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Editorial–New Science Publications
Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Webb
Editor Roger HighfieldAssociate Editors Liz Else, Stephanie Pain
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NEWSCIENTIST.COMOnline Publisher John MacFarlaneOnline Editor Rowan HooperEditors Maggie McKee, Tom SimoniteReporters Catherine Brahic, Colin Barras,Sandrine Ceurstemont, Michael Marshall, Ewen Callaway, Rachel CourtlandOnline Subeditor Dan PalmerWeb team Neela Das, Cathy Tollet, Ruth Turner, Ken Wolf, Edin Hodzic,Vivienne Griffith, Rohan Creasey,Matteo Giaccone
MORE than 100,000 people kill themselves each year in India. Many of these deaths are of men who fall into debt, and one-fifth of all the suicides are farmers. The farmers’ plight has become a lightning rod for critics of genetically modified crops, including Prince Charles , heir to the British throne. Anti-GM groups have long argued that expensive cotton seeds engineered to contain the gene for the pesticidal Bt toxin were irresponsibly promoted in 2002, when the Indian government gave the go-ahead for their use. The prince highlighted the issue last month in a public lecture.
GM varieties failed miserably at first, partly because of drought, and some destitute farmers were driven to suicide. Now an independent analysis has concluded that it’s unfair to blame the Bt cotton (see page 14). It turns out that the suicide rate has remained static, even though a multitude of new varieties of Bt cotton have made the
altered crop more popular than ever. The analysis acknowledges that the early
failures may have been a contributory factor in the farmers’ suicides, but the reliance by farmers on illegal moneylenders played a bigger role. Focusing on GM may even have cost lives by distracting attention from other potential causes.
This tragic tale shows how difficult it can be for ordinary members of the public to get to the facts when an industry hypes a technology and committed opponents seize every opportunity to demonise it. Who do you believe?
More independent auditing of GM technology is needed. To sift the facts from the tidal wave of propaganda, let’s involve disinterested bodies such as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, and invite observers from both sides to monitor data gathering. It’s high time the GM debate became less polarised and more constructive. ●
AS CHIPS get ever more powerful, processors more nimble and memories more capacious, it is reassuring to see the human brain keep its starring role as the most extraordinary computer we have, even when it comes to number crunching .
For around a decade, millions of people have taken part in the most famous distributed computing project of all . With SETI@home you can download a screensaver that analyses chunks of radio-telescope data for signals from an alien intelligence.
Now, though, there’s a new generation of
such projects and your brain is the central processor (see page 36). When it comes visual processing, spatial reasoning and problem solving, grey matter still outperforms silicon. So you can twist and fold proteins into the optimum shape to help develop new drugs and vaccines. Or you can map craters on Mars and Eros , classify galaxies , transcribe old texts and hone artificial intelligence .
Instead of harnessing idle machines, researchers are inventing ever more ingenious ways to harness “idle” PC owners. You need never be bored again. ●
Bye-bye boredom
Seeds of truthLet’s try to sort fact from propaganda over genetically modified crops
www.newscientist.com 8 November 2008 | NewScientist | 5
FIRST people shouted into cellphones and wrecked the tranquillity of solitary spots and the peace of bus rides. Then came jump-out-of-your-skin polyphonic ringtones, followed by endless music played through the phones’ tinny speakers.
People can now make music together just by waving their phones around (see page 26). Shaking one taps out a drum rhythm, while
brandishing a second plays guitar and yet another a bass line. A wireless “conductor” turns their gestures into something tuneful.
Fuddy-duddies will moan that this is yet more disruption. But surely anything that pops the self-absorbed cellphone bubble so that people can come together to make music is to be welcomed. Whether it will be beautiful is another question. ●
Is this technology too disruptive?
