Attacks on institutions that keep records of global temperatures, such as NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK Met Office, and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, continue to appear in the press.

Reconstructions of human evolution are prone to simple, overly-tidy scenarios. Our ancestors, for example, stood on two legs to look over tall grass, or began to speak because, well, they finally had something to say. Like much of our understanding of early hominid behavior, the imagined diet of our ancestors has also been over-simplified.

Your intestines are home to many different kinds of bacteria (and some non-bacterial organisms as well). Together they’re called the “gut microbiome.”

They come from the food you eat – and whatever else gets into your mouth. Bacteria start colonizing your gut at birth.

If you thought it has been a while since you heard any more rumors about the long-awaited Apple TV, they are about to be replaced by even more exciting possibility - that Apple may be about to build an electric car.

The Wall Steet Journal kicked things off with a report that Apple had been hiring “hundreds” of staff with automotive design skills to work on a project called “Titan” that may be a self-driving electric vehicle configured in a (not-so-exciting) mini-van design.

In December 1941, a few days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II, a Detroit mother named Sylvia Tucker visited her local Red Cross donor center to give blood.

Having heard the “soul-stirring” appeals for blood donors on her radio, she was determined to do her part. But when she arrived at the center, the supervisor turned her away. “Orders from the National Offices,” he explained, “barred Negro blood donors at this time.”