling it one, two or three, for whichever
one focus, which is the center of mass of star is in the middle. In this way, we get a
the two bodies. The sun is more massive list of ones, twos and threes called the
than any planet, so much so that the center Eclipse Moment eclipse sequence.
of the mass of the sun-planet system is in- For example, in a simplified version of
3
side the sun itself, very close to the sun’s 3 our sun-Earth-moon system, the moon
1 2 1 1 2
center of mass, with the sun’s center of 2 (which we will label body “3”) makes a cir-
3
mass barely wobbling about the common cle around Earth (body “2”) every month,
center on a tiny elliptical path. while Earth makes a circle around the sun
Referred to as eclipse 2
In place of the two masses, put three, (body “2” in the middle) (body “1”) once a year. This movement is re-
and you have the three-body problem. petitive, so it will give us a periodic eclipse
Like its predecessor, its orbits are solutions sequence. Specifically: 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2,
to a system of differential equations. Un- Catenoid 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3. There is
like its predecessor, however, it is difficult no 1 in the sequence because the sun never
to impossible to find explicit formulas for lands between Earth and the moon. In one
the orbits. To this day, despite modern year, the list is 24 numbers long, with a 2, 3
computers and centuries of work by some for each of the 12 months of the year.
of the best physicists and mathematicians, There is no reason that the eclipse se-
we only have explicit formulas for five fam- quence of a solution must repeat itself. It
ilies of orbits, three found by Leonhard might go on forever with no discernible
Euler (in 1767) and two by Joseph-Louis pattern. If, however, the solution exactly
Lagrange (in 1772). In 1890 Henri Poincaré repeats itself after some period of time,
discovered chaotic dynamics within the like the Earth-moon-sun system after a
three-body problem, a finding that implies year, then the sequence repeats: the same
we can never know all the solutions to the 24 numbers of the Earth-moon-sun system
68 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustrations by Nigel Hawtin

replay each year. So, returning to my ques- ting across segment 2 or 3. In this way, an
Rubber-Sheet Geometry
tion: Is every periodic eclipse sequence eclipse sequence represents a way of wind-
the eclipse sequence of some periodic so- ing around our collision holes.
lution to the planar three-body problem? I Now, our bug was trying to minimize
suspected the answer was yes, but I could the length of its path as it circled once
not prove it. around the wormhole. To get the correct
analogy between the bug’s problem and
HOLEY OBJECTS the three-body problem, we must replace
to justify the importance of my question, I the length of a path by a quantity called
reminded Simó of a basic fact tying togeth- the action of a path. (The action is a kind
er three branches of mathematics: topolo- of average of the instantaneous kinetic en-
gy, sometimes called rubber-sheet geome- ergy minus the potential energy of the mo-
try; Riemannian geometry, the study of tion represented by the path.) A centuries-
curved surfaces; and dynamics, the study old theorem from mechanics states that
of how things move. Imagine a bug walk- any curve in configuration space that min-
ing along a curved surface shaped like the imizes the action must be a solution to
“wormhole surface,” also called a catenoid. Newton’s three-body problem. We can
The bug’s job is to find the shortest circuit thus try to solve our eclipse sequence
going once around the hole. As far as to- problem by searching, among all closed
pology is concerned, the wormhole surface paths that produce a fixed eclipse se-
is the same as the x-y-plane with a single quence, for those closed paths that mini-
hole punctured in it. Indeed, imagine a mize the action.
hole punctured into a flexible rubber sheet. This strategy—seeking to minimize the
By pushing the hole downward and action in configuration space for loops
stretching it outward, you can make the having a particular eclipse sequence—had
wormhole surface. If the hole has been suf- preoccupied me for most of 17 years and
ficiently flared outward, then not only led to many nice results. For instance, in
does this shortest circuit exist, but it satis- 2000 Alain Chenciner of Paris Diderot
fies a differential equation very much like University and I rediscovered what seems
the three-body equations. In this way, our to be the first known periodic solution to
bug has found a periodic solution to an in- the three-body problem with zero angular
Collision-Free Configuration Space
teresting differential equation. momentum. It was a figure-eight-shaped
In the three-body problem, the role of 13 solution first found by Cris Moore of the
the wormhole surface is played by some- Santa Fe Institute in 1993. In this case,
thing called configuration space—a space three equal masses chase one another
whose points encode the locations of all 1 2 3 around a figure-eight shape on the plane.
13 12 23 13
three bodies simultaneously, so that a Its eclipse sequence is 123123, repeating
curve in configuration space specifies the forever. Our work popularized the figure
motions of each of the three bodies. By in- eight and gave it a rigorous existence
sisting that our bodies do not collide with 13 proof. It also led to an explosion of discov-
one another, we pierce holes in this config- eries of many new orbits for the equal-
uration space. As we will see, as far as to- mass N-body problem, orbits christened
pology, or rubber-sheet geometry, is con- Figure 8 Solution “choreographies” by Simó, who discovered
cerned, the resulting collision-free config- hundreds of these new families of orbits.
uration space is the same as an x-y-plane Our figure-eight orbit even made it into
with two holes punctured in it. We will la- the best-selling Chinese science-fiction
bel the holes as “12,” meaning bodies 1 and novel by Liu Cixin, whose English transla-
2 have collided, and “23,” meaning that 2 tion was entitled The Three-Body Problem.
and 3 have collided, and place the holes on The morning after I shared my ponder-
the x-axis. We’ll also place a third hole at ings with Simó, he said something that af-
infinity and label it “13” to represent bod- fected me deeply. “Richard, if what you
ies 1 and 3 colliding. These holes break the think about your question is true, then
x-axis into three segments labeled 1, 2 and there must be a dynamical mechanism.” In
3. A curve in this twice-punctured plane other words, if I was right that the answer
represents a motion of all three bodies— to my question was yes, then there must be
which is to say, a potential solution to the something about how these bodies moved
three-body problem. When the curve cuts that made it so.
across segment 1, it means an eclipse of Those few words made me question my
type 1 has occurred and likewise for cut- convictions and led me to abandon my

17-year-long attempt to answer my ques- ces that all lie on the same line to be called
tion by minimizing the action of paths. New Orbits triangles. These so-called degenerate zero-
What dynamical mechanisms in this prob- area triangles form the equator of the
lem did I even understand? I wondered. I shape sphere: they are the eclipses!
could think of two, only one of which held The area of a triangle, divided by its
out hope. This mechanism, related to the size (r) squared, is its distance to the equa-
chaos discovered by Poincaré, led me to re- tor. The north and south poles of the
flect on old work of a recent collaborator of sphere represent those triangles of maxi-
mine, Rick Moeckel of the University of mum possible area and are the two equi-
Minnesota. In the 1980s he had shown lateral triangle shapes. But why are there
how curves called hyperbolic tangles, born two equilateral shapes? These two equilat-
from triple collisions in the three-body eral triangle shapes differ by the cyclic or-
problem, can lead to astounding results. der of their vertices. There is no way to
As I reread his old papers, it seemed to me turn one of these equilateral triangles into
that Moeckel had the key to my problem. I the other by a rotation, translation or scal-
got in touch with him, and within a few ing of the plane: they represent different
days Moeckel and I had answered my shapes. Yet the operation of reflecting
question! Well, almost. We had answered a about a line (any line) in the plane will
question infinitely close. turn one equilateral triangle shape into
the other one. This reflection operation
THE SHAPE SPHERE acts on all triangles, and so on the shape
understanding Moeckel’s dynamical sphere itself, where it acts by reflection
mechanism, in conjunction with the rela- about the equator, keeping the points of
tionship between the three-body configu- the equator (degenerate triangles) fixed
ration space and the plane with two holes while interchanging the north and south
described above, requires thinking about hemispheres.
Shapes
an object called the shape sphere. As the Included among the degenerate trian-
three bodies move around in the plane, at gles are the binary collisions: those “trian-
2
each instant they form the three vertices gles” for which two of the three vertices lie
of a triangle. Instead of keeping track of on top of each other. There are exactly
the position of each vertex, let us keep 1 3 Same Same three of these binary collision triangles, la-
track of only the overall shape of the trian- 2
beled “12,” “23” and “13,” according to
gle. The result is a curve on the shape 1 2 which two vertices lie on top of each other.
1
sphere, a sphere whose points represent I can now explain how the shape
“shapes” of triangles. 1 2 3 sphere shows us that the three-body con-
3
What is a “shape”? Two figures in the Different figuration space is topologically the same
plane have the same shape if we can 3 as the usual x-y-plane minus two points.
change one figure into the other by trans- Two equilateral triangles We have to know that the sphere minus a
lating, rotating or scaling it. The operation 3 3 single point is topologically the same ob-
of passing from the usual three-body con- ject as the usual x-y-plane. One way to see
Different
figuration space—which is to say, from the this fact about the sphere is to use stereo-
knowledge of the locations of all three ver- graphic projection, which maps the sphere
tices of a triangle—to a point in the shape with a single point removed (the “light
sphere, is a process of forgetting—forget- 1 2 2 1 source”) onto the usual x-y-plane. As a
ting the size of the triangle, the location of Lagrange point 4 Lagrange point 5 point on the sphere tends toward the light
its center of mass, and the orientation of source, its image point on the x-y-plane
the triangle in the plane. That the shape moves out to infinity, so we can also say
sphere is two-dimensional is easy to un- Stereographic Projection that the plane with a point at infinity add-
derstand from high school geometry: we ed is topologically equal to the sphere.
know the shape of a triangle if we know all Take the light source to be the 13 binary
three of its angles, but because the sum of collision point of the shape sphere, so that
the three angles is always 180 degrees, we the point at infinity of the x-y-plane corre-
really only need two of the three angles— sponds to the 13 collision point. Orient the
hence, two numbers are sufficient to de- sphere so that its equatorial plane inter-
scribe the shape of a triangle. That the sects the x-axis of the x-y-plane. Then ste-
shape sphere is actually a sphere is harder reographic projection maps the equator of
to understand and requires that we allow degenerate triangles to the x-axis of the
triangles to degenerate, which is to say, we plane and the other two binary collision
allow “triangles” consisting of three verti- points get mapped to two points on this x-

axis. In this way, we arrive at exactly the The Shape Sphere mathematician Karl Sundman proved that
picture described earlier. the five central configurations, as repre-
The three binary collision points form Lagrange point 4 (equilateral triangle) sented by the dropped solutions just de-
three special points on the shape sphere. Euler point 2
scribed, are the only roads to triple colli-
Euler point 3
Besides these three there are additional sion. What this means is that any solution
special points on the shape sphere called that ends in triple collision must approach
Triple
central configurations. These five central Collision collision it in a manner very close to one of these
configurations correspond to the five fam- of 2 and 3 five dropped central configuration solu-
ilies of solutions discovered by Euler and tions, and as it gets closer and closer to tri-
Lagrange. Their solutions are the only ple collision, the shape of the solution
three-body solutions for which the shape Arc 1
must approach one of the five central con-
of the triangle does not change as the tri- figuration shapes.
angle evolves! In the Lagrange solutions, Euler point 1
Sundman’s work was a complicated feat
the triangle remains equilateral at each in- of algebra and analysis. Then, in the year I
stant; there are two Lagrange configura- graduated from high school (completely
Collision Collision
tions, as we have seen, and they form the of 1 and 2 oblivious to the three-body problem),
of 1 and 3
north and south poles of the shape sphere. American mathematician Richard McGe-
Lagrange point 5 (equilateral triangle)
We label them “Lagrange point 4” and “La- hee invented his so-called blow-up method,
grange point 5.” The remaining three cen- which allowed us to understand Sund-
tral configurations are the Euler configura- man’s work pictorially and to study dynam-
Binary Collision Points and Eclipses
tions, labeled “Euler point 1,” “Euler point ics near triple collision in much greater de-
2” and “Euler point 3.” They are collinear tail. Let r denote the distance to triple colli-
(all in a line), degenerate configurations, 3 1 2 sion—a measure of the overall size of a
so they lie on the equator of the shape triangle. As r approaches zero, Newton’s
sphere. They are positioned on the equator Collision equations become very badly behaved,
between the three binary collision points. of 1 and 2 with many terms going to infinity. McGe-
Arc 1 Arc 2
(Their spacing along the equator depends hee found a change of configuration space
on the mass ratios between the three variables and of time that slows down the
masses of the bodies.) Euler point 1, for ex- Collision rate of approach to triple collision and
ample, lies on the equatorial arc marked 1, of 2 and 3 turns the triple collision point, which is r =
so is a collinear shape in which body 1 lies 0, into an entire collection of points: the
Collision
between bodies 2 and 3. (Often all five cen- of 1 and 3 Arc 3 collision manifold. Surprise! The collision
tral configuration points are called La- manifold is essentially the shape sphere.
grange points, with the Euler points la- 1 2 3 McGehee’s method extended Newton’s
beled “L1,” “L2” and “L3.”) equations, originally only valid for r great-
One can understand the central config- er than zero, to a system of differential
uration solutions by dropping three bod- equations that makes sense when r = 0.
ies, by which I mean, by letting the three Newton’s equations have no equilibri-
bodies go from rest, with no initial velocity. um points, meaning there are no configu-
Typically when one does this, all kinds of rations of the three bodies that stand still:
crazy things will happen: close binary col- three stars, all attracting one another, can-
lisions, wild dances and perhaps the es- not just sit there in space without moving.
cape of one body to infinity. But if one But when Newton’s equations are extend-
drops the three bodies when they are ar- ed to the collision manifold, equilibrium
ranged in one of the five central configura- points appear. There are exactly 10 of them,
tion shapes, then the triangle they form a pair for each of the five central configura-
simply shrinks to a point, remaining in tion points on the shape sphere. One ele-
precisely the same shape as it started, with ment of a pair represents the end result of
the three masses uniformly pulling on one the corresponding dropped central config-
another until the solution ends in a simul- uration in its approach to triple collision.
taneous triple collision. Newton’s equations stay the same even if
we run time backward, so we can run any
THE FIVE ROADS solution in reverse and get another solu-
TO TRIPLE COLLISION tion. When we run a dropped central con-
triple collision is an essential singularity figuration solution backward, we get a so-
within the three-body problem, something lution that explodes out of triple collision,
like a big bang at the center of the problem, reaching its maximum size at the dropped
and it is the source of much of its chaos configuration. The other element of the
and difficulty. In the early 1900s Finnish pair represents the initial starting point of

this “exploding” solution. Together these and in so doing turn any loop in the punc-
two central configuration solutions—colli- tured sphere to a walk on the graph. To see
sion and ejection—fit smoothly and form a this deformation, imagine the sphere as
single ejection-collision solution that the surface of a balloon. Make three pin
leaves the ejection equilibrium point at pricks in it, one at each binary collision
r = 0, enters into the r greater than zero re- hole. The balloon is made of very flexible
gion where it achieves a maximum size, material, so we can stretch out our three
and then shrinks back to end up on the tri- pinpricks, enlarging them until the edges
ple collision manifold at the collision equi- of the three holes almost touch each other
librium point there. This complete solu- and the remaining material forms a ribbon
tion connects one element of an equilibri- hugging close to the embedded graph. In
um pair to the other. the process of making this deformation,
By creating these equilibrium points any closed loop in the thrice-punctured
associated with central configurations, sphere gets deformed into a closed loop in
buried deep inside the three-body prob- this ribbon structure and, from there, to a
lem, McGehee gave Moeckel a key that en- walk on Moeckel’s embedded graph.
abled him to apply recently established re- To turn this picture into a theorem
sults from modern dynamical systems— about solutions, I needed to prove that if I
results unavailable to Newton, Lagrange project the solutions guaranteed by
or Sundman—to make some interesting Moeckel’s theorem onto the shape sphere,
headway on the three-body problem. then they never stray far from this em-
bedded graph. If they did, they could
MOECKEL’S WALK wind around the binary collisions or even
in moeckel’s papers I saw a picture of a hit one, killing or adding some topologi-
graph with five vertices labeled by the cally significant loops and so changing
central configurations and joined togeth- the eclipse sequence. I e-mailed Moeckel
er by edges. to ask for help. He wrote back, “You mean
A walk on a graph is a possible circuit you’re going to force me to read papers I
through its vertices, traveling the edges wrote over 20 years ago?” Nevertheless,
from vertex to vertex. Moeckel proved that he dove back into his old research and
any possible walk you can take on his proved that the projections of the solu-
Moeckel’s Graph
graph corresponds to a solution to the tions he had encoded symbolically all
three-body problem that comes close for Lagrange point 4 those years ago never did stray far from
some time to the central configuration so- the embedded graph. My question was
lution labeled by the corresponding vertex. Euler point 1 answered—almost.
For example, the walk E1 L4 E2 L5 corre- To make his proof work, Moeckel need-
sponds to a solution very close to the Euler ed a tiny bit of angular momentum. (An-
ejection-collision solution associated with gular momentum, in this context, is a
Euler point 2
the Euler point 1, then comes close to tri- measure of the total amount of “spin” of a
ple collision almost along the Lagrange L4 Euler point 3 system and is constant for each solution.)
central configuration solution, but before But for those 17 years before my conversa-
total triple collision is achieved the three Lagrange point 5 tion with Simó I had insisted on solutions
bodies shoot out along one of the five having zero angular momentum. This in-
“roads” very near to the Euler point 2 cen- sistence arose because solutions that
tral configuration solution. Then, finally, Moeckel’s Graph, Embedded minimize action among all curves having
as this Euler solution collapses back to- a given eclipse sequence must have zero
Lagrange point 4
ward triple collision, the solution spins out angular momentum. On the other hand,
into a Lagrange L5 equilateral shape. More- Moeckel needed a small bit of angular
over, if we repeat this same walk, making Collision momentum to get solutions traveling
it periodic, the solution following it will of 1 and 3 along the edges of his graph. The symbol
Euler point 11
Euler Eulerpoint
Euler point33
be periodic. for a tiny positive quantity in mathemati-
Soon after Simó told me there had to be cal analysis is an epsilon. We needed an
a dynamical mechanism, I realized that epsilon of angular momentum.
Moeckel’s graph embedded into the shape Euler
Eulerpoint
point22 There was another catch to Moeckel’s
sphere. The important thing about this results: his solutions, when they cross the
embedded graph is that it carries all of the equator of the shape sphere near the Eu-
topology of the sphere with its three binary ler points E1, E2 and E3, will oscillate back
Collision Lagrange point 5 Collision
collision holes. Indeed, we can deform the of 1 and 2 of 2 and 3
and forth there across the equator before
thrice-punctured sphere onto the graph traveling up to the north or south pole as

they go in near triple collision along the numbers of the same type in it: no “11” or
corresponding Lagrange road, L4 or L5. “22” or “33.” Call such a sequence an ad-
To account for these oscillations, take a missible sequence. Now, take any admis-
positive integer N and call an eclipse se- sible sequence, for example, 123232. Al-
quence “N-long” if every time a number low me to use exponential notation in
occurs in the sequence it occurs at least writing down eclipse sequences, so, for
N times in a row. For example, the se- example, 13 = 111. Choose an odd integer n
quence 1112222333332222 is 3-long, but at least as big as the number N of our
it is not 4-long, because there are only main theorem. Replace the admissible se-
three 1s in a row. quence by the longer sequence 1n 2n 3n 2n
Here, finally, is our main theorem: Con- 3n 2n and continue it periodically. This
sider the three-body problem with small longer sequence represents the same
nonzero angular momentum epsilon and originally chosen topological type be-
masses within a large open range. Then cause n is odd. Our theorem says that this
there is a large positive integer N with the longer sequence is realized by a periodic
following significance. If we choose any solution. This periodic solution repre-
eclipse sequence whatsoever—which is N- sents our original topological type 123232.
long—then there is a corresponding solu-
tion to our three-body problem having WHAT’S NEXT?
precisely this eclipse sequence. If that se- we still have much left to do. When I orig-
quence is made to be periodic, then so is inally posed my question almost 20 years
the solution realizing it. ago, I only wanted solutions having zero
What about my original question? angular momentum. But evidence is
There was no large N mentioned there. I mounting that the answer to my question
had asked about every eclipse sequence. in the case of zero angular momentum is
But I did not tell you my real question. “no.” We have some evidence that even
What I really wanted to know was wheth- the simplest nonempty periodic sequence
er or not I could realize any “topological Eclipse Sequence 23 is never realized by a periodic solution
type” of periodic curve, not any eclipse se- to the equal-mass, zero angular momen-
quence. I was using the eclipse sequence tum three-body problem.
as a convenient shorthand or way of en- Our main question as posed here,
coding topological type, which is to say as 12 23 even for angular momentum epsilon, re-
1 2 3
a way of encoding the winding pattern of mains open because our theorem allowed
the loop around the three binary collision us to realize only sequences that are N-
holes. The eclipse sequence representa- long for some large N. We have no clue,
tion of the topological type of a closed for example, how to realize admissible se-
curve has redundancies: many different quences, that is, sequences with no con-
eclipse sequences encode the same topo- 12 23 secutive numbers of the same type.
logical type of curve. Consider, for exam- 1 2 3 At the end of the day, we may be no
ple, the topological type “go once around closer to “solving” the three-body prob-
the hole made by excluding the binary col- lem in the traditional sense, but we have
lision 23.” The eclipse sequence 23 repre- learned quite a lot. And we will keep at
sents this topological type. But so do the it—this problem will continue bearing
eclipse sequences 2223, 222223 and 2333. fruit for those of us who are drawn to it.
Whenever we have two consecutive cross- 1 2 3 It turns out that new insights are still
ings of the arc 2, we can cancel them by possible from one of the classic quanda-
straightening out the meanders, making ries in mathematical history.
the curve during that part of it stay in one
hemisphere or the other without crossing
the equator. Indeed, we can cancel any
MORE TO EXPLORE
consecutive pair of the same number that
A Remarkable Periodic Solution of the Three-Body Problem in the Case of Equal Masses. Alain Chenciner and
occurs in an eclipse sequence without Richard Montgomery in Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 152, No. 3 pages 881–901; November 2000.
changing the topological type of closed Realizing All Reduced Syzygy Sequences in the Planar Three-Body Problem. Richard Moeckel and Richard
curve represented by the sequence. Montgomery in Nonlinearity, Vol. 28, No. 6, pages 1919–1935; June 2015.
To use our main theorem to answer my FROM OUR ARCHIVES
real question, note that by deleting con- Prize Mistake. Christoph Pöppe and Madhusree Mukerjee; Science and the Citizen, February 1997.
secutive pairs I can ensure that the The Top 10 Martin Gardner Scientific American Articles. Colm Mulcahy; ScientificAmerican.com, October 21, 2014.
eclipse sequence that encodes a given to-
pological type never has two consecutive

RECOMMENDED
By Andrea Gawrylewski
PEDESTRIANS slog through low-

Choked: hanging smog in the Indian state
of Uttar Pradesh.
Life and Breath in the
Age of Air Pollution
by Beth Gardiner.
University of Chicago
Press, 2019 ($27.50)
Breath is life. But pollution-laden air is “quietly poisoning us,” Gardiner writes in her arresting account of one of the biggest environmental threats
to human health, one that claims seven million premature deaths a year worldwide. Through a world tour of air-pollution hotspots, Gardiner, a jour-
nalist, personalizes the damage pollutants do with vivid portraits of residents living alongside dirty ports in Los Angeles, women inhaling acrid
smoke from cooking fires in rural India and the “sour taste” left in her mouth by London’s diesel-clogged air. She lays out solutions, such as the land-
mark Clean Air Act and China’s concerted move away from coal, although she is clear-eyed about potential hurdles and the recent push to undo
critical safeguards. “This is not an insoluble puzzle. . . . We know how to fix it,” Gardiner says. The question is, Will we? —Andrea Thompson
Mendeleyev’s Dream: Range: Why Generalists Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story
The Quest for the Elements Triumph in a Specialized World of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in
by Paul Strathern. Pegasus Books, 2019 ($27.95) by David Epstein. Riverhead Books, 2019 ($28) History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
by Richard Preston. Random House, 2019 ($28)
The structure of the periodic How does someone become
table of elements came to the world’s greatest chess In 1976, from somewhere in
Dmitri Mendeleyev in a dream. player, violinist, chemist or pro the rain forest in what is now
The Russian scientist had been golfer? Conventional wisdom the Democratic Republic of
struggling for three nights holds that focusing on one en- the Congo, an unknown virus
and three days to find a pattern organizing the deavor early in life and pouring thousands of prac- jumped from an animal into a
63 known chemical elements, when he finally fell tice hours into it is the only way to excel. Sports human. That strain of virus quickly spread and in-
into a frustrated doze at his desk. When he awoke, journalist Epstein challenges that assumption in fected hundreds of people and then vanished for
he wrote down what had come to him while sleep- a book that studies artists, athletes, scientists and decades. Writer Preston weaves this thrilling tale
ing: a table listing the elements according to both musicians who did not follow a fixed path to suc- of the reemergence of the Ebola virus in 2013, told
their atomic weight and their chemical properties, cess. One surprising example is eight-time Wim- in the words of those in the thick of the health cri-
PRASHANTH VISHWANATHAN Getty Images
which repeated at periodic intervals. Writer Strath- bledon champion Roger Federer, who bounced sis. It reads like fiction: In one ward in Sierra Leone
ern tells the story of this monumental discovery, as around several sports before settling on tennis. during the latest outbreak, disease researcher Lina
well as the history of chemistry leading to this point, Generalists, Epstein finds, often find their direction Moses ran in flip-flops among the hospital wings,
to show how science has progressed from believing later and dabble in many areas rather than homing helping with one emergency after another. At
the world was made of the elements earth, air, fire in on any given pursuit. He argues that approach- night, shaky and feverish with malaria, she would
and water to our present-day knowledge of 118 ele- ing a field with an outsider’s unfamiliarity may lie on her bed and cry, looking at the photos of her
ments and counting. —Clara Moskowitz lead to brilliant breakthroughs. —Jim Daley daughters in the locket around her neck. She lived.

Zeynep Tufekci is an associate professor at the University THE INTERSECTION
of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science W H E R E S C IE N C E A N D S O C IE T Y M E E T
and a regular contributor to the New York Times. Her book,
Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest,
was published by Yale University Press in 2017.
Should Kids machine language. It was fun, like solving puzzles—and I got my
first job as a software developer in my first year in college. Things
haven’t changed that much: software developers still make good
Learn to Code? money and are in high demand. So what’s with the “maybe not”?
Programming was fun for me. But what about the child who’s
not so enthusiastic? Should he or she be made to learn program-
Not necessarily! ming because it could lead to a job someday? I would hold off: it’s
By Zeynep Tufekci unlikely we will be programming computers the same way in the
decades ahead that we do now. Machine learning, for example,
The government is behind it. In his 2016 State of the Union which is what we mostly mean when we talk about AI, is very dif-
address, President Barack Obama said that the U.S. should offer ferent than giving the computer detailed, step-by-step instruc-
“every student the hands-on computer science and math classes tions. Instead we feed machine-learning algorithms large
that make them job-ready on day one.” Soon after, he launched a amounts of data, and the programs themselves construct the
$4-billion Computer Science For All initiative. models that do the work.
Technology companies are enthusiastic. Amazon wants to To give a striking example, Google Translate used to involve
teach coding to 10 million kids a year through its Amazon Future 500,000 lines of code. Nowadays it’s just about 500 lines in a
Engineer program. Facebook, Microsoft, Google and others have machine-learning language. The key challenge isn’t knowing a
similar projects of varying scale and scope. Many parents are programming language: it’s having enough data and understand-
eager, too. According to Code.org, a nonprofit aiming to increase ing how the computer-constructed models work mathematically
computer science education, 90 percent of parents want their so we can fine-tune and test them.
children to study computer science in school. That explains the What matters, then, for the future of this kind of computer
popularity of many kid-oriented tutorials and computer pro- work? The technical side is mostly math: statistics, linear algebra,
gramming languages, such as Scratch and Hour of Code. probability, calculus. Math remains a significant skill and is use-
So should you sign your kid up for a programming camp? ful for many professions besides programming. It’s essential for
Insist they take computer science classes? Maybe, maybe not. I everyday life, too. And algorithmic thinking doesn’t have to come
learned coding as a child, and it has served me very well. I pur- from computer coding. Some math and an appropriate learning
chased a home computer with money I earned bagging groceries experience via cooking, sewing, knitting—all of which involve
and learned the Basic programming language, as well as some algorithms of a sort—can be valuable.
More important for the future, though, is the fact that, by
itself, computer programming encourages closed-world building.
That’s partly what made it so much fun for me: it’s magical to put
together something (tedious) instruction by instruction and then
go play in the world one has built. Unfortunately, that is the far-
thest from what the tech industry does these days. Programmers
are now creating tools that interact with the messy, challenging
reality of life. If anything, their affinity for building insular worlds
might have hindered their understanding of how the tools would
actually function. What we need now are people who know his-
tory, sociology, psychology, math and computers and who are
comfortable analyzing complex, open and chaotic systems.
So should you let an interested child enroll in a coding camp?
Of course. Should kids play around with Scratch or do an Hour of
Code tutorial to see if that captivates their interest? Absolutely.
But no worries if they want instead to learn how to make cup-
cakes, sew pillows or pajamas, or climb trees.
We need to make sure youngsters do not think of the world as
forcing them to choose between math and science on the one
hand and social sciences and humanities on the other. The most
interesting, and perhaps most challenging, questions facing us
will be right at that intersection—not in the tiny, closed worlds we
like to build for fun.
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]
Illustration by Jianan Liu August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 77

ANTI GRAVITY
T H E O N G O IN G S E A R C H F O R Steve Mirsky has been writing the Anti Gravity column since
FU N DA M E N TA L FA R C E S a typical tectonic plate was about 36 inches from its current location.
He also hosts the Scientific American podcast Science Talk.
Dijkgraaf continued: “Sir Michael Atiyah actually gave

me the perfect riposte, which was, ‘That was the week
that God created the world.’ ”
Atiyah, who died in January at the age of 89, was
described in his New York Times obituary as a “British
mathematician who united mathematics and physics
during the 1960s in a way not seen since the days of
Isaac Newton.” So he was probably one of the few peo-
ple on the planet who could outfox Feynman.
Atiyah helped to end a period of estrangement
between physics and math, which Freeman Dyson (who
at 95 is safely referred to as a living legend) talked about
at the symposium. Dyson had noticed the falling-out
when he joined Einstein (among other luminaries) on
the IAS faculty: “When I became a professor, [which]
just coincided with the time when [Robert] Oppen-
heimer [former head of the Manhattan Project] became
director..., there was a divorce—largely occasioned by
the fact Oppenheimer had no use for pure mathemat-
ics, and the pure mathematicians had no use for bombs.”
When asked what the most important questions
were still to be addressed by physics and math, Dyson
said, “The question of what’s important is entirely a
matter of taste. I like to think of going to the zoo ... you
can either admire the architecture of the zoo or you
can admire the animals. And so, at the present time,
Do the Math mathematicians are very busy admiring the architecture. The
physicists are admiring the animals. Which is actually more
important isn’t to me the interesting question. The interesting
It sure comes in handy for doing physics question is, Why do they fit so well?”
By Steve Mirsky Mathematician Karen Uhlenbeck, professor emeritus at the
University of Texas at Austin, had a different take: “There’s this
Early in his new book, physics historian Graham Farmelo quotes picture [that] there’s a perfect world out there, and it has laws,
Nima Arkani-Hamed, a theoretical physicist at the Institute for and we’re going to discover these laws. [But we’re] just a bunch
Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, N.J.: “We can eavesdrop on of human beings muddling along in a world that’s very hard to
nature not only by paying attention to experiments but also by understand. I mean, it’s deceptive that the world looks so clear
trying to understand how their results can be explained with and beautiful and well put together. Because the minute you
the deepest mathematics. You could say that the universe speaks look at it with a different wavelength, it looks completely differ-
to us in numbers.” Relax, he doesn’t mean numerology. ent. So our picture of the world as completely made and perfect—
That quote provides the book’s title: The Universe Speaks in and all we need to do is find the rules for it—doesn’t fit with my
Numbers. Of course, there’s a subtitle, too: How Modern Math feeling. It’s a kind of a muddle-y place, and you look at a piece of
Reveals Nature’s Deepest Secrets. The book also deals with the it, and we try to straighten it out, and we put together ideas in
thorny question of whether the revelations of math truly are our mind, and we somehow make rules and order, and we create
nature’s deepest secrets or whether they’re merely some secrets mathematics as a language in response to external stimuli.”
that we can glimpse via math. That discussion can lead to phys- Dyson immediately attempted a reconciliation: “I don’t dis-
ics conference fistfights. agree with you. We’re exploring a universe which is full of myster-
The IAS hosted a symposium on Farmelo’s subject on May 29. ies ... what to me is still amazing is that we understand so much.”
In brief opening remarks, IAS director Robbert Dijkgraaf said, These conversations always remind of the very short Robert
“There are many anecdotes about the relationship between phys- Frost poem: “We dance round in a ring and suppose,/But the
ics and mathematics.” He then quoted Richard Feynman—“not Secret sits in the middle and knows.” I would have loved to ask
known as a lover of abstract mathematics”—as having said, “‘If all Frost how he knew the secret was sitting.
mathematics disappeared today, physics would be set back
exactly one week.’” After the laughs (possibly from only the phys- Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
icists and not the mathematicians in the audience) subsided, or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]
78 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Matt Collins

SCIENTIfIC AmERIC AN ONLINE
FIND ORIGINAL ARTICLES AND IMAGES IN
50, 100 & 150 YEARS AGO
THE Scientific AmericAn ARCHIVES AT IN N OVATI O N A N D D I S C OV E RY A S C H R O NI C L E D IN S c ientific A meric An
scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa Compiled by Daniel C. Schlenoff
AUG US T
1969 Drifting
Genes
“The survival and preferential mul-
to be undertaken within a few days
by C. J. Zimmerman, a skilled pilot,
who will follow the steamer ‘Adriat-
the seasonal shift of ocean currents,
at which time the warm equatorial
countercurrent displaces the cool
tiplication of types better adapted ic’ two or three hours after she has Peruvian current. The resulting
to the environment (natural selec- sailed for England, and overtaking change in temperature of the ocean
tion) is the basis of evolution. Into her will drop a mail pouch into the water would, he thinks, kill quanti-
this process, however, enters anoth- sea just ahead of her bow [see illus- ties of plankton, and the decay of
er kind of variation that is so com- tration]. This experiment will be 1969 this organic matter would give rise
pletely independent of natural se- closely followed by the post office to the phenomena observed.”
lection that it can even promote the authorities and the steamship men.” the low oxygen content of warmer el
predominance of genes that oppose the delivery was successful, but the Niño waters suffocates many organisms.
adaptation rather than favoring it. technique was perilous as compared
with regular airmail delivery. Solar
Called genetic drift, this type of
variation is a random, statistical
fluctuation in the frequency of a Dead Water
1869 Furnace
“The materials of our sun are,
gene as it appears in a population “Mariners who frequent the coast doubtless, capable of producing
from one generation to the next. of Peru are familiar with a curious 1919 greater heat, pound for pound, than
My colleagues and I have for the phenomenon that occasionally pre- the substances usually employed by
past 15 years been investigating vails there—notably in the harbor us for the same purpose. Recent re-
genetic drift in the populations of of Callao near Lima—commonly searches in chemistry would seem
the cities and villages in the Parma known as the ‘painter.’ The water to point to a more elementary con-
Valley in Italy. We have examined becomes discolored and emits a dition of matter in the stars and
parish books, studied marriage nauseous smell, apparently due to nebulae than any with which we
records in the Vatican archives, sulfuretted hydrogen. The white are acquainted on the earth. Who
made surveys of blood types, devel- paint of vessels becomes coated can say but that the production of
oped mathematical theories and with a chocolate-colored slime. In 1869 our terrestrial elements was accom-
finally simulated some of the re- a paper recently presented to the panied by displays of light and heat
gion’s populations on a computer. Geographical Society of Lima, Sen- similar in intensity to those now
We have found that genetic drift or J. A. de Lavalle y Garcia con- witnessed in the sun and stars?
can affect evolution significantly. cludes that the primary cause is This theory has great support in
—Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza” the constantly accumulating facts
which the spectroscope is bringing
Drifting Continents to our attention.”
“More evidence has been adduced
to support the concept of continen- Coal Economics
tal drift. Walter Sproll and Robert S. “All agree that coal is absurdly, ex-
Dietz of the Atlantic Oceanographic tortionately, cruelly high; but all do
Laboratories of the Environmental not agree as to the cause of present
Sciences Service Administration re- high prices, or as to how it may be
port they have succeeded in dem- cheapened. The free traders say the
onstrating that Antarctica and Aus- high price is dependent on the pres-
tralia, now separated by 2,000 ent tariff, while some protectionists
miles of ocean, were once a single say it is owing to extortionate
land mass. Concentrating on the freights and high prices demanded
1,000-fathom isobath (a line around by miners. We say it is a combina-
each continent at that depth), tion of all the causes assigned. We
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, VOL. CXXI, NO. 8; AUGUST 23, 1919
which they believe represents the need additional and competing

true edge of each land mass, they lines of transit from the great beds
fed their data into a computer at of coal to the principal centers of
the University of Miami until it trade, and we need more labor; the
found the best fit between them.” want of a proper labor supply being,
in our opinion, one of the chief
1919 Aerial Mail

“An experiment in de-
livering mail to a steamer at sea is 1919: Delivering mail by seaplane to a steamer in transit.
causes of trouble. This labor can be
found in abundance in Asia. It only
waits to be properly invited.”

GRAPHIC SCIENCE
Text by Mark Fischetti | Graphic by Jen Christiansen
Viruses Thrive in Arctic Seas

A surprising study overturns a common assumption
Even though scientists did not have a thorough record of Ohio State University. He thinks the reason is that the
viruses in the oceans, many of them assumed the number Arctic Ocean is a mixing pot of waters from the Atlantic
and variety of viruses would diminish from the equator and Pacific Oceans, global ocean conveyor belts and huge
toward the poles. Not so. A new study has vastly expand- rivers that empty there. Also surprising is that viruses are
ed the data set and shows the Arctic Ocean has a richer largely concentrated in four other marine zones across
cast of viruses than other major oceans. “It’s a hotspot,” the planet (graphic). “We just didn’t know that before,”
says study member Matthew Sullivan, a microbiologist at Sullivan says. “It could have been 20.”
Different virus types (macrodiversity) Variation within one virus type (microdiversity)
Hotspots
More than 195,000 virus
Variety of Virus Populations populations are concentrated in Variety within Each Population
The number of different virus populations, as well five ocean zones. Two zones are Greater variety of individuals within each
as the relative abundance of those populations, diversity hotspots: the Arctic virus type is a sign of changeable environmental
varies significantly across oceans. This macro (all depths) and surface waters conditions and the degree of new species
diversity strongly affects the health of bacteria, in temperate and tropical formation. Each vertical line shows variation
which are the foundation of the marine food latitudes. Water temperature within the 100 most abundant populations.
web. Each vertical line shows the macrodiversity seems to be the key factor Darker lines represent greater overlap among
in a given water sample; darker lines represent driving the concentrations. sample sets.
greater overlap among sample sets.
Level of Diversity Ocean Zones Level of Genetic Variation

(Shannon diversity index) (average nucleotide diversity value)
Less More Arctic Less More
5 6 7 8 0.0001 0.0002 0.0003 0.0004 0.0005 0.0006
All depths
Temperate
and Tropical
Epipelagic waters
(depth 0–150 meters)
TO POLE,” BY ANN C. GREGORY ET AL., IN CELL, VOL. 177, NO. 5; MAY 16, 2019
SOURCE: “MARINE DNA VIRAL MACRO- AND MICRODIVERSITY FROM POLE
Mesopelagic waters
(150–1,000 meters)
Bathypelagic waters
(below 2,000 meters)
All depths
Limited data Antarctic

Scientific American201908

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Scientific American201908

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Scientific American201908

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

ANIMAL RIVALS PAGE

EVOLUTION VS. CANCER

puzzle be solved? PAGE 66 © 2019 Scientific American

Photograph by Spencer Lowell August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 1

© 2019 scientific American

22 The Science of Health

79 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago

Water, Water Everywhere

2 Scientific American, August 2019

© 2019 scientific American

4 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Nick Higgins

© 2019 Scientific American

6 Scientific American, August 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

EDITOR IN CHIEF AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

priate for arthritis or crippling spinal D I G I TA L

effects of global warming. Remedies are

August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 7

© 2019 Scientific American

8 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Brian Stauffer

© 2019 Scientific American

10 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Francesco Ciccolella

© 2019 Scientific American

Even fearsome great white sharks may steer

12 Scientific American, August 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

• Rivers, interrupted: how humans

Salvador Jorgensen has spent more than

something to fear, too: orcas, also known as

J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter

© 2019 Scientific American

around Southeast Farallon Island. Great

14 Scientific American, August 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 15

SOURCE: “MAPPING THE WORLD’S FREE-FLOWING RIVERS,”

BY G. GRILL ET AL., IN NATURE, VOL. 569; MAY 9, 2019

D E V E LO PM E N TA L P S YC H O LO G Y ability may be universally either like friends or

16 Scientific American, August 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

The main causes of river interruption

ter understand how proposed dams, levees and

Such characteristics also distinguish spon-

August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 17

© 2019 Scientific American

The Price of reporting sexual harassment “have not

Speaking Up fessor emeritus of management and entre-

Sandhill cranes perished in one month in

18 Scientific American, August 2019 Illustration by Thomas Fuchs

© 2019 Scientific American

rent. Geophysicist Jeﬀrey

Graphic by Pitch Interactive August 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 19

© 2019 Scientific American

Save Your on the Rice team.

Breath BVM ran for up to 11 hours in

JEFF FITLOW Rice University

20 Scientific American, August 2019

© 2019 Scientific American

E VO L U T I O N this distinctive sort of rocket-ship shape.”

large mitochondria. These components like a higher frame rate on a camera.” He

surrounded by hundreds of oil droplets, fastmoving prey more effectively.