Scientific American - USA (2019-10)

6 Scientific American, October 2019

FROM

THE EDITOR

Curtis Brainard is acting editor in chief of Scientific American.

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

Dragon Up

For me, there’s nothing particularly special about seeing a small
Cessna take to the air. But watching an Airbus A380, the world’s
largest commercial airliner, ascend is something altogether dif-
ferent. The way it lumbers into the sky just doesn’t seem real. Yet
mechanical and aerodynamic adaptations make flight possible
for such bulky  craft.
I imagine I would’ve had the same impression (and a dose of
terror) watching a hulking pterosaur take wing, especially com-
pared with the smaller feathered dinosaurs and birds that
evolved later. Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to fly, and
while some were quite small, others were enormous. And like
today’s jumbo jets, an intricate set of physiological adaptations,
which paleontologist Michael  B. Habib details in this issue’s cov-
er story, “Monsters of the Mesozoic Skies,” allowed them to lift
off. They were quadrupedal and had massive necks, for instance,
much like the fearsome dragons in Game of Thrones, which
inspired Habib and his colleagues when they were naming one
of the pterosaur species. Turn to page  26.
Pterosaurs are now gone, as are, unfortunately, most of the
110,000 or so distinct varieties of rice that were once planted
across India. Some could tolerate flood, drought, salt and pesti-
lence; some had unique nutritional value; and some were just
uniquely pleasant and used in special rituals. With the Green
Revolution in the 1950s and 1960s, the government began to
focus on high-yield cultivars, which can produce a lot of grain
but are expensive and vulnerable to environmental assaults, and

that number has dwindled to about 6,000 varieties across India

to day. Thankfully, as he writes in “Restoring Rice Biodiversity,”

starting on page  54, conservationist Debal Deb has made it his

life’s work to redress this problem.

Whether it’s rice or wheat, we should all eat more whole

grains and more whole foods in general, but markets in the U.S.

and elsewhere are littered with “ultraprocessed” foods, includ-

ing candy bars and potato chips, as well as less obvious things

like flavored yogurt and vodka. New research, which journalist

Ellen Ruppel Shell describes in “Obesity on the Brain,” suggests

that these unnatural concoctions disrupt gut-brain signals in a

way that encourages overeating. More fruits and vegetables, pref-

erably of heirloom varieties, please! Graze on over to page  38.

Elsewhere, scientists recently used a small device called a

diamond anvil cell to apply about half the pressure at the center

of the earth to a mix of lanthanum and hydrogen. Then they

shot the mash with a laser and synthesized an entirely new

material, lanthanum hydride, in hopes of finding a long-coveted

room-temperature superconductor. Such a substance, which fer-

ries a current without resistance, could accomplish technologi-

cal wonders. Be ginning on page  46, journalist Bob Henderson

explains in “The Stuff of Dreams” how theory and computer

modeling are now guiding a decades-old quest that was once

based mostly on guesswork and luck.

Of course, whether it’s studying ancient creatures, biodiver-

sity or something else, all science involves a bit of conjecture and

serendipity. That’s part of what makes the process of research

and discovery so frustrating and ever so delightful. Fortune may

favor the bold, but it rewards inquisitive minds as well.

Illustration by Nick Higgins