AAAS NEWS
ENVIRONMENT
Too many facts?
CATH O’DRISCOLL
‘It’s the scientist’s worst nightmare’, according to Katherine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Centre at Texas Tech University. The facts about climate change are ‘simple, old and obvious,’ Hayhoe said, speaking at AAAS meeting in Austin, Texas, in February 2018 – scientists first raised the idea back in the 1820s, while today its impacts are abundantly clear. Yet the world response to this crisis has been to continually question the science and to push for more data. ‘More facts are not the answer!’
Hayhoe said: apathy on climate change won’t be reversed by writing more reports. ‘Nobody thinks climate science matters because the number one symbol of climate change is a polar bear,’ she said. ‘But the reality is that it’s us that’s sitting on that melting sheet of ice.’ Millions of people around the
world think that climate change isn’t man-made. But those types of people aren’t always who you might expect, she added, pointing to a recent survey that found people with most education or highest levels of literacy ‘were where polarisation was greatest’. And the people who care most? Hispanic Catholics. She also referred to recent work
to re-analyse many of the hundreds of papers disputing the science of man-made climate change. ‘In each of these studies we
found errors or incorrect physics that showed they were wrong,’ she said; errors that, once accounted for, brought them back into line with the scientific consensus. ‘These objections we read about every day in the media are smokescreens,’ she said. ‘Don’t fall for the smokescreens or we’ll be like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.’ And the reason many people don’t want to face up to the reality of climate change? Hayhoe believes it’s because they don’t like being told what they need to do to solve it. In the words of one US senator: ‘I thought it must be true until I found out what it would cost.’
HEALTH
Wearable sweat sensor
CATH O’DRISCOLL
Human sweat holds a lot of useful information. Now, researchers say they have developed a wearable sensor that provides real-time feedback on the rate of sweat loss and electrolyte levels – information that could provide the winning edge for athletes currently testing out the technology, and for stroke patients monitoring their recovery in and outside the clinic. The technology is being developed
in partnership with Gatorade, which ‘knows more about sweat than anybody,’ according to its developer John Rogers of Northwestern University, Chicago; the company’s sports drinks are designed to replenish lost electrolytes. It is now being tested by the Seattle Mariners along with 10 other sports teams who prefer to keep their identities secret; as well as by stroke patients at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a research hospital in Chicago.
Designed to be stuck onto the wrist,
the secret to the sensor’s success is a new way of calibrating that local information so it can be extrapolated to give information about sweat loss over the whole body, Rogers says. The group’s earlier work to develop
stretchable ‘electronic tattoos’ has already attracted a lot of publicity. In this case, the new sweat sensors are designed to operate non-electronically, Rogers explained, by simple colour
changes detectable by the human eye – or via a smartphone app that uses algorithms to provide a quantitative readout based on these colour shifts. Once made in volume, he estimates each disposable or single-use sensor will cost less than $3 to produce. Stroke patients at AbilityLab are using them alongside a range of other electronic sensors on the legs, arms and chest that provide detailed health metrics including heart function, muscle activity and quality of sleep. A new throat sensor biosensor
developed in Rogers’ lab also measures patients’ swallowing ability and patterns of speech, so aiding the diagnosis and treatment of aphasia, a communication disorder associated with stroke. The tools that speech-language
pathologists have traditionally used to monitor patients’ speech function - such as microphones - cannot distinguish between patients’ voices and ambient noise. ‘Our sensors solve that problem by measuring vibrations of the vocal chords,’ Rogers said. ‘But they only work when worn directly on the throat, which is a very sensitive area of the skin. We developed novel materials for this sensor that bend and stretch with the body, minimising discomfort to patients.’ Because all these wearable sensors
transmit data wirelessly, they can be used to track patient progress even after they return home.
8 02 | 2018
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