WE HAVE always been aware that quantum stuff moves in mysterious ways. A quantum particle such as an electron can spin clockwise and anticlockwise at the same time, for example, or exist simultaneously in two places. We've also known that these strange "superpositions" are extremely fragile. Indeed, it is a tenet of quantum theory that as soon as anyone tries to observe a superposition, it collapses back to some kind of normality. Make a measurement of, say, an electron spinning both ways at once and the electron appears to have just one spin.

That is why Schrodinger's famous cat can only be both alive and dead at the same time in its box so long as no one looks inside.  Lifting the lid forces the cat to either live or die. And so this  mysterious quantum world has remained impossible to explore.  Until now, that is.

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Evolution’s a bitch. there you are,
a mollusc species floating through the
ocean in a heavily armoured shell. You
are safe from ravenous marine predators and
feeling pretty good about yourself. then some
random genetic fluctuation turns you inside
out. now your species has a small internal
skeleton, and – from the point of view of the
marine reptiles that just happen to be
experiencing a boom at this point in the
Jurassic – you are a big tasty, packaging-free
ready meal chock-full of protein.
to survive this turn of events required a
pretty clever solution, and cuttlefish rose to
the challenge in ways we are only just
beginning to discover. We have known for a
long time that these creatures have the world’s
best camouflage skills, but it seems this is just
one of their many talents. Research published
in the last few months shows cuttlefish can do
things that are way beyond most molluscs and
only rarely seen in mammals: their response
to an approaching predator is tailor-made for
the carnivore in question, for example. not
only that, they have also developed a secret
communications system that could be the
marine equivalent of invisible ink. You can
almost imagine them sniggering at our
primitive interactions from behind their
eight arms.

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First published in New Scientist, 09 March 2002

(Posted in honour of Obama's Inauguration)

How many black scientists do you know? Probably not many, says Elizabeth Rasekoala. That's because Western science excludes black people, she claims. Rasekoala is a chemical engineer who runs science clubs for black children across Britain to teach them-and their parents-how to break down the doors of the scientific establishment. She has spent six years lobbying the British government to do something. While she waited, the South African, Brazilian and Indian governments have all called on her for help. Michael Brooks hears how science's guilty secret has finally come into the open.

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The truth is not out there, after all - even in science. A gathering of European scientists, philosophers, historians and theologians this weekend unanimously concluded that there is no reason for science to claim a monopoly on the truth about how the world works. In a democratic society, the observations of science must not be given a privileged status in debates on issues such as embryonic stem cell research. Instead, scientific consensus must be laid out for members of that society to use as they see fit.

The meeting, held in Lugano, Switzerland, discussed the notion of “truth”. Science is not a source of indisputable truth, but best seen as “organised skepticism” with a diversity of opinion on any subject at any one time, Oxford University biologist and former UK chief scientist Robert May told the assembly. Though science creates opportunities to improve life for all, we should continue to think carefully about which of these opportunities we want to take. Just because it has made some things possible, that does not give scientists the right to choose whether they should be followed through. “Science has no special voice,” May said. “The job of science is to frame the debate clearly, making plain the possible benefits and costs – and the uncertainties.”….

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As you may have heard, this will be the year. The Large Hadron Collider the most powerful atom-smasher ever built – will be switched on, and particle physics will hit pay-dirt. Yet if a pair of Russian
mathematicians are right, any advances in this area could be overshadowed by a truly extraordinary event. According to Irina Aref’eva and Igor Volovich, the LHC might just turn out to be the world’s first time machine.

It is a highly speculative claim, that’s for sure. But if Aref’eva and Volovich are correct, the LHC’s debut at CERN, the European particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, could provide a landmark in history. That’s because travelling into the past is only possible – if it is possible at all – as far back as the creation of the first time machine, and that means 2008 could become Year Zero: a must-see for the discerning time traveller.

Aref’eva and Volovich are sensible and well-respected mathematicians, based at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow, so they are not actually suggesting that visitors from the future are imminent. What they are saying is that since causality – the idea that effect must follow cause – is one of the most fundamental principles of physics, the notion that it might be tested at the LHC is worth pushing as far as possible. Their work has yet to be recognised by a peer-reviewed journal, but that hasn’t stopped some other physicists from taking a keen interest.

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Is it the end of the road for the gas guzzler? Michael Brooks reports on the battle to clean up the highway

Walk into a car showroom tomorrow and you could buy a vehicle that parks itself, or one that warns you if you’re about to crash. You could find one with a display that shows you the road ahead despite the thickest fog. Next year there could even be a car you can drive into the sea and race through the waves like a speedboat. So why can’t you buy a car that can go 100 miles on a gallon of fuel?

There is certainly no shortage of people who would jump at the chance to own one: according to a recent poll, almost two-thirds of Americans would love a car with this kind of thriftiness. Doubling a car’s fuel efficiency doesn’t just save you money at a time of soaring oil prices, it also halves the vehicle’s planetwarming
CO2 emissions. Yet in the US – the world’s largest market for cars – there has been little improvement in fuel efficiency for decades.

So there was good news in December 2007, when President George W. Bush signed a new US energy bill into law. The new act demanded an increase in the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by 40 per cent, to an average of 35 miles per US gallon – the first increase since 1975. Though it doesn’t come into force until 2020, it was hailed by many in Congress as a historic development. Even environmental groups gave the news a cautious welcome.

At the same time the US car industry is under pressure from 17 states that would like to impose their own strict emissions limits on all new vehicles – the same tough “clean car” standards that were mooted by California back in 2004. Although the federal Environmental Protection Agency insists that no state is allowed to set stricter standards of its own, that ruling is now being challenged in the courts.

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Are attempts to develop a non-lethal knock-out gas undermining the treaties that ban chemical weapons? Michael Brooks investigates

Among the medical profession, anaesthetists have something of a reputation for being boring. While surgeons do the heroics, it’s anaesthetists who put you to sleep, keep you ticking over and then wake you up again when the drama is over.

It seems hard to believe then that a group of them stand accused of derailing a 79-year-old global arms control treaty. The chemical weapons convention is under threat from attempts to turn anaesthetic agents into “non-lethal” chemical weapons, says the treaty watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Drugs such as these, designed to knock people out quickly and without doing lasting harm, are touted by some as a humane way of dealing with terrorists or hostage-takers, for example. Opponents say they are inherently dangerous, however – a view that seems to be supported by their track record.

Whether the current research into such agents breaches the convention seems to fall into a legal grey area. But allowing it to continue unchecked would be a slippery slope to the treaty’s downfall, the OPCW says in a soon to be published internal report seen by New Scientist. “One of the great achievements in arms control is the banning of poisons and germs,” says Mark Wheelis of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) working group on the control of chemical and biological weapons. “I would hate to see those gains reversed, but that’s what the push is right now.”

It was the horrific poison gas attacks of the first world war that led to the 1925 Geneva protocol banning the use of chemical weapons. In 1997 this was augmented by the chemical weapons convention, which widened the ban to the development, production and possession of such agents. There are now 182 countries signed up, with the OPCW in charge of policing the convention and destroying any weapons.

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