Life
- Animals
Cool Jobs: Scents of science
Better understanding of the sense of smell inspires research into everything from whales to electronic ‘noses’
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- Animals
Monkeys’ mistake detector
Specific brain cells in macaques respond to fellow animal’s error.
- Fossils
New Jurassic flier
Amazingly well-preserved fossil depicts a novel flying reptile from the age of dinosaurs.
- Animals
Python-palooza!
Monster-sized Burmese python bearing record-number of eggs retrieved in the Florida Everglades.
- Genetics
DNA hints at ancient cousins
Scientists find evidence of an extinct humanlike species within modern-day Africans.
- Microbes
Surprising rabies resistance
Amazon villagers survive deadly disease carried by vampire bats.
- Climate
Iron versus climate change
Metal deposits can promote the growth of ocean algae that gobble greenhouse gas.
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- Fossils
Dino find ruffles feathers
Nearly-perfect, newfound dinosaur fossil reveals more dinos were feathered than previously thought.
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- Health & Medicine
Tomatoes’ tasteless green gene
The tomatoes your great-grandparents ate probably tasted little like the ones you eat today. The fruit used to have more flavor. A lot more flavor. In fact, tomatoes “were once so flavorful that you could take one in your hand and eat it straight away just like we regularly eat apples or peaches,” according to plant scientist Alan Bennett. He belongs to a team of international scientists who now think they know one reason why the fruit has lost so much flavor. Although some unripe tomatoes have a dark green patch near the stem, farmers prefer that their unripe tomatoes are the same shade of green all over. The consistent coloring makes it easier for them to know when the fruit should be picked.
