Scientists have found that transplanting a microbe that occurs naturally in eastern cottonwood trees boosts the ability of willow and lawn grass to withstand the effects of the industrial pollutant phenanthrene.

Because the plants can then take up 25 to 40 percent more of the pollutant than untreated plants they could be useful in phytoremediation, the process of using plants to remove toxins from contaminated sites, without all the environmentalist political lobbying drama of using genetically modified plants to do the same thing. 

Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa) and various genetically modified relatives are the most popular and economically significant members of the genus Cornus in the nursery and landscape industries. These deciduous trees are highly valued for their spring display of pink, red, or white bracts, brilliant red fall foliage, and exfoliating bark and in the US sales of dogwoods account for more than $30 million dollars each year.

What's in a name? Apparently a lot. So much so that social mobility in England hasn't changed much since pre-Industrial times.

After William the Conqueror defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, making England a French country rather than an Anglo-Saxon one, he rewarded his supporters with lands taken from those who had been loyal to his opponent. He was very good to them - but he wanted his levies. So if your name appeared in the original Domesday Book, you were going to get a tax bill, but the benefits were so substantial you are more likely to be upper class even today.

Diarrhea and candidiasis can result from taking the common antibiotic treatments, amoxicillin and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, although harms may be underreported, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

If you want to know the secret to a longer life, look to reptiles. But you may not like the answer you find.

There is a belief that a fast-paced lifestyle is damaging to health. Slowing down will not just be more relaxing, but also keep you around, finds an analysis of 1,014 species of reptiles (including 672 lizards and 336 snakes), a representative sample of the approximately 10,000 known reptiles on the planet. After examining their life history parameters, such as body size, earliest age at first reproduction, body temperature, reproductive modes, litter or clutch size and frequency, geographic distribution, and diet, they found that early sexual maturation and a higher frequency of laying eggs or giving birth were associated with shortened longevity. 

It is known that at some point Mars was warm enough to have liquid water flowing on its surface. The evidence of ancient rivers, streams, and lakes remains.

But it was not a long-term tropical vacation paradise. Instead, warmth and water flow on ancient Mars was probably episodic, related to brief periods of volcanic activity that spewed tons of greenhouse-inducing sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere, according to new climate models of early Mars which suggest that periods of temperatures warm enough for water to flow likely lasted for only tens or perhaps hundreds of years at a time.