Today on New Scientist: 30 January 2013

Timbuktu's precious scientific texts must be saved

Islamist militants in Mali have burned documents that attest to science in Africa before European colonisation - what remains must be protected

Think that massage feels good? Try adding drugs

Nerve bundles that respond to stroking have been identified and chemically activated in mice

How Obama will deliver his climate promise

The US is set to meet - and maybe exceed - Obama's pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent, which could give a boost to international climate talks

Minimum booze price will rein in alcohol abuse

Evidence suggests the UK government's proposal to set a minimum price for alcohol could save thousands of lives, and billions of pounds of public money

First real time-travel movies are loopers

Hollywood has played with time travel for decades, but now physicists have the first movies of what travelling to the past actually looks like

Surfer rides highest wave ever caught

Garret McNamara of Hawaii claims to have ridden the highest wave ever caught by a surfer, a 30-metre monster off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal

Infrared laptop trackpad ignores accidental touches

Longpad is a touchpad that extends the full width of your laptop and uses infrared sensors to ignore any unwanted touches

Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat

With an errant space rock heading this way, just how good are our asteroid defences - and how do we avert the cataclysm?

The right to fight: women at war

The US military has accepted women into combat. What can science tell us about how women deal with being in the line of fire? And are they any different to men?

Earth and others lose status as Goldilocks worlds

Several planets are taking a hit thanks to a redefinition of the habitable zone - the area around a star in which liquid water can theoretically exist

The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple

Our taste for alcohol results from an evolutionary tussle between humans and yeast - one in which the microbes have often had the upper hand

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Japan December factory output up 2.5% on-month

TOKYO: Japan on Thursday said the nation's factory output for December rose 2.5 per cent from the previous month thanks to brisk production of cars and semiconductors.

The gain -- still worse than a 4.0 per cent expansion expected by the market -- came as Japan's new government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vows to breathe new life into the world's third-largest economy with huge stimulus and easing aimed at tackling long-running deflation.

"Industrial production shows signs of having bottomed out," said a statement from the economy ministry.

The ministry added that a survey of manufacturers found they expected another output increase for January and February of 2.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent, respectively.

Annual industrial output figures were not immediately released, but on a quarterly basis the country's factory output was down 1.9 per cent from the previous three months.

And the rosy monthly data comes just a week after Japan said it logged a record trade deficit for 2012 as exports were hit by a bitter diplomatic spat with its biggest market China and plunging demand in debt-wracked Europe.

Japan's economy contracted in the third quarter, meeting the technical definition of a recession.

The figures underscored the size of the task ahead for the new government which has heaped pressure on the Bank of Japan for aggressive easing measures to boost the country's fortunes.

- AFP/ck

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Nokia spin-off plans $10,000 'luxury' Android phone

Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin claims this is Vertu's new 3,000-euro Android smartphone.

(Credit:
Twitter/Eldar Murtazin)

If you were planning to drop several thousands of dollars on a "luxury smartphone," what operating system would you insist such an elite device rock?

According to one Russian blogger claiming knowledge of British snobphone maker Vertu's plans, the company -- which was once a division of Nokia before the company sold all but 10 percent of it last year -- is looking to launch a fancy
Android phone starting at 3,000 euros and running as high as $10,000 if you want a model made from unobtainium or some such silliness, I suppose.

Good thing Vertu didn't have to pay more for the operating system, or this line of phones might have been really expensive. (Like Android, the sarcasm is free.)

Murtazin says to expect the device in the second half of this year, but few other details are available. Engadget believes the first Android phone from Vertu will be equipped with Android 4.0.4, an 800x480 display, a 1.5GHz processor, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC.

Hopefully the butler who operates it for you is also included in the price.

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Deer Antler Velvet—What Is It, How Does It Work?

It may sound warm and fuzzy, but deer antler velvet is at the center of a new sports controversy involving Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.

Lewis, who's headed to the Superbowl in New Orleans this weekend, looked into using a nasal spray made of deer antler velvet to heal his torn right triceps, Sports Illustrated reported in their February 4 issue. Lewis denies the story, calling the rumor a "trick of the devil," according to USA Today.

Made from the soft fuzz that grows annually on male deer antlers, the unproven performance enhancer is often used by athletes who believe it helps heal cartilage and tendon injuries more quickly and boosts strength and endurance.

However, it's not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is banned by the National Football League.

Even so, it's a big business, especially in New Zealand, a major exporter of deer velvet, which ships tens of millions of dollars worth of the substance to Asia and the U.S. each year, according to the New York University Langone Medical Center.

Deer farming is a huge industry in the country, with about 2,800 farmers that own approximately 1.1 million deer, most of them red deer, elk, and red deer-elk hybrids, according to the company New Zealand Deer Velvet.

Before removing the velvet from a stag's antlers, certified veterinarians or farmers give the animal stag a local anesthetic to minimize stress.

We asked a few medical experts to give us the facts on deer antler velvet.

What Is It?

Deer antler velvet is essentially a growth hormone called "insulin-like growth factor 1," or IGF-1.

Growth hormones, which are naturally produced by the liver, regulate how our bodies grow. If the body doesn't produce enough growth hormones, dwarfism can occur; too much, and a person may get acromelagy, a type of gigantism. (See a human-body interactive.)

Doctors give growth hormones to young people with stunted growth, but they don't recommend it for athletes or bodybuilders, according to Spyros Mezitis, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

That's because many athletes take several times the recommended dosage, which can result in adverse effects, Mezitis said. For example, too much IGF-1 may cause tendons to become too tight and break or may disrupt how the body metabolizes fats and sugars.

What Does It Do?

Early research shows that IGF-1 may be effective in healing some cartilage and tendon injuries, noted Leon Popovitz, an orthopedic surgeon and founder of New York Bone & Joint in Manhattan.

A recent study found that taking IGF-1 supplements is linked to improving cartilage damage in joints due to repetitive trauma, Popovitz said.

Even so, such studies are still very preliminary, and growth hormone research is still unproven, he cautioned. At the moment, deer antler velvet is available as an unregulated supplement.

"What often happens is these supplement companies grab these promising [hormone] factors, jump on them, and market them before the entire medical community has the ability to know the real detrimental effects," Popovitz said.

How Does It Work?

IGF-1 affects how the body repairs itself. First, the hormone aids in building up a matrix or base—essentially a building block of protein—that's needed for cells to grow.

Then, the substance increases the number of new cells that accumulate on that base, which get busy healing the injury.

What's the Bottom Line?

IGF-1 has shown promise for helping kids with stunted growth or people with dwarfism, as well as for healing cartilage or tendon injuries. It should not be used without a doctor's care, especially as a performance enhancer.

But as far as linebacker Lewis goes, since he's "looking to improve his recovery, I don't think he's necessarily doing anything wrong," noted Popovitz.

That said, "we have to be mindful that professional athletes are not typical athletes," Popovitz said, noting some are known for taking extreme measures.

For your average weekend warrior, he said, "it's a little too soon to be rushing to use it."

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Obama Confident Immigration Reform Will Pass

President Barack Obama expressed confidence on Wednesday that he would sign comprehensive immigration reform into law by the end of this year.

In an interview with Univision's Maria Elena Salinas, Obama explained that significant details of a bill still must be worked out by lawmakers, including the structure of a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Obama said that the progress made by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate has given him hope that a deal can get done.

See Also: What Will Be Obama's Immigration Legacy?

When asked by Salinas if we will have immigration reform by the end of the year, Obama said, "I believe so."

"You can tell our audience, 'Sí, se puede?'" Salinas asked.

"Sí, se puede," Obama responded.

Later in the interview, Obama said that he hopes a bill could be passed as early as this summer.

But cognizant of deep divisions a topic like immigration has sewn in the past, Obama said that's contingent on bipartisan negotiations continuing to proceed well.

"The only way this is going to get done is if the Republicans continue to work with Democrats in Congress, in both chambers, to get a bill to my desk," he said. "And I'm going to keep on pushing as hard as I can. I believe that the mood is right."

Although the president threatened to introduce his own bill if negotiations in Congress stall during his speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday, he said he is content to let lawmakers hash out the details among themselves for the time being.

"If they are on a path as they have already said, where they want to get a bill done by March, then I think that's a reasonable timeline and I think we can get that done. I'm not going to lay down a particular date because I want to give them a little room to debate," he said. "If it slips a week, that's one thing. If it starts slipping three months, that's a problem."

The president's principles and the Senate's principles on immigration broadly align with one another, but there are still thorny issues that could spark a division between Obama and Republicans, such as the pathway to citizenship.

The Senate's path to citizenship would allow many undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status immediately upon passage of the law. But their ability to then seek legal permanent residency would be contingent upon the U.S.-Mexico border being deemed secure. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" on immigration, has been particularly vocal in stating that border security is a precondition for gaining legal permanent residence, and then citizenship.

While the White House has said that it is withholding judgment on that plan until actual legislative language is drafted, Obama said that he wants a bill that makes it clear from the outset that undocumented immigrants eligible to earn their way to citizenship can eventually obtain it.

"What we don't want to do is create some kind of vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen, you know, mañana," Obama said. "We want to make sure we are very clear this legislation provides a real pathway."

The president said that enhancing border security measures and workplace enforcement provisions are a part of his plan, as well as the Senate's, and cited his administration's efforts to bulk up border security during the past four years, saying that illegal crossings have dropped 80 percent since 2000.

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Today on New Scientist: 29 January 2013

Creatures of the air caught in the mist

Photographer Todd Forsgren uses mist nets to briefly ensnare a variety of tropical South American birds before releasing them, unharmed

Drug reduces enlarged prostate with few side effects

Shrinking enlarged prostates by blocking a potent growth factor could avoid problems - such as erectile dysfunction - that accompany current treatments

Climate change blamed for Australia's extreme weather

Floods have hit the east coast of Australia before recent bush fires have been put out, giving people a taste of climate change's possible consequences

Midnight sun: How to get 24-hour solar power

Rust may be the scourge of electronics but it could help solar power run all night

The most beautiful explanations

The 2012 Edge questions asked for great thinkers' favourite explanations. This Explains Everything collects them all into a fascinating read

Netted Costa Rican birds pay small price for art

Only mildly traumatic, mist nets offer an easy and safe way to catch birds for artistic, and ecological, study

Iran launches monkey into space

The Iranian Space Agency claims to have launched a rhesus monkey into space on a sub-orbital flight, and returned it safely to Earth

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US judge postpones Texas woman's execution

CHICAGO: A Texas judge on Tuesday granted a last-minute reprieve to death row inmate Kimberly McCarthy, who had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in the United States since 2010.

District Judge Larry Mitchell postponed her execution until April 3 after her lawyers asked for time to bring forward an appeal on grounds of racial discrimination.

McCarthy -- who has been on death row for 14 years -- had been due to be executed at 6:00 pm, 2300 GMT, after the US Supreme Court rejected her previous appeal.

"The previous warrant of execution is hereby recalled," Mitchell wrote in a two-page order issued five hours before she was set to die.

"We are very pleased that we will now have an opportunity to present evidence of discrimination in the selection of the jury that sentenced Kimberly McCarthy to death," defence attorney Maurie Levin told AFP in an email.

"As recognised by the US Supreme Court (Miller-El v. Dretke, 2005), these facts must be understood in the context of the troubling and long-standing history of racial discrimination in jury selection in Dallas County, including at the time of Ms McCarthy's trial."

McCarthy, 51, is African American. Her victim, 70-year-old retired professor Dorothy Booth, was Caucasian.

Despite the fact that her home county is 22.5 per cent African American, only one non-Caucasian juror judged McCarthy and three non-Caucasian jurors "were unilaterally excluded by the state despite being fully qualified to serve," her lawyers wrote.

They further argued that 42 per cent of people sentenced to death in Dallas county were African American while 70 per cent of the 24 men exonerated with DNA evidence in the same county were African Americans.

"A remedy is not only warranted, but demanded," her lawyers argued Monday in a letter urging Texas Governor Rick Perry to issue a 30-day reprieve.

McCarthy was set to be just the 13th woman executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976.

She was convicted of forcing her way into her elderly neighbour's home near Dallas under the pretext of borrowing some sugar in 1997, court records show.

She then smashed Booth in the face with a candle stick, stabbed her five times and cut off her finger to steal her diamond ring.

McCarthy drove off in Booth's Mercedes and tried to buy some crack, court documents showed. She also used Booth's credit cards at least four times and pawned her wedding ring for US$200 before she was caught.

Prosecutors also accused her of killing two other elderly people.

She was sentenced to death in 1998, saw her conviction overturned on appeal and then was convicted and condemned again in a second trial in 2002.

"It is a shame that courts allowed Ms McCarthy to come so close to execution before granting the stay," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Centre.

"There certainly are signs and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection in Dallas County."

There is also a good chance that she would not be sentenced to death if tried now due to mitigating factors like her drug addiction, Dieter told AFP.

Texas was sentencing as many as 40 people to death a year before the courts began providing juries with the alternative sentence of life without parole. That number has now since dropped to about eight people a year, Dieter said.

McCarthy would have been the fourth woman executed in Texas since 1976, out of a total of 493. Nine other women are among the 304 people on the state's death row.

A dozen women were among the 1,321 people executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Of the 3,199 people on death row as of October 1, 63 were women and 42 per cent were African American.

- AFP/jc

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How to quickly change audio output in OS X

Apple's Mac systems come with a basic audio controller for playing through the system's internal speakers or through the audio ports to headphones or a stereo system. However, if you would like to use a different controller such as a multi-channel USB interface for recording with GarageBand, Logic, or other use, then you can add it to the system and set it up to be used instead of Apple's controllers.

While useful to have, if you configure your system with multiple interfaces then you might run into an issue where the system could revert to its internal controller after a restart, if your external device loses power or there is some other configuration change to the system.

Holding the Option key when clicking the Audio menu will reveal the available audio devices for both Input and Output.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

This is usually not a problem and can be dealt with by going to the Sound system preferences and choosing the device to use for alert sounds, default system output, and default input under the respective tabs for those settings. However, in addition to this approach, the system offers a quicker way to set a specific device for recording or playback.

If you enable the volume control in the menu bar (active by default, but it can also be enabled in the Sound system preferences) then you can access this to change the system's output volume. Additionally, if you hold the Option key when clicking this menu, the options will change from volume settings to a device selection menu where you should see the available audio controllers and be able to choose them. You can also select the option to open the Sound system preferences for more detailed settings options.

Unfortunately there is no option in this menu for accessing the Audio MIDI Setup utility that contains settings for aggregate devices, audio formats, and per-channel settings, but this can be accessed with a quick Spotlight search.

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Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.

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Timbuktu’s vulnerable manuscripts are city’s "gold"

French and Malian troops surrounded Timbuktu on Monday and began combing the labyrinthine city for Islamist fighters. Witnesses, however, said the Islamists, who claim an affiliation to al Qaeda and had imposed a Taliban-style rule in the northern Malian city over the last ten months, slipped into the desert a few days earlier.

But before fleeing, the militants reportedly set fire to several buildings and many rare manuscripts. There are conflicting reports as to how many manuscripts were actually destroyed. (Video: Roots of the Mali Crisis.)

On Monday, Sky News posted an interview with a man identifying himself as an employee of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a government-run repository for rare books and manuscripts, the oldest of which date back to the city's founding in the 12th century. The man said some 3,000 of the institute's 20,000 manuscripts had been destroyed or looted by the Islamists.

Video showed what appeared to be a large pile of charred manuscripts and the special boxes made to preserve them in front of one of the institute's buildings.

However, a member of the University of Cape Town Timbuktu Manuscript Project told eNews Channel Africa on Tuesday that he had spoken with the director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, Mahmoud Zouber, who said that nearly all of its manuscripts had been removed from the buildings and taken to secure locations months earlier. (Read "The Telltale Scribes of Timbuktu" in National Geographic magazine.)

A Written Legacy

The written word is deeply rooted in Timbuktu's rich history. The city emerged as a wealthy center of trade, Islam, and learning during the 13th century, attracting a number of Sufi religious scholars. They in turn took on students, forming schools affiliated with's Timbuktu's three main mosques.

The scholars imported parchment and vellum manuscripts via the caravan system that connected northern Africa with the Mediterranean and Arabia. Wealthy families had the documents copied and illuminated by local scribes, building extensive libraries containing works of religion, art, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, history, geography, and culture.

"The manuscripts are the city's real gold," said Mohammed Aghali, a tour guide from Timbuktu. "The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?"

This isn't the first time that an occupying army has threatened Timbuktu's cultural heritage. The Moroccan army invaded the city in 1591 to take control of the gold trade. In the process of securing the city, they killed or deported most of Timbuktu's scholars, including the city's most famous teacher, Ahmed Baba al Massufi, who was held in exile in Marrakesh for many years and forced to teach in a pasha's court. He finally returned to Timbuktu in 1611, and it is for him that the Ahmed Baba Institute was named.

Hiding the Texts

In addition to the Ahmed Baba Institute, Timbuktu is home to more than 60 private libraries, some with collections containing several thousand manuscripts and others with only a precious handful. (Read about the fall of Timbuktu.)

Sidi Ahmed, a reporter based in Timbuktu who recently fled to the Malian capital Bamako, said Monday that nearly all the libraries, including the world-renowned Mamma Haidara and the Fondo Kati libraries, had secreted their collections before the Islamist forces had taken the city.

"The people here have long memories," he said. "They are used to hiding their manuscripts. They go into the desert and bury them until it is safe."

Though it appears most of the manuscripts are safe, the Islamists' occupation took a heavy toll on Timbuktu.

Women were flogged for not covering their hair or wearing bright colors. Girls were forbidden from attending school, and boys were recruited into the fighters' ranks.

Music was banned. Local imams who dared speak out against the occupiers were barred from speaking in their mosques. In a move reminiscent of the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's famous Bamiyan Buddha sculptures, Islamist fighters bulldozed 14 ancient mud-brick mausoleums and cemeteries that held the remains of revered Sufi saints.

A spokesman for the Islamists said it was "un-Islamic" for locals to "worship idols."

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Jodi Arias Borrowed Gas Cans Before Killing Ex

Accused murderer Jodi Arias borrowed two five-gallon gas cans from a former boyfriend the day before she drove to Arizona to kill another ex, Travis Alexander, according to testimony in Arias' murder trial today.

In cross examination, prosecutors also forced Arias' former live-in boyfriend Darryl Brewer to describe his sex life with Arias as "pretty aggressive."

Brewer, 52, dated Arias for four years and shared a home with her in California for two years. He told the court today that Arias called him in May 2008, asking to borrow gas cans, but would not explain why. She called him again at least two more times, and arrived at his house on June 2008, to borrow the cans.

On the day she picked up the gas cans she told Brewer that she was going to visit friends in California and Arizona.

Prosecutors argue that Arias then drove to Mesa, Ariz., where she allegedly had sex with Alexander, took nude photos of him, and then stabbed him 27 times, slashed his throat, and shot him twice in the head. She is charged with murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Arias, who claims she killed Alexander in self defense, had approached prosecutors two years ago offering to plea to a second degree murder charge, which could carry a 25 year term, but the state rejected the offer, Nancy Grace reported on Good Morning America today.

Brewer said that Arias never returned the gas cans. The pair had been broken up two years earlier and they had only spoken "sporadically," he said.

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Reported Plea Deal Attempt Watch Video

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Jodi Arias Trial: Explosive Recordings Played in Court Watch Video

Prosecutors also showed receipts from Arias' trip from her California home to Alexander's home in Mesa, showing that she purchased a 10 gallons of gas at one gas station the night before she drove to Arizona, and then another 10 gallons from a different gas station 10 minutes later. Prosecutors are expected to argue she brought the gas with her to fill up her car secretly on the way to Alexander's home, showing premeditation for the murder.

Arias' attorneys called Brewer as one of their first witnesses as they began mounting their case that Arias killed Alexander in self defense, arguing that Alexander was controlling and abusive toward Arias.

They asked Brewer to explain how he and Arias had been in a stable relationship for four years, from 2002 to 2006, and had bought a home together before Arias met Alexander at a business conference and began to change.

"I saw a lot of changes in Jodi. She became a different person than I had known previously," Brewer said, describing how Arias' behavior changed in May 2006 when she joined a company called Pre-Paid Legal. There, she met Alexander and began seeing him. She continued to live with Brewer.

"She had continued to pay the mortgage, but she was not paying other household bills, she began getting into debt or financial trouble," Brewer said. "For me it seemed she was not as rational or logical."

Arias also converted to Mormonism while living with Brewer, telling him that he could no longer curse and she would no longer have sex with him because she was saving herself for marriage.

The pair had previously had an "enthusiastic" and "aggressive" sex life, Brewer admitted to prosecutors. They had engaged in anal sex, Arias had taken nude photos of Brewer, and Arias had purchased breast implants in 2006, he testified.

Brewer said that after Arias began to change, he made arrangements to move closer to his son from his first marriage, and he and Arias broke up.

They kept in touch with occasional phone calls until Arias asked to borrow the gas cans in June 2008, and then called him a week after borrowing the cans to say that her friend had been killed.

Martinez, reading notes from an interview Brewer gave to authorities during the investigation into Alexander's death, asked if Arias had ever mentioned needing an "alibi." Brewer said he did not recall any conversation about alibis.

"After this date of June 4, 2008," Martinez asked, "you received a call from Jodi Arias, and she was very agitated?"

"She was sad," Brewer said.

"Did she tell you that her friend had been killed and she did not have an alibi?"

"I don't remember that," Brewer said.

Arias was arrested a month after Alexander was found dead, in July 2008.

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