New Scientist Australian Edition 17-Dec-22

Virtual event Wonders of the Arctic: Science on top of the world The Arctic is a harsh yet beautiful region that has fascinated scientists for centuries. Join New Scientist’s Rowan Hooper for this free talk on the region’s wildlife and how humans could refreeze ice in the Arctic circle. We will also hear from glaciologist Ulyana Horodyskyj Pena, who will tell us about the life of a scientist in an extreme environment. On 12 January 2023 at 8pm GMT/3pm EST and later on demand. newscientist.com/events Tours Endangered wildlife of Malaysian Borneo Explore Malaysia’s primary rainforests and wetlands teeming with rare species, just as Alfred Russel Wallace did before writing his 1869 book, The Malay Archipelago. Expect to see orangutans, sun bears, civet cats, gibbons (pictured), rhinoceros hornbills and more. newscientist.com/tours…

Virtual event Wonders of the Arctic: Science on top of the world The Arctic is a harsh yet beautiful region that has fascinated scientists for centuries. Join New Scientist’s Rowan Hooper for this free talk on the region’s wildlife and how humans could refreeze ice in the Arctic circle. We will also hear from glaciologist Ulyana Horodyskyj Pena, who will tell us about the life of a scientist in an extreme environment. On 12 January 2023 at 8pm GMT/3pm EST and later on demand. newscientist.com/events Tours Endangered wildlife of Malaysian Borneo Explore Malaysia’s primary rainforests and wetlands teeming with rare species, just as Alfred Russel Wallace did before writing his 1869 book, The Malay Archipelago. Expect to see orangutans, sun bears, civet cats, gibbons (pictured), rhinoceros hornbills and more. newscientist.com/tours Podcasts Weekly Podcast host Rowan Hooper speaks to Shakespearean scholar…

WHAT a year. At the start of 2022, many were hoping for a return to normality as vaccines allowed countries to end covid-19 measures (see page 24). Instead, Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering or exacerbating many other global crises in addition to the terrible things happening in Ukraine itself. Russia attempted to blackmail Europe by withholding gas, sending energy prices soaring. It also prevented the export of grain and sunflower oil from Ukraine’s ports, sharply hiking food prices. Along with the supply chain disruptions resulting from the pandemic – and from Brexit in the UK – this led to the cost-of-living crisis that is affecting people all around the world, making it hard for many to afford food and heating. As leaders struggled to deal with this interlinked polycrisis, the headline-grabbing promises made…

WHAT a year. At the start of 2022, many were hoping for a return to normality as vaccines allowed countries to end covid-19 measures (see page 24). Instead, Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering or exacerbating many other global crises in addition to the terrible things happening in Ukraine itself. Russia attempted to blackmail Europe by withholding gas, sending energy prices soaring. It also prevented the export of grain and sunflower oil from Ukraine’s ports, sharply hiking food prices. Along with the supply chain disruptions resulting from the pandemic – and from Brexit in the UK – this led to the cost-of-living crisis that is affecting people all around the world, making it hard for many to afford food and heating. As leaders struggled to deal with this interlinked polycrisis, the headline-grabbing…

STEP one of NASA’s return to the moon is complete. On 11 December, the uncrewed Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, completing its 26-day journey to the moon and back as part of the Artemis I mission. The return was unlike those of other lunar spacecraft. It began as it hurtled into the atmosphere, with its heat shield reaching temperatures of around 2760°C. But instead of continuing to plunge towards the sea, the capsule performed what engineers call a skip entry because of its similarity to a stone skipped across a pond. Once it reached an altitude of about 61 kilometres, it flipped upside down to quickly change its centre of gravity, popping it back upwards by about 30 kilometres, nearly all the way back…

A TEENAGER with aggressive leukaemia now has no detectable cancer cells after becoming the first person to receive a new kind of CRISPR gene-editing treatment, called base editing. It won’t be clear for some years whether she will remain free of leukaemia. Alyssa (pictured), who is 13 years old, hadn’t responded to other treatments. As part of a trial, she received a dose of donated immune cells from a donor that had been modified to attack the cancer. Twenty-eight days later, tests revealed she was in remission, according to results presented at the annual American Society of Haematology meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, last week. Leukaemia is usually treated by chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. If this fails, doctors can try so-called CAR-T therapy. This involves adding a gene to a type…