8 June 2019 | New Scientist | 19SensesEvolution Virtual realityFracking with CO 2
unlikely to be greenA Chinese research team
has drilled and fracked
five oil wells with carbon
dioxide, rather than water.
They found that the wells
produced up to 20 times
as much oil after the
fracking. But there is a risk
the CO 2 could leak out,
adding to global warming
(Joule, doi.org/c6j5).AI gamer is a great
team playerDeepMind has trained AIs
to team up to play Quake III
Arena, a first-person
shooter video game.
They can outperform
human players and are
also able to work with
human teammates
(Science, doi.org/gf3b39).No cancer risk
from night shiftsNight shifts don’t increase
the risk of breast cancer,
a 10-year study of UK
women suggests. It was
thought that being under
artificial lights makes night
workers produce less of the
night hormone melatonin,
leading to more oestrogen
production, which can
affect breast tumour
growth. Now data from
102,869 women suggests
this may not be the case
(British Journal of Cancer,
doi.org/c6j6).Mouse sense of smell
fixed by squirt of cellsMICE without a sense of smell
have had the ability restored using
stem cells delivered through the
nose. The approach could pave the
way for therapies in humans.
One in eight adults in the US
has problems with their sense of
smell. Most issues are permanent,
and there are few treatments,
says Bradley Goldstein at the
University of Miami, Florida.
While some studies have
restored smell in rodents usingIF YOU hate wasabi-flavoured
snacks, you aren’t alone. It seemed
the entire animal kingdom was
with you in avoiding the chemical
behind the pungent taste –allyl
isothiocyanate (AITC). Now for
the first time we have discovered
that a type of mole rat is immune
to the burning pain caused by AITC.
It raises the prospect of new pain
relief for humans.
Gary Lewin at the Max Delbrück
Center for Molecular Medicine in
Germany and his colleagues have
found that the highveld mole rat
(Cryptomys hottentotus pretoriae)
from South Africa seems insensitive
to AITC when it is injected in its paw.The reason seems to be the
similarity of AITC to the sting
of aggressive Natal droptail ants,
which often live in the rats’ burrows.
The mole rats have a gene that
creates products to block the channel
through which they would feel pain
from AITC. That allows them to
survive in areas other African mole
rat species won’t enter because of
their sensitivity to the ant’s sting.
When Lewin’s team used drugs
to block the gene’s protective effect,
the mole rats did react to the pain
(Science, doi.org/c6km).
“This could help develop a
therapy to shut down pain in
humans,” says Lewin. AVviral gene therapy, this is tailored
for specific conditions. Using
stem cells could let us deal with a
much broader set of problems.
Goldstein says that many of
the smell disorders that people
develop through life seem
to arise from problems in the
tissue lining the nasal cavity,
the olfactory epithelium.
“It seems like some failures
might be in repairing damage,”
Goldstein says. “So we were
really interested to know if
there was a way to replace or
restore those damaged cells
that could be beneficial.”Koalas spotted in
immersive VRKOALAS are in trouble because
of habitat destruction and climate
change, but to help them, we
need to be able to find them. The
solution may be airborne thermal
cameras and virtual reality.
“Koalas can be really hard to
spot, even by trained observers.
They are slow-moving and cryptic,
often hidden high in the canopy,”
says Catherine Leigh at
Queensland University of
Technology in Australia.
So between 2012 and 2017,
her team did ground surveys and
collected images that were turned
into virtual reality environments.
This let koala experts monitor
multiple sites without the need to
travel (bioRxiv, doi.org/c6kg).
“The viewer is virtually
placed at the site, as though
they were actually there,” says
Leigh. “Immersing someone
in 360-degree imagery is a
very effective way of eliciting
expert information.”
Leigh’s team combined the
virtual surveys with traditional
ground surveys and thermal
images from drones. This
approach proved 75 per cent
more accurate at predicting koala
locations than ground surveys
alone, which are often conducted
by non-expert volunteers. AVHis team genetically modified
mice so the neurons in the nose
that are needed to sense smells,
known as olfactory sensory
neurons, didn’t have the hair-like
structures that pick up odours.
Then they squirted droplets
of basal stem cells into the noses
of some of the rodents. These
cells created mature, working
olfactory sensory neurons.
Modified mice couldn’t detect
a bad smell, but those that had
the stem cell treatment reacted
to the smell in the way a regular
mouse would (Stem Cell Reports,
doi.org/c6kh). Ruby Prosser ScullyMole rat is immune to the
pain caused by wasabi
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