Ancient Gene-Hoarding Shrub

An ancient flowering, evergreen shrub (Amborella) that only grows on a single Pacific archipelago off the eastern coast of Australia has absorbed the entire mitochondrial genes of a moss, three green algae and several hundred genes from an unknown number of flowering plants for a bloated genome orders of magnitude larger than any other known plant.

Iron-Age Brewing

Archaeologist have discovered carbonized barley grains as well as a nearby oven at a site in Roquepertuse, France, suggesting the area was malting grain and brewing beer some 2500 years ago.