In this episode:
Humans are notable for their cooperation and display far more altruistic behaviour than other animals, but exactly why this behaviour evolved has been a puzzle. But in a new paper, the two leading theories have been put the test with a model and a real-life experiment. They find that actually neither theory on its own leads to cooperation but a combination is required for humans to help one another.
Research article: Efferson et al.
News and Views: Why reciprocity is common in humans but rare in other animals
The discovery of an ancient stone wall hidden underwater, and the fun that apes have teasing one another.
Research Highlight: Great ‘Stone Age’ wall discovered in Baltic Sea
Research Highlight: What a tease! Great apes pull hair and poke each other for fun
Optical discs, like CDs and DVDs, are an attractive option for long-term data storage, but these discs are limited by their small capacity. Now though, a team has overcome a limitation of conventional disc writing to produce optical discs capable of storing petabits of data, significantly more than the largest available hard disk. The researchers behind the work think their new discs could one day replace the energy-hungry hard disks used in giant data centres, making long-term storage more sustainable.
Research Article: Zhao et al.
20:10 Briefing ChatThe famous fossil that turned out to be a fraud, and why researchers are making hybrid ‘meat-rice’.
Ars Technica: It’s a fake: Mysterious 280 million-year-old fossil is mostly just black paint
Nature News: Introducing meat–rice: grain with added muscles beefs up protein
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Audio long read: The controversial embryo tests that promise a better baby
Flies can move their rigid, omnidirectional eyes – a little
Racism in Health: the harms of biased medicine
Ancient DNA reveals family of Neanderthals living in Siberian cave
Human brain organoids implanted into rats could offer new way to model disease
Virtual library of LSD-like drugs could reveal new antidepressants
Nature's Take: How the war in Ukraine is impacting science
Audio long read: What scientists have learnt from COVID lockdowns
A trove of ancient fish fossils helps trace the origin of jaws
Huge dataset shows 80% of US professors come from just 20% of institutions
Complex synthetic cells bring scientists closer to artificial cellular life
Missing foot reveals world’s oldest amputation
Audio long read: Hybrid brains – the ethics of transplanting human neurons into animals
How to make water that's full of holes
Do protons have intrinsic charm? New evidence suggests yes
Nature's Take: what's next for the preprint revolution
Why low temperatures could help starve tumours of fuel
Massive Facebook study reveals a key to social mobility
Coronapod: the open-science plan to unseat big Pharma and tackle vaccine inequity
How humans adapted to digest lactose — after thousands of years of milk drinking
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