Email ‘Motherless babies!’ How to create a tabloid science headline in five easy stepsNo, scientists have not figured out how to make “motherless babies,” nor have they gotten any closer to making an embryo without using an egg cell. A Nature Communications paper sparked a flurry of headlines early this week about futuristic ways to get around the basic formula of “sperm + egg = embryo.” Many claimed researchers had moved closer to using a skin cell, for example, instead of an egg cell, to make a baby. That, they said, could make it possible for a gay couple to have a baby by fusing sperm from one man with the skin cell of another. But those headlines and stories frequently left out a crucial detail: The researchers most definitely needed egg cells—also called oocytes—to make the mouse pups they described.’Burning bodies’ experiment casts doubt on fate of missing Mexican students Country * Afghanistan Aland Islands Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People’s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Vietnam Virgin Islands, British Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Click to view the privacy policy. Required fields are indicated by an asterisk (*)
In September 2014, 43 university students disappeared in Guerrero state in southern Mexico. The Mexican government has maintained that a drug cartel murdered the students and burned their bodies at a trash dump. But forensic investigators and human rights groups were doubtful, citing gaps in the evidence and a federal investigation that they contend fell short of international standards. Now, a renowned fire scientist says his latest experiments rule out the government’s explanation once and for all.Star-mapping mission shows Milky Way to be larger than thoughtThe Milky Way has been mapped in greater detail than ever before. And a first quick look indicates that our home galaxy is larger than scientists had thought before, says Gisella Clementini, an astronomer at the Astronomical Observatory of Bologna in Italy. The European Space Agency released the first data from its €750 million Gaia star-mapping mission: The new catalog contains sky positions for 1.1 billion stars, 400 million of which have never been seen before.Record-breaking lightning bolt lit up OklahomaMost lightning bolts last just a few milliseconds and travel fewer than a dozen kilometers. But scientists have just announced new world records for distance and duration of single lightning flashes—and boy, are they surprising. The distance champ leapt to life just south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the middle of a long line of midafternoon thunderstorms on 20 June 2007 and then shot westward nearly to the Texas border—a distance of 321 kilometers (almost 200 miles).Q&A: Should we seed life on alien worlds?Astronomers have detected more than 3000 planets beyond our solar system, and just a couple weeks ago they discovered an Earth-like planet in the solar system next door. Most—if not all—of these worlds are unlikely to harbor life, but what if we put it there? Theoretical physicist Claudius Gros of Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany suggests we do just that. In an interview with Science, Gros talked artificial intelligence, searching for habitable planets, and what kind of organisms he’d like to see evolve.Now that you’ve got the scoop on this week’s hottest Science news, come back Monday to test your smarts on our weekly quiz! Sign up for our daily newsletter Get more great content like this delivered right to you! Country