Can we really 'cure' autism?

Some claim that new research shows people can grow out of autism, but it is more likely that they simply cope better with the condition over time

The New York Times has pointed to an intriguing study ostensibly showing that some small percentage of people with autism can "outgrow" their symptoms. The story was oddly unsatisfying, claiming in one paragraph that the study, published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, will alter the way parents "think and talk about autism" but also cautioning against false hope.

The writer seems only dimly aware how this half-hearted message will set off a bomb in the world where Jenny McCarthy lives – that she will turn on that wicked grin and brandish this study to launch another 40 years of vicious debate over whether autism is caused by environmental factors, namely vaccines, and thus can be cured by brave and dedicated parents like her, or whether it's just a condition people are born with.

Thankfully, science writer Emily Willingham has parsed through the study in Forbes to show us what it really finds, which is not much that's new and certainly nothing that will change our thinking about the progress of autism or make us believe in the McCarthy miracle cure. As Willingham points out, the people who seem to have "grown out" of their autism had higher cognitive functioning and milder symptoms in the first place, and "many of them had behavioral interventions in childhood".

One measure the researchers used to evaluate progress was "typically developing friends", which people with autism sometimes have anyway. Seven of the 34 had some impairment in "non verbal social interactions" which the researchers decided, somewhat arbitrarily, was due to other factors such as anxiety or depression.

Anyone who has read a single memoir by someone with Asperger's or known someone well with the condition can intuit what's going on. At the moment, I happen to be reading Look Me in the Eye: My life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison. Over the course of his life, Robison learns to compensate for his social limitations. As a child he teaches himself to say appropriate things to children and not just foist on them his own obsessive interests. As an adult he learns that blurting out the truth – "you look fatter" – is not always the right thing to do.

Working around autism

He doesn't "outgrow" his autism, he just learns to work around it. Even later in his life he writes that he wishes his disability were more obvious; when we see someone in a wheelchair we know they can't walk, so we help them across the street. There is no way to "see" Asperger's so people just assume he's a jerk.

Willingham makes the comparison to diabetes, which I have. I have learned how to control my blood sugar pretty well, but I still have diabetes. Autism for high-functioning kids works something like that, even more so these days.

When Robison was a kid, no one understood him at all. They just thought he was odd and would grow up to be a failure. But now there is a well-developed understanding of Asperger's and its symptoms, and many behavioural therapies that can help people, especially if they are smart enough to absorb them. So it stands to reason that as time goes on, more people with Asperger's or autism will look, to all the world, as if they are "cured" without actually being so.

This article originally appeared in Slate. Hanna Rosin is the author of The End of Men and a co-founder of Slate's Double X

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Japan presses Algeria for answers as toll hits nine

ALGIERS: A senior Japanese official met Algeria's prime minister on Wednesday to press for an explanation of the gas plant siege, as Tokyo confirmed the deaths of two more nationals, taking its toll to nine.

Senior Vice Foreign Minister Shunichi Suzuki arrived aboard a government jet that is to repatriate the bodies of those known to have been killed in the hostage crisis, along with the seven Japanese who survived.

Tokyo announced late Wednesday that it knew for sure that nine Japanese were killed after Islamist gunmen overran the desert facility. One Japanese citizen remains unaccounted for.

"Unfortunately, we have been able to confirm two more deaths," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. "The Japanese government expresses sincere condolences to the families and people concerned."

"The use of violence cannot be tolerated for any reason. We firmly condemn acts of terror," he said adding the government would do its utmost to confirm the fate of the final missing person.

Seventeen Japanese were at the facility in In Amenas when jihadists struck last Wednesday at the start of a four-day siege that left dozens of foreigners dead. Seven of them made it to safety.

Suzuki carried a letter to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Suga told reporters in Tokyo earlier.

As well as Prime Minister Abdelmalek Saleki, Suzuki also met Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, Japan's Kyodo News reported, citing Tokyo's foreign ministry.

Japan has asked Algeria to fully investigate events at the gas plant and exactly how individuals died, Suga said in Tokyo.

"Algeria has promised to cooperate as much as possible," he said.

Algeria has said 37 foreigners of eight different nationalities and an Algerian were killed in the siege, which ended on Saturday.

Several people are still missing and the bodies of others are so badly charred that they have not been identified.

Wednesday's visit came as it emerged that Britain, Japan, the United States and other countries whose nationals were caught up in the events at the In Amenas plant issued a joint demarche to Algeria last Friday.

A demarche is a formal diplomatic move in which a country's stance is conveyed in person -- rather than by note -- to another government.

In a conference telephone call, vice foreign minister Minoru Kiuchi told foreign minister Medelci that Tokyo wanted Algiers to do all it could to protect captives.

"Japan is strongly concerned about acts that put the lives of the hostages at risk, and it is regrettable that the Algerian government pressed military rescue operations," he said, according to the foreign ministry.

Japan was among the more forthright of nations as the hostage crisis unfolded, summoning Algiers' ambassador to demand answers and to push for military restraint as armed forces surrounded the plant.

The Japanese plane's arrival in Algiers came as Tokyo announced it was shutting its embassy in neighbouring Mali, evacuating staff and urging its nationals there to leave because of the deteriorating security situation.

The kidnappers claimed they launched their attack in protest at Algeria's complicity in a French military campaign against Islamists in Mali.

The Japanese death toll in Algeria -- the highest in a terror attack since Al-Qaeda crashed airliners into New York's Twin Towers when 24 Japanese died -- has shaken a country not accustomed to its citizens being made targets abroad.

There has been blanket media coverage of events half a world away and anguished demands for more to be done to protect Japanese working in trouble spots, including beefing up spy networks.

Kyodo on Wednesday said Suga indicated Tokyo's willingness to consider increasing the number of defence attaches at Japanese embassies to strengthen the country's ability to gather information.

"I am aware of the need. We need to think about the most effective (crisis-response) measures," Suga said.

-AFP/ac

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Nook Media finalizes $89.5 million Pearson investment

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

Nook Media, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary that covers the bookseller's Nook line and accessories, has completed its investment deal with Pearson.

Barnes & Noble announced the deal last month. Pearson will invest $89.5 million into Nook Media and will receive a 5 percent stake in return. Pearson will have the option to acquire another 5 percent of Nook Media if certain unidentified conditions are met.

Pearson is now partners with Barnes & Noble and Microsoft. In April, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble announced a joint partnership that would see the software giant invest $300 million in the Nook unit. Following the Pearson transaction, Microsoft owns 16.8 percent of Nook Media. Barnes & Noble holds 78.2 percent ownership.

With Pearson now a partner, Nook Media says that it'll be able to improve "discovery of available digital content and services."

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The Promise and Perils of Mining Asteroids

Encouraged by new space technologies, a growing fleet of commercial rockets and the vast potential to generate riches, a group of entrepreneurs announced Tuesday that they planned to mine the thousands of near-Earth asteroids in the coming decades.

The new company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), is not the first in the field, nor is it the most well-financed. But with their ambition to become the first asteroid prospectors, and ultimately miners and manufacturers, they are aggressively going after what Mark Sonter, a member of DSI's board of directors, called "the main resource opportunity of the 21st century." (Related: "Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?")

Prospecting using miniaturized "cubesat" probes the size of a laptop will begin by 2015, company executives announced. They plan to return collections of asteroid samples to Earth not long after.

"Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of [the United States'] space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago," said Rick Tumlinson, company chairman and a longtime visionary and organizer in the world of commercial space [not sure what commercial space means].

"We sit in a sea of resources so infinite they're impossible to describe," Tumlinson said.

Added Value

There are some 9,000 asteroids described as "near-Earth," and they contain several classes of resources that entrepreneurs are now eyeing as economically valuable.

Elements such as gold and platinum can be found on some asteroids. But water, silicon, nickel, and iron are the elements expected to become central to a space "economy" should it ever develop.

Water can be "mined" for its hydrogen (a fuel) and oxygen (needed for humans in space), while silicon can be used for solar power systems, and the ubiquitous nickel and iron for potential space manufacturing. (See an interactive on asteroid mining.)

Sonter, an Australian mining consultant and asteroid specialist, said that 700 to 800 near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach and land on than the moon.

DSI's prospecting spacecraft will be called "FireFlies," a reference to the popular science fiction television series of the same name. The FireFlies will hitchhike on rockets carrying up communication satellites or scientific instruments, but they will be designed so that they also have their own propulsion systems. The larger mining spacecraft to follow have been named "DragonFlies."

Efficiencies

It all sounds like science fiction, but CEO David Gump said that the technology is evolving so quickly that a space economy can soon become a reality. Providing resources from beyond Earth to power spacecraft and keep space travelers alive is the logical way to go.

That's because the most expensive and resource-intensive aspect of space travel is pushing through the Earth's atmosphere. Some 90 percent of the weight lifted by a rocket sending a capsule to Mars is fuel. Speaking during a press conference at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, Gump said that Mars exploration would be much cheaper, and more efficient, if some of the fuel could be picked up en route. (Related: "7 Ways You Could Blast Off by 2023.")

Although there is little competition in the asteroid mining field so far, DSI has some large hurdles ahead of it. The first company to announce plans for asteroid mining was Planetary Resources, Inc. in spring 2012—the group is backed by big-name investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, and early Google investor Ram Shriram. DSI is still looking for funding.

Owning Asteroids

While these potential space entrepreneurs are confident they can physically lay claim to resources beyond Earth, there remain untested legal issues.

The United Nations Space Treaty of 1967 expressly forbids ownership of other celestial bodies by governments on Earth. But American administrations have long argued that the same is not true of private companies and potential mining rights.

While an American court has ruled that an individual cannot own an asteroid—as in the case of Gregory Nemitz, who laid claim to 433 Eros as a NASA spacecraft was approaching it in 2001—the question of extraction rights has not been tested.

Moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo program are considered to belong to the United States, and the Russian space agency has sold some moon samples it has returned to Earth-sales seen by some as setting a precedent.

Despite the potential for future legal issues, DSI's Gump said his group recently met with top NASA officials to discuss issues regarding technology and capital, and came away optimistic. "There's a great hunger for the idea of getting space missions done with smaller, cheaper 'cubesat' technology and for increased private sector involvement."

Everyone involved acknowledged the vast challenges and risks ahead, but they see an equally vast potential—both financial and societal.

"Over the decades, we believe these efforts will help expand the civilization of Earth into the cosmos, and change what it means to be a citizen of this planet," Tumlinson said.

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Te'o Tells Couric He Briefly Lied About Girlfriend

Manti Te'o briefly lied to the media and the public after discovering his online girlfriend did not exist and was a part of an elaborate hoax, he admitted in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Katie Couric.

The star Notre Dame linebacker, who has been hounded by the reporters since the story broke Jan. 16, told Couric in a taped interview Tuesday that he was not lying up until December. Te'o said he was duped into believing his online girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of cancer.

"You stuck to the script. And you knew that something was amiss, Manti," Couric said.

Te'o found out that Kekua was a hoax on Dec. 6, but on Dec. 8 he again publicly mentioned his girlfriend. The remark came as Te'o was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, the award for the best college football player in the country. Te'o was eventually a runner-up for the trophy.

"Katie, put yourself in my situation. I, my whole world told me that she died on Sept. 12. Everybody knew that. This girl, who I committed myself to, died on Sept. 12," Te'o said.

"Now I get a phone call on Dec. 6, saying that she's alive and then I'm going be put on national TV two days later. And to ask me about the same question. You know, what would you do?" Te'o said.

Man Allegedly Behind the Manti Te?o Dead Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video

See more exclusive previews tonight on "World News With Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline." Watch Katie Couric's interview with Manti Te'o and his parents Thursday. Check your local listings or click here for online station finder.

Te'o, 21, was joined by his parents, Brian and Ottilia, in the interview.

"Now many people writing about this are calling your son a liar. They are saying he manipulated the truth, really for personal gain," Couric said to Te'o's father.

"People can speculate about what they think he is. I've known him 21 years of his life. And he's not a liar. He's a kid," Brian Te'o said with tears in his eyes.

Click here for a who's who in the Manti Te'o case.

Diane O'Meara told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that she was used as the "face" of the Twitter account of Manti Te'o's online girlfriend without her knowledge or consent.

O'Meara said that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo used pictures of her without her knowledge in creating Kekua.

"I've never met Manti Te'o in my entire life. I've never spoke with him. I've never exchanged words with him," O'Meara said Tuesday.

The 23-year-old marketing executive went to high school in California with Tuiasosopo, but she says they're not close. Tuiasosopo called to apologize the day Deadspin.com broke the hoax story, she said.

Timeline of Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax story

In an interview with ESPN last week, Te'o said he had received a Twitter message from Tuiasosopo apologizing for the hoax.

The Hawaiian also spoke to Tuiasosopo on the phone the day the Deadspin report came out, according to ESPN.com. He found out that "two guys and a girl are responsible for the whole thing," he said.

But he did not know the identities of the other individuals involved, other than the man he says was Tuiasosopo.

Tuiasosopo, a 22-year-old resident of California, has not admitted involvement publicly. Tuiasosopo graduated from Paraclete High School in Lancaster, Calif., in 2007 and has posted dozens of videos online signing Christian songs.

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Threatwatch: The greatest risks to world stability

Threatwatch is your early warning system for global dangers, from nuclear peril to deadly viral outbreaks. Debora MacKenzie highlights the threats to civilisation – and suggests solutions

This week, some 3000 people, including the world's top corporate and political movers and shakers, are gathering in the Swiss ski resort of Davos for the 43rd annual World Economic Forum (WEF). They will be told that of all the threats the world faces, the most likely one to hit us is the growing income gap between the poor majority and the rich few – namely, themselves.

They will also hear that we need to address this and other deeply interconnected risks such as financial collapse, greenhouse gases, food and water shortages, bigger and ageing populations, spiking food and oil prices and extreme weather. Welcome to the world's most glittering exercise in global threatwatching.

Although Davos will host nearly 50 heads of government, most delegates are corporate bosses, paying upwards – some well upwards – of $20,000 a head to be there. Participants admit that they don't shell out to "improve the state of the world", the WEF's official aim. Davos is an unrivalled chance to network, do business – and party. Rock star Bono, a regular, dubbed it "fat cats in the snow".

Ranks of experts

Yet the packed schedule of daytime discussions features top names from science, including Daniel Kahneman, Tim Hunt and Eric Kandel, and technology, including Tim Berners-Lee. And as a basis for discussion, everyone gets a detailed assessment of the problems facing the globalised world. In this year's Global Risk Report, "over 1000 experts from industry, government, academia and civil society" rank 50 risks according to how likely they are to strike in the next 10 years, and their potential impact.

Many risks highlighted this year are familiar to New Scientist readers: bacteria resistant to antibiotics, economic and environmental stress, cybersecurity, weapons proliferation, failure to adapt to climate change.

When the experts pooled their views, the growing global wealth gap won "most likely", followed by rising greenhouse gases and ageing populations. Systemic financial failure won "greatest impact", followed by food shortage and weapons of mass destruction. Water shortages and government budget imbalances made the top five in both categories.

The team of risk experts also plans that by next summer, they will have worked out each country's "resilience", or adaptability, to combined threats. A preliminary effort in the current report finds that rich countries, perhaps unsurprisingly, are more resilient than poor ones.

Snapshot of risk

This is not a scientific attempt to quantify risks, but a snapshot of what people think the risks are, says Axel Lehmann, chief risk officer for the Zurich Insurance Group, one organiser of the study. "It isn't a forecast," he says, "more a platform for discussion" among groups who rarely discuss risk with each other. Airing such issues at Davos can lead to action; in 2002, it helped globalise the battle against disease.

But the report may be giving too much weight to opinion surveys, especially as the fragility of modern, rich societies is not widely appreciated. "Perceptions really don't get you that far in understanding 'real' risks," says Victor Galaz of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. "Really big shocks tend to be surprises." Meanwhile, it is hard to come by data that can accurately quantify resilience.

Problem of perception

On the other hand, he says, the WEF report should raise awareness of interconnected risks. Lehmann agrees. Perceptions are what people act on, he says – and these perceived risks are from a peer group business leaders might trust. Yet perceptions might derive more from headlines than reality: the Arab Spring may have boosted concern about the destabilising potential of wealth disparities.

Moreover, there is a deep contradiction between interconnected risks and the whole idea of Davos. Traditionally, companies and governments are hierarchical. In such systems, leaders can get their heads around individual problems and address them.

Once things get too complex and interconnected, says Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a boss cannot do that, and hierarchies don't work. They must give way to decentralised networks of control.

Creators of woe

So if the interconnected, globalised world is too complex to be managed hierarchically, the global bosses gathered in Davos to consider all these risks may be unable to do much about them. That's despite the fact that many of the gathered glitterati helped create the wealth disparities, greenhouse gases, unstable financial networks and other bugbears they are being warned about.

Even if a network is what is needed to control things, Davos's pre-eminence in networking isn't necessarily enough. The question, notes Bar-Yam, is whether the Davos elite constitute the network the world's problems need.

But if nothing else, so many wealthy people should have an obvious solution to inequality: giving their own money away. Yet that, warns Lehmann, does not work as well as investing in technologies that enable the poor to prosper.

Still, the fat cats of Davos control many purse strings. If the Global Risk Report serves as a reminder that loosening them to mitigate global risks might constitute enlightened self-interest, it can hardly hurt.

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SGX's Q2 net profit rises 17% to S$76m

SINGAPORE : Rising interest in derivatives trading helped lift earnings for the Singapore Exchange (SGX) last quarter.

Asia's second-largest bourse operator reported a 17 per cent on-year rise in second-quarter net profit to S$76 million.

It also attracted a large number of new bond listings in the same quarter.

Derivatives trading has been the star performer in SGX.

Over the October to December quarter, derivatives daily average volume on SGX hit a record of 358,532 contracts, up 30 per cent on-year.

This was supported by rising trading interests in China A50 futures and Japan Nikkei 225 options.

Not to be undone, the securities market performed well too.

Its daily average volume rose 8 per cent for the quarter to hit a trading value of S$1.2 billion.

This translates to a revenue of S$58 million for the securities business segment.

SGX said the better performance was due to improvements in investor sentiment following stability over the Europe debt situation and improved US economy.

Magnus Bocker, chief executive officer of Singapore Exchange, said: "We should remember the enormous amount of liquidity in the market. Not so much in the equity market, but actually more in the fixed income and currency markets, and with chasing yields and lot of very successful and growing companies, I think we can all expect this sentiment to continue. I think we can expect more flows into securities."

Some analysts are bullish on SGX's prospects going forward.

The said the improved investment climate globally may benefit the exchange operator.

Ken Ang, investment analyst at Phillip Securities Research, said: "SGX is very well placed to benefit from this increasing attractiveness of the equity market and therefore resulting in increase in trading value."

SGX attracted eight new listings in its second quarter - raising S$798.9 million.

While the number seems small, it came amid declines in the global initial public offering (IPO) market.

In 2012, global IPO volumes fell 27 per cent, with the lowest level of funds raised since 2009.

Kenneth Ng, head of Singapore research at CIMB Research, said: "I think while that (derivative) is great and that diversified the revenue of SGX, SGX still has a rather pertinent problem of trying to increase the security turnover velocity and value by retail initiatives, attracting listings and so forth."

Apart from seeking more IPOs, SGX also attracted some 90 new bond listings, raising S$39.7 billion for the quarter.

- CNA/ms

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iPhone to shed market share this quarter, says analyst

Apple's iPhone 5

(Credit:
CNET)

The iPhone may be in store for a tough quarter, according to one analyst.

Apple will give up some of its smartphone market share this quarter, "raising concern about the on-going dominance of the iPhone," Citi analyst Glen Yeung said in an investors note out today. He cited strong demand for Samsung devices as the reason.

Recent reports say that Apple slashed iPhone 5 component orders for the current quarter, triggering concerns that demand for the flagship phone has diminished. Several analysts believe such concerns are overblown, instead attributing the cuts to improved manufacturing yields for the latest iPhone.

But Yeung thinks the cuts may be due to rougher competition.

"Our checks mid-December revealed initial signs of order cuts from Apple, now evident across a larger array of suppliers," the analyst said. "We acknowledge the true nature of these cuts is as yet inconclusive, but we suspect they reflect growing demand for competitive offerings (e.g. Samsung), particularly outside the U.S."

Assuming the cuts signal the likely number of shipments, Yeung sees iPhone units sales of 35 million this quarter. That's below Wall Street's consensus of around 42 million.

Will Apple bounce back in the June quarter if it releases an iPhone 5S? Yeung doesn't see that in his crystal ball.

"Based on our understanding of the iPhone5S (same form factor), we do not view the forthcoming launch (scheduled for C2Q13) as a catalyst for market share regain," the analyst said.

Regardless, Apple's December quarter should prove fruitful. Tomorrow, the company will reveal results for the final quarter of 2012. Yeung thinks iPhone sales could reach or even beat Wall Street's forecast of 45 million to 50 million, thanks largely to manufacturing improvements from October to December.

Meanwhile, the
iPad is a mixed bag, according to the analyst.

iPad Mini sales have been strong. Though limited by supply, manufacturing builds of the small
tablet are expected to rise between 20 percent and 40 percent in the next quarter.

However, demand for the Mini's larger cousin has weakened. Sales of the 9.7-inch tablet are forecast at 13 million for the current quarter. But Yeung's supply chain checks say production will drop by 30 percent to 40 percent next quarter.

Looking at the year ahead, Citi expects Apple to unveil the iPhone 5S in June, followed by a Retina Display
iPad Mini, an iPad 5, and a low-end iPhone in September.

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Group Finds More Fake Ingredients in Popular Foods

It's what we expect as shoppers—what's in the food will be displayed on the label.

But a new scientific examination by the non-profit food fraud detectives the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), discovered rising numbers of fake ingredients in products from olive oil to spices to fruit juice.

"Food products are not always what they purport to be," Markus Lipp, senior director for Food Standards for the independent lab in Maryland, told ABC News.

In a new database to be released Wednesday, and obtained exclusively by ABC News today, USP warns consumers, the FDA and manufacturers that the amount of food fraud they found is up by 60 percent this year.

USP, a scientific nonprofit that according to their website "sets standards for the identity, strength, quality, and purity of medicines, food ingredients, and dietary supplements manufactured, distributed and consumed worldwide" first released the Food Fraud Database in April 2012.

The organization examined more than 1,300 published studies and media reports from 1980-2010. The update to the database includes nearly 800 new records, nearly all published in 2011 and 2012.

Among the most popular targets for unscrupulous food suppliers? Pomegranate juice, which is often diluted with grape or pear juice.

"Pomegranate juice is a high-value ingredient and a high-priced ingredient, and adulteration appears to be widespread," Lipp said. "It can be adulterated with other food juices…additional sugar, or just water and sugar."

Woman's Legs and Fingers Amputated After Dog Bite Watch Video

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Lipp added that there have also been reports of completely "synthetic pomegranate juice" that didn't contain any traces of the real juice.

USP tells ABC News that liquids and ground foods in general are the easiest to tamper with:

• Olive oil: often diluted with cheaper oils


• Lemon juice: cheapened with water and sugar


• Tea: diluted with fillers like lawn grass or fern leaves


• Spices: like paprika or saffron adulterated with dangerous food colorings that mimic the colors

Milk, honey, coffee and syrup are also listed by the USP as being highly adulterated products.

Also high on the list: seafood. The number one fake being escolar, an oily fish that can cause stomach problems, being mislabeled as white tuna or albacore, frequently found on sushi menus.

National Consumers League did its own testing on lemon juice just this past year and found four different products labeled 100 percent lemon juice were far from pure.

"One had 10 percent lemon juice, it said it had 100 percent, another had 15 percent lemon juice, another...had 25 percent, and the last one had 35 percent lemon juice," Sally Greenberg, Executive Director for the National Consumers League said. "And they were all labeled 100 percent lemon juice."

Greenberg explains there are indications to help consumers pick the faux from the food.

"In a bottle of olive oil if there's a dark bottle, does it have the date that it was harvested?" she said. While other products, such as honey or lemon juice, are more difficult to discern, if the price is "too good to be true" it probably is.

"$5.50, that's pretty cheap for extra virgin olive oil," Greenberg said. "And something that should raise some eyebrows for consumers."

Many of the products USP found to be adulterated are those that would be more expensive or research intensive in its production.
"Pomegranate juice is expensive because there is little juice in a pomegranate," Lipp said.

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Turn up the bass to scare birds away from planes

PLANES and birds aren't good at sharing air space - bird strikes worldwide cause over a billion dollars in damage every year, and put passengers and crew at risk. To scare avians away, a new device will fire low-frequency sound waves at flocks as they near busy flight paths.

Noise makers are often used to scare birds away from airports or contaminated waterways. But loud sounds also annoy any humans within earshot.

Now a system developed by Technology International, based in Laplace, Louisiana, aims to deter birds using infrasound, below the range of human hearing.

The trial version of the Avian Infrasound Non-lethal Denial System has a passive infrasound detector that listens for an approaching flock, and activates a series of rotary subwoofers that generate high-intensity, but low-frequency sound. It worked well in tests.

Thunderstorms also emit lots of infrasound, which may be why birds are naturally averse to it, says Abdo Husseiny, the firm's CEO.

Husseiny adds that the system could be used to keep pigeons away from public squares, or divert flocks away from wind turbines. He says that the equipment should be commercially available within two years.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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