Features

LONDON — The latest dispute to blow up around the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concerns glyphosate, an ingredient in one of the world’s most widely used weed killers, Roundup, made by Monsanto.

In March 2015, an IARC monograph concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic”. Yet, seven months later the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), an independent agency funded by the EU, published a different assessment, saying glyphosate is “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans”.

The EFSA study drew on work by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, which had concluded there was “no validated or significant relationship” between exposure to glyphosate and an increased risk of cancer.

Some campaign groups have suggested EFSA was unduly influenced by studies backed by Roundup’s manufacturer, Monsanto. An EFSA spokesman said its assessment considered hundreds of scientific studies, both independent and industry-sponsored.

“The status of a study — e.g. independent or industry-sponsored — is irrelevant to the assessment if the study is designed, carried out and reported well,” he said in an e-mailed response. He said EFSA had published detailed information about every study used in its glyphosate assessment, including regulatory studies submitted by companies.

The World Health Organisation — IARC’s parent organisation — and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which first assessed glyphosate in 1986 and has reviewed it several times since then, had also previously concluded that glyphosate “has low toxicity for humans”.

The differences might seem modest, but they have potentially huge implications for farmers, the food industry and consumers because IARC’s ruling may affect whether the European Union continues to authorise glyphosate for use in Europe. EU officials are now faced with conflicting scientific advice. Without the herbicide, say some campaigners, food production may suffer.

A public war of words between EFSA and IARC has ensued. It began with a letter last November from 96 scientists who wrote to a senior EU official urging him to ignore what they said was a “flawed” EFSA assessment of glyphosate and to prefer IARC’s judgement instead.

The letter was led by the American scientist Chris Portier, who has long had links to the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF), a US non-governmental campaign group. The EDF opposes the use of pesticides and describes its mission as preserving “the natural systems on which all life depends”. On IARC’s website Portier was listed in 2013 as affiliated to the EDF as a “Senior Collaborating Scientist”.

In 2014, Portier chaired an IARC meeting at which the agency’s priorities for the coming year were outlined. They included an evaluation of glyphosate. The following year, Portier served as an “invited specialist” to the working group which decided that glyphosate was probably carcinogenic.

Critics say Portier’s EDF connections represent a conflict of interest and argue IARC should not have allowed him to be involved in the glyphosate evaluation. IARC said his involvement presented no problem, since he took part only as an invited specialist, who does not draft any text or participate in the evaluation.

Asked by Reuters whether he had a conflict of interest, Portier said: “I agree that this has the appearance of being a conflict of interest. However, in my opinion, for this to be a real conflict of interest, I would have to be working for the EDF on pesticide related issues and/or specifically on glyphosate related issues. I am not.” He said IARC’s decision to include him as an invited specialist was “proper and reasonable”.

EFSA defended its finding on glyphosate and hit back at IARC. In a speech to the European Parliament in December 2015, EFSA Executive Director Bernhard Url described IARC as engaging in “Facebook science”. He said the agency was taking an approach where “you have a scientific assessment, you put it on Facebook and you count how many people like it”.

Url said that was not how EFSA operated: “For us, this is no way forward. We produce a scientific opinion, we stand by it, but we cannot take into account whether it will be liked or not.”

Url also published an 18-page response to the letter from the 96 scientists, explaining how EFSA took a different approach to IARC. In it he invited IARC to a meeting to discuss their evidence and methodologies. IARC declined, demanding instead that EFSA issue a correction to its letter, which it alleged contained “factual errors”.

Kurt Straif, the head of IARC’s monographs assessing whether substances cause cancer, said his agency had turned down the invitation because EFSA had failed “to correct false statements”, and because “we don’t see a basis for a discussion within closed doors”.

An EFSA spokesman said it was “regrettable that the meeting is not going to take place”, and said EFSA “restates its commitment to co-operate with IARC and any other scientific organisation involved in the assessment of pesticides”.

Launched globally at the Frankfurt Motorshow late last year and arriving in the Middle East market earlier this month, the latest generation Audi A4 is an all-new and thoroughly improved product. Refined and advanced, the new A4 is lighter, more dynamic and luxurious vehicle, and makes big strides in driver assistance and infotainment technology.

So far offered with choice of several petrol — and diesel options for Europe — the A4’s four petrol power models includes two high efficiency models, including the 2.0 TFSI Ultra. Sitting between the 148BHP 1.4 TFSI and 248BHP full-fat 2.0 TFSI, the 187BHP Ultra’s sophisticated combustion cycle delivers big engine low-end responses yet ekes out particularly frugal fuel efficiency.

Elegantly assertive

Slightly larger and roomier than its’ predecessor, the new A4 is nevertheless up to 120kg lighter — depending on model — owing mainly to increased aluminium content in its construction. The new A4 makes weight saving cuts in other components, including aluminium suspension, which reduces overall and unsprung mass, for enhances ride comfort, refinement and handling finesse.

Debuting a sharper and more assertive yet classy and somewhat understated design evolution for Audi’s saloon car range, the A4 features clean, crisp and defined lines and surfacing. However, its design character is dominated by an aggressively sophisticated hexagonal grille, which is flanked by slimmer more moodily browed and angular headlights with defined LED elements and big hungry lower air intakes.

With broad and tall grille and sculpted sills emphasising width and a sporty side, the A4’s sensible level waistline provides good visibility and an airy cabin, while a shorter front overhang and big footprint provide a confident road stance. With its design, mirrors, wheel wells and underbody covers smoothly managing airflow, the A4’s achieves best-in-class CD0.23 aerodynamics, depending on model and external variables.

Clever combustion

Powered by an innovative adapted Miller-cycle version of Audi’s 2.0 TFSI engine, the Ultra model uses what Audi terms “rightsizing” rather than downsizing to achieve efficiency and performance. With intake valves closing much earlier than usual and shorter compression and longer expansion phases, the Ultra only needs to compress as much as a 1.4 TFSI engine, but takes advantage of its larger displacement during its expansion phase. 

Also featuring specially adapted combustion chambers, intake ducts, piston recesses and turbocharging to allow a short compression phase, the Ultra is designed to greatly enhance fuel efficiency and reduce emissions when driven at partial load — as car are most often driven. Meanwhile, fuel injection pressure is raised, while the engine’s valve-lift system also operates to ensure responsive power and torque delivery.

Clever and effective, the Ultra’s revised combustion method is combined with and electric turbocharger wastegate and exhaust manifold integrated in the cylinder head for optimised thermal management. Mated to a slick and responsive seven-speed dual clutch gearbox with reduced weight and friction, and automatic coasting ability, as well as stop/go city driving and efficient aerodynamics, the Ultra achieves frugal 5.3l/100km combined fuel efficiency.

Smooth and tidy

Developing 187BHP over 4200-6000rpm and 236lb/ft throughout 1450-4200rpm, the 2.0 TFSI Ultra is responsive and consistently muscular, with little turbo lag and a broad generous mid-range providing versatility and underwriting power accumulation. Dispatching the 0-100km/h dash in 7.3 seconds and capable of 240km/h, the Ultra features short low gears for responsive performance and tall higher gears for efficiency and refinement. 

Front-driven with a low-mounted in-line engine and just ahead of equal length drive shafts, the A4 develops super off-the-line traction and well-suppresses torque-steer, which is also controlled by a brake-based torque vectoring system when taking tight corners with heavy and early throttle input. Considerably more agile and balanced than its front drive predecessors, the new A4 enhanced dynamics also benefit from a new light aluminium five-link suspension set-up.

With upper links directly integrated into bodywork for improved stiffness, the new A4 comfortably absorbs longitudinal forces and delivers sporty lateral stiffness. Nimbler and tidier than before, the new A4 tucks in crisply and also features responsive, precise and well-weighted electric-assisted steering. If slightly less nimble with the heavier torquier engine than the 1.4 TFSI, the 2.0 TFSI is offered with comfort or sports suspension with adaptive or fixed dampers.

Advanced assistance

Composed and taut through switchbacks and reassuringly stable, smooth and refined at speed, the driven A4 — riding on optional 245/40R18 tyres — had a good balance between supple rid comfort, grip and control through corners. Over imperfections and on rebound it felt settled. Elegant and ergonomic inside, the A4 offers an alert driving position, good visibility, excellent adjustability, decent space, quality leathhers and materials and an attractive user-friendly layout.

Extensively well-equipped with standard features and a long options list, the A4 is available with head’s up display a versatile configurable Virtual Cockpit instrument cluster screen. Optional equipment includes a Bang and Olufsen sound system and an 8.3-inch centre screen infotainment system upgrade, with voice control, smartphone integration, detachable rear seat tablets and a 3D navigation system able to operate in cooperation with safety and assistance systems.

Available with numerous advanced high-tech semi-autonomous and safety systems include the A4’s driver assistance suite includes Pre-sense City Safety, which can prevent collisions at 40km/h and mitigate severity to 85km/h. Additionally, its Tour package features radar-based adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping and traffic jam assist systems, which can even assume steering control on well-developed roads up to 65km/h, and can even anticipate and prepare for corners.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, in-line turbocharged 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82.5 x 92.8mm

Compression ratio: 11.7:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch, front-wheel drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 187.4 (190) [185.3] @4200-6000rpm

Specific power: 94.4BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 133.3BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 236 (320) @1450-4200rpm

Specific torque: 161.3Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 227.7Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 7.3 seconds

Top speed: 240km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined:

6.6/4.5/5.3-litres/100km*

CO2 emissions, combined: 119g/km*

Fuel capacity: 54 litres

Length: 4726mm

Width: 1842mm

Height: 1427mm

Wheelbase: 2820mm

Track, F/R: 1572/1555mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.23-0.27

Overhangs, F/R: 880/1026mm

Headroom, F/R: 1039/953mm

Luggage volume, min/max: 480/965 litres

Unladen weight: 1405kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 11.5 metres

Suspension: Five-link, adaptive dampers

Brakes: Ventilated discs

Tyres: 245/40R19 (optional)

*As tested, with 18-inch wheels

PITTSBURGH — In the ever-changing, often complicated world of breast cancer detection, a large study led by a Pittsburgh researcher shows that ultrasound screening detected as many breast cancers as mammograms in women with dense breasts.

But don’t expect an ultrasound instead of a mammogram any time soon.

For now, the study recommends it as a complementary test for women with dense breast tissue — a situation facing about 40 per cent of women age 40 and older. While the two methods spotted about the same number of cancers, the study found that more cancers detected on mammography were milk duct carcinomas in situ or DCIS while more cancers seen on ultrasound were invasive breast cancers.

Mammography uses low-dose X-rays and ultrasound uses sound waves to examine breast tissue.

“Where mammography is available, ultrasound should be seen as a supplemental test for women with dense breasts who do not meet high-risk criteria for screening MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and for high-risk women with dense breasts who are unable to tolerate MRI,” states the study published online this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Wendie A. Berg, a physician in the Department of Radiology at Magee-Womens Hospital, led the American College of Radiology Imaging Network protocol 6666 breast cancer screening study, which involved 2,662 women in the United States, Canada and Argentina. Participants underwent three annual breast screenings through ultrasound and digital mammography then had a biopsy or 12-month follow-up examination.

A mammogram often cannot distinguish between white fibrous breast tissue and white tumour cells, unless calcifications are present. Berg says it has been described as trying to see a polar bear in the snow. In ultrasound screenings, however, such tumours show up grey, making them easier to spot.

Berg’s website, DenseBreast-info.org, says dense breasts have more fibrous and glandular rather than fatty tissue. In women with extremely dense breasts, cancer is up to six times more likely than in those with fatty breasts.

While mammograms find cancers undetected by other screening tests, they can miss more than 50 per cent of early cancers present in dense breasts, suggesting the need for additional screening through ultrasound or MRI.

The study, however, did find that ultrasound screening produced more false positives. Berg said they can be reduced by comparing results with previous mammograms and prior ultrasound examinations, and biopsies resulting from ultrasound are done with a needle rather than surgery. “The combination of mammograms and ultrasound cut down on false alarms,” she said.

Ultrasound screenings sometimes can replace mammograms for women who are pregnant or who have disabilities. But the discomfort of mammograms that some women experience alone isn’t sufficient reason for physicians to order an ultrasound, she said. Ultrasound as a diagnostic tool may require out-of-pocket expenses from the deductible or copay for most health insurance plans.

“It’s a case-by-case situation, but we are not encouraging ultrasound alone for the broad population of women,” Berg said.

Screening through tomosynthesis, or 3D mammography, was not included in the study. Berg said she’s just starting a large clinical trial, with participants still being accepted, that uses ultrasound screening after 3D mammography.

Women deemed to be at high risk for breast cancer typically are advised to undergo MRI, which is considerably more expensive but able to spot far more cancers than any other screening method.

For patients in developing countries who do not have access to mammography, ultrasound could be a viable option. Breast cancers are increasing worldwide with more than 1.6 million new cases in 2010 and 425,000 deaths. The number of new cases each year is expected to grow to 2.1 million by 2030.

The study says ultrasound screening can be done with a portable device costing about $15,000, or about a tenth the cost of mammography technology.

NEW YORK — Messy party photos, offensive tweets, pepper spraying student protesters... sometimes, you just want a do-over when it comes to your online presence. And for a hefty price tag, you can.

The University of California, Davis is under fire for contracting consultants for at least $175,000 to clean up its online reputation after a November 2011 incident in which campus police pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters, according to a report in the Sacramento Bee. If that PR campaign worked at all, it’s now backfired. Here’s how this sort of reputation scrubbing is supposed to help  — and some ways hurt.

Call the pros

Services such as Reputationdefender.com and Naymz.com offer to clean up your name, or, as the latter advertises, achieve your “professional and personal aspirations”. A company called ICMediaDirect advertises reputation control for $6,300, in which the service will try to “push down” your undesirable search results by populating Google with friendly links instead. These companies did not return messages seeking information about their services.

Instead of lawsuits, for example, the companies promise that search results will turn up your LinkedIn profile, business website or other sites that portray you in a more positive light. Of course, there’s no guarantee any of this will work; it’s awfully hard to delete anything permanently from the Internet.

Or just ask, if you’re continental

If you happen to be in Europe, you can also exercise your “right to be forgotten”. This entails filling out a form that asks search engines like Google to remove certain links when people look up your name. Of course, this means nothing if someone Googles you in the US.

Some things don’t erase

Just ask Justine Sacco, the former IAC media relations representative who lost her job after an unfortunate tweet — one widely seen as racist, although Sacco said she was aiming for irony — raised the hackles of the Twitterverse. Three years later, the incident still turns up first when you search for her name on Google.

You also have to consider the possible blowback when and if your clean-up attempts see the light of day. That’s the pickle UC Davis is in now. Some California legislators have called for the resignation of university chancellor Linda Katehi, who approved the PR campaign.

Get old-fashioned

For companies and public figures like celebrities and politicians, putting a positive spin on the negative can be as simple — or as complicated — as getting a friendly story in the news. Being proactive is key.

Terry Corbell, a business performance consultant, recommends “shameless self-promotion” as a way to build a positive online reputation before disasters happen. Be active on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have a strong reputation to begin with, it’s easier to deal with the bad stuff if and when it happens. And if it does?

“If an organisation is at fault, they need to come clean,” he says. “First is admission of guilt.” Katehi did apologise for the original pepper spraying — but so far hasn’t followed suit in the current controversy.

Whitefly
Abdelilah Hamdouchi
Translated by Jonathan Smolin
Cairo: Hoopoe/AUC Press, 2016
Pp. 136 

Moroccan writer Abdelilah Hamdouchi is a pioneer of police fiction in Arabic, but he doesn’t limit himself to crimes and how they get solved. In the tradition of the Swedish partner-writers, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, many of his stories have social and political overtones. “Whitefly,” originally published in Arabic in 2000, is no exception. 

Much is packed into this relatively short, fast-paced novel. Detective Laafrit’s efforts to unravel a puzzling crime take him from dilapidated police stations to fancy nightclubs and mansions, from the streets of Tangiers to isolated rural areas, from the sea to the mountains. Cooperation with the Spanish police leads across the Straits of Gibraltar to the miserable camps of immigrant farmworkers in Almeria, and plays no small part in unlocking the puzzle. With sparse, well-chosen words, Hamdouchi gives a taste of life in all these settings, and manages to make even secondary characters come alive, including a belly dancer, a reformed human trafficker and a couple of Sufi policemen. 

Many aspects of modern-day Morocco are on display, including its place in the triangle of agricultural competition with Spain and Israel. This is not the Tangiers which inspired many American and European writers and artists in the past, but the Tangiers of modern globalisation. While the city retains a certain beauty, like Morocco itself, it is plagued by unemployment, poverty, drug smuggling, human trafficking and remnants of colonialism. As one policeman says, “Here’s Morocco today, a country without fish because Spanish fleets have cleaned out our seas. Thousands of their fishermen make their living off our shores while our children fatten their fish with their corpses.” (p. 22)

Meanwhile, a mysterious blight is destroying tomato crops — a main export and staple of local food. 

Police detective Khalid Ibrahim, whose nickname, Laafrit, means crafty in Moroccan Arabic, is the hero of the story, but he is not Superman. He suffers from everyday ailments — the difficulties of quitting smoking, upset stomachs and problems with his wife. His reputation and nickname derive from his intellect and devotion to his job. As the only cop in Tangier who speaks Spanish fluently, he is designated to work with the Spanish police to fight drugs and illegal immigration. That is why he is called in when four bodies wash up on the shores of Tangiers. It is assumed they are “harraga” — illegal immigrants who throw away their IDs and crowd into pateras, hoping to cross the Mediterranean to Spain and get work, but sometimes drowning instead.

Still, the case is unusual because most immigrants no longer embark from Tangiers but from the Spanish enclaves, Ceuta (Sebta) and Melilla, vestiges of colonialism on Moroccan soil. This causes Laafrit to examine the bodies more closely, and he discovers that one of them was shot before being dumped into the sea, making the case even more unusual because of the use of a gun. Here one learns something interesting about Morocco: Unlike in many countries of the world, possessing a gun is highly exceptional. Even big drug smugglers don’t ordinarily have one, making one of Laafrit’s assumptions about the crime’s motive — a drug deal gone bad — questionable. Indeed, while drugs and human trafficking are involved, the network he discovers is much more complex. 

The opening pages of the novel not only reveal the crime but are also infused with hints about the prevailing socioeconomic and human rights situation. As Laafrit heads for the commissioner’s office, he encounters demonstrations of unemployed youth and university graduates “raising long banners written years ago, still bearing the same slogans, all of them demanding work and criticising the government.” (p. 3)

With this small detail, Hamdouchi shows that the problem of unemployment is pervasive and persistent. The street is crowded with police and vans ready for anticipated arrests. It is assumed that the police will break up the demonstrations violently. Indeed, throughout the novel, it is clear that the police enjoy extensive powers. They have no need for warrants to search or arrest. On the other hand, their offices are shabby; they have no cafeteria and do not receive overtime pay. Still, a flashback into the youth of Laafrit and his wife, who met at Marxist student gatherings, shows that much has changed since the cruel persecution of the opposition at that time. 

“Whitefly” is one of the first titles to be published by Hoopoe, a new division of The American University of Cairo Press, which bills itself as “an imprint for engaged, open-minded readers hungry for outstanding fiction that challenges headlines, re-imagines histories, and celebrates original storytelling”. Judging from “Whitefly”, this is a new source of exciting reading.

Scientists have devised a wearable sweat monitor that keeps tabs on your health by monitoring the chemical composition of your perspiration.

The new device, recently described in Nature, is flexible enough to move with the body and has Bluetooth capabilities so it can send information in real time to a smartphone.

Someday it could alert sweat drenched users to risks of dehydration, fatigue, stress and other physical ailments, making activity monitors like Fitbit look awfully basic.

“The goal, ultimately is to have a pathology lab right on the body,” said Ali Javey, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and the senior author on the paper.

For now, the group’s monitor can track the levels of four biomarkers in sweat including electrolytes like sodium and potassium, and metabolites like glucose and lactate. It also has a sensitive temperature sensor.

The authors note that low levels of sodium and potassium in sweat could signal the onset of muscle cramps and dehydration, while monitoring glucose in sweat could provide clues to glucose levels in the body. Sweat lactate levels have been shown to be correlated with low blood flow in certain parts of the body.

But this is only the beginning, Javey said. The team is already looking at an array of other proteins, molecules and ions that could offer more clues to a person’s physical well-being.

For decades, doctors have relied primarily on blood, and to a lesser extent urine and saliva, to get information about how well the body is functioning in a specific moment in time. Sweat was one bodily fluid largely missing from that panel, mostly because collecting enough perspiration to use in a chemical analysis was challenging.

The new monitor still requires the user to be perspiring, but they do not have to be dripping with sweat for the sensors to work. Javey explained that the sensors can get accurate measurements from just 1/10th of a droplet of perspiration. In the future, he’d like to see that amount get even smaller.

“The long-term goal is to see if we can work with minimum amount of body liquid, so you won’t need to exercise for the monitor to work,” he said.

The new device is not the first wearable sweat monitor, but it is one of the first to measure a suite of biomarkers at the same time.

Javey said the group had two major challenges. First, they had to design four sensors that each track a single chemical in the complex chemical world of perspiration. Then, they had to make sure that those readings were interpreted correctly as environmental factors like temperature changed.

“A change in temperature can change the output of a sensor,” he said. “When you start to sweat your temperature drops — that’s how the body dissipates heat. But as you keep exercising your temperature goes back up.”

To ensure the readings are accurate over time, his group built a small, flexible computer that can calibrate the temperature reading with the sensing data.

The sensors are plastic based and disposable, and rest on the skin. They attach to a flexible circuit board that can be reused. The entire system can be tucked into an athletic wristband or headband to make wearing it more comfortable.

Jason Heikenfeld, an electrical engineer at the University of Cincinnati, said the new sweat monitor looks impressive.

“Making a wearable band that electrochemically senses sweat analytes is extremely difficult,” he wrote, in a News and Views article in Nature.

He notes that more work needs to be done before sweat monitors become commercially available but adds that the remaining challenges to not seem insurmountable.

In the future, he predicts, we may no longer remember how we lived without our personalised sweat trackers.

Computers may trounce humans at games like chess and Go, but there’s one game we’ve still got a lock on: quantum physics. Scientists who had people play an online video game that mimicked a troublesome quantum mechanical problem found that the gamers were far better than the computers at working out viable solutions.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, offer a surprisingly effective method of dealing with still-puzzling problems in quantum mechanics — and show that artificial intelligence may still have a lot to learn from the power of human intuition.

Scientists have been working to develop quantum computers, which takes advantage of the bizarre ways in which matter behaves at the tiniest of scales. Quantum computers have the potential to vastly outstrip the abilities of conventional devices, allowing them to perform a wide range of complex tasks, from cracking encrypted codes to operating self-driving cars.

But the very qualities that make quantum computing such an appealing way to store and process information also make its components exceedingly difficult to work with.

“If you’re not confused about quantum physics, that’s because you haven’t understood it,” said lead author Jacob Sherson, a quantum physicist at Aarhus University in Denmark, echoing a sentiment notably expressed by legendary Danish physicist Niels Bohr. “And that’s why no one thought you could think intuitively or rationally about quantum mechanical processes.”

Classical physics describes the physical world as we experience it at large scales (including the scales we humans operate in); quantum physics rules the world of tiny, particle-sized things, far beyond our perception. Quantum mechanics is built on uncertainties, and on rules that have no analogue in the day-to-day world in which we operate.

For example, according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, you can’t perfectly know a particle’s speed as well as its momentum at the same time. The more accurately you know its position, the more uncertain its momentum, and vice versa. And Schrodinger’s famous feline thought-experiment illustrates how a given object can be in two mutually exclusive states at the same time: A possibly poisoned cat in a box is living and dead — until you open the box to observe it. (Of course, this isn’t actually the case with cat-sized things; this effect only works on exceedingly tiny scales.)

For this paper, a team of Danish scientists was trying to deal with the pesky problem of moving atoms around without wrecking the information they contained. The scientists suspended them in “light crystals” and then would use optical tweezers to move them around. But there’s a problem: These atoms easily lose the information they carry.

“We had atoms in arrays like eggs in an egg tray, and we wanted to pick up atoms and move them around,” Sherson said. “But atoms, they are not really balls; they are more like waves. So as soon as you pick them up, they start to slosh and have motion, and it’s very hard to move these things fast.”

Sherson compared the problem to walking with a cup of coffee: If you walk slowly, it’s easy; but if you have to hurry, then it’s very hard to avoid spilling some of that liquid. The same goes for the particle wave: The faster that atom is moved from one location to another, the more likely it is to lose precious information.

So why not just move those atoms at a more sedate pace? Because they can’t hold onto their information for long, and can drop it at the slightest disturbance. If the researchers move too slowly, their particles lose the information anyway.

So researchers have had to rely on powerful computers to try and find tactics allowing them to move the atom at that Goldilocks pace, neither too fast nor too slow. The problem is that computers really aren’t up to this complex task, Sherson said.

If you give a computer this task, it will try to find the answer by checking every single possible solution — a gargantuan task that it would never finish in time. Humans, on the other hand, have a real knack for forgetting, or filtering, information — tossing out irrelevant bits and focusing on the parts that might really matter.

The researchers turned to a fount that many scientists have dipped into in recent years: citizen science, pulling on the collective efforts of lay folk to tackle a given problem. Galaxy Zoo asks people to help classify large numbers of galaxies, and video games such as Foldit have been used to help researchers study protein folding.

“One can do things in games that cannot be done in reality, so gamers are used to experimenting with possibilities that go beyond the classical laws of physics,” Sabrina Maniscalco of the University of Turku in Finland, who was not involved in the study, wrote in a commentary. “Perhaps this ability to think outside the box allows them to make the creative leap necessary to tackle quantum problems.”

The researchers designed a game platform called Quantum Moves. In one of the games, called BringHomeWater, players are asked to transport a moving, water-like wave to a target area as fast as possible without spilling it. They found that the players developed solutions that were far more effective than their computer could — and they did so at speeds that, according to the researchers’ computer simulation, they’d thought impossible.

Their solutions drew upon what Sherson called a “perfect mixture” of classical mechanics, as well as quantum mechanics — even though they’re two very different ways of describing the world. On the classical side: Accelerating an object down a steep slope will get it to move faster. On the quantum side: If a particle knocks at a barrier enough times, it can eventually appear on the other side — a phenomenon known as “tunnelling”.

“The players somehow have some sort of intuition for this research problem that we didn’t imagine you could use intuition for,” Sherson said. “But placing it in this context of a game enabled humans to sort of look through the complexities of all that quantum-shmantum that we talk about.”

The researchers are continuing to use the human generated solutions to improve the methods that could help make quantum computing a commercial reality one day. And they expect that different games can help scientists better understand a host of different quantum-mechanical quandaries.

“Whether [the authors’] method will be applicable to a wide range of problems in quantum physics is currently an open question,” Maniscalco wrote. “But because we are on the verge of a new era of quantum technologies, this approach is definitely worth pursuing.”

The findings, Sherson added, also raise questions about human intuition — how it does what it does and whether it’s possible to replicate it in artificial intelligence. 

“What I think is we are inherently survivors. … Survival and adaptation are just built into our being,” Sherson said. “In this ever-changing world, we will always adapt to it.”

MURANG’A, Kenya — Samuel Kinuthia knows how to make the most of technology. Using a technique called basin terracing, he has boosted his income at his farm in Murang’a county, and helped provide Kenyans as far away as Nairobi with better access to clean drinking water.

Kinuthia and a group of 300 farmers in Kiaruta village are turning hilly land into more productive farmland through basin terracing. It also reduces soil erosion, which can choke central Kenya’s rivers and pollute drinking water.

On a sunny morning, Kinuthia and two employees are preparing a fresh strip of land to sow crops on his three-acre farm.

First they dig across a hilly patch to make it into a flat terrace. They then dig square holes to form basins on the strip, where Kinuthia will plant vegetables.

“I used to plant maize and beans but I could not harvest much,” he said. “With basin terracing, I can plant fresh produce like tomatoes, kale and onions. Both the harvest and the resulting income improve because there is a ready market.”

Fred Kihara, water fund manager in Kenya for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), an international environmental organisation, explained that the technology reduces the amount of soil being eroded away into rivers.

“It also increases the amount of water that is being retained in the soil,” he added.

A 2015 study by TNC says the Upper Tana basin — which provides water to an estimated 9 million Kenyans — is a watershed under pressure.

About 65 per cent of the farmers questioned by the group said the productivity of their land had declined even though they use more fertilisers than five years ago. Overall, 80 per cent reported a decrease in rainfall in recent years.

From Kinuthia’s farm in the Upper Tana basin, the view is of stretches of hilly terrain that have been stripped bare of trees. The red soil is easily blown away or eroded.

Protecting source water

Farming on hilly land has increased the amount of soil ending up in rivers that feed the country’s largest water reservoir, the Ndakaini dam, in central Kenya.

In Nairobi alone, 85 per cent of water — or 70 million cubic metres — is supplied by the dam, around 80 kilometres away, according to officials from the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company. More sediment turns the water cloudy, they say.

Soil run-off can include manure and fertiliser used on farms, which may pollute drinking water and make people sick, said Philip Muthui, the company’s production manager.

He hopes that the use of basin terracing by farmers will reduce erosion into rivers, thus protecting Ndakaini water.

Currently, the cost of removing the sediment and treating water at Ndakaini ranges between 6 and 7 Kenyan shillings ($0.06-$0.07) per cubic metre, which Muthui says is too high.

“Reducing sediment load into rivers has cut the cost of treating water by about 3 per cent,” he added.

Efforts to reduce erosion in the Upper Tana basin have been supported by the Nairobi Water Fund, a $10 million public-private partnership between TNC, the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company and the Kenyan government, among others.

“Water security is likely to pose a bigger challenge as climate change leads to less water in the dry season and heavier deluges in the rainy season,” said Eddy Njoroge, the fund’s president.

“This is compounded by population growth that reduces the amount of water available per head,” he said, adding that the fund was set up to tackle these issues.

The project aims to improve water quality in the Tana basin, safeguard Nairobi’s main water source and improve the incomes of thousands of people through sustainable land management, he said.

Kinuthia has been using basin terracing for just over a year. He is grateful it has opened up a new revenue stream for his family through fresh produce farming.

On a good day, for example, he can harvest 8kg of kale. A 5kg bundle of kale can fetch him 1,000 shillings ($10), while the rest is eaten at home.

When he was farming maize and beans, “the little that I harvested would end up being consumed by the family”, leaving him with nothing to sell, he explained.

Is it the end of the traditional fixed phone? Is it going to become as exceptionally used as the diehard fax system? 

By now and in a general manner, we’re using mobile phones more frequently than fixed land sets to make calls. At home the trend is obvious, for it is easier to make a call from wherever we may be sitting or standing, instead of moving to where the fixed set is and reaching out for it. It is not just about laziness, it is about speed and convenience.

Even at work, at our desk where the good old traditional phone is at reach, we still tend to use mobile phones more often, for a number of good reasons: the convenient contacts list and the eventual wireless earphone, to name only two of the great functionalities we have become accustomed to thanks to smartphones and that very few fixed installations come fitted with.

Regardless of what we think or feel about it, of the fact that sometimes a long, important and clear communication can only be achieved through a fixed line, there are signs here and there that a change is going to come soon. One such tangible sign regarding this matter comes directly from none else than Orange France, the giant telecommunication company that is also operating in Jordan. The company plans to start gradually discontinuing regular land phone lines by 2020 in France. This is big news, though more or less expected.

It is not only regular mobile telephony that is slowly, but surely killing fixed telephony, but the countless channels and services that use your mobile phone and the Internet, especially when you are calling abroad. Skype, Viber and WhatsApp are three of the main such services. So in a way it is actually the Internet that is directly triggering the change, although it is happening indirectly via your smartphone.

Confirming that it is indeed through the Internet that most everything happens today, Orange has made it clear that there will still be “fixed lines” to use in the workplace or at home. However, they won’t go anymore through old traditional analogue cable lines but through digital subscriptions the kind of ADSL and the like. In other words they will be Web-based. Yes, it’s the Web — again!

Many enterprises are already equipped with digital PBX (Private Branch Exchange) telephone systems for their offices. Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, NEC, Avaya, Nortel, Cisco and Panasonic are some of the big names in the game and they all can offer equipment that is tailored for real large enterprises, as well as some that suit small companies and offices. Digital PBX paves the way for the future of web-based, fixed telephone systems.

Expect to use words like “cloud”, “IP address”, “upload/download”, “gigabytes and terabytes”, and other terminology usually reserved to computers and networks, when dealing with your future digital fixed telephone at home or at work. We can reasonably assume that the sets to come will have much in common with smartphones, except that they will be fixed and placed on a table or a desk and won’t need to be recharged. Functionality and convenience, along with large colour screens, and of course the so-important contacts list, will be part of the set-up. Let us just hope that spam messages won’t join in the game.

With traditional analogue fixed telephony going away, it will be one more major shift from analogue to digital, after music and photography.