Though modern humans and our closest evolutionary relatives, the great apes, shared a common ancestor millions of years ago, most similarities stop there. We live on the ground, walk on two legs and have much larger brains. 

That doesn't mean the larger brains evolved first. 

The first populations of the genus Homo emerged in Africa about 2.5 million years ago and though they already walked upright, their brains were only about half the size of today's humans. These earliest Homo populations in Africa had primitive ape-like brains - just like their extinct ancestors, the australopithecines.

Micronutrient deficiencies pose health problems for a third of the world's population. Worldwide, zinc deficits are more problematic in the rural areas of developing countries, where diets are largely limited to vegetable products grown in soils suffering from low nutrient availability.

Biofortification, the process of bolstering the nutritional value of crops by increasing the concentration of vitamins and minerals in them, has arisen as a remedy for this problem.  Recent trials determined that foliar application, applying liquid fertilizer directly to leaves instead of the soil, boosted the zinc content of wheat grain by up to 50 percent.

Eucalyptus trees are a pest-resistant evergreen that produce good lumber and oil that wealthy elites in the "wellness" marketplace buy - they are also an invasive species.

A new paper shows how scientists used CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out LEAFY, the master gene behind flower formation, so the trees will not reproduce sexually. The greenhouse study involved a hybrid of two species, Eucalyptus grandis and E. urophylla, that is widely planted in the Southern Hemisphere; there are more than 700 species of eucalyptus, most of them native to Australia.

Beer has been important throughout human history. Given how dangerous water was in the past, it is arguably true that civilization would not exist without beer.

Yet if you make your own, you have to think about waste. Spent grain, the malt and adjuncts left over from the mash, is 85 percent of brewing waste. If you don't have a compost pit or a farm somewhere close by, it's going inro the garbage.

Pilot results from San Bernardino County, California, where crime is prevalent and distrust in government high, found that religion may be key to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Focused education efforts and an on-site mobile clinic in Black church parking lots resulted in the vaccinations of 417 people, 84% of whom were Black.

Results also showed an increase in Black attendance of mass vaccination clinics to 3.6% of total patients, up from 3%, in the week following asking Black churches and clergy to help in COVID-19 vaccination education and distribution.

What sets human communication apart from lower animals is its compositionality, which means that units of meaning can be combined and new meanings can be constructed. The words "blue" and "car" have their own meanings but combined there is a new content, i.e., a car that is blue.