Sсiеntifiс Аmеricаn (2019-06)

4 Scientific American, June 2019 Illustration by Nick Higgins

FROM

THE EDITOR Mariette DiChristina is editor in chief of Scientific American.

Follow her on Twitter @mdichristina

BOARD OF ADVISERS

Leslie C. Aiello

President, Wenner-Gren Foundation

for Anthropological Research

Robin E. Bell

Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty

Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Emery N. Brown

Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical

Engineering and of Computational Neuro-

science, M.I.T., and Warren M. Zapol Prof-

essor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical

School

Vinton G. Cerf

Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

Emmanuelle Charpentier

Scientific Director, Max Planck Institute

for Infection Biology, and Founding

and Acting Director, Max Planck Unit

for the Science of Pathogens

George M. Church

Director, Center for Computational

Genetics, Harvard Medical School

Rita Colwell

Distinguished University Professor,

University of Maryland College Park

and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School

of Public Health

Kate Crawford

Director of Research and Co-founder,

AI Now Institute, and Distinguished

Research Professor, New York University,

and Principal Researcher,

Microsoft Research New York City

Drew Endy

Professor of Bioengineering,

Stanford University

Nita A. Farahany

Professor of Law and Philosophy,

Director, Duke Initiative for

Science & Society, Duke University

Edward W. Felten

Director, Center for Information

Technology Policy, Princeton University

Jonathan Foley

Executive Director and William R. and

Gretchen B. Kimball Chair, California

Academy of Sciences

Jennifer Francis

Senior Scientist,

Woods Hole Research Center

Kaigham J. Gabriel

President and Chief Executive Officer,

Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Harold “Skip” Garner

Executive Director and Professor, Primary

Care Research Network and Center for

Bioinformatics and Genetics, Edward Via

College of Osteopathic Medicine

Michael S. Gazzaniga

Director, Sage Center for the Study of

Mind, University of California,

Santa Barbara

Carlos Gershenson

Research Professor, National

Autonomous University of Mexico

Alison Gopnik

Professor of Psychology and

Affiliate Professor of Philosophy,

University of California, Berkeley

Lene Vestergaard Hau

Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and

of Applied Physics, Harvard University

Hopi E. Hoekstra

Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology,

Harvard University

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Founder and CEO, Ocean Collectiv

Christof Koch

President and CSO,

Allen Institute for Brain Science

Morten L. Kringelbach

Associate Professor and

Senior Research Fellow, The Queen’s

College, University of Oxford

Robert S. Langer

David H. Koch Institute Professor,

Department of Chemical Engineering,

M .I.T.

Meg Lowman

Director and Founder, TREE Foundation,

Rachel Carson Fellow, Ludwig Maximilian

University Munich, and Research

Professor, University of Science Malaysia

John Maeda

Global Head, Computational Design +

Inclusion, Automattic, Inc.

Satyajit Mayor

Senior Professor,

National Center for Biological Sciences,

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

John P. Moore

Professor of Microbiology and

Immunology, Weill Medical College

of Cornell University

Priyamvada Natarajan

Professor of Astronomy and Physics,

Yale University

Donna J. Nelson

Professor of Chemistry,

University of Oklahoma

Robert E. Palazzo

Dean, University of Alabama at

Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences

Rosalind Picard

Professor and Director,

Affective Computing, M.I.T. Media Lab

Carolyn Porco

Leader, Cassini Imaging Science Team,

and Director, CICLOPS, Space Science

Institute

Lisa Randall

Professor of Physics, Harvard University

Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal and Professor

of Cosmology and Astrophysics,

Institute of Astronomy,

University of Cambridge

Daniela Rus

Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor

of Electrical Engineering and Computer

Science and Director, CSAIL, M.I.T.

Eugenie C. Scott

Chair, Advisory Council,

National Center for Science Education

Terry Sejnowski

Professor and Laboratory Head of

Computational Neurobiology Laboratory,

Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Meg Urry

Israel Munson Professor of Physics

and Astronomy, Yale University

Michael E. Webber

Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,

and Associate Professor,

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

University of Texas at Austin

George M. Whitesides

Professor of Chemistry and Chemical

Biology, Harvard University

Amie Wilkinson

Professor of Mathematics,

University of Chicago

Anton Zeilinger

Professor of Quantum Optics, Quantum

Nanophysics, Quantum Information,

University of Vienna GETTY IMAGES

Understanding

through Time

For fun, my husband and I have always followed the traditional

themes for gifts marking significant wedding anniversaries,

starting with paper, when he gave me a (still treasured)

subscription to the New York Times. On our 20th,

I was at first stumped by “china.” We already had

plates. Maybe, I thought, I could focus on the

place rather than porcelain? Horizons opened,

and I settled on bestowing on him a 380-mil-

lion-year-old former denizen of China: a fos-

sil trilobite. My husband was delighted; we

both enjoyed reflecting on the symbolism of

the arthropod’s enduring journey on the earth.

Complex multicellular organisms such as trilo-

bites burst onto the scene during the Cambrian explo-

sion, starting 540 million years ago. The unevenness of fossiliza-

tion, weathering and other processes, however, have made it

difficult to see to the roots of these life-forms. Recent discoveries

in Siberia, Namibia and other places are now showing that com-

plex animals actually got their start millions of years before the

Cambrian period. As geoscientist Rachel  A. Wood of the Univer-

sity of Edinburgh writes in her cover story, “The Rise of Animals,”

new geochemical techniques are also helping us understand why

Cambrian fossils emerged when they did. Dive in to page 24 to

join Wood in her tale about how she and other researchers are

gaining a deeper appreciation of these ancient epochs.

Time’s a-wasting, as the saying goes, for action on climate

change today, as will become obvious when you read “Rough

Weather Ahead,” by Jennifer Francis of the Woods Hole Research

Center in Falmouth, Mass. Specific extreme weather events are

worsened by climate change, scientists can now show. More

heat in the ocean and more heat and vapor in the atmosphere

are affecting weather globally. Regional effects play roles

as well, including an expanding tropical zone, a

“cold blob” in the Atlantic Ocean and disruptions

in the polar vortex. Make haste to page  46.

Theories—in the scientific sense, explana-

tions for observational evidence—around evo-

lution and climate change have been met with

skepticism in certain circles. Vaccines, thanks

to a paper retracted years ago claiming a false

link to autism, have also had critics. It’s tempting

to feel superior to the unconvinced, given the long-

standing supporting evidence that documents how life

evolves through random mutations and natural selection; an-

thropogenic activities are shifting the climate; and inoculations

prevent disease without causing autism.

The process of research, as rational as it is, can nonetheless

take time to clarify any given question. In “Vaccines Reimag-

ined,” starting on page 54, contributing editor Melinda Wenner

Moyer looks at the controversial idea that one immunization,

given properly, can protect against many diseases besides its

target. Is it right? Only time will  tell.