The Week UK - 29.02.2020

NEWS 21

Hunted sincethe17thcentury,the northAtlantic

right whalenowfaces extinction withinthe next

two decades.Asurveyhasfound that there are

now just409 intotal, andfewer than 100females

of breeding age.The whales,which cangrowto

68ft and weigh70 tonnes,havebeenprotected

since 1972but still face threats from fishing gear

entanglementandcollisions with ships. Lead

researcher Michael Moore of the Woods Hole

Oceanographic Institutionblamed declining

numbers on such incidents causing “sublethaland

lethal trauma”that “has led to individualsunfitto

reproduce”.Between 2017and 2019, his report

suggests,20 whalesdied and12calveswere born.

Rightwhales were so called becausethey were the

“right” whalestohunt: theymoved slowly and

float ed onthesurfaceof thesea afterbeingkilled.

There were once tens ofthousands in thenorth Atlanticandthey were often seen

cruising theBritish and Irish coastlines. The last sighting ofaright whaleinUK

waterswas off thecoastofCornwallin2012. Otherspeciesof whale face similar

threats;there are only 73southern resident killer whalesleft.

Health &Science

29 February 2020 THE WEEK

DidherbalteafuelVikingfrenzy?

AccordingtoVikinglegend,theelite

warriorsknownasberserkers“ploughed

intocombatinatrance-likestateoffury”,

fearless,withoutarmour,oftennaked,

andunabletotellfriendfromfoe,says

RhysBlakelyinTheTimes.Forcenturies,

historianshavehypothesisedabout

whatfuelledtheirrampages.Psychedelic

mushrooms?Insanity?Vastamounts

ofalcohol?NowKarstenFatur,an

ethnobotanistattheUniversityof

LjubljanainSlovenia,believeshe

hasuncoveredthesecret:apotent

hallucinogen.Theplant,Hyoscyamus

niger(knownasstinkingnightshade

orhenbane)containshyoscyamineand

scopolamine,bothofwhichtrigger

aggressionandhyperactivity.“Itwould

havereducedtheirsensationofpainand

madethemwild,”Faturwroteinastudy

intheJournalofEthnopharmacology.Its

“dissociative”effectswouldhavenumbed

theirsenseofreality, enablingberserkers

to “killindiscriminately”.Theplant’s

seedshave beenfound inagravein

Denmarkdatingfromc.980. Users

couldhaveinfused theplant intheirtea

or alcohol,orpossiblymadeanointment

with animalfattorub intotheirbare skin.

Aplan to seal off the North Sea

Climatechangecallsfor radical solutions,

andtwo Dutch scientists arethinkingbig

• withaproposalfor twogiant dams that
  wouldcompletelyenclosethe NorthSea,
  protectingaround 2 5million Europeans
  fromrisingsealevels.Onedam would
  span 100 milesbetweenwestern France
  andsouthwest England; the other,the
  300 milesbetweennorthernScotland
  andNorway.The plans,publishedin the
  AmericanJournalofMeteorology, are
  theoreticallyfeasible,being scaled-up

versionsofthedykesthatprotectthe

Netherlands.Thepriceisestimatedat

betweens 25 0bn ands 50 0bn.Over20

years,the annualcostto the 14countries

protected,borderingtheNorthand Baltic

seas,wouldamountto just 0.1% oftheir

combinedGDP. However, theauthors

acknowledgedthatovertimetheirproject

would turntheNorthSeaintoahuge,

tide-freefreshwaterlake,transforming

itsecosystem.Theproposalisprimarilya

“calltodosomethingaboutclimatechange

now”,saidone oftheauthors,DrSjoerd

Groeskamp–otherwise“thisextreme

dammightjustbethe only solution”.

Thebiology of ageing

Age, itseems,isnotjustanumber.

Researchers attheUniversityofSouthern

Californialookedat theDNAof 4 ,000

people over theageof57 andfound

strikingdifferencesbetweenchronological

andbiologicalage.Someso-called

super-agersgrowoldveryslowly:one

59-yearoldwasphysicallyjust23,while

attheotherendofthescale,a66-year-old

wasfoundtohavethebiologicalageof

114 .Thescientistsstudiedtheparticipants’

“epigeneticclocks”:analysingepigenetic

changes,wherebygenesstarttobehave

differentlythoughthebasicDNAsequence

remainsthesame.Suchchangesareakey

factorinageing.Interimfindingssuggest

thatenvironmentalandsocialfactors,such

asstressandpollution,accelerateageing.

Obesityacceleratesageingbyeighteen

months,andsufferingpsychological

distress,byfourmonths.Beingfemale

slowsdowntheclockbyuptotwoyears.

Smallbrainslinkedtocrime

Lifelo ngcriminalshavesmall erbrains,

amajorstudysuggests.AstudyinThe

LancetbyateamatUCLfoundthat

peoplewhooffendedthroughouttheirlife

hadclearlydifferentbrainstructures,with

thinnercortices andasmallersurface of

greymatter linkedtoregulatingemotions,

compared with peoplewhoonlydisplay

anti-socialbehaviourasadolescents, and

thosewithoutarecordofsuchbehaviour.

For the study,1,037people bornin 1 972

and 1973 inDunedin, NewZealand, who

aretakingpart inalong-termcohort study

weregivenMRIscans.ProfEssiViding,

one oftheresearchers,saidthattheresults

show thatmore compassion shouldbe

shown toyoungpeople who areoften

introuble:geneticandchildhoodfactors,

such aschildhooddepriva tion,may have

affectedtheirdevelopment andtheir

behaviour.However,asProf Kevin

McConway oftheOpenUniversity

pointed out, thefindingsonlyshow

acorrelation:they don’tprove that

“antisocialbehaviour arisesasaresult

of abnormal braindevelopment”.

Hyoscyamusniger:Vikingcourage

The number of mumps cases in England

hit arecord high last year, with young

people in college and university driving

the outbreak. There were 5,042 cases in

2019 –four times the number in 2018,

according to data from Public Health

England (PHE). Many of these cases

were people born in the late 1990s and

early 2000s who were not immunised

as children with the MMR vaccine. In

the early 1990s, the anti-vaccine activist

Dr Andrew Wakefield publishedapaper

claimingalink between the jab and

autism. His research was subsequently

discredited and his licence to practise

medicine revoked. But the scare created

ageneration of unprotected young

people known as “Wakefield cohorts”.

PHE has launched an MMR catch-up

programme for children, and is

encouraging all students and young

people who may have missed out on

the vaccine to contact their GP.

Mumpsepidemic

Just409 right whales in total

What the scientists are saying...

The right whalefacesextinction

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