Barley is one of the world’s oldest cultivated plants, farmed for more than 10,000 years. Scientists have long believed it was domesticated in just one location. An international research team led by the IPK Leibniz Institute has revealed that modern barley has a “mosaic origin”, meaning it stems from several wild populations across the Fertile Crescent. The findings were published today in the prestigious journal Nature.

Ko Mochizuki of the University of Tokyo has discovered that Vincetoxicum nakaianum, a dogbane species native to Japan described for the first time by Mochizuki and his collaborators only a year ago, mimics the smell of ants attacked by spiders to attract flies that feed on such attacked insects, and in the process pollinate the flowers. This is the first case of a plant mimicking the odor of ants, revealing that the scope of floral mimicry is more diverse than previously imagined. The findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

Carriers of Robertsonian chromosomes are often unaware they’re different. Although generally healthy, they can be infertile or suffer miscarriages. When they do have children, they’re at increased risk of having Down syndrome. Now, in a landmark study, scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified the precise location where human chromosomes break and recombine to form Robertsonian chromosomes. The findings, published in Nature on September 24, 2025, not only explain how these rearrangements form and remain stable—but also point to how repetitive DNA once dismissed as “junk” may play a central role in genome organization and evolution.

An international team of researchers led by Dr Manel Esteller, head of the Cancer Epigenetics Group at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, has just published the most comprehensive analysis to date of the longest-lived person ever recorded, the Catalan woman Maria Branyas, who passed away at the end of 2024 at the age of 117. The peer-reviewed study, published in the prestigious international journal Cell Reports Medicine, concludes that the biology of supercentenarians is more complex than previously thought, and that the key may lie in a delicate balance between opposing forces.

Australian shark experts have tested four bite-resistant materials to assess their ability to reduce injuries and blood loss. 

While internal and crushing injuries may still occur, bite-resistant wetsuits can now be added to the ‘toolkit’ of measures available to reduce shark-bite risk and resulting injuries, say researchers from Flinders University’s Southern Shark Ecology Group.