Philippa Kaur

Amit Katwala’s thorough history of the lie detector test looks at its inventors and some of its earliest cases, placing it, warts and all, in its historical and scientific context

Humans

13 April 2022

By Chris Stokel-Walker
The polygraph test looked scientific because it was based on physiological readingsPeter Dazeley/Getty Images
Tremors in the Blood
Amit Katwala
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THE polygraph test has been used in criminal prosecutions for decades – a silver bullet for police and prosecutors alike. Measuring heart rate, breathing speed and the conductivity of skin, it is supposedly infallible and given the respectable veneer of science in a courtroom. Someone who flunks the test must be lying, their body’s tell-tale signs betraying their deepest secrets.
Yet that is far from reality. “There is no single tell-tale sign of deception that holds true for everyone – no Pinocchio’s nose,” writes Amit Katwala in Tremors in the Blood. A misfiring test has real ramifications: the US-based National Registry of Exonerations holds records of more than 200 people who failed a polygraph test, were convicted of a crime and imprisoned, but were later found to be innocent.
Katwala’s book traces the test’s history, looking at the early adopters of the technology and some of its earliest cases. The book goes back a century, telling the story of John Larson and Leonarde Keeler, co-inventors of the polygraph (called the emotograph by Keeler), and August Vollmer – all three key to its adoption by US police forces and later worldwide.
Larson was a complex character, breathed back to life by Katwala’s meticulous research. A bookish, morally driven individual, Larson joined the Californian police force in the early 1920s. Unlike the high school dropouts and extortionists who filled the force’s ranks then, Larson was the only police officer in the US with a PhD, in physiology. He would work in university labs by day and police the streets at night.
Larson’s master’s thesis had been on the relatively new technology of fingerprint identification, which had recently become admissible in court. He thought there were still more ways of catching criminals. He was lucky to work under a police chief, Vollmer, who was more bookish than he liked to let on.
Vollmer was equally driven to do the right thing, and was constantly trying to improve policing. In 1921, after reading an academic paper by a psychologist and lawyer who had tested whether his friends were lying based on their blood pressure readings, Vollmer asked Larson to develop a machine that could do the same. The result was mocked by fellow officers, and described in newspapers as looking like a combination of radio, gas stove, stethoscope, dentist’s drill, barometer, wind gauge, time ball (an old form of clock) and watch – but it appeared to work.
Katwala vividly portrays those heady early days when the polygraph seemed to catch out liars. Then, he deftly delivers the twist in the tale: 40-odd years after cobbling together the first machine, Larson forswore his invention because of the way it was used. It was “nothing more than a psychological third degree aimed at extorting confessions, as the old physical beatings were”, he said in an interview – far removed from his meticulous scientific approach.
The book captures the wonder of scientific breakthrough – and what happens as the story becomes more complex. In 1965, the year Larson died, the US House Committee on Government Operations warned that the world had been hoodwinked by “a myth that a metal box in the hands of an investigator can detect truth or falsehood”.
Yet the polygraph is still being used. In 2021, the UK began polygraph testing people convicted of terrorism offences and, later that year, convicted domestic abusers, despite the fact there are serious doubts about whether it works.
Why has the polygraph remained on its pedestal? Perhaps because no one, until now, has placed it, warts and all, in its historical and scientific context.

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Richard Linklater’s latest film follows a young boy’s fantasies about travelling to space, using beautiful rotoscoped animation to tell his story, says Simon Ings

Humans

13 April 2022

By Simon Ings

Film
Apollo 10½: A space age childhood
Richard Linklater
Netflix
WHAT we really seek in space is “not knowledge, but wonder, beauty, romance, novelty – and above all, adventure”, sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke told the American Aeronautical Society in 1967, as the gloss was beginning to flake off the Apollo project.
By the time Apollo 11 launched on 16 July 1969, NASA’s bid to land astronauts on the moon (the most expensive civilian undertaking in history) couldn’t help but be overshadowed by the even more costly Vietnam war.
Only a little of this trickles into the consciousness of 10-year-old Stan … More

Neuroscientists have figured out what interior design choices, from flooring to lighting, can help create homes that improve our mental health, decrease stress and fatigue, and even spark creativity

Humans

13 April 2022

By David Robson
Leonie Bos
YOU might recognise the sensation from visits to a friend’s house – the feeling that a space is good for you. Perhaps it is a sense of profound relaxation, as if you left your worries at the door. Or you may have found the perfect office space that leaves you buzzing with creative ideas. Yet try to explain why you felt that way, or recreate those effects at home, and you fall short.
According to the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui, there are rules of harmonious living that affect the flow of energy through your body, and many modern design gurus take a similar line, dishing out guidance in lifestyle magazines and Instagram accounts. They advise on the shape of rooms, materials in furnishings, colours on walls and organisation of books – it may make your home look good, but does it make you feel good?
While there is nothing wrong with going with your gut when it comes to decor, there could be a better way to make design choices. A growing number of neuroscientists are collaborating with architects and interior designers. With carefully controlled experiments using objective physiological and psychological measures, they are starting to systematically test the influence of design elements on brain and body.
The work couldn’t be timelier. The rise of remote working has meant more time at home for many. Whether you want to boost your mood, lower your blood pressure, decrease your bad habits or ease the burden of dementia, this research can provide evidence-based strategies to optimise your living space for your physical and mental health.
The roots of this work lie in … More

CT scans of humans, chimpanzees and macaques reveal that human collarbones slow their growth rate in the final months of pregnancy, perhaps to make it easier for babies to squeeze through the pelvis

Humans

11 April 2022

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre
Collarbones may grow more slowly in the run-up to birthMartins Rudzitis/Getty Images
The collarbones of a human fetus grow more slowly just before birth, with growth then speeding up again during early childhood – probably an evolutionary compromise that allows humans’ relatively wide shoulders to fit through the pelvis.
Broad shoulders may help us with our balance and our ability to throw, and might even help us breathe more effectively. But a fetus with broad shoulders poses a problem during childbirth, because our upright posture has led humans to develop a relatively narrow pelvis.
The newly discovered slow-down-then-catch-up-later growth pattern in human clavicles – collarbones – around the time of birth appears to resolve this “shoulder mystery”, says Naoki Morimoto at Kyoto University in Japan.Advertisement
“There are two things that make human childbirth difficult: a big head and wide shoulders,” he says. “Since [difficult birth] is dangerous… it is sensible to think that humans evolved some ways to ease the problem.”
Previous studies have shown that the heads of human fetuses grow at fast rates in the uterus and then slow down just before birth, he says, which is a trend seen in other primates too – although human heads start to slow down their growth very late compared with other primates.

Curious to know whether the shoulders grow in a similar way, Morimoto and his colleagues examined CT scans of 81 humans (Homo sapiens), 64 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and 31 Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). About half of these subjects were fetuses at various stages of development starting from about the beginning of the second trimester. The others were infants and adults.
The team measured the lengths of various bones in the skull, shoulders, upper arm, pelvis, thigh and vertebral column. Generally speaking, the vertebral column’s growth isn’t affected by birth constraints, so it serves as a good basis of comparison for the growth rates of the other bones, says Morimoto.
The researchers confirmed that the growth rate of the skull in all three species reduced just before birth, says Morimoto. Other bones, such as the arms and pelvis, had steady growth in the uterus, but then picked up speed after birth.
As for the collarbones, chimpanzees showed a fairly steady growth rate from before to after birth, he says. The macaques’ collarbones grew steadily before birth and then more slowly after birth.
The human collarbones, however, showed a standout growth pattern, he says. They slowed down about two months before birth and then sped up again over the next five years – creating what the researchers call a “growth depression” that lines up perfectly with when the shoulders need to fit through the pelvis.
“Currently, we simply do not know why this specific pattern in the shoulder – and not other ways like [a slower, steadier growth] – was selected in humans as a means to ease the difficult childbirth,” says co-author Mikaze Kawada, also at Kyoto University. “We need to wait for further studies.”
Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2114935119
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The Antikythera mechanism, often called the world’s first computer could calculate the timing of cosmic events – and now we may know the date it was calibrated to

Space

7 April 2022

By Leah Crane
A functional model of the Antikythera mechanismA. Voulgaris
We may have figured out the date from which an ancient device often described as the first computer began its calculations. This device, called the Antikythera mechanism, was built sometime between the years 200 BC and 60 BC, and it was used to track time and predict the motions of celestial bodies.
A spiral shape inset in the back of the mechanism depicts a 223-month cycle called a Saros, which is based on the amount of time it takes for the sun, moon and … More

A tsunami 3800 years ago devastated the coastline of Chile and encouraged hunter-gatherers to move inland, where they stayed for the next 1000 years

Humans

6 April 2022

By Michael Marshall
The Atacama desert in ChileShutterstock/tjalex
An earthquake as large as any in recorded history struck the coast of Chile about 3800 years ago, triggering a tsunami that caused devastation along 1000 kilometres of coastline. In the wake of the tsunami, local hunter-gatherers began spending less time near the coast and moved cemeteries further inland, staying there for 1000 years or more, despite not having a system of writing to convey information about the disaster. 
It is a remarkable example of a society transforming itself to handle natural threats, say the researchers who studied the event.
The team, led by Gabriel Easton at the University of Chile in Santiago, spent years in the Atacama desert on the west coast of South America, gathering evidence of an ancient tsunami.Advertisement
At multiple sites, they found a layer of distinctive sediment dumped by a tsunami. Radiocarbon dates from charcoal and shells in archaeological deposits directly overlying the tsunami sediment suggest it happened about 3800 years ago.
It is impressive that the team has found evidence over such a wide area, says Eugenia Gayo, director of Millennium Nucleus Upwell in Concepción, Chile. “It’s robust.”

The coast of Chile lies on a subduction zone, where one of the tectonic plates that make up Earth’s surface is being forced under another. As a result, the region is prone to large earthquakes. However, the written record in this region is quite short, so it is unclear how big the quakes can be and how often the biggest ones occur.
“We propose that this earthquake was similar to the Valdivia earthquake that occurred in 1960 in southern Chile,” says Easton. “This is the largest earthquake ever recorded in history.” The Valdivia quake had a magnitude of about 9.5, and Easton’s team says the tremor 3800 years ago was similar.
In theory, the Valdivia quake could have been a one-off caused by a very rare combination of circumstances, says Easton. But if a similar quake happened within the past 5000 years, that can’t be true. “This is our proposal, that this area in northern Chile is capable to produce earthquakes of this size,” he says.
Other subduction zones may also have been underestimated, says Easton. He points to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, which caused devastation in Japan. Many seismologists thought the region could only produce earthquakes of about magnitude 8.3, but the Tōhoku quake was 9.0 or 9.1.

People have lived in the Atacama for more than 12,000 years. Although the desert gets little rainfall, the marine ecosystems along the coast are rich so hunter-gatherer societies have thrived.
However, Easton and his team documented major shifts that occurred around 3800 years ago. Archaeological sites near the coast show less evidence of habitation, suggesting people stopped going there or at least spent less time there.
Furthermore, cemeteries were moved inland and uphill. The local people mummified their relatives’ bodies and placed great value on having their dead ancestors nearby – a practice that continues to this day in communities in the Andes. “The most important thing that the families and the communities had at that time were their parents,” says Easton, and they took great care to protect them.
This new pattern of behaviour lasted a long time, with many sites only being reoccupied between 1500 and 1000 years ago. “This is kind of surprising, because people usually have a short memory for this kind of event,” says Gayo. Even maintaining the behaviour for 1000 years would have meant sustaining it for 40 generations. “That is a lot.”
It isn’t clear how the memory was preserved. Easton says the message may have been passed on orally, and perhaps through pictures on stone.
For Gayo, the lesson is that sometimes it is necessary to make big changes to adapt to natural hazards. That includes modern societies, which are threatened by growing climate extremes and rising seas. “You need to transform radically,” she says.
Journal reference: Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm2996
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Chris Faulkes and Lorna Faulkes
Watch
The Naked Mole-rat: Animal Superhero by evolutionary ecologist Chris Faulkes will explain how this rodent altered our view of human health and ageing. This online talk by London’s Linnean Society is on 13 April at 12.30 BST.

Read
The Book of Minds by Philip Ball argues that we must look beyond our own brains and delve into the minds of other creatures if we want to truly understand ourselves and comprehend the possibility of alien or machine intelligence.Advertisement
Amazon Studios
Watch
Outer Range stars Josh Brolin as a rancher in the Wyoming wilderness whose grip on reality is called into question when a mysterious black void opens up in his western pasture. It will stream on Amazon Prime from 15 April.

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A portrait of three intrepid glaciologists brings the reality of climate change and glacial melting into sharp focus in this powerful documentary

Humans

6 April 2022

By Davide Abbatescianni
Leading glaciologist Alun Hubbard descends into a seemingly bottomless crevasseCourtesy of CPH:DOX 2022
Into the Ice
Lars Henrik Ostenfeld
CPH:DOX Film FestivalAdvertisement

A MAJESTIC aerial shot of the Arctic landscape opens Lars Henrik Ostenfeld’s epic documentary Into the Ice. Then his narration hits us with the hard truth: “The Greenland inland ice harbours a secret. You can see our future in it.” As if to illustrate what that future might look like, the camera then pans to deep rivers of meltwater.
The message of Ostenfeld’s film is familiar, yet what sets it apart is its focus on the fieldwork of three of the world’s leading glaciologists: Alun Hubbard, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and Jason Box. Ostenfeld travels with them, on three separate trips, to the Arctic as they monitor how fast the Greenland ice sheet is melting.
Ostenfeld provides intimate portraits of the researchers, highlighting their distinct personalities and the motivations behind their work. Box is a family man who, when he isn’t playing with his daughter, is happiest digging the snow while listening to ABBA’s hit Chiquitita. Hubbard, the most adventurous of the three, embraces the idea of living every day as “a complete surprise”. His perilous descent into the depths of a seemingly bottomless crevasse is a case in point.
Dahl-Jensen, as Box describes her, is “about science with a capital S” and is dedicated to drilling ice cores as a window into the past. “When you walk through ice, you walk on climate history,” she says. She points to a darker ice layer, which dates from the last glacial period, while a more distant, lighter part is from an interglacial period.
During his time with the researchers, Ostenfeld becomes fully immersed in their work and their mission. His presence is well balanced and respectful, and his feelings of concern, fear and admiration emerge beautifully through his intimate voice-over commentary.
In this way, Ostenfeld achieves his aim of creating a strong empathic bond with the audience. This allows him to deliver a more serious message about the importance of studying changes in the ice as they are happening, no matter how perilous an undertaking it may be.
Throughout, we learn how the study of ice and its history are essential to uncovering the scope and consequences of climate change, and the importance of collecting and analysing data that will help us update our predictions of global sea level rise.
The initial light-hearted tone and good humour of the scientists gradually give way to a more serious feel as the realities of life and work in the Arctic become clear. We see the scientists face a lashing storm that forces them to hide in their tents for two days. And we feel their fear and excitement as they take on the elements to gather data.
The dangers of fieldwork become only too apparent as Box learns of the death of his mentor, climate scientist Konrad Steffen, who fell into an ice crevasse elsewhere in Greenland, on a separate research trip.
Towards the end of the film, Box and Hubbard head back into the deep crevasse to resume their work, only to discover an uncomfortable truth: the meltwater under the ice has progressed to a level never seen before. The glaciers are melting at a faster pace than we thought and our predictions of sea level rise are probably too cautious.
Accompanied by striking imagery and an engaging instrumental score, Into the Ice is a powerful documentary and one of the unmissable titles of this year’s festival season. It doesn’t try to soften the blow or to end on a hopeful note. Instead, it is a touching wake-up call, rich in sincerity and brutal home truths.

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