Humans

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ALMOST every month, a new piece of research emerges linking diets high in processed “junk” foods with obesity and poor health. It isn’t yet clear if the relationship is causal, and if so, what the mechanisms behind it may be. But insights are starting to emerge from trials that compare diets that are based on either ultra-processed foods or wholefoods, yet are carefully matched for nutrients in all other ways.
The links need investigating as a matter of urgency. If these processed foods really do carry intrinsic health risks, it could mean that official advice about healthy eating has been … More

By Clare Wilson

Fun, cheap and tasty, but perhaps not the healthiest optionSharon Pruitt/EyeEm/Getty Images
CUT down on fatty food. No, sugar. Aim for a Mediterranean diet. And remember to eat more plants…
The variability of healthy eating advice has become a cliché in itself. Yet despite all the contradictions, there is one thing that many agree on: we should avoid junk food. Until recently though, no one could give you a decent reason why. Gastronomic snobbery aside, science lacked an agreed definition of what junk food actually is, and that has made it difficult to know whether we should be avoiding it and, if so, why.
It has long been assumed that processed junk foods are bad because they tend to contain too much fat, salt and sugar. Recent studies, though, suggest that other mechanisms could be at work to make these foods harmful to our health. Getting to grips with what these are could help us not only make healthier choices, but also persuade the food industry to come up with healthier ways of giving us what we like to eat.
One thing’s for sure: we certainly do like it. Factory-made food makes up between 50 and 60 per cent of the average person’s calorie intake in the UK, and around 60 per cent in the US. But while junk food has a bad name among many food lovers, dietary health research and the public health advice that stems from it have so far concentrated either on individual food groups, like meat and dairy products, or the relative amounts of the three macronutrients … More

By Karina Shah

Consumers shop differently when they buy from online supermarketsMaskot/Getty Images
Consumers in the US spend more money when grocery shopping online, but spend less on sweets and desserts than when they shop in store.
In recent years, online grocery shopping has grown massively. Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the amount that consumers spend through online shopping has more than doubled in the US.
Laura Zatz at Harvard University and her colleagues have investigated how people’s habits change when they are spending in store versus shopping online. They recruited 137 participants from two supermarkets of the same chain in the US state of Maine. Each participant was the key shopper for their household, and they also had experience shopping both online and in-store.Advertisement
The researchers studied each participant for a total of 44 non-consecutive weeks and tracked what items they purchased between 2015 to 2017. They collected data from a total of 5573 transactions, 1062 of which were made online and 4511 in store.
“We found differences in both the quantity of foods that people purchased and the types of foods that people purchase when they’re shopping online versus in store,” says Zatz.
People spent more money on sweets and desserts when shopping in store, spending on average $2.50 more per transaction. However, there was no difference in spending on sugary drinks or salty snacks, such as crisps.

“They purchase more items [when shopping online], both in terms of overall number of items but also a greater variety of unique items,” says Zatz. On average, participants spend 44 per cent more per transaction when shopping online than in store.
It seems that in-store shopping entices shoppers to unhealthier food choices. “When you are in store, you are exposed to all sorts of stimuli that could encourage you to buy unhealthy impulse-sensitive food groups when you might not have otherwise planned to,” says Zatz. Unhealthy food choices are often displayed in supermarkets at the end of aisles and at checkouts to encourage unplanned purchases.
The findings could help to inform us about how to encourage healthier food purchasing choices, especially as sophisticated marketing is coming online, says Zatz.
Charles Spence at the University of Oxford is surprised there was no difference in the purchases of “olfactorily-tempting foods”, such as freshly baked bread and coffee. “[They did not] suffer in the online environment, given the absence of smell,” says Spence.
Journal reference: Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour, DOI: 10.1016/j.jneb.2021.03.001

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By Michael Marshall

A shepherd and a herd of goats and rams near Ardabil, IranShutterstock/MAVRITSINA IRINA
Goats were domesticated as early as 10,000 years ago in the area around the Zagros mountains in what is now western Iran. The finding suggests goats were one of the first animals to be domesticated, with only dogs unambiguously preceding them.
“By 10,000 years ago, we have this lining up of archaeological and genetic data that seems to suggest that we have the first population of managed goats,” says Kevin Daly at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.
Goats are known to have been domesticated in western Asia or eastern Europe. Archaeological evidence suggested this was underway by 8000 BC. At some sites, male goats were being selectively killed at a young age, suggesting they were being kept in pens rather than hunted in the wild. At Aşıklı Höyük in what is now Turkey, goat urine left chemical traces in the soil where the animals were kept.Advertisement
Daly and his colleagues examined goat fossils preserved from two sites in the Zagros mountains: Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein, which have been excavated on and off for decades. They were inhabited between about 8200 and 7600 BC.

The researchers obtained DNA from preserved goat parts from both sites: 14 nuclear genomes, as well as 32 mitochondrial genomes that were only inherited from the animals’ mothers.
Daly and his team found that the goats formed two distinct groups – one was closely related to modern domestic goats, the other to modern wild goats. This means domestication had proceeded beyond the goats simply being kept. “The process of genetic domestication had already begun,” says Daly. Meanwhile, the wild-type goats were probably hunted.
“This is the earliest genetic evidence of goat domestication,” says Daly. “It’s looking more and more like the domestication of goats was probably primarily in or near the Zagros region.”
Dogs were domesticated thousands of years earlier, at least 14,000 years ago. Sheep were domesticated at around the same time as goats, but slightly further west, perhaps in what is now Turkey. Cattle and pigs were domesticated later.
Daly suggests that sheep and goats preceded cattle and pigs because they are smaller and thus easier to restrain. “Cattle are obviously much larger and more dangerous,” he says, as are wild boar.
Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2100901118
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By Karina Shah

Some students struggle with morning lecturesBarry Lewis/Alamy
University students tend to get lower grades if their classes and lectures begin early in the morning.
Attending classes and sleeping well are both associated with increased engagement and performance at university – but a course with lectures scheduled early in the morning might compromise students’ ability to do both.
To investigate, Joshua Gooley at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and his colleagues analysed the grades of 27,281 undergraduates enrolled at the National University of Singapore. The students were attending classes between 2018 and 2020, … More

By Jacob Aron

In The Colonists, you can build a super-efficient world with your robotsCodebyfire
I have been thinking a lot about supply chains recently. It is a marvel of science that more than 1.7 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccines have been administered globally as of 27 May, just a year and a half after the virus was first discovered, but it is also a triumph for logistics.
Getting jabs in arms has meant boosting manufacturing capacity for everything from fatty nanoparticles to glass vials, and we have had to ensure that everything is exactly where it needs to be at exactly the right time. It is amazing that we are managing it, though much more must be done to get vaccines to lower-income countries.
What does any of this have to do with video games? Well, this month, I have been playing a few games that boil down to managing supply chains, and that is more fun than it sounds.Advertisement
First, there is The Colonists, recently released on consoles. The premise is simple, if a bit daft: a bunch of self-3D-printing robots decide to escape humanity and set up their own colony. For some reason, they need food, water and shelter just as humans do, meaning you have to build a civilisation from scratch.
It starts simple – you land a colony ship that is capable of producing a few basic resources, then begin expanding. Make a logging outpost and the robots will start cutting down trees that you can use to build a mine to gather stone. As the game progresses, the supply chains become increasingly complex.
All the resources are distributed by robots following paths you lay out, which creates traffic jams if, like me, your town-planning skills aren’t up to scratch. Thankfully, there is a percentage meter at the top of the screen that tracks how efficiently your robots are transporting resources, compared with a theoretical perfect journey.
“Perhaps your apples are having to travel across half the map to reach a cider press, so you should move it”
You can drill down and see which routes are the worst performing – perhaps your apples are having to travel across half the map to reach a cider press, so you should move it closer to your orchard. If all of this sounds like work, I guess it kind of is – but it is fun, I promise!
The other game I have been playing that is along these lines is Subnautica, which has more of an exploration element to it. You crash-land on an alien world that is covered by a huge ocean, and must scavenge to survive. Starting out with a limited toolset, you mine ore, harvest plants and catch fish, but eventually you will be able to build underwater bases and submarines, allowing you to expand further into the creepy ocean depths. It has really sucked me in, and I am looking forward to checking out the recently released sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero.
There are now loads of games in this supply chain/factory simulation genre – the 2D Factorio is one of the most expansive, while the 3D Satisfactory splits the difference between Factorio and Subnautica by allowing you to wander around your ever-growing factory. One I haven’t yet played, but have my eye on, is Dyson Sphere Program, which gives you entire star systems to harvest in the service of building a Dyson sphere, a megastructure that can capture the energy of a star.
Of course, there is another reason I have been thinking about supply chains. The global computer chip shortage, caused in part by the knock-on effects of the pandemic, means PlayStation 5s are in short supply. Thankfully, after months of trying, I have finally managed to get my hands on one.

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By Sam Wong

Anutr Yossundara/Alamy
MOST foods are pretty challenging to eat when they are frozen, but ice cream manages to be soft and creamy when it has just come out of the freezer. It seems magical, but there are some easy ways to make delicious ice cream at home, without any special equipment.
A basic ice cream is made from cream, milk and plenty of sugar. The sugar doesn’t just provide sweetness, it lowers the freezing point of the cream. To solidify into ice, water molecules must arrange themselves into a framework. Sugar molecules are big and don’t fit into the framework very … More

Josie Ford
A high bar
Breaking news in the world of post. Raffi Katz writes perplexed at the UK Royal Mail’s announcement that it will be withdrawing all parcel products that “do not carry a 2D barcoded label”. Further mystifying those who assumed that labels were by their nature 2D, it goes on to say that this includes not only unbarcoded parcels, but also “1D barcoded product variants… (that use the multi-peel flash labels)”.
We can imagine the 1D labels are a bit fiddly to work with, so it is probably not before time. But of course, it is barcodes with bars that are, to a first approximation, 1D that are to be done away with. A 2D barcode is a blobby affair akin to a QR code that can be read in two directions. A barcode without bars, then. That this is now called a 2D barcode strikes Feedback as a prime example of the human tendency, noted by researchers recently, of finding fixes by adding complexity, rather than taking it away (17 April, p 19).
More examples of such linguistic redundancy through technological progress gratefully received. Meanwhile, Raffi notes that the Royal Mail doesn’t mention any timescale for the change, this presumably being a dimension or three more than they are used to working in.Advertisement
Head in the clouds
“They said money doesn’t grow on trees. We’re here to tell you, THEY were wrong.” So begins an email sent to Jeff Hecht, introducing what its subject line claims to be the “First EVER game to grow digital weed NFTs + earn crypto — influencer and celeb backed”.
“What if, by playing a game akin to Farmville and Roblox, users could use the power of Cannabis to build virtual farms, grow weed and make money?”, it asks. What if, indeed. Having confronted the uniquely self-important confluence of the cryptocurrency and art worlds a few weeks ago (1 May), we now find ourselves forced to consider this new fusion, “created by industry veterans in the Blockchain and Cannabis space, inspired by the future where users can all live, play, and make a living in the metaverse”.
At least the question of what they are smoking answers itself. But does virtual weed have the same effect? Possibly in the metaverse. All in all, our understanding of what this amounts to is a little hazy. But we are unpersuaded that it equates to a proof that THEY were wrong about the money and trees thing. Ah well, at least when the bubble bursts, it will help to be high.
Unforeseen circs
In evidence that reality sometimes doesn’t shy away from validating the best — that is, oldest — jokes, word comes from New South Wales that, having been postponed last year due to the south coast fires, Braidwood’s Good Earth Psychic Fair has been cancelled this year, apparently due to lack of interest. Thanks to Ken McLeod for that one.
A great fall
Dear readers, you rightly demand that every element of New Scientist’s output should be subject to the highest standards of accuracy and rigour. So we are grateful — truly grateful — to the many of you who wrote in querying our cartoonist Tom Gauld’s formula for the difficulty of putting Humpty Dumpty together again (22 May, p 55).
This was D = G/(x–y), where G is the greatness of the fall, x the number of king’s men and ythe number of king’s horses. The literary purists among you pointed out that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men who couldn’t put Humpty together again were involved in the rescue effort, so surely the denominator should be (x+y). Others accepted the equation’s implication that the presence of horses would probably hinder the rescue effort, but critiqued that the difficulty tends to infinity in the likely condition x = y, where each of the king’s men has exactly one horse.
Confused, perplexed and surrounded by pieces of paper covered in scribbled-out graphs and equations, we think this might be just the point, given that Humpty Dumpty remained, in the end, scrambled. But we are tempted to give credence to the behavioural science approach championed by Steve Powell and Helen Percy. Too many cooks spoil the broth, after all: perhaps “the general shape of this formula should be for the difficulty to decrease rapidly as the number of men increases from one to some optimum number and thereafter to increase slowly as more men are involved”.
We recall C. Northcote Parkinson’s contention — he of Parkinson’s law fame, that work expands to fill the time available for its completion — that more than about 20 people working on a single task would never agree or achieve anything, and subsequent academic work that backs this up. How Tom’s equation might adequately reflect that is an exercise left for the reader. To quote another pair of great humourists, do not on any account attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.
Friendly wave
A special shout-out to Joseph Thomas at the International and Alumni Relations Office at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras for writing in on that last topic. This is purely because Joseph says he has been angling for a mention ever since starting to read New Scientist as a junior researcher in 1982. A request we can’t Chennai. Ahem.
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