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IS THE RISE OF CYBERCRIME LEADING TO A GLOBAL ONLINE WAR?

vision-mag.co.uk June 2013

SPACE RACE 2.0 CATCHING ASTEROIDS AND MOON MINING

DECODED

Personal genetics could save your life

GOOGLE GLASS

INGENIOUS OR INTRUSIVE?

SINKING CITIES

ROBOT WARS

MAN vs MACHINE Our future friends or foes?

Race against time and tide

APOCALYPSE

PULLOUT SPECIAL

WELCOME TO VISION DISCOVER MORE

INTERACTIVE IPAD APP From ITunes Store GOOGLE PLAY EDITION From play.google.com You’re holding the first ever Vision issue in your hands. This is a great achievement, if we say so ourselves. With a rotten economy and so many magazines struggling to start up, we have a lot to be thankful for. However, despite financial complications, the main reason we’re here is thanks to you, our readers. Shortly after launching the Vision project on Facebook and Twitter, the comments and support came pouring in: followers that couldn’t wait for it to be published and readers that wanted to take part in the many discussions and debates we posted.

Our goal was for readers to have an active role in the magazine’s completion- a goal we have now achieved.

Thanks to your efforts, we’re excited to introduce you to our June issue. Variety is the main theme, with everything from genetics to spacesuit fashion, natural disasters disasters to fiction. So sit back, relax and enjoy what we hope is only the first of many issues.

Yasmine Gleghorn, Editor

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IN THIS ISSUE

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Yasmine Gleghorn

Amy Burnett

Daniel Critchley

Natural disasters, tattoo culture or Google madness, Yasmine brings you news from around the world

Amy is Vision’s Co-Editor, our resident technology expert and Photoshop extraordinaire

This month, Feature Editor Dan brings his thoughts on how a post-apocalyptic human race would survive

Simona Pesce

David Howarth

Junqiu Pan

Paying a visit to the US, Simona discovers if the next generation of robots is getting too personal

With Vision’s social media up and running, David has taken a break to bring you the latest in cybercrime

Hungry for art and culture? Look no further than Pan, taking you through languages and fashionable space gear

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CONTENTS

vision EVERY ISSUE 14 TRENDING

What’s happening in the future...now

EXCLUSIVE 38 SUBSCRIPTIONS

84 NEXT ISSUE

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Your first look at the next Vision

REPORT

72

74

CHINESE AROUND TATTOO CULTURE THE WORLD Risking future employment It’s going global

32

PULLOUT SPECIAL

MEMORY WARFARE Who is invading your thoughts?

52

SPACE RACE 2.0 Gold rush in space

56

SINKING CITIES A race against timeand tide

30

ONLINE THIEVES A new wave of cybercrime

49 DECODED

Personal genetics save your life

17

GOOGLE GLASS

Ingenious or intrusive?

76

Future friends or foes?

FUTURE OF SEX Tested, proven

PORTAL

INNOVATION

TECHNOLOGY

SCIENCE

ENVIROMENT

CULTURE

PICK

05 Editor’s letter

18 3D Printing

26 Robots get personal

51 Decoded

58 Sinking Cities

73 Graphic art

72 More Vision.com

30 Online Thieves

54 Space Race 2.0

64 Bumblebees are on

76 Chinese everywhere

Technology and changing perceptions

08 Pictorials

Chilean telescopes, endangered foxes and 4D cinema in Baghdad

14 Trending

This month’s most popular futuristic news

16 Opinion

Google privacy and intrusive Google Glass

Revolutionary or threat?

20 War against cancer Trojan horses infiltrate cancer cells

22 Now you see me

And now you don’t. Learn about the latest invisibility technology

24 Spacesuit fashion

And all the girls say I’m pretty fly for a space guy

When technology gets too close

Personal genetics that could save your life

A new wave of cybercrime threatens our online security

Taking the gold rush to infinity and beyond

34 Memory Warfare

Who could be invading our thoughts?

Race against time and tide

New developments in agriculture favour traditional methods

68 Solar expedition Special pack deals, plus exclusive competitions and much more

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MAN VS MACHINE 26

VISION

V

Designs that are shocking the art world

The language that is going global

78 Tattoo Culture

Discover daily news, features, blogs, games and much more at vision-mag.co.uk

82 Readers interact

Space for your messages, blogs and questions

Searching for renewable energies

Employed, educated and tattooed. What is the problem?

84 Next Issue

70 Extintion in numbers

80 Future of sex

86 Interview

Vision takes you through the hard facts of marine extintion

Theories proven and rumours busted

It’s getting chilly...

Indian industrialist Asim Ghosh

READY FOR THE END? Forget Mayan calenders and failed Doomsday predicitions. This month, Vision’s End of The World Issue is your foolproof guide to surviving even the worst disasters Our four likeliest end of the world scenarios There’s no place like Dome fiction piece The ultimate apocalypse survival guide

VISION

7

panorama CHILE

Astronomers from around the world gathered this week in northern Chile for the long-awaited inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter/ Submillimeter Array (ALMA), a powerful new radio telescope that some are calling the best ground-based observatory in the world.

The $1.3-billion radio telescope is the highest worldwide, at an altitude of 16,000ft. Chile’s Atacama Desert was chosen as its location for its dryness and clarity. ALMA’s 66 antennas can detect extremely cold objects, such as gas clouds formed by stars and planets.

Decades in the making, ALMA is the result of a partnership between the U.S., Chile, and more than a dozen other nations in North America, Europe, and East Asia.

PHOTO: ESO

8

9

RUSSIA

These Arctic foxes are endangered. High levels of mercury in Arctic ecosystems have already caused a catastrophic drop in Arctic fox populations on one Russian island, researchers revealed this week. The findings suggest that increasing levels of mercury in marine ecosystems could have a significant impact on land animals with a marine-based diet in the future.

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10

IRAQ

Moviegoers at Baghdad’s first 4D cinema get an extra thrill from shaking seats and wind machines during a 3D sci-fi film. During the worst years of violence, families stayed home to watch TV or DVDs. Most cinemas closed, as did this one, though it has plans to expand and reopen.

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12

VISIONNEWS

NEWS BRIEFING

42,644

Funded projects on Kickstarter in 2013

225MILLION Number of current users on LinkedIn

8.7%

EBAY

“I will be going up on the first flight on December 25th of this year, so I may as well dress up as Father Christmas”

GOOD WEEK BAD WEEK

Accounts on Facebook which are fake

100 MILLION

APPLE

Funding for US Brain Mapping Project

34,000

is launching virtual stores called “shoppable windows” this month.

The company hopes retailers will generate more sales from their existing physical store networks.

RICHARD BRANSON, owner of Virgin Galactic on his first space flight

Web searches on Google per second

infringed a Samsung patent, which could mean some older models of the iPad and iPhone are banned from sale in the US

“Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon which smashes prices to penetrate markets only to then raise prices again once they are in a situation of monopoly” Aurélie Filippetti, French culture minister, said on Monday after announcing a €9m plan to support French booksellers Manufacturers have already given us a glimpse of the technology, with Samsung showing off a “foldable” phone.The technology could lead to virtually unbreakable gadgets and may soon be seen in everything from Apple’s much-rumoured iWatch to larger tablets

Hyundai has developed a new concept for the car of the future, putting a new spin on a mobility scooter - the “E4U” an egg-shaped, open-topped single person “scooter”

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American company Wool & Prince invented a shirt that stays clean even after 100 days of wear.The garment resists odour so effectively that it even smells fresh after being worn during rigorous exercise. It is also said to need no ironing because it is made of wrinklefree material

VISIONOPINION

OPINION

Ingenious or intrusive. Is Google leading us to go ogle?

WITH COSHARE YOUR THOUGHTS OGLEGLASS EDITOR AMY WITH #GO

G

et down on one knee, pull out a ring box and say those four little words. Oh, and don’t forget to announce “Okay Glass, record a video”. This week, Breon Nagy of Minnesota became the first man to film his proposal using his Google headgear, and she said yes - perhaps surprisingly considering the, erm, spectacle of the “fashionable” glasses .

However, many more are saying “no” to the technology, with new figures revealing one fifth of British people already think Google Glass should be banned completely, and sixty percent believe regulations are needed.

But despite the public’s concern over the intrusion posed by Google Glass, in the same survey by the University of London and Rackspace, more than a third said they still

intend to wear Glass when it becomes more widely available. It seems our need for technology and the newest, brightest gadgets has overtaken our privacy worries.

While the ingenious nature of the technology can’t be questioned, the intrusion it poses must not be overlooked and Breon’s marriage proposal is just one example of the disturbing nature of Google Glass. Once private, treasured memories can now be shared with the world with the swipe of a finger. And the search giant’s intrusion goes much deeper than that.

London-based campaign group Stop the Cyborgs has raised one important point in their claims that “privacy will be impossible” when Google Glass and other wearable technologies become widespread. Think nobody saw you on that hideously sweaty morning run?

DID YOU NOTICE? Our handsome coverman morphed into a robot is none other than Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in our vision for that the future that this technology will create. See the full transformation online at www.vision-mag.co.uk

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Think again, you’ve probably not only been spotted but recorded. Women are at risk too - the Electronic Privacy Information Center says Glass “gives stalkers, harassers and creeps the ability to take invasive photos of women in public without their knowledge.” Plus, the first pornographic app for Glass was released and swiftly banned this week.

The aptly named “Tits and Glass” is definitely more ogle than Google.

Perhaps the Stop the Cyborgs campaigners’ downloadable Google Glass “ban signs” aren’t so over the top after all. Especially when you consider other issues - including location tracking, being distracted from dangers when out and about and all your data being updated to the faceless cloud.

The inevitable introduction of facerecognition software is also looming, and Google promises this technology is banned, but developers are persistant.

But for me the real issue here to consider is - is it really necessary?

Believe it or not, once upon a time we weren’t chained to our emails, tweets and Facebook updates. A digital whirlwind has swept us up so fast and so far that now we feel the constant need to have information in front of our eyes.

What’s next? If Google Glass is anything to go by, nothing in our lives will be private. Fan Breon Nagy will film his bride’s “I do” at the altar, the pitterpatter of their child’s feet will be recorded in HD sound and when little Breon Junior ventures out into the world his every movement will be tracked with Glass... bringing the ogle into Google. n

Is there such a thing as too much Google?

I

t all started in a Californian garage. Two graduates at Stanford University created a search engine. They moved and based their newly registered domain at a friend’s garage in Menlo Park in 1998.

After hiring a fellow student, they were eager to start making money.

This could be the beginning of any business story, if it weren’t for one small detail. The two graduates were friends Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And they created Google.

Every day, Google answers more than one billion questions from people around the globe in 181 countries and 146 languages. People google train times, people google the weather. People interrupt conversations to google a fact.

The search engine has become a reflex, used so much that now “to google” is actually a real verb. Is this making life simpler, or are we too dependant on one company?

Researching this story already tells me I am. I used Google to find out whether we use Google too much.

The irony isn’t lost on me, and I’m not the only one. New York Times writer Pamela Jones Harbour calls it the Web’s “emperor”.

Almost 80 percent of computer searches and 98 percent of all mobile searches are done on Google in the United States. Back in 2012, when Google

announced its new privacy policy and its “desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google”, authorities decided to investigate.

What they found was disturbing.

The truth is that Google has every email you ever sent or received on Gmail. It has every search you ever made (remember that day you didn’t know if Hitler killed himself or ran away to Argentina? Google has a record of that) and every chat you ever had over Google Talk (even the embarrassing ones – especially the embarrassing ones). If you ever used it while logged in to your account to search for a person, addresses, news; if you ever gossiped using one of Google’s services, all of this is on Google’s servers. Google can even track searches on your computer when you’re not logged in for up to six

SHARE YOUR V YASMINE WITH IEWS WITH EDITOR #TOOMUCHG OOGLE months.

Even powerful companies like Microsoft are worried by the amount of information the search engine has accumulated over the years. Action has been taken against this. A proposal known as “the right to be forgotten”. would allow people in 27 countries of the European Union to demand internet companies delete their personal data.

A good idea when you think about what could happen if all that information fell into the wrong hands.

As for myself, I do think I could do with less Google in my life. Page’s and Brin’s creation is still incredible. It provides results within a few minutes that might have taken days to collect a few years ago. However, until today, even I was unaware about how much they knew.

This company is very much the modern fountain of all knowledge, but how much knowledge is it good for one search engine to have? n

Join the debate on our blog

at vision-mag.co.uk/blog

PLUS on 17

VISIONINNOVATION

1 2 3DIMENSIONAL How 3D printing is going to change your life How does it work?

Known as “additive manufacture”, 3D printing is actually quite simple. Once a blueprint of whatever you want to print has been created using computer aided design or other software, the shape is divided into digital cross-sections so the printer can create it layer by layer.The design is then sent to the printer and you choose a material, such as rubber, plastic or metal.Then comes the exciting part.The print head sprays or deposits thin layers around 100 microns, or 0.1 millimetres, thick.They fuse together into a three dimensional product. Different printers use different methods, and speeds vary depending on the object size you’re producing, but that’s the basics.

Scan this code to find out more.

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this month with the world’s 3D printing shot straight into the news which was followed by rica, Ame in first 3D-printed gun being fired . Cody Wilson, head rints bluep the of loads down 100,000 worldwide BBC: “I’m seeing the told d, of the gun creators Defense Distribute have whatever much y prett can you a world where technology says - this could right creation he’s you want.” And despite the risks of his icting the pred are rts expe as , be the beginning of a new revolution net. inter the than r trend will be even bigge wider and brighter than But the future of 3D printing is far process is reforming all dangerous weaponry. This amazing most important areas the of e som are areas of life, and here ct your future: in which 3D printing is going to affe

Print me a car 3D printing will massively shake up commercial transport. Aeroplanes will have printed parts, making them lighter and more fuel-efficient. Engine or equipment failures out at sea will be fixed within minutes or hours thanks to 3D printers on-board ships, which will hold a database of the entire vessel’s components. Finally, cars will benefit from 3D printed parts… and the world’s first 3D printed car will be rolled out in the next few years.

The Urbee 2 is being developed by 3D printing company RedEye and, apart from the metal engine and base chassis, will be made entirely of printed parts. At the moment it takes around 2,500 hours for the pieces to be created, but it’s just a case of uploading the design to the printer and letting it work its magic, spraying molten polymer layer by layer until the whole thing takes shape.

The developers are collaborating with KOR Ecologic and

the car will be very fuel efficient, running on either the amount of solar and wind energy collected from one garage in one day, or biofuel such as ethanol. The Urbee 2 will be driven from San Francisco to New York on just ten gallons of fuel, and project leader Jim Kor wants to make it in Google Maps time, and have the Guinness World Records involved. Kor and his team have been developing the car for years and it is now nearing completion, with 14 orders already placed at £50,000 dollars each. If the project is successful it will spark the beginning of a new generation of cars.

INNOVATION Did you know?

Bond’s treasured Aston Martin DB5 returned with a bang in Skyfall, but the filmmakers didn’t use CGI to blow it to smithereens.

Thankfully the priceless original survived in one piece to die another day (phew). How? Three replica cars were printed.

A Bavarian printing company created three 1:3 scale models, each made up of 18 individual plastic parts with opening boots, hoods and doors to make them as authentic as possible – and it was one of these replicas that met a sorry fate on-screen.

Printing body parts Further recent news in 3D printing is its possibility to transform medicine by printing artificial human tissue. A prototype network of tens of thousands of droplets, with many properties of living tissue, is being created by Oxford University using a custom-built printer.

It’s a brand new material made up of connected water droplets encased in lipid films, and the network is able to act as cells in the body. What’s more Professor Hagan Bayley, who is leading the research, said in his press release: “The droplets can be printed with protein pores to form pathways through the network, that mimic

The printed Aston Martin

nerves and are able to transmit electrical signals.” It’s hoped that in future the material will actually replace damaged tissue and be able to deliver drugs to places where they’re needed in the body.

3D printing is already being used in other areas of medicine, even replacing pieces of skulls and jaws, and in the next decade, whole new bones, arteries and even organs made from a patient’s genetic material could be in widespread ‘bioprinting’ production. Operations will run more smoothly and most importantly organ donor shortages could be eliminated.

Moreover, better, more unique prosthetics will be made, and will transform the lives of amputees.

3D lunch to go Who would have thought the Star Trek food replicator could actually become a reality?

Well it can with 3D printing. 3D chocolate printers are already in production, and it doesn’t stop there. Inventors are imagining a future where you can choose your ingredients and create any food you want with a 3D printer. “Tea, earl grey, hot” anyone?

Another future method of printing food is with gel-like substances combined with artificial flavouring. This might sound unappealing, but it could feed many more mouths across the globe, and would also make great astronaut food. Through both this process and by replacing conventional meat production with printed meat, 3D printing will also help to feed the world without destroying the planet. There will be health benefits too, as nutrients can be added to printed foods in a way which makes them more absorbable.

Finally, food packaging will even benefit from 3D printers, by intelligent containers telling you when food goes off.

More dangers As described above, like lots of developing technologies 3D printing isn’t without its dangers. Other than its use n weaponry, further repercussions lie in manufacturing, as the printers could replace workers like designers and sculptors. 3D printed food could also threaten farmers, but, as demand for food is always growing, hopefully the technology will sit sideby-side with production and support the process.

A different damaging consequence of 3D printing is breaching copyright – when anyone can print out a branded product would they bother to go and buy one? Saying that, if anything could be printed at home then would some shops and businesses just go bust?

The industry is unlikely to cause this much damage however, with the focus being on advancements that provide new creations.Thus, hopefully as this new process grows, it will create as much need as what it takes away.

The Urbee 2 prototype 3D printing will also improv e our everyday lives by ena bling us to order completely will foster faster innovation customised products. Plus through rapid prototyping the technology - meaning we get more exc printing shops could open iting new products faster. up in shopping centres, so Wh at’s more, 3D you can order designs and pick pick up photographs (those them up; kind of like how were the days). we used to But how about owning you r own 3D printer? The pric es were incredibly high at towards commercial use. first and most 3D printers However as public interest are still aimed grows, prices are dropping: years ago the price had halv ten years ago printers cos ed and now you can buy t £20,000, five a 3D printer for around £2, hundred pounds by 2015, 000. It’s predicted they’ll will be in lots of homes with cost just a few in a decade, and will be as as 20 years. commonplace as the microw ave in as little Every day the technology is becoming cheaper as well as better – and US compan be launching a desktop 3D y Makerbot has just announ scanner. It will map points ced they’ll soon on an object with a webcam printed, making 3D printing and turn them into a 3D plan far more accessible for hom ready to be e users. The future of 3D prin to replicate or create absolut ting is promising and soon ely anything you desire at you’ll be able home. Maybe best to stay away from those guns tho ugh…

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VISIONINNOVATION

INNOVATION

Trojan Horses

RIDE IN TO KILL CANCER

“

A great horse let us fashion, in which our mightiest shall take ambush,” said the great Odysseus to his people. And so the Greeks built a huge wooden horse which secretly carried their soldiers into the city of Troy where they defeated the Trojans. Thus came the story of the Trojan horse… and it’s this same legend that has inspired a breakthrough new cancer treatment which is sneaking killer viruses straight to the enemy camp.

“The Trojan horse name came about because the viruses charge in to do their job - to attack,” says Sheffield-based immunologist Dr Munitta Muthana. She is co-leading the Trojan horse therapy project, which involves using our own white blood cells to get tumour-killing viruses to the heart of tumours.

“We’ve tried to develop a way to treat cancers that are really difficult to reach with current therapies,” explains Munitta, “For example, if you imagine that a tumour is like a ball, therapies such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy often attack the outside but don’t quite reach into the inside of the tumour. So what tends to happen when you stop these therapies is that the tumour that’s left starts to repopulate, and that’s why

Prostate cancer • Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK.

• Over 40,000 new cases are

diagnosed every year and around one in six men will develop it • Symptoms include needing to urinate more, straining to urinate, a weak flow and feeling that your bladder has not emptied fully.

• Men have around a 10-30 percent chance of their prostate cancer recurring, even after having their prostate removed.

• Most cancer returns in the first three years after treatment.

Therefore treatments such as the Trojan horse therapy would be greatly beneficial in preventing this reoccurrence and saving lives.

20

How the ancient story is the key to saving lives and fighting tumours today you get tumours re-growing and they can then spread.”

“Big eaters” She and her fellow researchers studied different cancers and found that after such therapies, the body sends white blood cells called macrophages – literally “big eaters” - into the tumour to clean up the damage. “Macrophages are important within the immune system because they protect us and are part of the cells involved in the first line of defence,” says Munitta, “What we found when we looked within these cancers is that forty-eight hours after treatments, macrophages surge right inside those difficult-to-reach areas that current therapies aren’t attacking.”

“The thing about viruses is that they can be used to kill cancers, because they’re designed with a natural ability to infect a cell,” Munitta says. However, it’s this quality that also causes the usual problem when injecting a virus into a patient, in that the body naturally tries to fight that virus, so much of it is destroyed before it reaches the tumour.

And it’s here where the macrophages – the Trojan horses – come into play.

“Natural delivery vehicles” “Because we know macrophages go deep into tumours, we thought we could also get them to deliver a virus while protecting it from the immune system.

So these cells can be used as natural delivery vehicles for tumour-killing viruses,” says Munitta.

A lot of the earlier work involved optimising the infection the viruses cause with the macrophages and testing with models. “We used spheroid models, where we grow tumour cells in the lab and force them to grow into spheroid structures,” Munitta says, “In a way these mimic disease because they have the outer viable cells area and the inner cells that have died, so it’s like a small tumour. So it’s a bit more realistic than delivering the therapy to cells flat on

plastic.”

After successful lab trials, the scientists then tested the Trojan horse treatment on mice with prostate cancer. The mice were injected with macrophages exactly two days after their chemotherapy finished, to match the time the white blood cells surge into the tumour. The macrophages only contained a few viruses, as once the viruses enter the tumour they can replicate. After 12 hours the macrophages burst, ejecting up to 10,000 viruses each, which attack what’s left of the tumour.

By the end of the 40-day study, many of the mice given just traditional treatments such as radiotherapy had died and their tumours had grown back. However, all of the mice given the Trojan horse treatment were still alive.

The treatment ‘completely abolished tumour regrowth’ and there were no signs of recurring tumours.

Following this successful testing, the virus has been mass-produced at clinical-grade level, in collaboration with Magnus Essand, a Swedish professor of gene therapy. His revolutionary, genetically engineered oncolytic virus is described as a ‘cancer of cancer’ as it eats only tumours. It’s been waiting in the wings for years for a project such as the Trojan horse treatment, which can deliver the virus successfully to the tumour.

The next stage is testing in humans, and in Holland the treatment is

“The next stage is testing in humans”

Onolyctic virus particles bursting out of cancer cells

currently being tested in prostate cancer patients. Munitta says, “Patient trials involved taking a blood sample from a patient and isolating the macrophages from white blood cells. Then the macrophage is being made therapeutic by arming it with genes and viruses, and the idea is to inject this into patients and see if it’s tolerated.”

Finding hidden tumours It is of course recognised that in many studies the treatment may work in mice but not in humans, as we’re far more complex, but Munitta is hopeful: “We have a lot of hope it will work in patients, because the results were so very good in mice.” What’s more, the Trojan horse therapy could bring even more benefits, as the macrophages are capable of finding other undiscovered tumours in the body and attacking them too.

Plus Munitta explains the treatment could be expanded to treat other cancers: “We have a project with

colleagues to try and develop this for Myeloma, and we’ve also looked into making our virus able to target breast tumours. We’re definitely interested in expanding this.”

Looking to the future, phase one of the treatment will involve more clinical trials in the next three years, and Munitta’s team are applying for further funding from Yorkshire Cancer Research, who have already funded the project so far along with Prostate Cancer UK. Then, the researchers are hopeful the therapy will be marketed within ten years, depending on the success in the clinical trials.

Never mind ‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts’ – in future cancer should beware our own cells bearing killer viruses.

• To read the official paper on the project, just google ‘Macrophage Delivery of an Oncolytic Virus Abolishes Tumor Regrowth and Metastasis After Chemotherapy or Irradiation’. n

Viruses fighting cancer • Terminally ill liver cancer patients were given a genetically engineered virus called Pexa-Vec, which is derived from the vaccinia virus. 16 patients given a high dose of the virus therapy lived for 14.1 months on average, compared to just 6.7 months for those on the low dose.

• A modified version of the chicken-killing Newcastle disease virus, that targets and kills prostate cancer cells, and leaves other cells untouched, has been developed.

• The HIV virus has been used to beat leukaemia, first used successfully on a sixyear-old in a therapy called CTL019. Other viruses being considered as treatments include herpes and adenovirus, which is a common cause of gastroenteritis.

Many of these therapies encounter the problem that ‘the tumours are being neutralised before they get to the tumour, so they’re not able to have their killer effect’ Munitta explains, and it’s in this respect that the Trojan Horse therapy is galloping ahead.

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VISIONINNOVATION

Mirage effect S

ince the metamaterial invisibility cloak captured the imagination of physicists worldwide, two further invisibility methods have been invented.

Photothermal deflection, also known as the “mirage effect”, uses heat to refract light rays in the same way as a desert mirage.

The sharp temperature difference between the air and sand causes light rays to swing up towards the viewer’s eyes instead of bouncing off the ground, creating “puddles” of sky where the sand should be.

Inspired by the mirages, researches at the Dallas NanoTech Institute used electric currents passed through carbon nanotubes to create very high temperatures, transferring heat to the surrounding area - away from the carbon nanotube sheet - and hiding the carbon cylinders.

The other method, using optical camouflage technology, films an image behind the cloaked subject, modifies it, and projects it onto the front of the retro-reflective cloak. The cloaked subject appears invisible to anyone standing at the projector source, but it only works if viewed from that specific angle.

Carbon cylinders gradually cloaked by the mirage effect

22

Now you

see me

INNOVATION

Now you don’t

H

ow is it that you can talk into a

handheld device in Manchester and someone in Melbourne can hear your voice? It’s a question I’ve asked myself many a time. It seems like real-life science fiction.

Luckily for me, on that same device, I have the equally mindblowing powers of Google to quench my insatiable thirst for knowledge. (Apparently your phone converts your voice into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted as radio waves and converted back into sound on the other end.) I still don’t really get it.

For centuries we have hypothesised about seemingly impossible, physics-defying concepts. The idea of time travel and teleportation may today seem laughable and implausible, but the idea of aircraft, television and memory chips would have seemed equally as absurd not so long ago. Sometimes science-fiction fantasies do come true.

In a laboratory at North Carolina Duke University in October 2006, one of the most enduring staples of sci-fi and fantasy became reality… the invisibility cloak. Okay, so it might not have hidden a marauding Harry Potter from Professor Snape’s unforgiving eyes, but physicist David Smith did manage to hide an

by Daniel Critchley 18cm-tall cylindrical rod from view, using a technique called metascreening.

Metascreening uses ultra-thin “metamaterials” created from copper strips just 66 µm (millionths of a metre) thick, attached to a flexible polycarbonate film. The copper strips - thinner than a human hair – bend light, allowing it to flow around an object in a similar way to water around a rock in a stream, thus rendering the veiled object invisible. The Duke University experiment, based on the theory of Imperial College London physicist, John Pendry, demonstrated the ability to manipulate light in a controlled manner.

But Harry Potter wasn’t the only character blessed with the power of invisibility. Growing up, I watched the Cheshire cat mischievously vanish into thin air and a ring-bearing Bilbo Baggins disappear from sight. The idea of invisibility seemed innocent and fun. With age, though, comes cynicism, and suddenly the prospect of invisibility seems not fun, but dangerous and frightening. What of privacy? Security? Are we on the verge of a new dawn in military combat? Questions not so easily answered by a simple Google search.

Imagine what you could do if you had an invisibility cloak. Soon you might not need to imagine.

In fact, cloaking is nothing new in the military. Modern warfare already uses sonar cloaking in submarines and radar invisibility in aircraft and drones. Thermal and magnetic cloaking methods are also employed, but the prospect of invisibility to light would change the entire landscape of warfare. Secret police agencies, such as the Nazi Gestapo, East German Stasi and Russian KGB, were notorious enough as clandestine yet visible forces.

The unnerving prospect of an invisible secret police agency doesn’t bear thinking about.

Fortunately, these Orwellesque ideas of a dystopian world are a long way off becoming reality. Metamaterial technologies are still in the early stages of development and are only capable of cloaking small, stationary objects. Even then, slight distortion where the object is, and a small shadow behind it make for an imperfect cloak.

In time though, as with the internet, penicillin and every other invention or discovery, scientists will no doubt iron out the creases and improve the technology through trial and error.

Royal Holloway University physics professor, Matthias Eschrig, said: “This [metamaterial] technology is still in its infancy and it will be years before we are cloaking anything bigger than a marble.

What I don’t think people realise is that it probably won’t ever be in the form of a jacket that people can just put on and go outside in.”

Metamaterials appear to be the most promising prospect in the creation of a human-sized invisibility cloak, but it would likely be in the form of a fitted body suit rather than the type of loose-hanging gown depicted in popular culture. It isn’t inconceivable that 20 years from now military personnel would be able to benefit from a functional, light-bending suit, and I doubt it’s only me that shudders at the thought. (Although I can imagine the comedy value of looking for your lost invisibility suit - akin to losing your prescription glasses today.)

It may seem strange now to think of a world where such a surreal, fantasy-embedded concept could become reality - but when author Edward Bellamy wrote his 1887 utopian sci-fi novel, Looking Backward: 20001887, few would have envisaged his absurd world of skyscrapers, debit cards and devices that produce audio and visual much in the same way as a modern television does. n

Harry. Wizard or physicist?

Objects are detected when waves, such as light, x-ray, sound or microwaves, rebound off the surface towards the receptor – be it our eyes, ears or a lens.

What metamaterials do is deflect certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum in a way which alters our perception of the image or - by guiding light around an object and back onto its original path - make it look as if the object has disappeared altogether. Perhaps Harry Potter wasn’t a wizard after all.

Perhaps it was just a guise for what his initials really stood for – Heralded Physicist.

The next time somebody asks you: If you have one wish, what would you wish for? Don’t waste it on a concept that’s just around the corner.Time travel and teleportation don’t look to be too imminent. Perhaps one of those would be a better option.

23

INNOVATIONVISION

ARE SEXY

Over the years the spacesuit has held its own as the ultimate onesie

Mark V – Modified

B.F.Goodrich (BGF), 1968

A

One arm with modified shoulder joint by Hamilton Standard

Ex1-A – Apollo Applications Project

AiResearch Corporation (AiR), 1968

B

Earliest confirmed AiR pressuresuit prototype. Single wall laminate construction with angled segments, pressuresealed bearings.

A4-H – Apollo Developmental ILC for HS, 1964

C

Late A-4H model, modified to fit Nasa improvement requests.

Orignially had dual life-support system but adapted to single. .

A5-L – Apollo Prototype

ILC Industries, 1965

D

Prototype – Jerry Armstrong

E

A7-L EV – Aldrin, Apollo 11

ILC Industries, 1969

Worn by Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, delivered to Nasa on 25 April, 1969.

24

By Junqiu Pan

V

ictoria’s Secret does not offer a single satin lace-up corset designed to withstand the harsh rigors of the cosmic void, and no amount of frilly pink lace is going to shield you from cosmic radiation. But when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: twenty-one layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles.

Without foundations, there can be no fashion, says Christian Dior. Such foundations, of course, were the body-

altering garments of which Playtex was the largest postwar purveyor. Its corporate parent ILC, the International Latex Corporation, has an even more famous product – the A7L spacesuit (see Suit E) – that embraces Playtex’s line of girdles, bras, and shapewear in many terms as its own foundation.

Primarily worn by Nasa astronauts for Project Apollo between 1968 and 1975, the basic design of the A7L suit was a one-piece, five-layer “torso-limb” suit with convoluted joints made of latex or synthetic rubber at shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, ankles, and knee joints.

Metal rings at forearms and the neck are allowed for the connection of the pressure gloves and the famous Apollo “fishbowl helmet”. A7L also stands for an acknowledged design evolution by introducing the Integrated Thermal

Micrometeroid Garment (ITMG). Just like its name, it’s designed to guard the suit from abrasion and protect the astronaut from thermal solar radiation and micrometeroids which could have punctured the inner suite. An extra fireproof cover layer – removable for repairs and inspection was attached to the pressure garment assembly after the deadly Apollo 1 fire.

Neil Armstrong once described his Apollo 11 A7L suit as “tough, reliable and almost cuddly”. But before its elegant softness defeated the traditional military hardness, no one favoured it, not even Nasa. “It was only when those armor-like spacesuits failed that Playtex got the job, with its expertise,” says Nicholas de Monchaux, architect, and

author of Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo.

He shows how humans have costumed themselves for extreme exploration, from the Mongolfiers’ balloon to Wiley Post and the high-altitude jump suit. “Just like a business suit suits you to have a business meeting with a banker,” says Dr de Monchaux. “A spacesuit suits you to enter this environment inhospitable to human occupation otherwise.”

From that, the idea of suiting, you also get to the idea of fashion.

Of course, this notion of the suited astronaut is an iconic and heroic figure, but then the actual spacesuit we have been talking about is kind of an anti-hero. It’s much embarrassing that it was made by a bra company, using hand-stitched couture techniques, but it’s also much more urbane. It actually embraces the messy logic of our own bodies, rather than present us with the singular ideal of a cyborg or the hard, one-piece, industrial suits against which the Playtex suit was always competing.

Let’s envision the future. The space industry is still performing almost exclusively government activities, yet just imagine when space travel becomes a common form of travel, and spacesuit becomes as common as a business suit, you will get used to people showing off their latest spacesuits from different luxury brands.

And this is not so far-off as it used to. Since Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004, some 529 wouldbe astronauts have so far signed up for 200,000-dollar-a-seat flights into the space.

And on 29 April this year, SpaceShip Two made its first test flight over California.

After witnessing the rocket engine firing and accelerating the vehicle faster than sound, everyone at the scene cheered and clapped: space tourism is not a dream.Virgin Galactic still haven’t finalised its spacesuit design, but singer and registered space tourist Katy Perry has already requested a suit to match her eye color. n

25

ROBOTS GET PERSONAL

TECHNOLOGYVISION

A new wave of personal robots is about to hit us.

Simona Pesce investigates how our lives will be impacted by personalised automation.

a 26

27

TECHNOLOGY

T

he rise of robots, which scifi movies and books have been heralding for decades, is inching ever closer to becoming reality and, in ten to twenty years, these dexterous machines may well become an integral part of our everyday lives. But does this robotic future match our needs and expectations?

Some experts predict that this new wave of robotic technologies will hit an increasing number of ordinary people in the workplace, causing underemployment to shoot up - mainly among white collar workers, but also among blue collars.

Indeed, automation is growing in every aspect of human life - machines have replaced staff at supermarket checkouts, cars are almost entirely manufactured in robotic factories, drones and unmanned robotic weapons are being deployed in the battlefield, robosurgery is being used in hospitals and robotic assistants sequence DNA in labs.

“Robots are tirelessly efficient and can endure conditions which are far too hostile for human space explorers,” says Red Whittaker, Professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University and founder of Astrobotic.

“Robots’ greatest advantages in space are that they don’t need to eat, drink, breathe, or be protected from radiation, meteorite hits or hot and cold extremes. Significantly, you don’t have to bring robots home.”

It is easy to feel startled by the ‘magic’ of artificial life but, unlike space and military robots, personal robots - which many ordinary people are patiently waiting to see in their

TECHNOLOGY homes - are far less advanced than one may think, and their future looks uncertain.

For now, even the most sophisticated robots designed to interact with humans are only able to complement the human workforce, and struggle to perform trivial tasks as fast as humans - such as turning a handle to open a door.

Artificial intelligence is advancing, but no robots are being developed which can display the flexibility and creativity of the human mind. And this is good news.

Among the most impressive achievements in personal robotics, researchers worldwide have developed a robot, PR2, which folds towels and fetches beer - although it takes five minutes for it to perform the task.

More recently, they’ve developed one which can dance Gangnam style.

Doctor Leila Takayama, a social scientist who conducts studies on human-robot interaction at US robotics firm, Willow Garage, explains how the biggest challenge for developers of personal robots lies in embedding these machines with common sense.

“When we test robots in offices around California Bay, it is essential to make sure that people are not harmed, frightened, or put in bad situations by the presence of the robots. It’s a bit like hosting a party, but it’s a party with prototype machinery and highly scripted interactions. For now, a lot of the long-term deployments of robots end with the machine being shoved in a closet or ‘accidentally’ turned off. That’s usually because the robot wasn’t useful enough and was frustrating someone,” she said.

“Robots’ greatest advantages in space are that they don’t need to eat, drink, breathe, or be protected from radiation, meteorite hits or hot and cold extremes. Significantly, you don’t have to bring robots home” Although it may prove difficult to give precise estimates for when personal robots will become ubiquitous, one thing is certain - they won’t be designed to look human.

“The more human the robots look, the more people expect the robot to be smart and to behave in human ways. Humanoid robots raise end-user expectations too high. Personal robots that aim to perform functional tasks don’t need to be humanoid in order to be human-friendly. Dogs can be quite human-friendly without being humanlike,” Dr Takayama said.

Personal robots are still a work-inprogress. But have developers and corporations thought carefully about the consequences and threats posed by these types of robots pervading our daily lives? The answer is no, according to Illah Nourbakhsh, Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University,.

In his new book, Robot Futures, released this week, Professor Nourbakhsh dispels the myths surrounding personal robots and shows, in simple terms, the need for serious debate among businesses, roboticists and the general public about the issues and implications of

Mr. Asahi, the first robotic bartender.

The robot was built in about 200 hours and spent a full six months fine-tuning its bartending skills

28

personal robot usage.

Now that self-driving cars are being developed and will be available for sale in the next five years, nobody should turn a blind eye to how these machines will impact our freedoms, our privacy, our laws and who we essentially are.

Companies will be exploiting robots to collect as much data as possible on their customers, in subtle and obscure ways. Self-driving cars will ground traffic to a halt when their sensors are unable to tell the difference between a hole in the road and a newly painted road sign. And ordinary people, with some knowledge of hardware and software, will devise their own robots with scrap material and increasingly cheap hardware components, giving rise to a phenomenon called “robot smog”. These cheap and annoying robots will crowd our streets and make our lives miserable.

These are just three of the realistic scenarios that Professor Nourbakhsh envisions in his book, giving a precise timeframe of 30 years for it to happen.

“My vignettes may sound scary, but they are meant to be provocative.

I want to show what is possible in living terms, in a way that’s so ‘real’ that we can absorb it, imagine it, and then understand the technology path underlying it, and how we are trending toward this future today,” he said.

He also warns us against the dangers of dehumanisation, which personal robots, devoid of any emotion, may cause. When human beings are forced to interact with robots every day, they may even struggle to recognise the difference between the voice of a robotic assistant and a human one - at a call centre, for example. The barriers between human and machine will fade and humans will be confronted with a sudden loss of identity.

This is what lies ahead but it’s not too late to make changes which would bring about a better generation of robots. Robotics need to turn towards social good and empowering communities, insists Professor Nourbakhsh.

Robots will never outdo humans unless we purposely steer robotic technology in that direction, but rather than developing robots just for the sake of it, developers and corporations need to think carefully about the purpose these machines will serve, and the ethical dilemmas they will pose.

“The direction of robotics in the future should be towards technology as a salve to help us solve inequity and injustice, rather than technology that widen gaps. It is a recipe that I think is critical to the most human future we can imagine for our planet,” said Professor Nourbakhsh.n

ROBOTS WE LOVE Double is a telepresence robot that balances on two large wheels, uses any iPad as its screen and eyes, and rests on a smart kickstand when not in use.

And, of course, it lets you virtually visit locations, participate in remote meetings, and show your smiling face to distant colleagues.

The robot is only 15 pounds. It adjusts height so you can communicate naturally at either standing or sitting height, and moves forward, backward, and turns as you control it from your own iPad or iPhone at a remote location.

PR2 is a two-armed wheeled robot of size similar to a human. is designed as a robotics platform being developed at Stanford University. PR stands for “personal robot”.

On May 26, 2010, Willow Garage held a graduation party in which 11 PR2s “danced” with humans while being led by their grippers.The PR2 is being programmed to do increasingly technical and dexterous applications including opening doors and folding towels.

This 1.47-metre tall humanoid robot is REEM-B, built by PAL Robotics, a Barcelona-based team of engineers.

REEM-B, unveiled in 2008 in Abu Dhabi, is capable of face-recognition and memory, dextrous movements, bipedal walking for 1.5 km and stair climbing.

Its sensors allow him to navigate the world independently and generate maps of obstacles and building layouts.

Weighting 60 Kg, it can carry loads of up to 25 per cent of its own weight.

29

Cyberwar

VISIONTECHNOLOGY

It’s War

Are hackers from all over the world preparing for a major cyber war? Is the internet getting more dangerous for individuals? Vision digs into the increasingly dangerous cyber world.

C

yber attacks are top of the list of US Intelligence preoccupations in 2013, ranking ahead of landbased terrorist attacks. This is amid increasing attacks from Chinese hackers on government and private systems, including power grid and telecommunications networks.

At the same time, it appears clear that the US have been attacking and sabotaging Iran’s Nuclear facilities regularly since 2010 with the Stuxnet virus. Russia has carried out several attacks on social networks, closing down Facebook and Twitter for several hours in the past three years.

More recently, in November 2012, Israel suffered more than 44 million cyber attacks from hackers, supposedly from the “Anonymous” collective, supporting the Palestinian cause, at the time of Israel’s operation “Pillar of Defence” in the Gaza strip.

“It must be recognised that this is a count of attempts, not of successful attacks,” says Dr Andre Oboler, an Israeli social media and internet warfare expert for the Jerusalem Post. “Of the initial 44 million, only one hack has been successful, and it resulted in a government website being down for around ten minutes.

“Most attempted attacks would come from script kiddies, who are simply doing it for the thrill. These attacks are

30

little more than background noise,” he says.

“The higher quality attacks are likely to come from either known hackers or from state actors. The two are not entirely separable as countries have been recruiting the better hackers, or employing them indirectly, in order to advance their own goals.

“Both Iran and China have been investing heavily in cyber warfare.

When it comes to attacks against Israel, Iranian fingerprints are in some cases plainly visible.”

“THE OPERATION WAS A GENERAL ATTACK AGAINST ISRAEL” “Certain channels of Anonymous were promoting the attacks against Israel, but to me this appeared to be driven by Iranian interests. Anyone can publish something and claim it comes from Anonymous.

“The operation was a general attack against Israel and was counted as a terrible failure with absolutely minimal impact.

“The Israeli government set up cyber security teams, mostly to monitor and protect government assets.”

But an unofficial army of Israeli geeks

who took upon themselves the defence of their country organised the virtual counter attack.

“Some Israeli hackers, and some Jewish hackers outside of Israel, did launch counter attacks,” says Oboler. “I don’t think anyone won, but it is clear a number of Palestinians lost. A file that was claimed to be a list of Mossad (the Israeli Intelligence Agency) agents was circulated far and wide, and it later turned out the list was a customer list and included many Palestinians.

One can only imagine the impact on a Palestinian after being ‘exposed’ as an Israeli spy.”

Oboler reckons that Iran represents a cyber threat to Israel, but one that so far his country has managed to contain.

On the other hand, he says that the US are particularly worried about state sponsored attacks from China.

“The Internet is a zone without national borders,” says Oboler. “The attacks are already in many senses global. I don’t think that is likely short of a hot war.

“The current cyber attacks are more in the way of a cold war or the actions of spy agencies, at best they escalate to a war via proxies, similar in nature to Iran’s use of Hezbollah. They are an effort to attack and apply pressure without resorting to open warfare.”

Guillaume Idée, a French ex-hacker who has since redeemed himself and is now working for the internet security sector, shares this view. He says: “There really is a risk of a cyber war between the USA, China and Iran, but rather like a cold war, without noise. I would even say that it has already started.”

Idée has a history of cyber mischief.

At the age of just 14, he took over a

TECHNOLOGY the largest French-speaking online forum about computer games by hacking into the website, granting himself administrator rights and dismissing the original owners from their functions.

He then reigned for five years over his virtual kingdom, even earning money from the adverts on it, until a handful of its members decided to create a rival forum.

“It was total war,” says Idée. “We would carry DDoS attacks against their servers to put their website down and would hack into their personal e-mail addresses, blogs and social-network accounts all day and all night for several months.

“We even managed to find some of their mobile numbers and addresses to bother them. They would do the same to us. In the end, we lost the war, partly because of financial reasons, and they overtook us to become the biggest French-speaking gaming forum.”

Idée was a cheeky geek at the time. He says: “During high school, I once hacked into a classmate’s computer, took control over her webcam and recorded her as she was getting undressed for bed.

She still doesn’t know about it.”

But now, Idée is another man. After graduating from SupInfo, a famous IT college in Montpellier, he’s dropped the dark side of the force and gives advice on how to be safer when surfing the internet.

“Globally, online security is improving,” he says. “But the security of your personal data is deteriorating.

By disclosing things about yourself on websites like Facebook and by stocking them on the Cloud, you’re taking the risk that, one day, these data will backfire on you. Governments are longing for this information and are doing their best to gain access to it.”

“The biggest threat for you is not updating your operating system and your software. Loopholes are regularly

THE

800,000

DATA

41%

of all cyber attacks in 2012 were China-based. 96 % of these attacks were linked to cyber espionage, according to the American Data Breach Investigation Report.

59%

of all the computers infected

by American-Israeli worm Stuxnet in 2008 were in Iran.

The attack, conducted by the US and Israeli governments, was deliberately aimed at Iranian nuclear facilities, including the Natanz nuclear plant where hundreds of centrifuges were sabotaged by the cyber attack.

discovered by hackers, but the editors of the software respond rapidly by patching them up. But you won’t be protected unless you have the latest version.

“Java is a big problem. You can be silently infected while only visiting a website. If you don’t use Java, I advise you to uninstall it.

“The next developing threat is phishing. It consists of deceiving you by delivering you a fake copy of a website login page, on which, believing you’re on the proper website, you’ll enter your details and password, thus giving them to the hacker.

“A new type of attack has appeared.

In a very near future, you’re likely to come under attack from a ‘ransomware’, a virus that will block your computer and ask you to pay a ransom to have it unlocked. This is a new issue that is predicted to become one of our major worries.”

litres of sewage water were released into rivers and parks of Maroochy, Australia after Vitek Boden, an angry employee of the water company, hacked into the sewage management system.

20

the age of Dmitri Galushkevich, the first person ever convicted of cyber-war. In 2007, Russian hackers, including Galushkevich, waged a cyber-war against websites of the Estonian government, political parties and newspapers, after the newly independent Baltic state decided to remove a Soviet war memorial. Since Estonia became independent from the collapsing USSR in 1991, tensions have been great between the Estonian majority and the Moscow-backed ethnic-Russian minority, resulting in several such incidents of cyber conflicts.

Idée is very pessimistic about the evolution of online security for the next few years. He says: “I think it’s going in the wrong direction. In France, companies like Amesys and QOSMOS are developing Deep Packet Inspection software that makes it possible to spy on the entire internet traffic on the scale of a country.

“Amesys, with the help of the French Government, sold its system to late Libyan leader Gaddafi, who used it to track down opponents to his regime. Of course, Amesys would later claim they couldn’t know how Gaddafi would make such a use of this system.

“I think people should distrust the governments, who are using the internet to find out everything about you and control what you can do. As for your government, they are already suspicious of you and what you’re doing on the internet.” n

Some of Anonymous’ threats against Israeli cyberspace, in a video posted by user Hiluxanon on 17th November “November 2012 will be a month to remember for the Israeli defense forces and internet security forces.”

“We will strike any and all websites we deem to be in Israeli cyber space in retaliation for the mistreating of people in Gaza” “Cyber war has been declared on Israel cyber space and you will see exactly what we are capable of.”

“We call on the Anonymous Collective to hack, deface, docks, hijack, database leak and admin takeover to terminate the Israeli cyber space by any means necessary.”

“To the Israeli Government, Anonymous has grown tired of your bullying, and now you will see the result of your actions.”

31

VISIONTECHNOLOGY This week Google and Nasa revealed their superfast quantum computer, which led us to imagine how these increasingly powerful machines could interact with our minds in the future

Memory Warfare

By Amy Burnett

34

H

TECHNOLOGY - FICTION

e woke and felt the cold metal of the tunnel against his face. It was silent save for the sound of rain dancing on the roof, and some of the water trickled through, dripping onto his cheek. He stared at the rusted wall opposite him. He felt confused and had no idea who or where he was.

Footsteps thudded down the tunnel and he turned his head, wondering if he should run, but his limp body remained motionless. The figure reached him and in the dim orange light he saw a woman wearing a frantic expression on her face. She bobbed down in front of him and reached out, grasping his shoulder.

“Droga? Oh God, please tell me you know who I am,” she said in an urgent tone. He found he had the ability to talk, and his throat obliged, his mouth forming words.

He cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t even know who I am.” The woman’s eyes widened and she looked up to the roof of the tunnel, as though she was cursing the sky above. “Sorry…” he added quickly.

“Sorry?” she repeated, “You have nothing to be sorry for. You saved my life, and they took yours. Your memory chip…your long term… Oh Jesus…” she ranted. She exhaled and slumped her shoulders, “After all this time, they got you. I thought we were safe… and the damn Bots got the rest of the group too.”

“Bots?” he inquired. “Sorry, maybe you should just explain what’s going on. Did I hit my head or something?”

“Hit your head?” she said, “No, Droga, you didn’t.” She sat down, crossed her legs, and let out a long breath. She took a tiny metal computer chip out of a zipped coat pocket and put her hand behind his ear. He felt nothing but when she drew her hand back, the chip was gone. “There,” she said, “Hopefully you’ll at least remember anything that happens from now on.

“Your name is Droga and I’m Inga,” she continued, “This is the year 2044. We’re in the old northern stronghold. I’ll spare the details of how we got here… but we’re members of the antiBot resistance. Your memory was held on a chip in your head but they took it, and now - now we have nowhere left to run and nobody left to fight with.”

Somehow everything she told him made sense, and he knew that he trusted her. He still didn’t know anything other than what she’d just told him though, and he was about to ask what a ‘Bot’ was, when Inga jerked upright, her head tilted towards the right. She looked at Droga, held her hand out to him and said, “Run.” He took her hand and scrambled to his feet. She dragged him down to the other end of the tunnel, and he found his feet had the ability to run.

They burst out into the night sky – and Droga couldn’t help but skid to a halt, looking around him in astonishment.

He couldn’t take it all in: the towering skyscrapers, the twisted trees, the glowing lights in the distance. Inga tugged on his hand, staring “Number One. behind them, and they Insert the chip.” ran into the street,

towards the city, their feet pounding the pavement.

He wanted to ask Inga where they were going and who they were running from, but his screaming lungs made it impossible. They reached the bright lights of the city and slowed. They both turned and scanned the darkness behind them, and then turned to face each other, gasping for breath.

A slow smile started to form on Inga’s face, and she said, “You know, even though you don’t remember anything – you’re still you. I thought maybe yo…”. She stopped talking, and Droga waited for her to carry on. Then her hand grasped her arm and he looked down to see a glinting dart embedded in her coat. He looked up and saw a group of man-shaped metal beings fire a dart at him before they both fell to the ground.

Droga drifted in and out of consciousness as the metal men picked them up and strode towards the city, faster than he thought possible.

His eyes opened and he saw the fuzzy outlines of people milling around. His eyes closed. They opened again and he saw the dazed looks on the faces of the people through the blurry fog in his mind. They looked how he had felt when he awoke with no memory… lost. His eyes closed once more.

He came around for the second time – that he could remember – and saw that he and Inga were in a huge room.

The walls were made up of glowing wires and circuit boards, and there was a mountain of tiny glass boxes dumped on the floor. On a glass table in front of them stood a single black computer tower with a glowing blue ring.

A high-pitched, electronic voice came from the speakers connected to the tower. “You should have given up long ago, Inga. And you, Droga – well I suppose you don’t know what’s going on. Perhaps we can help with that.”

The voice then rang out with a command, “Number one.

Insert the chip.”

The shiniest metal footman marched to the pile of glass boxes and picked one up. He took something tiny out and walked stiffly round to the back of Droga, who didn’t struggle.

If that was his memory, he wanted it back. He closed his eye, unsure how it would happen, but ready to remember.

Nothing happened for a silent heartbeat. Then he bowed forwards with the weight of knowledge; he knew everything. a

She looked at Droga, held her hand out to him and said, “RUN”

35

TECHNOLOGY - FICTION

TECHNOLOGY - FICTION He knew how it had started, when the government announced a scientific breakthrough, and doctors started injecting nanobots into people’s blood to expand their memories. He was just a child then. Next had come another breakthrough, with chips that could be stuck onto the skin and brought supercomputer power to the human mind. All the cool kids had had them at school, and showed them off like temporary tattoos. Everyone had thought the technology was brilliant. But then had come the breakthrough that changed

everything.

Scientists had declared there was no difference between neurons and silicon, and so the minds of the entire population were given memory slots that connected to their neurons.

They were supposed to provide surplus space, but the nanobots in their blood attacked the computer chip, and they ended up hijacking the entire memory. The thoughts of human beings could be downloaded and before long, the elites were creating machines in which to transplant them.

These metal Bots were supposed to be the superior police force, soldiers and government of the twentyfirst century. But they couldn’t separate the good emotions from the bad, and without a human The leaders in conscience, greed took over. The leaders in metal metal suits suits created tyranny and the people rebelled. So the Bots in charge had everyone’s memory chip removed – everyone except for the rebels. Droga, Inga, and all those he now remembered and whose memories were no doubt in that mountain of glass boxes.

When his mind had run through all of this information, Droga remembered the most important thing, the most important person to him. He raised his head and turned to Inga, who was staring at him with hopeful sadness. He recognised his wife now, and reached out his hand. But then her eyes widened, looking behind him Blank. His mind was blank. He blinked. A Bot carrying what was his memory put it back in its little glass cage and threw it back onto the hill of boxes.

The computer spoke again: “Well that was fun. But this is better now isn’t it… D. I think I’ll call you D. “D, I am your leader here. You can be our new porter for the front door, Number One here will get you a uniform. Run along now.” The blue light flashed in impatience.

D smiled and obediently followed the Bot out of the room, vaguely wondering why the woman’s mingled screams and sobs echoed behind him… n

READER DEBATE can humanity be uploaded to a machine?

The idea of our minds merging with machines might seem fantastical, but it could become a reality – or even a necessity. In his book, ‘Neuroengineering the Future’, artificial intelligent expert Bruce Katz describes some of the problems with the human brain. Its limitations mean we may encounter boundaries on creativity, rationality, processing speed and memory limits, as the average human brain can only hold about as much as a hard disk from around 1990. Thus he believes that freeing the mind from the brain and uploading it digitally will bring great benefits in intelligence, which may be needed to keep up with our increasingly fast-paced world. The question remains however… can the essence of a human being really be sustained in a machine? We asked you, our readers, and you had some great thoughts.

“

At the moment a copy of a person was made, the person in the machine would begin to drift apart from the person in the body, into two separate individuals.

VS

“So even if a copy could be made, it would not lead to immortality. Instead a decision would be made over whether to kill the body so the mind in the machine could take over.

“The machine would retain all of the memories of the body but the intensity with which each memory was remembered would be starkly different.

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“There is a hormonal aspect to be considered, too as we’re all essentially ‘slaves’ by our hormones.

“If technology is such that we can ‘download’ such things to a machine, then maybe there are enough advancements that ‘hormones’ can be adequately simulated.

“What if the essence of being a human is also the capability of growth and learning, experiencing and storing new experiences, emotions and memories?

Vision top five

Predictions for the future of man merging with machine and the inspirations behind our story

cool kids had had them at school, and showed them off like temporary tattoos. Everyone had thought the technology was brilliant. But then had come the breakthrough that changed everything.

Scientists had declared there was no difference between neurons and silicon, and so the minds of the entire population were given memory slots that connected to their neurons. They were supposed to provide surplus space, but the nanobots in their blood attacked the computer chip, and they ended up hijacking the entire memory. The thoughts of human beings could be downloaded and before long, the elites were creating machines in which to transplant them.

These metal Bots were supposed to be the superior police force, soldiers and government of the twenty-first century. But they couldn’t separate the good emotions from the bad, and without a Russian The hippocampus is thetook partover. of the vital human conscience, greed Thebrain leaders in metal suits created tyranny andbillionaire the people entrepreneur Dmitin forming long-term memories, and scienrebelled.

So the Bots in charge had everyone’s memory chip removed – everyone except for the ry Itskov plans to take all ofof tists from the University of Southern Carolirebels. Droga, Inga, and all those he now remembered and whose memories were no doubt in that mountain this a step further and create have been studying it for a decade.They now think glass na boxes. real immortality by transferthey’ve worked out how memories are made, and so When his mind had run through all of this information, Droga remembered the most important thing, the most important ring the human brain to a rocan develop an implant to help people with brain inperson to him.

He raised his head and turned to Inga, who was staring at him with hopeful sadness. recognised his wife now, bot.

He’sHe launched a project juries and Alzheimer’s. Professor Ted Berger, one of and reached out his hand.

But then her eyes widened, looking behind him called avatar 2045, with the the scientists, told MIT Technology Review: “We’re Blank. mindindividual was blank. memories He blinked. back A Botinto carrying in itsto little glass cagecreate and threw ultimately an it not His putting the what brain.was his memory put it backaim back We’re onto theputting hill of boxes. computer spoke again: “Well that was fun. But this is betteravatar now isn’t it…

I think I’ll call you with anD.artificial brain, in theThe capacity to generate new memD. ories.” The group thinks a memory device could be into which your personality is “D,available I am youras leader Younext can be will get youby a uniform.

Run of along transferred at the end soonhere. as the fiveour tonew ten porter years.for the front door, Number One here your life. He hopes to accomnow.” The blue light flashed in impatience. plish this by 2035, followed D smiled and obediently followed the Bot out of the room, vaguely wondering why the woman’s mingled screams and sobs by a hologram-like avatar by echoed behind him…

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New memories for old

Machines in the blood

Ray Kurzweil, futurist and director of engineering at Google, believes we will have thousands of nanobot computer machines in our blood within the next 20 years. He said in a ‘future talk’ event that they will “heal our bodies, improve our performance, and even be able to back up all the contents of our brains, just as you back up your files on a computer”. This might seem farfetched, but he accurately predicted the spread of the web back in the 80’s.

3

New generation of tattoos

Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT, believes computer chips will become immersed in everyday life. He told The Guardian that these chips “will come small enough that you can start impregnating them into the skin. We're talking about video tattoos as very, very thin sheets of polymer that you just literally stick on to the skin and they stay there for several days”.

4

Immortality

2045.The first stage, however, is a robotic copy of a human body by 2020, which inspired the Bots in this story.

5

Transform

Looking long-term, Carl Zimmer, author of ‘Brain Cuttings: 15 Journeys Through the Mind’ says that in principle there is no difference between neurons and silicone, and the process of transferring the biological brain to a silicone system might be commonplace by 2100. It could be done gradually, with electrodes inserted into your brain, followed by your vision being redirected through cameras, and finally your memories being stores on microprocessors – thus a process of metamorphosis.

“In a machine – would there be such flexibility for this as there is with a natural body and brain?

“There would be no reason to focus on biological wants like relationships, so these would become less important. Initially the machine would feel like you or I, then a change in needs and desires would alter it towards something unimaginable.”

“Maybe if you could map out every single neurone in the brain, every single connection, you could essentially re-create that person’s brain. But what you don’t get is room for expansion for new connections.

Rory Galloway, Bishop’s Stortford

Simon Nicholls, Sheffield

”

Could a digital brain cope with human emotion? Furthermore, would the earth cope with an immortal population? Let us know what you think on our blog at www.vision-magazine. co.uk.

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N O T H I N G L A S T S F O R E V E R .

B U T W I L L H O W W E B E K I L L E D ?

P

Daniel Critchley investigates

hew! The Mayan calendar went up in smoke last year, but we didn’t. Whether you cowered in the bunker you made for the year 2000, or fell asleep in front of the telly after a hard day’s Christmas shopping, you made it through 21 December 2012. In fact, if you did hide away underground expecting the worst, you must have had a bloody hectic few days getting those presents you didn’t think you’d need.

Every few years a “new end of the world theory” sends some human beings into a paranoid, soulsearching frenzy, and every time they are let off (or let down, depending on how you look at it). The Y2K apocalypse at the turn of the millennium - in which machinery and technology worldwide was to fail and cause mass chaos - failed to materialise, while religious fervour of those expecting the Second Coming of Christ proved unfounded.

Funnily enough, the hysteria of 2000 was nothing compared with the hysteria of 1000AD. Christian leaders across Europe predicted doom, prompting shit farmers, lazy fishermen and corrupt politicians to ask forgiveness for their sins and join the many others flocking to Zion, only to be stood up by Jesus. There would be no Rapture.

Since then, various predictions have come and gone.

Numerology saw 666, 1666, and 1998 (three times 666) touted as years in which there would be “Hell on Earth”. In none of those years did flames engulf humanity (although you would have been forgiven for

40

thinking The Beast had arisen if you were in the 1666 Great Fire of London). Meteorology saw planetary conjunction cause panic in 1919, 1982 and 2005. It was theorised the planets would align and cause a gravitational pull strong enough wreak havoc on the Earth’s oceans and tectonic plates. “Prophets” too have failed time and time again - most famously Nostradamus’ prediction that the “King of Terror” would arrive from the sky and destroy the Earth in 1999. Needless to say, none of those produced the Armageddon they predicted.

The majority of Earth’s population pays no serious attention to the theories unless to use them as an excuse for an “end of the world party”, while scientists don’t endorse them as viable apocalyptic scenarios. There are, however, theories that do fall within the scope of scientific possibility, and to those we do pay attention.

There are a number of ways we could experience a fiery death without the involvement of the devil. Passing comets have long left not only a trail of gases but a trail of fear on the planet, prompting astronomers to closely monitor near-earth rocks threatening to consign us to the same fate as the dinosaurs. The Yellowstone National Park supervolcano - thought to have caused the last Ice Age - has historically erupted every 600,000 years and is 40,000 years overdue - making it a geological timebomb. And solar storms could theoretically send a wave of charged particles through space to wreak untold havoc on Earth.

Britain’s greatest scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, spent 50 years and wrote 4,500 pages trying to predict when the end of the world was coming. The most definite date he set for the apocalypse - which he scribbled on a scrap of paper - was 2060. In the event that the physicist does trump all those before him and predict correctly, VISION has chosen its four scenarios most likely to bring about that doomsday. n Thankfully the Mayans got it wrong

ROBOT REVOLUTION Many of us were convinced that by the time we reached adulthood, robots would fetch our coffee, tie our shoes and make our beds.

While we’re still waiting for a “Jetsons”-style housebot with superhuman domestic skills, there has nonetheless been considerable progress on the smart robot front, including robots that can operate without direct human instruction or reassemble themselves when torn apart. There are fears, however, that robots could one day become too intelligent and outsmart their creators - us, the humans. Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that computers will be as smart as humans by 2029, and that by 2045, “computers will be billions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence.”

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NUCLEAR WINTER People seem to have forgotten about the nuclear threat since the end of the Cold War - but the risk remains. It is thought that 100 nuclear bombs would bring about a “nuclear winter” featuring the lowest temperatures in a millenium, while 1,000 of the things would “likely eliminate the majority of the human population.” Now might be good time to point out that more countries than ever have nuclear weapons at their disposal: currently, nine countries are known to have nuclear capabilities. With North Korea throwing rockets into the air like confetti, the nuclear threat is as present as ever.

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BIOLOGICAL WARFARE Imagine a virus as common as a cold but as deadly as HIV. It might sound like something straight out of Hollywood, but biological warfare poses a very real threat. Anthrax may have been wildly hyped in the past, but in reality it remains a credible means of taking out large swathes of the population. Weaponised in the form of aerosol particles of 1.5 to 5 microns, it could cause fatalities in 90 percent of the population. It doesn’t stop at toxins like anthrax, an engineered avian flu could kill half the world’s humans. H5N1 was transmitted throught contact, but a similarly deadly airborne virus is something we should definitely be worries about. n

A MAN-MADE BLACK HOLE Ever since the first atomic bomb was developed back in 1945, scientists have wondered whether the raw power of some of the reactions they set in motion could end up causing catastrophic problems. The worry hasn’t faded. When Brookhaven National Laboratory prepared to fire up its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, speculation circulated that the experiments at the facility could create a black hole which would then consume Earth.

When the Large Hadron Collider was first switched on, the same rumors resurfaced. Many physicists dismiss the threat offhand - but nobody’s really, really sure that it couldn’t happen.

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THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE DOME Nuclear War has virtually wiped out the entire Human Race.

What do you do?

Where do you go?

T

By Daniel Critchley

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he thud woke me up. Startled, I sat up to see that the plaque above my door had fallen as if blown by the wind. Or at least that’s how I imagined it. I didn’t know.

I’d never felt the wind. They say it’s like a giant ventilator, except it appears out of nowhere and blows in all directions.

But three in the morning wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. Wearily, I stumbled across the heated floor, dusted off the plaque and hung it back up on its hinge. Its words were the last things I saw before my eyes forced themselves shut again. There’s no place like dome.

It felt like only five minutes had passed before seven ‘cuckoos’ informed me it was time to get up. The problem with living at the North Pole is that at the height of summer the sun doesn’t go down for more than a few minutes, so if it weren’t for that fucking cuckoo creature I wouldn’t have a clue when to get up. I wouldn’t normally wake up in such a bad mood but I was terrified that day because it was Examination Day. Every 687 days the entire Naitram population is tested for bacterial and viral infections, and more often than not at least one of us is ‘neutralised’ as a precautionary measure. It’s scary to think that a cold could wipe out humanity.

It wasn’t always like this. Way back in time, if our teachers are to be believed, the world was a very different place.

Apparently people roamed wherever they wanted, trees and plants grew wild and there were more animal species than you could count. And there was water, they say, blue water that stretched as far as the eye could see. It’s just a history lesson now, because all that goes back to before the Extinction. I remember my granddad telling me about it, tears in his eyes. World War Three, he called it, and it happened less than a century ago.

He said it was a biological war – a war that should have just killed our enemies – but one that wiped out animals, fish, insects – just about every living thing.

I suppose you could say my family was lucky, though sometimes I wonder about that. They say only 48 humans got away and fled to that emergency bunker. Nine of those stayed behind to make sure take off went smoothly before the great journey here. Or at least that’s what we’re told. I’ve heard rumours that they were in fact killed because they may have had a virus or disease. Either way they aren’t here. There are 1,401 of us now.

We live in a 54 biodome community called Naitram. This is home. The first settlers set up six biodomes when they

arrived. Dome Adam was where the first men slept and the women in Dome Eve. Next was Dome Eden, the sustenance laboratory, and then Domes Nightingale and Einstein. They say it was a while before the final one was added. Dome Terraform is designed pump gases into the atmosphere and transform it to safe, breathable levels. We’re all connected to this hexapod nucleus. Eight sectors - six domes in each - connected by underground tunnels. I live in sector five: Pangaea.

“Deimos,” my father called. He was stood impatiently by the door with my sister, Phobos and dog, Rover. “Deimos get over here, we’re going to be late for Examination Day.” I hobbled out not entirely convinced my trousers were on the right way round. We joined the streams of people heading

down the Pangaean tunnel towards Nightingale. Angst filled the faces of many, especially the younger ones, but none more worried than me. Six years ago my mother had tested positive for influenza, and although it was dormant, the medics euthanized her and had her cryogenically frozen. Naitram doesn’t do risk. As if partially frozen themselves, the pangaeans edged rigidly towards the nucleus, as they did every Examination Day. A kilometre of tedious feet shuffling later we closed in on the six-dome centre. To get to Nightingale we first had to pass through Eden. As we reached it I read the sign above the entrance for the umpteenth time: The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Signs and plaques litter Naitram. Apparently their humour keeps spirits up, but

People roamed wherever they wanted, trees and plants grew wild and there were more animal species than you could count.

And there was water, they say, blue water that stretched as far as the eye could see.

to be honest I don’t get half of them.

Eventually we reached Nightingale and, like clockwork, 55 age-determined rows began to take shape facing a giant screen atop the hospital. I took Phobos’ hand and lined her up with all the other eight-year-olds before joining the row of 17-year-olds. Four hours had passed before I made it to the front of my row. I felt nauseous from the musky concoction created by 2,802 sweaty armpits.

Almost half of the population’s names had flashed up on the screen while I waited. All preceded by a green tick indicating the all-clear. I had eased up a little by this point as my father’s name had come up, as well as my girlfriend Florence’s, my best friend Barack’s and even Rover’s. A smile was even threatening to break out when the unthinkable happened. A red cross followed by Phobos Bolden. I panicked.

They couldn’t take my sister too. I wasn’t going to let it happen. Before I knew what I was doing I was half way up the steps to the hospital. Frantically, I scoured the corridors for a sign of her whereabouts. Any sign. I had almost given up hope when a faint beeping caught my attention. That had to be her.

I followed it through rooms and around corners. The beeping got louder a

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AND WE ARE SERIOUS

SURVIVAL GUIDE VISION offers tips to survive an apocalyptic disaster

HOW TO GET WATER

Learn from Masai communities in Kenya who place long plastic pipes by the steam vents. The vapor condenses inside the pipes and is then drip-fed into large drums.

OR

Try to catch the fog! In Peru, only 1.5 centimetres of rain falls each year, but in the morning, 2,500 litres of water are collected using special nets that trap moisture from the fog that rolls in off the Pacific Ocean.

HOW TO ESCAPE A VOLCANO

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like hours of running we decided to find an opening. Tentatively we crawled out of the vent into what I recognised instantly as section 53, the ore mines where my father worked. We were in luck. This was one of few ways out of Naitram.

But we didn’t have long. Voices and footsteps echoed off the rocks and it would only be a matter of time before someone found us. “Follow me,” I said as I set off towards the vacuum doors. There were no locks or codes to get out because, well, why would anyone want to leave?

As we pushed through the first of three doors, a voice from across the quarry bellowed “STOP”. But it was too late; we’d made it. We were out.

We must have made 200 metres before we started to feel dizzy. They weren’t lying. The planet wasn’t ready yet. I turned to go back and Phobos crumbled to her knees. I lay down beside her and held her tightly.

“It’s beautiful,” she wheezed, looking at the night sky. “The stars look as if they are trying to outshine each other, and the wind – what a feeling - like a million bubbles popping on my skin.” I smiled. A strange sensation of bliss spread over me. “At least we tried, hey?” I said, grabbing a handful of crumbly red soil. “You see that bright light over there?” I was gasping for breath. “That’s what I’m always staring at. That’s our real home, Phobos. That’s planet Earth.” n

DID YOU REALISE

?

NAITRAM

Run, hide, or improvise. In 1902, Ludger Sylbaris was imprisoned in Martinique when Mount Pelée erupted.

He urinated on his clothes and stuffed them into the ventilation grate of his underground cell to block the volcano’s superheated gases. He survived!

HOW TO HIDE FROM YOUR ENEMY

Crouch in shadows created by rock piles in the desert sun, because human eyes cannot peer into dark areas while looking at bright light.

Martian spelled backwards

PHOBOS & DEIMOS

OR

Find a dead camel, skin it, slice into its belly, drag out its guts, then climb in. Plus its skin will keep you warm so you will survive coldness during stakeouts!

Mars’ two moons

PANGAEA The supercontinent 300m years ago

SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SEVEN The number of days in a Martian year

ROVER

Named after mars Curiosity rover

BARACK

Named after his great great grandfather, Barack Obama

BOLDEN Charles Bolden, the head of Nasa today, is keen to colonise Mars

HOW TO SURVIVE A FLOOD

Water moving at just three kilometers an hour is capable of sweeping away a car, so get the right wheels!

HOW TO SURVIVE ZOMBIE ATTACKS?

OR

As little as 15 centimetres of rushing water can knock you off balance. Wherever possible, try to keep both feet rooted firmly to the groud, as above!

HIT THEM HARD, AND HIT THEM OFTEN!

VISION

and louder until, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. But it was too late. I was standing in the doorway of her room. The two doctors at her side hadn’t seen me.

Consumed with the pain of losing my mother I ran up to the bed where she lay unconscious, picked her up, ran into a laboratory and locked the door before the doctors had time to react.

There was nowhere to run.

Nowhere to hide. All 54 domes would be searched until they found us. And we all knew the air beyond the dome was lethal. Or at least that’s what we’d been taught in Einstein. But what if the land had been terraformed? What if it was safe to go outside? We could live in the wild like the old peoples, I thought to myself. I had to try it. Phobos would certainly die in Naitram, so what did we have to lose? My life? I would rather die with my sister than live without her. Phobos was beginning to come around when something hit the metal door so hard I actually thought I saw it ripple. We had to get out of there. “Come on,” I urged my dazed sister. “Run.” We scrambled up as a second impact dented the door. As if telepathically, Phobos and I leapt for the underground ventilation system. Without looking back we weaved through the vents as unpredictably as atoms zapping through the air. After what felt

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SCIENCEVISION

DECODing YOUR GENES We are on the brink of a DNA revolution which will tailor medical treatment to our genes. But what can we all gain from personal genetics?

H

By Simona Pesce

ave you always wished you had the key to unlock your health secrets? We are edging closer. Just a bit of spittle in a test-tube can unearth what your DNA holds in store for you.

It was only ten years ago that scientists completed the Human Genome Project and cracked the code of human existence at a cost of over $ 1billion. Since then, genetic research has been falling in cost and rising in power.

Today we all know that the most personal information of every human being is coded in 25,000 genes and one can comfortably take a “predictive” genetic test at home and receive the results over the Internet in just a couple of weeks.

Predictive genetics have opened a whole new world to consumers around the world who have been driven to take the test by medical problems in their family history or out of sheer curiosity about what’s in our genes.

Since the end of the Human Genome Project, an array of

commercial genetic companies has been sprouting around the world but mainly in the US. Using the services of 23andMe, the most successful American personal genetics company, we can have the most important snippets of our DNA mapped for just $100 and it couldn’t be easier – you spit in a test tube and send your saliva sample back to the lab by post. You then access your personal profile, which contains your results for over 100 diseases and hereditary genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis, on their website.

More than 200,000 people last year have bought tests from 23andme, owned by Anne Wojcicki (partner of Google founder Sergey Brin). In a bid to attract a million customers next year and enlarge its genetic database to speed up research, the company reduced the price of a test from $300 to $100 last December.

But as consumers get a taste of genetics potential and hail the era of personalised medicine, when treatment

a

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SCIENCE

SCIENCE will be tailored to their genetic makeup, research on gene-association to diseases is still in its infancy.

Commercial genetic tests have allegedly been marketed to consumers prematurely, with a complete lack of regulation, fuelling a genetic myth which may turn out to be unrealistic.

Genetic tests have been available for clinical use for about 50 years and patients with a history of hereditary diseases are routinely encouraged to take them if they feel strong enough to handle the results.

But the advent of do-it-yourself tests has nurtured people’s curiosity and desire to take their health in their hands. Customers also want to be part of the progress made in research through crowdsourcing and community groups such as the one for Parkinson disease sufferers on 23andme.

While experts understandably cast doubts on the reliability of predictive tests because of their commercial nature, some people were literally saved by a test bought on a whim and others saw their lives change for good.

Karen Durrett,54, from Roswell, New Mexico, found out that her real father wasn’t the one she had always lived with . Now she has finally met her real father.

“That first time I called him on the phone, we talked for two hours,” she said. “When I finally looked in his face, I saw my own face. Fifty-one years late, but there it was”, she told NBC News.

Her test also revealed that she was at risk of breast cancer. This prompted her to take further tests. Eventually Karen developed the tumour but it was treated effectively as it was at an early-stage.

“That DNA test alerted me to follow the intuition I already had,” she said. “It made me push harder for my health.”

A decade ago, American journalist David Bloom died at the age of 39 on assignment in Iraq after spending too many hours with limited mobility in US Army tank. Just after his death it was discovered that Bloom was genetically predisposed to blood clots. Perhaps that little piece of information could have saved his life...

But let’s stay grounded. Genetic testing has pitfalls too and what we can learn from such tests is limited to what researchers have found out.

Testing can be revelatory for certain genetic conditions but diseases such

says professor Bell.

But let’s think for a minute about what we should expect once genetic testing reaches us all. Knowing what is lurking in our DNA will bring about changes for better and for worse.

In a couple of decades we could all be tested at birth and have a full picture of how our health will impact on many aspects of our lives including our... jobs.

None of us has perfect genes and employers could potentially use this excuse to fire or refuse to hire workers based on their “genetic information”

Chromosomes X and Y contain respectively about 2000 and 78 genes wich determine our sex

“That DNA test alerted me to follow the intuition I already had. It made me push harder for my health” as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson cannot be predicted through a simple genetic test even if commercial companies provide customers with a risk assessment for those diseases.

“It is not clear at this point how much predictive capacity for the major common diseases will emerge from genomic studies,” says Professor John Bell, advisor to the UK government on genetics. “There is still obviously much more to explore, but we know from population data that the predictive capability of genetics is unlikely to exceed 50% in most patient populations.”

This may seem a bit frustrating but the truth is that while companies such as 23andme have tried to explain genetics in simple terms using interactive tools and videos, genetic science remains complicated.

Genetic testing is about risk and probabilities. But a positive result does not seal your fate because for some of the most common diseases such as

Priest turned-scientist Gregor Mendel’s paper on genetic inheritance is published .The ideas were criticised at the time, not to be recognized for 34 years.

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1953 DNA is discovered to be in the shape of a double helix with nucleotide chains and specific base pairing. This was deduced by scientists Watson and Crick.

1990 Genome projects begin. The yeast genome is complete in 1996, and the Human Genome Project ends in 2003.

through the use of genetic samples easily available on Internet databases.

Genetic hackers who acquire a sample of your DNA could match it with profiles on public databases and use that knowledge for illegal purposes.

The marvel of DNA profiling will bring many benefits and undoubtedly save lives and suffering. But as with so many scientific breakthroughs, there are serious risks too. And it will take careful legislation and constant vigilance to ensure that the DNA miracle truly benefits the human race. n

DNA GETS ARTSY

diabetes, the environment you live in, your lifestyle or your diet may play a greater role than your genetic make-up.

“Human biology is played out in between the action of genes and their interactions with the environment,” says Chris Ponting, professor of Genetics at Oxford University. “Making ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ mutually exclusive ignores the huge amount of evidence that we have that genes influence our own environment, and vice versa.”

So what does the future of personal genetics look like? When will we have our own genes mapped as a routine test? Do we have to worry already about not landing the job we want because we’ve inherited a pretty bad set of genes?

Relax. We are nowhere close to the genetic apocalypse that we see regularly in sci-fi movies like Gattaca.

Although the British government has announced the creation of the first “genetic database” containing the genomes of up to 100,000 people with serious diseases to boost genetic studies, routine genetic testing is still decades away.

“People with disease, particularly serious disease, will be enthusiastic about having their genomes sequenced if it will benefit their therapy. However, the idea that we will be sequencing large numbers of normal individuals looking to predict diseases is unlikely for now”,

TIMELINE A history of genetics 1866

— including genetic tests and family history of disease.

And although the UK has a moratorium on health-insurance companies which prevents them from setting rates based on genetic information, no legislation has yet been passed to protect citizens.

The age of big data also raises crucial privacy issues. How do we guard against the threats of gene hacking?

In January, a team of American and Israeli scientists showed how it is possible to trace someone’s identity

1996 Dolly the sheep is the first mammal to be cloned at the Roslin institute in Scotland by Ian Wilmut.

D

id you know that simple things that we all leave behind like a cigarette butt can reveal the most intimate details about you?

Well, an artist from New York has used hair, chewing gum, nail and cigarette butts that she collected in the streets of Brooklyn to recreate strangers’ faces through the extraction of their DNA. Using this “simple” idea, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, a Ph.D. student in electronic arts, at the Rensselaer Polytech, created an exhibition called “Stranger visions” which is currently being displayed in many art galleries of New York.

But how did this artist come up with the idea of blending DNA and art?

“The idea came to me in a therapy session. I was sitting staring at this very mundane print on the wall and I noticed that in the glass covering the print there was a crack, and in that crack was lodged a single hair. I kept staring at this hair and wondering whose it could be and what I could know about them from it.”

For this project, Heather turned scientist and learnt to extract and analyse the important bits of DNA, which are different from person to person, in a do-it-yourself genetic lab called Genspace, New York City.

Once the DNA is sequenced, Heather inputs the genetic data into a face modelling software that she has been developing. She determines certain human traits such as eye colour, gender and creates a 3-d model of the stranger’s face.

What is then showcased is a sculpture-like face created with a 3-d printer and materials which are similar to glue and sand.

The result is interesting but not perfect just yet.

“I usually say the faces have a “family resemblance” to the person.

They will have similar traits and ancestry, but might look more like a possible cousin than a spitting image of the person themselves,” Heather said.

Heather’s 3d -printed face (middle) and other strangers’ visions showcased at the Clock Tower Gallery, NYC

“Most people who see the piece in person are really drawn in to it.

There is really something so uncanny in those faces, even if they weren’t derived from found DNA I think people would still be intrigued.”

Although there is much yet to discover on the link between genes and face morphology, in the future we will certainly uncover what our genetic make-up has to do with the way our face looks.

But the purpose of Heather’s work doesn’t lie in creating a perfect reconstruction of someone’s face.

What this artist wants to show is how much information about someone can be gained from simple things we leave behind every day. This poses a real threat called genetic surveillance.

“We are constantly leaving traces, clues as to who we are. Genetic surveillance is the possibility of analysing these artefacts to extract incredibly personal, intimate information – things you may not even know about yourself.”

Genetic information is becoming readily available through commercial genetic companies which use customers’ DNA for research, free databases and forensic databases for law enforcement.

“If I have your genome sequence, theoretically I can do more than just know very personal things about you.

I can clone you. I can impersonate you.

It’s a sci-fi scenario but it is a reality now,” Heather said.

Scary, isn’t? n

53

VISIONSCIENCE

Catching Asteroids The next gold rush will be in space

by Daniel Critchley

54

D

id you ever go butterfly catching as a kid? It was basically running around an open space and swinging haplessly in an attempt to catch one of the fluttery buggers in a net. Now, instead of an open space - imagine outer space. Instead of butterflies - imagine asteroids.

And instead of a net - imagine, well, a giant net.

The phrase ‘catching an asteroid’ sounds like a euphemism for an impossible task, but if you were to take an open-eared walk around Nasa’s research centre in Silicon Valley, you would likely find out that it’s not.

The Obama administration announced in its 2014 federal budget that it had set aside $105 million to start planning for a mission to “identify, capture, redirect, and sample” a small asteroid.

The idea, crazy as it sounds, is to pick, pluck and place one into the moon’s orbit. There, astronauts would research possible ways to deflect similar earth-bound rocks, as well as testing to develop technologies for a future trip to Mars. It would literally be a stepping stone to the red planet. The further objective outlined by the budget was to mine asteroids.

Although Nasa may well become the first organisation to mine one, it would only be for research purposes – unlike profit-motivated companies Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources. These visionary enterprises, both from the United States, last year revealed plans to extract mineral resources from the space rocks in what they hope will be a trillion-dollar business.

“We think there could be an abundance of precious materials such as gold, silver, platinum and other rare-earth metals,” said a spokesperson for DSI. The company hopes to have a fleet of explorational ships scouring the solar system for promising asteroids by as early as 2016. In order to cut down on costs, the pioneering spacecraft would effectively hitch a piggy-back into space from larger communication satellites, in a technique called “ride-sharing”. Weighing just 25kg, these probes – dubbed “Fireflies” – would return information necessary for the creation of the bigger “Dragonfly” spacecraft which would ultimately bring back minerals.

The other company vying for a share of the market, Planetary Resources, is backed by several billionaire investors hoping, very literally, to hit a gold mine. James Cameron, who directed extraterrestrial blockbuster Aliens, joined Google heavyweights Larry Page and Eric Schmidt as well as Microsoft Office creator Charles Simonyi in providing financial backing. The venture, whose stated goal is to “expand Earth’s natural research base”, describes developments as a new paradigm for resource discovery and utilization that will bring the solar system into humanity’s sphere of influence.

It plans to have an asteroid-prospecting spacecraft exploring the final frontier by 2015.

If successful, the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars - which holds between one and two million space rocks - could be the main source of gold rings, silver necklaces and platinum bracelets by 2040, while rare-earth elements needed for high tech products, such as yttrium, lanthanum and samarium, could potentially bolster returning hauls.

It may not be as easy to catch an asteroid as it is a butterfly, but it sure as hell sounds like a lot more fun. n

51 55

SCIENCE

I

t’s 2040. You’re sitting in your parked Audi holding a glass of apple juice in one hand, a Cornetto in the other, and listening to music on your iPhone 23.

Suddenly everything containing rare-earth minerals disappears. The next thing you know you’re sitting in silence on the concrete with a sore arse from the fall, a wet lap from the apple juice and just a Cornetto to keep your spirits up. Cars, glass and electronics are just some of the products dependent on platinum-group metals and rare-earth minerals.

A rapidly growing world population combined with an increasing demand for consumer goods has left producer countries scraping the barrels for the likes of yttrium, samarium and lanthanum. Supplies of these minerals are now critical as global demand for rare-earths grows by 13-15% per year. Yttrium is essential for the production of electrodes, lasers, and superconductors, while lanthanum compounds are additives in glass, as well as ignition elements in lighters and torches. Samarium, the rarest of the three

Mining

minerals, is used in magnets and cancer treatments.

A solution needs to be found.

In times of need we have often looked to the heavens for an answer, and in this case you wouldn’t be too far off finding one. Scientists think that there could be more platinum-group metals on the surface of the moon than all the reserves on earth.

A modern age space-race to mine the moon has begun, led by three foresighted companies in Moon Express, Astrobiotic and Moon Team. The trio, from SiliconValley, Pittsburgh and Barcelona respectively, were set up following the announcement that Google was to award $30 million to the first company to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon, travel 500m and send back images and samples.

The Lunar X Prize is only the short-term goal, though, in a long-term venture to exploit the moon’s vast precious resources.

These three teams, however, aren’t the only ones reaching for the stars. As early as 2002, Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme (CLEP) chief scientist, Ouyang Ziyuan, said: “Our long-term goal is to set up a base on the moon and mine its riches for the benefit of humanity.” China, who in 2012 exported 96% of the global supply of rare-earth minerals, aims to have rovers on the moon by 2017, and a base not long after. As well as rare-earth minerals, the

the

Chinese are keen to tap into the vast quantities of the rare isotope Helium-3 that exist on the moon.

Helium-3 is the essential fuel for what scientists call the ‘golden dream’ of nuclear fusion power. The current method for harvesting energy - nuclear fission - involves splitting atoms and collecting the excess energy - although this produces high levels of radioactive waste. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, combines hydrogen atoms to create helium in a process which produces vastly more energy than fission reactions and avoids the excessive radioactive waste.

The demand for Helium-3 looks set to explode, and China has realistic ambitions to mine that magic ingredient from the Moon.

A generation ago a human base on the moon wouldn’t even have been thinkable, but a recent discovery changed that perception overnight. Water! Orbital scans by Nasa in 2009 found there are at least a billion tonnes of water frozen on the surface of the moon. That’s enough water to fill roughly 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Water can be reconstituted into hydrogen and, crucially, oxygen, making a lunar scientific station possible. It would also allow station-bound astronauts to have a wash every once in a while.

More important than a bath, however, is the prospect of

condensing the gases into liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen and hydrogen peroxide – all rocket fuels. One of the main costs of a round trip is the transportation of the fuel for the return rocket launch, so readily available propellants on the moon would be another big step for mankind, cutting mission costs by half.

In the next 20 to 30 years the moon looks set not only to be a petrol station for interplanetary spacecraft, but also a giant quarry - so fear not, you’ll have more than just a Cornetto to keep you happy.n

Moon

A source of awe, intrigue and even fear throughout human history, the moon may now prove to be a very important source of minerals 56

57

The New Atlantis?

ENVIRONMENTVISION

On August 29 in 2011, New York began to feel the power of Hurricane Irene. Power lines went down and bridges were destroyed. Landslides separated neighbouring towns as seawater surged through the streets of Manhattan. A man died in the Croxton River as his boat was overturned by the storm. A further ten died shortly after. Residents were told to stay inside their homes as the city ground to a halt under a soup of seawater and sewage. 296 million dollars in damages later, the Big Apple slowly picked itself up and resumed its busy lifestyle, assuming the worst was over.

How wrong they were...a FULL REPORT OVERLEAF

BY YASMINE GLEGHORN

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ENVIRONMENT

Along came Sandy

ability to commute. The economic losses in that situation pale in comparison to floodproofing the city. To give you a better idea, it would only take half a week of New York’s GDP to solve the problem.”

What is the solution?

In the meantime, New York state is still heavily exposed to the incoming weather. Reports explore the costs yet fail to offer solid solutions. While engineers agree on flood-proofing buildings, protecting subway, train and road tunnels against storm surges, they’re torn on how to do it.

Water barriers or strategic flooding?

Alternative ventilation or running for the hills?

To no one’s surprise, the city has set its sights on the Netherlands for inspiration. While Americans pull grim faces and wait for the next storm, the Dutch know water like the back of their hands. Renowned experts in the field of hydro-engineering, our European neighbours have centuries of meticulous study and experience behind them.

Sandy, the largest Atlantic storm on record, hits New York on 20 October 2012

N

amed the second costliest hurricane in American history, the superstorm flooded subway systems, blew roofs off buildings and killed 285 people across the United States. Now experts say New Yorkers can expect storms like Sandy and Irene every two years due to rising sea levels a daunting prospect.

The city is now in a race against time.

Engineers must quickly come up with a masterplan to avoid future disasters- a masterplan that could involve changing most of Manhattan’s infrastructure.

Dr Klaus Jacob, a special research scientist at Columbia University, says modification expenses will be astronomical, but they are a price New York has to pay to ensure its survival.

“We have forgotten the power of nature,” he says. “What we built over 400 years ago has gone through many changes, but in the course of building this megacity - and especially its infrastructure- we forgot about the risks.

“Sea levels will continue to rise 3 to 5 feet over the next century. Because of it, we need to start a process of adaptation: develop a regional strategic consensus, detailed engineering and financing to

60

implement an effective citywide plan that - whether people like it or not will most likely cost tens of billions of dollars.”

New York is only one of many cities with severe flooding risks, some have even higher populations, such as Tokyo and Mumbai. Despite this, they continue planning large scale architectural feats without scientific research or taking meteorological conditions into account. Back in 2000, Dubai began developing Palm Island, a man made structure that stretches almost 4 miles into the Arabian Gulf.

Made solely of sand and rock, the island is threatened by earthquakes and violent storms.The materials start eroding as soon as they hit the water, and even constructors doubt if the island should exist at all.

“WE HAVE FORGOTTEN THE POWER OF NATURE” “Every day we’re trying to prevent the destruction of what we’ve built.”

Palm Island project manager Robert Berger told Discovery in 2004. “Any

structure is built in defiance to nature.

This is an extreme example.”

Another extreme example is South Korea’s Songdo City, a metropolis built on a man made island in the Yellow Sea. The world’s first “smart” city, millions of wireless sensors and microcomputers embedded in surfaces and objects throughout the city send a constant stream of data to the city’s “smart grid” to monitor energy consumption, while information flows to the city’s “control hub” to assess everything from the weather to the precise number of people congregating on a particular corner. But despite so much high-tech planning, there was no masterplan factoring a rising sea level when the city was first devised ten years ago. Even now, there is no such plan, and public officials are reluctant to invest the 10-15 billion dollars needed to floodproof the city.

“The consequences from failing to acknowledge scientific research go beyond the environment. Klaus Jacob told VISION.” New York’s economy produces four billion dollars daily.

When any extreme climate event occurs, productivity goes down drastically.

Imagine if transport systems went down for three weeks and affected people’s

THE DUTCH COULD PROVIDE THE ANSWER TO NEW YORK’S PROBLEMS

A variation of dikes, dams and advanced floodgates make them world leader’s in flood control technology examples some New York engineers are keen to follow.

One Dutch solution is to dump a huge amount of sand into the sea to help provide a natural flood defence - a project called the Sand Engine. In its age-old war to keep water back, the country has dumped sand into the North Sea onto a surface larger than 200 football fields just off the coast, and will wait for nature to do the rest.

Wind, waves and ocean currents will see 20 million cubic metres of sand a

Sandy in numbers

285

Number of confirmed deaths caused by Sandy

3.5 tweets with the hashtag #Sandy at the height of the storm.

780 kilometres reached by Sandy’s hurricane-force winds at the storm’s peak

7.5 million people were without power in the United States

315

billion dollars of damage caused

by Hurricane Sandy in the Carribbean

12,000 flights were canceled due to the hurricane and the three main airports which serve New York City were shut down for two days

100

homes were destroyed by an overnight blaze in the Irish enclave of Breezy Point in Queens The government declared a statewide state of emergency and asked for a pre-disaster declaration on October 26

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ENVIRONMENT Continued from previous page a driven landward to form a natural barrier against the North Sea’s onslaught.

Despite initial enthusiasm, Klaus Jacob was quick to rule out a sand engine for New York. “Any such adaptation methods need to be site specific and cannot simply be transferred from one place to another without fully understanding along-shore sand transport, ocean currents, and many other coastal conditions such as sediment supply.”

Another Dutch innovation is The Room for the River Project.

Encompassing the rivers Rhine, Meuse, Waal and Ijssel, the project allows for periodic flooding of indefensible land in order to save areas of high population from inundation. In these regions, residents are evacuated to higher ground, some of which has been deliberately raised above anticipated flood levels.

According to Jacob, this option would work best on America’s East Coast: “New York has the luxury of topography. Over the last twenty years, the population on the waterfront has densified and Washington heights has thinned out.

Now it’s mostly park and cemetery grounds - huge stretches of lands that have not been settled on.

“With this new reality there is need From anonimity to the front pages of national newspapers, to reevaluate. We need to looks at our Jacob’s predictions have given him worldwide recognition. topography and move populations away Jacob felt Sandy’s wrath firsthand, too - his from riskier areas, relocating them to house in Piermont, N.Y., on the enormous Hudson River higher land.”’ about 25 kilometers north of Manhattan, was flooded with Nevertheless, it might take two or 60 centimeters (two feet) of water. He had already raised three more storms to get NY citizens his home as much as local building codes would allow, but motivated. Despite a $51 billion buyout clearly that was not enough. incentive to sell damaged homes to the state, less than 10 percent of those eligible are participating. The New York Times reports that 90 percent are opting to rebuild, with the government approving the use of $1.7 billion from the buyout package for a rebuilding plan.

Many took to social media to share their opinions, saying it was mostly due to the inconvenience of moving: “Even the most generous relocation incentive isn’t really going to help. The five boroughs of New York are already full. So you’re talking not just of moving house but moving careers, schools, everything. No wonder people aren’t taking it.”

“It is very difficult for people to leave their land and start their lives on a fresh note. They have their sentimental values attached to it.”

While others dismiss climate change as another political lie: “What destroyed lower Manhattan was a one in a 200 year storm. Unless Storms will continue causing of course you believe in the liberal hoax serious damage unless the known as climate change. Are you going necessary measures are taken to use big damn liberal government to plan for that false liberal contingency? ” Only boroughs located around Staten Island seem keen on relocating. Having suffered four serious floods over the past decade, most residents are keen to get away.

“This news needs to be taken seriously. Jacob said “Irene and Sandy were just warning shots. We have to think about the long term benefits. New York has changed in the last 350 years from a shipping town to a large railroad-connected town to a car dominated city. If there was room for change during these periods, there is definitely room for change now.

“We can’t say when the next Sandy will come, but if people don’t take it seriously, the consequences will stretch far beyond economical losses. New York as we know it will cease to exist altogether.” n

The risk expert who felt the flood

“HOWEVER RELUCTANT, PEOPLE NEED TO TAKE THIS THREAT SERIOUSLY”

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VISIONENVIRONMENT pesticides and other products.

I am told by Jacques and Robert that the station is “almost egalitarian” since five of the 22 people working here are women. “But the women here work in the office,” says Jacques.

Jacques, who has worked here for 33 years, explains how in 2004 they put coloured and numbered tags on bumblebees in the greenhouse to be able to identify them individually.

Then, Jacques and his colleagues set up cameras in the greenhouses to literally spy on the bumblebees to see how different parameters (type of plastic used for the structure of the greenhouse, UV filtration and so on) affected the bumblebees’ pollinating of the tomato plants.

The results were clear: where the greenhouse had a roof covered in UV transparent plastic film, the average flower was visited on average 4.2 times daily by bumblebees, instead of 0.1 visits per day under UV absorbing film. This proved the claim that bumblebees use UV to find their way around. The experimental station in Alénya is continuing to experiment with bumblebees in order to determine which plastics and which techniques are the most beneficial for productive and quality growing.

Inside the glasshouse at the Alénya experimental station.Tomatoes grow outside the soil, in an “hydroponic” solution

The greenhouse Revolution 64

VISION invites you to plunge inside the world of tomatoes and cucumbers with our reporter David Howarth who put his boots on and got inside experimental greenhouses in Southern France

“W

E USED TO put numbers on the back of each of our bumblebees, as if they were going to run a marathon,” said Jacques, “but they never liked that and would sting our fingers.”

Jacques Lagier, a tall, strong Frenchman in his early sixties, with a grizzled beard and glasses is my guide, together with Robert Fabre, ten years younger than Jacques, but also wearing glasses. Both are researchers at the Inra of Alénya, Southern France.

Inra stands for “Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique” or “National Institute of Agronomic Research”. It is a public research institute dealing with the

challenges facing agriculture since 1946.

It has 150 different centres in France and employs over 8,000 researchers, engineers and technicians. The French are the second best organization in the world in terms of the number of patents registered yearly in agricultural sciences.

But here, in the Alénya experimental station, researchers are not shut away in spotless laboratories, sitting behind microscopes and wearing white coats.

Instead, they are out there, wearing boots and are doing real farmers’ jobs.

A team of 22 people works in greenhouses, developing software and techniques to improve their productivity, to reduce their energy consumption and to reduce the input of fertilizers,

A program designed

by Jacques can help save up to 32 percent energy More recently, Jacques was the leader of the development of the “Serriste” software, which deals with the control of the environment inside the greenhouse, in order to save the maximum amount of energy, but still having the best productivity possible. It first analyzes different conditions like the temperature, humidity and aeration inside the greenhouse and looks at the weather forecast for the next day. The software then calculates how much heating must be put on, and whether the sprayers and the aeration must be deployed.

The “Serriste” software has been tested on a greenhouse growing tomatoes in Alénya, while another greenhouse was the “control”, where tomatoes were planted the same day but where the software wasn’t used. Not only did the greenhouse using the software have the same productivity of tomatoes as the “control”, but it used an overall 17% less energy to achieve this, and 32% less during the winter period. “Serriste” has since been commercially developed and the computer-assisted control of greenhouses is getting more and more popular and useful in agriculture; keeping costs down and productivity

a 65

ENVIRONMENT high.

Some doubt is hanging over the Alénya experimental station, as they are developing two very different types of greenhouses, and the hearts of different members of the team tilt toward one or another type. Jacques and Robert show me the greenhouses in question and explain how the future of agriculture is unclear and dependant on the greenhouses.

Standing tall and looking like a row of dwellings of glass stuck together, the first kind of greenhouse I visited can’t be missed. It is the “glasshouse”. To get in, we have to go through a decontamination chamber and walk on a foaming carpet that reminded me of the foot-andmouth disease outbreak in the UK a few years ago. Once inside, the place would look like a big factory rather than an indoor vegetable patch, if it wasn’t for all the bumblebees buzzing around me, and none of the tomatoes and aubergines are growing in the soil. Instead, each plant is in a water and nutrient solution (called hydroponic).

The climate in this kind of glasshouse is completely regulated and maintained at temperatures around 25 to 30°c all year round, which enables vegetables to be grown ten months per year and therefore have a greater productivity per square metre.

But this unnatural approach to cultivation is costly in energy and uses loads of products, like fertilizers and pesticides. The initial investment to build one of those is about ten times that of a traditional greenhouse. At the moment, there are 1,200 hectares of these glasshouses in France, but this number is already diminishing, because of soaring costs. “A few years ago, investments in glasshouses were quite high,” says Robert. “But now it is falling.”

The other kind of greenhouse looks more like the traditional greenhouse, and it is, in fact, much more natural. Jacques and Robert are building seven new ones at the back of the Alénya Inra site. Here, vegetables grow directly in the soil, and the climate is only slightly affected by man.

Due to that, the growing season is only two months per year, but the productivity per square metre during this time is good, even though, over the year, it is nothing compared to the big glasshouse’s productivity. Thanks to the “Serriste” software, much less energy is used, and also,

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ENVIRONMENT

6 Million

the amount of tomatoes, in tonnes, which is produced every year in Italy. Necessary to accompany mamma’s pasta!

9,960

the number of hectares covered by glasshouses in the Netherlands in 2012, which allows the Dutch to have industrial-scale productions of tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and cucumbers. They are the European leaders of glasshouse vegetable production. However, this figure is down from 10,248 hectares in 2011.

5,000

The number of Washington DC residents whose fresh tomato and lettuce consumption needs will be satisfied by a one hectare (two football pitches) hydroponic glasshouse. The glasshouse was built in DC by Bright-Farms and was inaugurated in May.

The quote

“Humanity now stands at Peak Farmland, and the 21st century will see the release of vast areas of land for nature,” said Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, last December, meaning that the total area of cultivated fields and farmlands is no longer increasing.

very little fertilizer and pesticide, which makes this approach more ecological, more natural and slightly cheaper. The pests are controlled by fungi and parasites which attack the harmful parasites and fungi.

These plastic greenhouses are ribbed like gothic cathedrals.

“When you see greenhouses in this shape in Western Europe, it’s because of me,” Jacques says. “I saw these ribbed shaped structures for the first time on a mission in Hungary. Hungarians use them because they get rid of snow on the roofs, preventing the snow from blocking the sun light and reducing the risk of the greenhouse collapsing under its weight. I decided to develop a kind of greenhouse, here in France, using this technique.”

This type of greenhouse, which is a step short of being organic, is not as profitable as the glasshouse, but has the merit of being cheaper at the investment, and less costly in energy and chemical products.

Robert says: “This semiintensive approach has a productivity of 15 to 20 kilograms of tomatoes per square meter at the harvest, against ten kilograms in the glasshouse. But you have to remember that in the glasshouse, we have five harvests a year which brings the total to 50 kilograms, whereas this greenhouse here only supports one harvest per year, which means the figure of 15 to 20 kilograms is for the year.”

“We have to study GM crops. It would be a mistake to ignore them” Jacques, who has travelled on missions around the world to attend “International Committee of Plastics in Agriculture” (ICPA) congresses, says that the Israelis are one of the real world leaders when it comes to intensive agriculture techniques, including the now widely used drop by drop irrigation system. Needless to say, the Israelis, who are famous for their numerous collectivist agricultural communities called Kibbutz, had better be good at developing good intensive agriculture techniques, since they live on a tiny territory, most of which is desert.

One of the most hotly debated topics in agriculture today is genetic modification, and Jacques has firm views on it.

“A few years ago we had genetically modified lettuces, but it didn’t go well. It didn’t go well at all,” says Jacques.

“But we have to study GM crops. We can’t just ignore it, it would be a mistake. It might be our future.

“The problem is that once you’ve started sowing GM crops, you’re bound hand and foot to companies like Monsanto, because you can’t replant seeds from the Robert and previous GM plantation, it Jacques, with just won’t grow. the “gothic” “If our society keeps greenhouse evolving, people will want in the to eat more fruits and background vegetables, and more organic ones,” says Jacques. “The desire will be there, but will small vegetables are still really niche,” the economic reality be favourable to it? says Robert. “But people are more and “At the moment, we are seeing that more and more people favour the quality more eager to have a try at them. We can bet that people will buy more of these over the quantity. But because of prices, better-quality vegetables in the future.” people still buy those disgusting hard Jacques and Robert reckon that in tomatoes which are mass produced in the future, the production of fruits and Dutch glasshouses and which break the vegetables will be produced around big tiles if you drop them on the kitchen floor. The standard of living really has an centres of population, such as cities.

Because of transport costs, a system impact on our nosh.” of local market-gardening and direct “Twenty years ago, organic was sale will develop. For the past four to the priority at the INRA,” continues five years, this approach is already Jacques. “Organic will keep developing. starting to appear in France, where We have more and more diversity more and more producers sell their in vegetables. We are rediscovering fruits and vegetables on the side of medieval vegetables, like the German roads, or at little markets, directly to turnip, and we have more small the customers. This way, the products vegetables.” are both cheaper for the purchaser and “All these new-old vegetables and

make the producer more money, since distributors like supermarkets take a big margin on the price.

“But I fear that only big corporations will manage to survive, because of transportation and operating costs,” says Jacques.

“Farmers in isolated areas will struggle to keep profitable crops.”

“And there are too many regulations from the European Union,” says Robert. “Because of repetitive sanctions and restrictions, it’s the doldrums for the agricultural sector in Europe, and many farmers struggle to make ends meet.”

“There are already fewer and fewer farmers in Europe,” says Jacques. “This is a reason why the production will tend to develop close to the cities.”

“Those farmers out in the mountains, they won’t be doing anything anymore,” says Robert. Instead you will have greenbelts of market-gardening redevelopments appearing close to urban centres. This will re-galvanize the cities.”

But just when agriculture gets to grip with a brave new world, a world of maximum productivity and a desire for quality and taste in vegetables, another challenge appear on the horizon: the potential extinction of the bumblebee.

It’s good to know that researchers like Jacques and Robert are on the case. n

The factory impression of an empty section of the glasshouse

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VISIONENVIRONMENT

the solar race begins An expedition on the first solar-powered vessel marks a new era where trasports could be sun-fuelled and eco-friendly.

Simona Pesce reports on the benefits of using this sustainable resource.

O

ne day perhaps our future will be sun-fuelled. For now mankind has hardly started to explore the enormous potential of solar energy which could help save the planet from looming climate changes.

Interest in solar power has surged in the last decade, leading to some groundbreaking applications of this precious resource. PlanetSolar’s Tûranor, the only solar-powered ship in the world, is the living proof of how man can reap the benefits of solar energy and start reducing humaninduced CO2 emissions.

The Swiss-registered ship – Turanor means “power of the sun”, a name inspired by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings - made headlines last year after completing a round-the-world tour in 516 days using solar power only. Now a year after its global maiden voyage, Tûranor is crossing the Atlantic Ocean for an exciting new project.

Soon after the world tour,

29,160 photovoltaic cells supplyTuranor’s

8.5

tons of lithium-ion batteries 68

Planetsolar’s founders, Swiss ecoadventurer Raphaël Domjan and German businessman Immo Ströher, wanted their €12m vessel to remain seaworthy and thought of converting it into a luxury yacht for holidaymakers.

But that project fell through when professor Martin Beniston, Director of the Institute for Environmental Sciences at the University of Geneva, proposed a much more valuable and symbolic use of the ship for an ecofriendly expedition.

“The owners of PlanetSolar were looking for a “second life” for the vessel and I came up with the idea of using the boat as a scientific platform for ocean measurements in a context of improved knowledge on atmosphere-ocean processes in the Atlantic Ocean”, Professor Beniston said.

The 3-month-long mission, which has been named Planetsolar Deepwater, will begin in Miami in June and progress from the US East Coast to Canada, Iceland and Norway.

This particular route has been chosen to conduct measurements along the Gulf Stream, the current which brings warm water from the Caribbean up to the north Atlantic, playing a vital role in climate regulation in Europe and the North America.

Sailing on a solar ship is a treat for the research team. Since the vessel doesn’t emit exhaust fumes, it will be possible for the first time to collect samples, from the ocean, which are free of polluting agents likely to distort the findings.

“About 20 scientists will take turns in collecting new data on oceanic factors and phenomena which are very

Planetsolar’s Turanor sailing in the Carribean Sea in May

“While waiting two miles offshore to enter the Bouregreg Marina, the director of the port received anxious calls from civilians who claimed they saw a plane landing in the bay” likely to affect climate change and remain largely unexplored,” Professor Beniston said.

A new instrument called the Biobox, which has been devised by the Department of Applied Physics at the same university, will be tested on board. The Biobox uses laser technology to detect aerosols, minute particles suspended in the atmosphere which affect cloud formation and ultimately influence climate. The role of aerosols in climate change is still largely uncertain but some geoengineers predict that, in the future, man could manipulate atmospheric aerosols (and implicitly the clouds) to “cool the Earth.”

The Turanor, which will carry the scientists up to where the Arctic ice cap begins, has the shape of a catamaran and over 500 m2 of its surface are covered with photovoltaic panels. The mirror-like shine and futuristic look of this eco-marvel of the seas caused an amusing incident in Rabat, Morocco where the crew stopped on its way to the Atlantic.

“While waiting two miles offshore to enter the Bouregreg Marina, the director of the port received anxious

calls from civilians who claimed they saw a plane landing in the bay,” said Stefanie Pfändler, a member of the scientific crew.

But the Deepwater expedition is more than just a scientific trip in the Atlantic Ocean.

“We’ll be showcasing the Turanor in a series of events, including one in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The potential of solar power is still underestimated and this expedition is all about showing how energy efficient solar power is and its benefits for the environment.” Stefanie Pfandler said.

But what are the real benefits of sun fuel?

Solar power is getting cheaper. Just this year solar costs have dropped from $7.50 per watt to $2.50 and are estimated to reach $1.50 within five years.

In Africa, mobile health centres and classrooms with roofs covered with solar panels have enabled doctors and teachers to work in the most remote corners of the country where there’s still no electricity.

This month a Swiss pilot has even flown across the US on the first solarpowered plane.

By harnessing the power of the sun mankind could kill three birds with one stone - promote national energy independence, create highly-skilled jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So as Turanor sails into the Caribbean sunset, the futuristic vessel symbolises the progress being made worldwide, in converting the rays of the sun into perhaps the most sustainable energy source of all.n

cleaning up the seas

H

ave you ever dreamed of being on a paradise island and swimming in crystalline waters? Isn’t it great when the sea is so clear that can you see yourself through it? But if the transparency and cleanliness of our beaches are so dear to us, why is litter swamping our oceans? After completing its Deepwater expedition, Turanor will be back to Europe for a “solar cleanup act” organised by the Waste Free Oceans Foundation.The solar ship will be equipped with a trawl and will collect up to 8 tons of marine waste daily between France and Norway. Unlike other types of pollution, litter patches which are present in all of the Earth oceans, receive far less attention than they deserve.

Plastics account for 90 percent of all litter in the world’s oceans and are either dumped from ships and oil platforms or thrown from land, causing enormous damage to marine ecosystems.

As plastic is not biodegradable, it floats on the surface of the oceans and breaks into small particles that certain sea species eat accidentally. Sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, their favourite food.

Other marine mammals and birds, such as albatrosses, are

often trapped by plastic rings and eventually suffocate to death.

But this is just what happens on the surface. Ocean pollution could potentially change the entire food chain.

Plastics on the surface of the oceans prevent sunlight from reaching sea beds where algae and phytoplankton grow. If these organisms are unable to feed themselves, sea animals such as fish and turtles will have less food and predators as well. It’s a domino effect and eventually what gets on our plate will be badly affected too. Over one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles are killed by plastics, the UN environment program reports.

Even though the international community is well aware of this rising issue, very little has been done and there isn’t much hope on horizon.The oceans are vast. Cleaning operations are costly and hard to co-ordinate on a large scale. Expeditions like the ones organised by the Waste Free Oceans Foundation are good examples as they prevent litter patches from growing larger.The next key step lies in recycling. Every country needs to act if we want to avoid a food chain disaster and spare future generations from swimming in oceanic fly-tipping dumps.n

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Sea LIFE in danger E

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arth is a special planet with one major difference to the 890 we’ve so far discovered. We have liquid water. 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with water – five oceans, thousands of rivers and countless lakes and swaps. But we are destroying these precious habitats through waste pollution, noise pollution, overfishing and general recklessness.The ones thing that makes us special, spoiled by selfish, ignorant humans.

Humans have been contaminating the world’s oceans for millennia, but industrial discharge and runoff from farms and cities has accelerated rapidly in the last three centuries. Chemical fertilisers, detergents, herbicides, pesticides, plastic, oil and sewage are common man-made pollutants that collect at the depths of our oceans and are consumed by small marine organisms and introduced into the global food chain.

Excesses of nutrients also make for perfect conditions for algae, which rob the water of oxygen, leaving areas where no marine life can exist. Scientists have counted as many as 400 “dead zones” on our planet.

The biggest killer, though, is plastic, accounting for 80 percent of ocean debris.

Plastic bags are the chief perpetrators, consumed by some animals and suffocating others, but it’s not only plastic bags. Bottles and six-pack rings, contribute to a polluted ocean that put together would be the size of Europe.These plastics take years to decompose, and when they eventually do, they release toxins which do yet more damage.

Physical contamination of the ocean affects not only the marine animals within it, but the sea birds and land predators which feed on them, while noise pollution from ships, oil rigs and sonar devices disrupt the migration and communication patterns of marine life – especially mammals such as whales and dolphins.

If humans aren’t putting stuff into the ocean, they’re taking stuff out. Overfishing is driving some species to the brink of extinction, disrupting global food chains.

Profit motivated commercial-fleets are estimated to have reduced the numbers of large ocean fish to just 10 percent the preindustrial population.

If we don’t stop now, many species could become extinct in the next few years.

ENVIRONMENTVISION

30%

100 98%

9,500

4%

of Atlantic puffins have disappeared in the last 3 years. The main causes for puffins’ death remains the lack of food and poor winter conditions.

decline of Staghorn Coral population since 1980. This coral plays an integral part in the fishery habitats of the Caribbean.

Maui’s dolphins left in New Zealand. The world’s most endangered sea dolphins are sliding towards extinction in the face of damaging fishing methods.

waters of the oceans are still pristine—meaning they are untouched by human contamination—and 40% are strongly affected by pollution. Eventually, though, even the pristine oceans, which are in the Arctic, will be contaminated by human pollution.

50 years

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna will be extinct due to overfishing rapidly depleting the population. In the last 40 years, the tuna’s numbers have dropped 70-80%.

albatrosses are killed per year by longline fishing

18,000

pieces of plastic litter floating on every square kilometre of the world’s oceans

100 million sharks killed this year

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No artist worth their salt wants to be tagged as predictable, but Mariusz Tarkawian says that’s the problem of contemporary art.

Junqiu Pan asks if today’s art has sold out to commercialism

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A

fter seeing a tiger shark, a zebra, a “unicorn”, several sheep and cows immersed in formaldehyde solution, who among us hasn’t wondered if Damien Hirst will pickle his own body, dissected or complete, in a tank of formaldehyde as a posthumous self-portrait and donate it to the Tate? Of course a failure on Hirst’s part to fulfill our expectations would be disappointing, but not so disappointing as when it is actually fulfilled. While artists keep terrifying us with more animal or human corpses and thousands of naked bodies, how ironic it is that their creations

By Junqiu Pan become boringly predictable.

Mariusz Tarkawian, a Polish artist who is not yet 30 himself, opened his first UK exhibition “Anticipating the Future” this February in Glasgow. He made hundreds of postcardsized pencil drawings of the kind of work which he believes particular artists will make in the future. Damien Hirst’s “final work” – himself pickled in formaldehyde - is one of them. He also depicted a future Marina Abramovic – who called herself the “grandmother of performance art” - as a female body suspended by her feet, and asked if installation artist Robert Kuśmirowski would be a woman. There’s a hint of mockery in his predictions and I did have a good laugh, losing myself in this future art world before asking whether this a

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CULTURE

predictability is demolishing our contemporary art. consortium in August 2008 for £50 million, the then highest Mariusz slyly neglected to comment on that, but admitted price ever paid for a single work by a living artist. But it later that some artists’ work is easier to predict than others. “Those turned out that Hirst and his London gallery - White Cube famous ones,” he said. “They almost do the were part of the group of buyers. same things, because they sell works for a lot The great art, says French conceptual artist “For them it’s of money right? So for them it’s sometimes Daniel Buren, is art that asks questions. hard to change their style because some Now we, as the audience, ask: what is the sometimes hard collectors will not like it.” message of this record-breaking skull? Is to change their Most “leading” artists of today owe their there any artistic value? The same could be style because fame to a keen sense of marketing, media asked of Hirst’s cow skull devoured by flies hype and greed. The ability of contemporary and maggots? What, after all, is the logical some collectors art to shock has become one of the ways we conclusion of Spencer Tunick’s installations will not like it.” judge its quality. Why? Because extremely rich of naked bodies, if not for a kind of mass collectors without much artistic education orgy? Why would anyone call Jeff Koons’ rely more on what they hear in the media and 9-feet-tall, stainless steel Hanging in public discussion than what they see in Heart an artwork rather person; the more controversial the better, even scandal sells. than a luxury consumer product – a What is considered “right”, namely the demand from their huge, expensive ornament? buyers, has become the biggest inspiration for artists. In a Ever since Marcel world where everything is for sale or meant to amuse, and Duchamp, a when the deftness and vigorous imagination fades, the only meaning left for art is a financial one.

Remember Hirst’s “For the Love of God”- a human skull recreated in platinum and encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats? Of course. Who’s ever been able to forget.

It was sold to an anonymous

Probably Damien Hirst’s self-portrait in 2030 ~ pencil on paper © Mariusz Tarkawian 2008

Robert Kuśnierowski’s transfprmation in 2013 ~ pencil on paper © Mariusz Tarkawian 2008

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Probably Marina Abramowicz 2011 ~ pencil on paper

© Mariusz Tarkawian 2012

© Mariusz Tarkawian 2008

Probably Vanessa Beecroft’s work in 2013 ~ watercolour and pencil on paper

“Bill Viola Execution” 2015 ~ pencil on paper

© Mariusz Tarkawian 2012

© Mariusz Tarkawian 2008

Probably Mariusz Tarkawian’s in 2015 ~ pencil on paper © Mariusz Tarkawian 2012

Probably Jake & Dinos art in 2014 ~ ink on paper © Mariusz Tarkawian 2012

Probably Banksy’s artwork in 2013 ~ ink on paper

troublemaker in the history of art, called his urinal ‘Fountain’ are thousands of unknown artists out there doing honest and as a sculpture for exhibition, we have become used to negative creative work. No one takes a look at them because their work definitions such as “everything is art”, “art is is too attractive to sane people.” I was not what I claim to be such”, and so on. sure if he was referring to himself as well, However this whole notion of art being but there is actually something about his “Being good in inseparable from finance, and artist as work, a boyish irreverence, which the art business is the brand, perhaps goes all the way back to Andy world would love. most fascinating Warhol. America’s most famous pop artist, a He does what a comedian does in genius in advertising, marketing and pleasing identifying common threads and the odd kind of art.” celebrities, called his studio “The Factory” stand-out work of each particular artist and and wrote: “Being good in business is the pushing them slightly further, just inside the Andy Warhol most fascinating kind of art.” Now, 26 years realms of the ridiculous. He calls himself a after his death, his most obvious heir, Damien futurologist and he even predicts his own Hirst - now worth billions - has used some future. of his fortune to employ factory workers, “I would do totally different things, of and everything he made since has been repetitive, but also a course,” he said. “I will do more and more drawings for sure, commercial success. maybe in bigger sizes if I would have more money. Or I would “This is why he’s probably the most predictable artist of our do big sculptures? I hope so.” time,” said Mariusz, with a shrug. Indeed, from a marketing The test of Mariusz’s fame, of course, will be when another standpoint the more predictable you are the better. “There artist copies him. n

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CULTURE Now that China is the world’s second biggest economy, will Mandarin Chinese challenge English for world supremacy?

Chinese writer Junqiu Pan investigates

must-have asset. After all, why do the English need to learn a foreign language when foreigners all speak English?

Another reason many people give when arguing that Chinese will never overtake English is the recognition that Chinese is one of the top three difficult languages in the world.

Astrophysicist Dr John McMillan, who has been learning Mandarin for 10 years agrees Chinese is hard. “But the grammar is easy,” he says. “It’s not nearly as complicated as many European languages,” he said, having learnt Latin at school and able to speak as fluent French and German as English. My point is since there are no verb tenses, no relative clauses, no singular or plural, such free grammar is perhaps even harder for non-native speakers to learn. Just consider how, in Mandarin, one could tell that something happened in the past, present or future when there are no conjugations. If you ask a native Chinese, he is most likely to say he “senses” it. We really do this all the time. And it’s the same story with word orders. You need that innate “sense” and Chinese ways of thinking to grasp the grammar. Of course it is not that hard if you are gifted, or if you learn it young.

A

Learn Mandarin, but we don’t guarantee a brighter future

By Junqiu Pan

“ A

I had a Chinese girlfriend before I came to the uni, I wanted to see her so I decided to study Chinese.” I don’t suppose this is a good reason to start any language. “And during my first week at uni we broke up.”

ndrew Cunane has survived his four years at university learning Mandarin Chinese. According to his own words, he was obsessed with it. So it has always been the case for those who had no interest in languages but one day met a Polish girl, or bought a holiday home in Italy, or fell in love with Russian literature. And now it comes the age for Chinese.

“Every time I say I’m learning Chinese to anyone, they go ‘wow, that’s great, that’s very important’, but they don’t want to do it themselves,” said Andrew, 22, who majored in Mandarin studies at Sheffield University. “Not many people can dedicate four years of their lives or more to a foreign lan-

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guage, I’m proud I did,” he said.

Since 2005, China has rolled out 324 Confucius Institutes in 91 countries. Statistics released by Hanban, a branch of the Chinese Ministry of Education, suggest there are 100 million people outside China using and learning Chinese in 2010 compared with 30 million in 2003. But considering that one-third Mandarin learners are Japanese and Koreans, that 71 of those institutes were in the US, that France has more people learning Chinese than any other European country, and that Pakistan has even made Chinese compulsory in schools, where is Britain’s place in this sort of global movement?

In a recent YouGov poll of 832 UK teachers, only three per cent of primary teachers say their schools offer Mandarin lessons, along with nine per cent of secondary teachers. Last year, only 2,541 students took a GCSE in Mandarin whereas a record of 72,606 students sat Spanish exams, which also declines every year. Why? Along with the comforting reality that the US is English-speaking, the majority British think that speaking a foreign language is a nice-to-have rather than

So considering these reports, do you still think Chinese will begin to dominate and become the lingua franca?

While debates always lie on the economic front, culturally, there is no dispute.

O

ne says English will remain popular so long as Hollywood exists. You can easily find young Vietnamese whose grandparents have died during the war break-dancing in a public square to the pulsing beats of western hip hop. They are crazy about Vampire Diaries and they only listen to English music.

“China is an old civilisation-state with a rich culture,” said Chinese linguist Fuping Xu from Jinan University, Guangzhou. “We introduce our calligraphy, martial art, papercuts to Westerners, they’re fascinated.”

Then he started to talk about Psy, a Korean mid-aged man, and how his horse-riding dance brought a boost to Korean language. “Modern pop culture has the strongest appeal to the young, straightforward and immediate. It’s a brand that represents your country,” he said. While American otakus dedicate themselves in learning Japanese to read manga, and French people learn Korean for their favourite K-pop stars, this has never happened to our language.“But China’s rise only started some dozens of years ago, “ said Professor Xu. “It’s impossible to have developed as thriving a pop culture as that in the west. But we’ll get there.”

I pointed out the rise of Mandarin is too closely linked to our recent economic success, similar to what happened with Japanese in the late 80s, early 90s. But professor Xu was not impressed by this analogy. “Japan used to be the world’s second largest economy, but it’s never been a self-sufficient one, so it’s rather limited for its language to go international,” he said.

Compared with Japan, he believes China has the potential to become a world language if only the language itself is more accessible. But still, will Mandarin be a lingua franca worldwide? “Too early to even think about it,” said Professor Xu. n

t Sheffield Star Mandarin School, I met Carolyn Potts, a Rotherham housewife and mother of two, Robyn, 11, and Harrison, 6.

“China is the future,” said Robyn, as if making a speech.

“Chinese are going to overgrow within manufacturing in England, so learning Chinese will help you in the future… like getting a better job. ” Carolyn has sent both her kids to summer camps, even face-to-face courses, and now here in this Saturday school as she wants them to also get used to the culture by romping with kids of Chinese descent who are unfortunately unable to learn their mother tongue at school.

“I think knowing about other countries and their cultures is mandatory if you wants to function in a global world like this,” said Carolyn, patting down Harrison’s unruly wisps of hair. She is disappointed that primary schools do not teach young kids another language from Robyn and Harrison are practising Chinese writing reception. “In the future, people who speak only English will be at a massive disadvantage compared to HOW HA those who speak their own native RD IS IT T tongue, English and possibly another language. Plus, learning FIRSTLY, there is no alphaC HINESE? O LEARN a language for children is much much easier than adults,” she bet, just thousands of characters, so said, with a shrug. She herself has been taking couple of many that no one can give a definitive total. More Mandarin lessons, but cannot even compete with Harrison. than 85,000 characters have been recorded in dictionary, though it is believed that a person needs roughly 5,000 to be A recent research by the British Council and Think Global literate, and only 2,000 to understand 90 per cent of all newsshows that UK employers value international skills more paper articles and books, it is not so easy a task if you learn highly than exam results – but three-quarters feel that young from scratch. Usually, a single character has more than five people entering the workforce lack these skills. And even the meanings depending on which characters it goes with to form current focus on French, Spanish and German is too narrow to a word; a word can consist of one single character, or two, or meet modern business needs. Martin Davidson, Chief three… You can never learn enough vocabularies in Chinese.

Executive of the British Council and fluent Chinese speaker, says: “Without a workforce that can understand and SECONDLY, there’s the tonal system. Britons find it mad communicate effectively with one of the world’s biggest economies, there’s a real risk that the UK will struggle to since the meaning of English words does not change with tone. compete and fall behind as a result.”

So here we go: tone one - a fairly high, even tone; tone two - a rising tone, much like the sound at the end of a sentence with But to say that Mandarin will rival English is a bit of a a question mark; tone three - falls then rises, like the second, stretch. Even companies in China are looking for managers but must dip first; tone four - sharp falling tone, a little like who speak both Mandarin and English if they want to expand how the end of a sentence with an exclamation mark sounds; abroad. So it is not a question of whether English will be half tone - pronounce words with light tones in about half overtaken by Mandarin, but whether they will co-exist. Plus the time you would a normal word. I beg these four-and-arecently warning spreads that China’s 30-year miracle is half tones must have made your day if you haven’t called your nearing exhaustion and China may not pass America to mother a horse, your boss your wife, or enter a dumpling become the world’s biggest economy this century whatsoever. restaurant shouting you want to sleep there.

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CULTURE

“they are all attention seekers and i would never hire someone with one.”

Once the badge of the antisocial yob, today’s tattoos are a stylish way to express yourself.

Or are they?

S

everal eyes roll - including the presenter’s - after hearing the comment. Tuesday’s This Morning was nothing short of a cat fight between former Apprentice candidate Katie Hopkins and X-Factor contestant Katie Waissel. Discussing whether or not celebrity tattoos are a bad influence, Hopkins’ tight lipped view failed to convince crew members, presenters and... pretty much everybody.

Yet sadly, with one fifth of British adults “inked up”, most employers still think like Hopkins. Joan Pettingill, an employment partner at commercial law firm HLW, says discrimination law applies to matters concerning your sex, race, nationality, religion or belief and sexual orientation, but not your fashion sense.

“If an employer turns you down because of a piercing you have for reasons to do with religion and belief, that may not be something the law would allow,” says Pettingill. “But the general rule is you can ensure people look satisfactory for business requirements, subject to anti-discrimination legislation.”

Tattoo controversy isn’t new. If anything, it’s getting old. You could even say it’s ancient. Forbidden by major religions and used as a popular method of torture in Native America back in the 1800s, tattoos have always been synonymous with pain. Yet with practice dating back to Neolithic times, isn’t old criticism becoming exactly that? Old news?

towards employment, they failed to address the consequences of the public seeing it as a passing fashion trend.

“Tattooing serves as a permanent reminder.” Ren says. “Fashion trends are short term and I would never advise getting a tattoo if it’s just to imitate a celebrity. They same applies when getting one inspired by a relationship - you might regret it as soon as it’s over.”

Bryan, another tattoo artist in the Chameleon Ink studio, says:“Sometimes people take the piss. Once a guy sent me a picture of a blob. I asked what it was and he said he had no idea. I refused there and then. Another wanted a product code tattooed on his penis so he could whack it out at supermarket registers and say ‘Scan this’.”

PEACE AT LAST? Discrimination law doesn’t apply to your fashion sense

of identity has only recently changed in Western culture. From small stars on wrists to snakes crawling up necks, it is only now that tattoos are becoming an expression of individuality.

“There is such a difference between now and 20 years ago.” Ren from Chameleon Ink in Barnsley, Yorkshire said “Before, tattoos were used for identity, whether in a positive way - such as belonging to a community - or negatively to impose an identity, such as in Nazi concentration camps.”

From antisocial activity to fashion statement, the cultural status of tattooing has evolved steadily into an accepted art form.

In the 1970s, artists trained in traditional fine art disciplines began to embrace tattooing and brought with them entirely new sorts of sophisticated imagery and technique.

Advances in electric needle machines and pigments provided them with new ranges of colour, delicacy of detail and aesthetic possibilities.

FROM ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR TO FASHION STATEMENT, TATTOOING HAS EVOLVED INTO AN ACCEPTED ART FORM

“They call us artists for a reason.

Each tattoo artist has their own signature, their own interpretation.

Many of us like to have specific ideas in our heads, but I always end up preferring the artist’s interpretation.”

Otzi, inked up and is a canvas, one that changes BLAST FROM THE PAST looking better than from“Skin person to person. Being able to ever render a picture on a canvas that always Lets take a minute to changes and ages...that takes real skill.” meet Otzi. Known to friends Such is the change that, today, tattoos are as ‘Otzi the Iceman’, this 3,300 BC mummy routinely seen on rock stars, professional has 57 separate tattoos: a cross on the sports figures, models, movie stars and other inside of his left knee, six straight lines public figures who play a significant role in above his kidneys and several small lines setting culture’s contemporary movements along his legs and ankles. Experts speculate and behavior patterns. Or, in a certain ex that these tattoos may have been related to Apprentice’s words: “make young people get pain relief treatments similar to acupuncture cheap graffiti on their skin.”

- not because he wanted attention.

Despite the negative reaction to Hopkins’ In the past, body modification used to be argument, celebrity influence can have less a badge of belonging. Tattoos in particular than desirable consequences. While This were generally the preserve of armed forces Morning’s debate focuses on the downside personnel, bikers and tribes. This old symbol

78

For those who see tattooing as an expression of individuality and not a running dick joke, the rise in celebrity tattoos has led to its social acceptance. From lawyers to accountants, this art form isn’t just exclusive to bikers and strippers anymore. Despite some conflict in the workplace, there have been some breakthroughs.

Sky told the BBC that it abolished its dress code six months ago. “We used to have guidelines, but we got rid of them,” says Helen Williamson, Sky’s Graduate Recruitment Manager. “We want people to enjoy working here, and the freedom to choose how you look at work is part of that.”

“It’s short-sighted to judge by appearance.

It’s a rare employer now that can afford to miss out on talent,” she says. “For me, it doesn’t make a positive or negative impression at interview stage.”

While not every company is as accepting as Sky, there is definitely a glimmer of hope for the future of tattoo culture. Perhaps there will be a day when employability doesn’t discourage personal style. And perhaps, one day, Katie Hopkins will stop appearing on TV. n

DEBATE Should tattoos matter when applying for jobs?

“I love tattoos as much as the next person, but they’re a personal choice.

You know what you’re getting into when you decide to get tattooed, so you can’t complain if/when you find your job opportunities have become limited afterwards, especially if you’re getting ‘public’ ink.”

Richard, 34, Sheffield

The employer would put it down to something else.You know the risks when getting visible ink, find a career where you can express your love for them if that’s the case.

Joanna, 27, Brighton “I just want to add a bit of colour to the world. I understand that some people and institutions are prejudiced against tattoos. That should be their problem, not mine.”

Dominic, 28, Leeds

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CULTURE

The future of sex We could well be having sex with robots by 2050, according to British artificial intelligence expert David Levy, author of the book love and sex with robots. But, even if we don’t get robot gigolos like in Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial intelligence by 2050, sexual habits and the way people refer to their sexuality are bound to change. In fact, they are already changing dramatically and the whole concept that people are either male or female is about to collapse.

#1

#4

If society accepts one type of alternative sexual culture, it means it is ready to accept every existing type of sexual habit

Opponents to gay marriage have repeatedly said that if society accepted such union as legitimate, it would automatically send a message of tolerance towards polygamy, bestiality and paedophilia. However, these claims are groundless. Such arguments came up when homosexuality was being depenalised in European countries after World War Two. Furthermore, “society only ever accepts change in bits and pieces and it remains hard to get other pieces of sexual progress accepted,” says Friðrik Jónsson, an Icelandic anthropologist. “For example, you can often find about as great disdain towards the sexual identity of bisexuals [as towards homosexuals in the BUSTED past]. Prejudice towards bisexuals has often been among the harshest from homosexuals.”

A new sexual revolution is happening now

Under the sheets with robots

What is deemed “normal” today wasn’t necessarily even considered “acceptable” when our parents or grandparents were our age. Sex shops have flourished, porn has become very accessible through the internet, advertising is using sex to sell products more than ever and homosexuality and transexuality have become part of the modern society.

“We seem to be in the middle of another sexual revolution,” says American sexologist Amy Marsh. “And this one involves gender issues as well. A lot more sexual lifestyles and TRUSTED alternatives are emerging into the open.”

#2

Sex has only recently become a form of entertainment

BUSTED

There are only males and females, this is how it’s always been, and this is how it will always be

It is already possible for men and women to change their sex through surgery, although a man who has become a woman (through vaginoplasty) and a woman who has become a man (through phalloplasty) remain incapable of having children. However, a team of four American surgeons claim to be developing a way to create fully functional penises by using bioengineering, making the prospect of a society in which you could be a fertile man or woman regardless of your birth gender credible.

“More people will ‘think beyond the binary’ in terms of gender and identify in a variety of ways that are BUSTED not strictly ‘male’ or ‘female’,” says Marsh.

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#5

Openness and tolerance towards sexuality are evolving

With gay marriage being voted by the French and British parliaments in 2013, and society being generally more open about sexuality, one can say that tolerance has come a long way since the middle of last century and its persecutions towards sexual habits that were deemed “deviant”.

But there is still a lot of work to do, as homophobia and sexism are still common out there.

“As older attitudes die out, I think society will progress in tolerance, with a ‘swing’ back and forth between acceptance and repression,” says Marsh.

“We can say with certainty, that within the last 50 years, certain sex acts have become more popular. Two that come to mind are oral sex and anal sex,” says Jones.

“Most likely, this is because of more open discussion on these topics and education about the risks and benefits of these practices.”

“Evolving views on sexuality and gender issues have become more accepted. This is largely something that media, in particular television and movies have helped with,” says Friðrik Jónsson, “It’s a ‘normalisation’ process for new ways of thinking. It is like an introduction to the ‘foreign and strange’ side of people through the media. We can say that there is a trend towards more acceptances towards others’ sexual identities and also towards our own sexuality. Trying new things will become less taboo.”

Just look at two-millennium-old Kama sutra and ancient European mosaics and fresco. According to sexologist Melissa Jones, sex has always been a form of entertainment and pleasure, and ancient Romans and Greeks already were quite extrovert and liberal when it came down to it.

Amy Marsh, who shares this point of view, says: “You can see this reflected in centuries of erotic art. However, there has often been an emphasis on the reproductive value of sex.”

Melissa Jones adds: “But sex as an entertainment form has taken a more mainstream position in the media compared to the past.”

#3

Sex theories trusted, busted and disputed

TRUSTED

#6

In the future, sexual approaches will be more delicate and understanding towards the partner

Whether people will become more delicate and understanding or not will depend on the individuals, and also on the mainstream culture of the time. “It would be my hope that more spirituality would enter into sexual relationships, somewhat of the tantric experience,” Jones says. “I’m not saying that people need to believe in the philosophies of yoga, meditation and chakra, but I do think that it would be beneficial to couples and society if they would see sex as more than just a pleasurable act but as something more DispuTED transcendental.” n

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READERS INTERACT YOUR TWEETS We love to hear from you here at Vision magazine, so each month we run a Twitter topic. Here are some of our favourites about our launch (Gigi l’Amorosso @GigiAmore) @ JoshKazimierz_25 Those video links on #vision-mag website are mental, didn’t know that robots and computers were about to outstrip us (Takeshi Noriko @t_ noriko8) Learnt a lot on #vision-mag last night (Mark Pond @ MarkPond_15) What was supposed to be a night of German revision for my exam last night ended up in a #visionmag reading streak!

(Ariel Wieszman @ Ari_wisk) @AngeK_5 you would have been better off reading #vision-mag website before saying all this nonsense!

(Jacqueline Newberry @jnewberry) haha you should read this awesome website #vision-mag I found.

Apparently they are about to launch a hard magazine! @ Pagan_queen77 (Swedish Robotics @ SvenskaRobs) Thanks for the info about robots, great read! #vision-mag (Amy Townsend @ DoctorTownsend) Really excited about the launch of #vision-mag This month our Twitter topic is ‘What’s your dream job of the future? Tweet us with #futurejob

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Blog post of the month

The grounding of Boeing’s latest offering to the aviation market on 17 January 2013 came as a major blow to the American aircraft manufacturer that has ploughed in millions of dollars worth of research and expertise into the 787 programme, promising us the most comfortable ride in the skies yet.

The 50-strong fleet of aircraft specifically designed for the long haul, lower demand niche has just recently received approval from the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) to take back to the skies. As harmful as this may have been to Boeing, it seems that this bird hasn’t been written off just yet, unlike its heavyweight partner at Airbus, which is proving difficult to move.

According to Bloomberg, the aircraft, which is roughly the same size as two blue whales, has left a gaping hole in the Airbus production line at Toulouse, where there are 30 spare slots in the construction line – missing Airbus’s break

QA &

What is the Tinkerbell effect?

The Tinkerbell effect is the name given to the effect of things becoming true just by people merely thinking they exist or they are true.

For example, money has value only because people think it has value. If people one day start to doubt that green papers have any value, then money will automatically lose all its value.

Another example would be power. The more people believe you’ve got power, the more they will listen to you and thus give you power.

Popularity is also a Tinkerbell effect, as and the more people think you’re popular, the more they will want to be friends with you, thus making you become popular in a cycle.

However, there is a counter-Tinkerbell effect. For example, the more people think that their vote has an impact during an election, the less every individual vote will make a difference.

by Adam Lamb

even target for 2015.

This leaves the question: why the sumo-wrestler of the skies been taken down by its gangly and misfortunate competitor? Sales figures as of May 2013 show that the 787 has 879 orders compared to the 264 that Airbus has for the A380. The A380 was built on the premise that it would help alleviate the congestion of the overcrowded world hubs, such as London Heathrow.

But as times have changed, have our attitudes towards travel also changed?

Have we had became sick of the endless queuing at these ‘world hubs’, the impractical service they offer us and the countless delays

What is a light year?

Unlike its name might suggest, a light year isn’t a time unit, it’s instead a unit of length. It represents the distance that light can travel in a year in empty space.

You already know that light travels at just under 300,000 km per second, and that there are 3,600 seconds per hour, 24 hours per day and 365 days per year. So, a light year is 300,000 x 3,600 x 24 x 365 or 9,460,800,000,000 km. We’ll call it a 9.5 trillion kilometres, or 6 trillion miles.

The sun against the Earth’s profile

Picture of the month

from Simon Drake

Simon found this great picture of a future prediction of what Masdar City will look like when completed in 2025. It’s the latest in a series of hi-tech, self-sufficient, eco-friendly cities being developed around the world.

This month send us a future picture from 2020!

that they cause us? I believe so, and I believe that the Bambi of the skies has found its feet and is already starting the take down of its heavyweight cousin.

The Boeing 787

Dreamliner

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How long does it Will we ever visit take for sunlight to other stars? reach the Earth?

The nearest solar system is Proxima Light travels at 299,792 kilometres per second in empty space. The sun is, on average, 149.6 million kilometers away from us. It therefore takes the sunlight 149,600,000 divided by 299,792 or 499 seconds to reach us. This is eight minutes and 19 seconds. If the sun came to disappear suddenly, we would only notice it eight minutes later.

Centauri, which is four light years away from us. So, even if we had the technology to travel at the speed of light, it would take us four and a half years to reach Proxima Centauri.

However, we can’t travel anywhere near that fast at the moment.

The fastest ever man-made object was the American Helios-B solar probe, which could travel “only” at 70 kilometres per second (or 43 miles per second); 4,300 times slower than the speed of light.

But technology is bound to evolve, and with time and research, humanity should find quicker ways to travel. At some point, we’ll send the first team on a spacecraft towards Proxima Centaury.

However as the travel would take years, possibly hundreds or thousands of years, the first team is bound to be overtaken by a second team, which would be sent later, with an evolved technology, allowing them to travel quicker. The second team would, however, arrive later than the third team, who would have the best technology.

Experts say that within 1,104 years, some of us will have reached Proxima Centaury, and within five to 55 million years, we could colonize the whole galaxy, providing that humanity is not devastated by a cataclysm... or that we find another superior civilization which would colonize us.

What are the three laws of robotics?

In 1942, science-fiction author Isaac Asimov introduced what he called the three laws of robotics which are:

1 2 3

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Editor’s note - These laws would’ve helped Droga in our fiction feature on page 33!

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Question time Indian-born president and CEO of Husky Energy Inc., one of the largest Canadian oil and natural gas companies, Asim Ghosh, on the energy issues of the future and the threats facing mankind.

First of all, where and when were you born?

Where do you think you’ll be in five years’ time?

Asim Ghosh

I was born in New Delhi in 1947 and I think I will be in London in five years’.

Where do you think Husky Energy Inc. will be in five years’ time?

Husky Energy will be bigger than it is today, and more profitable.

What is, according to you, the future of the oil industry?

The oil industry will have a continued and inevitable existence for the next 20 years. Thereafter, who knows? There may be some displacement by solar, nuclear and natural gas... The trouble is that no known technology can replace oil effectively for individual transport today, given its portable energy density. And with economic growth in emerging markets, one cannot hold back the growth of motor cars. In the longer term, it may be a different story.

Do you think that ecological considerations and awareness are rising?

If so, how would these rising considerations conflict with the oil industry?

Yes they are, enormously.

The answer is not to kill oil, but to moderate its use through greater fuel efficiency. The political classes are avoiding the need to have a carbon tax at the consumer level, and the right place to apply that tax is at the consumer level, much as cigarette taxes are applied.

More critically, it is important to realize that oil

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is only part of the energy mix. The biggest single component is coal. Because of new technologies, natural gas use is rising in the US, the world’s most energy consumptive economy, displacing coal, which in turn is leading to substantial reductions in carbon footprint per unit of energy (natural gas has about a 45 percent lower carbon footprint than coal; whereas oil has about a 30 percent lower footprint).

By contrast, coal use is growing in the UK, Germany, China and India.

The Fukushima disaster has put nuclear on the backburner. Renewables all suffer from the fact that they cannot be part of the base load, since wind and sun are not a steady source.

The base load must come

from hydroelectric (which was considered the panacea in the 1950s, but has since become unpopular), nuclear, coal and gas.

And finally, electric is a long way away from effective use for transport. It takes too long to charge batteries, and lithium comes in short supply.

If you killed oil today, you would have a collapse in the economic system created over a century, which would make Greece’s problems look like a Christmas party.

India came a long way since its independence in 1947 in terms of technologies, telecommunications and computing. What are your personal impressions on that matter?

All of what has happened has either happened despite Government policy, not because of it, or else because of the unintended consequences of Government policy (e.g., the formation of the Indian Institutes of Technology, which were supposed to create research engineers).

What is, according to you, the biggest threat facing mankind in the 50 years to come?

I think it’s the eruption of the Yellowstone National Park volcano. It would make concerns about nuclear bombs, increase in carbon footprint leading to global warming and Arab Awakenings trivial! And the eruption is about 40,000 years overdue! n