Iceman funeral rites
脰tzi, the 5000-year-old mummified 鈥渋ceman鈥� discovered in the Alps in 1991, may have been ceremonially buried. A new analysis of the objects buried with him lends weight to the controversial idea that his body was carefully laid to rest (). It is generally thought that he became entombed in ice after being attacked.
Smoking stool pigeons
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Analysing a baby鈥檚 first stools could reveal how much tobacco smoke the fetus was exposed to. The amount of tobacco breakdown products in 337 babies鈥� excretions correlated with those in the mothers鈥� blood. The method could be used as a non-invasive measure of the duration and intensity of prenatal tobacco exposure (Environmental Health, ).
Bread genome rises
Five times as large as the human one, the genome of the world鈥檚 most important cereal crop has at last been sequenced. The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium expects the draft sequence of Chinese spring wheat to accelerate development of new varieties that will yield more, tolerate drought and cope with climate change.
Guilt-free smashing
On 24 August, a Hawaiian appeals court absolved in advance the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and other funding bodies of responsibility for any dire event that might occur in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. Phew.
No Russian reliance
Seeking space independence, Russia aims to start launching cosmonauts from within its own borders by 2018. It currently leases its Baikonur Cosmodrome site from Kazakhstan, which has previously suspended rocket launches.