Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Agriculture
A vanilla Vanilla
The orchid that gives us vanilla beans has startlingly low genetic diversity, suggesting crops might be susceptible to pathogens, researchers report.
- Health & Medicine
Where funny faces come from
Making a face might have helped human ancestors survive.
- Animals
Squeaky chimp sex, or not
Female chimps tend toward silent sex when the other girls could overhear.
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- Archaeology
Resurrection of a biblical tree
Date palm pit found at Masada sprouts at age 2,000, becoming the oldest known seed to germinate.
- Health & Medicine
No babies, no hormones
A radically different form of contraception would prevent pregnancies with small molecules of RNA.
- Humans
Wash Your Veggies!
The lesson in all of these food-poisoning outbreaks is that we must not expect a risk-free food-supply chain.
- Health & Medicine
Virus versus virus
Customized RNA snippets delivered by a harmless virus could someday provide a new way to combat the hepatitis B virus.
- Climate
Goldilocks tree leaves
Leaves mostly keep their cool (or warmth) wherever they live, a finding that might affect reconstructions of past climates.
- Physics
Life’s code in soap
The mathematics of soapy water yields some clues to the origin of the genetic code.
- Physics
Suction hunters
Scientists reveal new details on how extendable jaws help fish capture prey.
- Health & Medicine
Thanks for the pounds, Mom
When inherited from mom, a gene linked to obesity and diabetes interferes with blood sugar metabolism.
