Wine flowed freely from ancient Greece during its golden age, but new work suggests nuts and various herbs were also in demand. With the help of DNA analysis, scientists are getting a present-day look at centuries-old trade in the Mediterranean. Such studies may help debunk some long-held assumptions, namely that the bulk of Greek commerce revolved around wine. During the fifth through third centuries B.C., the Mediterranean and Black seas were major thoroughfares for ships loaded with thousands of curvaceous jars known as amphorae, thought from their shape to contain a drink made from ferme... (p. 26)

Rinse and spit. Someday soon, doctors may join dentists in issuing these simple instructions. And before leaving the office, you might know whether you’re at risk for oral cancer. Additional tests on that same ptui may reveal whether you show signs of certain other cancers or diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Saliva — the frothy fluid that helps clean the mouth, digest food and fight tooth decay — carries many of the same proteins and other molecules found in blood and urine. Scientists have long been interested in mining a person’s mix of these compounds for clues to diag... (p. 26)

Fly over any baseball stadium when the home-team batter slams a double in the gap with two men on base, and you’ll see a crowd of fans rising in unison, arms waving wildly in the air. You’d think you were viewing typical baseball fan behavior. Witness this scene at ground level, though, and you’ll get a different picture. While a majority of fans participate in the cheering, others are sipping beer, attending to scorecards or roaming the walkways in search of a hot dog. Such displays of individuality shouldn’t come as a surprise — people often react differently to the same circumst... (p. 26)

Video games can be mesmerizing, even for a rhesus monkey. Which may explain, in part, why 6-year-old Jasper has been sitting transfixed at a computer screen in a Washington University lab for nearly an hour, his gaze trained on a small red ball. A more interesting reason for Jasper’s quiet demeanor is that he is hurling the ball at a moving target using just his thoughts. Jasper is not the only monkey to control objects with his mind. At the University of Pittsburgh, a pair of macaques manipulated a thought-controlled synthetic arm to grab and eat marsh­mallows. The monkeys then worked the... (p. 26)

Emery Brown knows how to take the sting out of surgery. As an anesthesiologist, he has steered hundreds of patients to pain-free oblivion, allowing doctors to go about their business resetting bones, repairing heart valves or removing tumors. During surgery he continually monitors his patients, keeping tabs on their heart rate, blood pressure and breathing. Recently, he has also been eyeing what happens in their brains. Rather than going under the knife, some of the people in Brown’s care are going into scanners to reveal how the brain responds when people are knocked out. These deep glim... (p. 18)

View the videos Here’s the clue: It is quick on the buzzer and stuffed with the equivalent of one million books, and it can beat you at Jeopardy! The answer: What is Watson? Watson is the IBM supercomputer that became a whiz at Jeopardy!, the long-running television quiz show. In a February 2011 showdown, the brainy machine beat out the two best-ever human Jeopardy! champs. Sure, Watson can sift through trillions of pages of text per second, but did scientists spend all that time building a machine just to win bragging rights for a game show? Not really. Watson’s triumph marked a...

You know the feeling — the flush of excitement when your boss hands you a bonus check, or you unexpectedly run into an old friend, or you discover a way to get tickets to the big game that was long ago sold out. When life throws you a gift or a gain, it’s not just your mood that perks up. Two small almond-shaped masses of nerve cells buried deep in your brain take notice too. Those clumps of cells, one on each side of the brain, are known as the amygdala (uh-MIG-duh-luh). For years the amygdala has been regarded primarily as the brain’s center for fear. Scores of studies have shown ... (p. 22)

A runny nose, sore throat and fever may send you running to your doctor — a perfectly satisfactory strategy if all you are seeking is relief. Applying their knowledge of biology, doctors can analyze your symptoms and then prescribe the best drugs to alleviate them. But if you want to know what’s really going on inside your body, consider asking a physicist. Through the years, biologists have identified and described the various cells that orchestrate the immune system’s response to infection, leading to effective vaccines and treatments for many diseases. Mathematical experts have h... (p. 22)

With no obvious culprit in sight, geneticists do broader sweeps to identify autism’s causes. (p. 18)

Scientist Kristen Brennand uses stem cells to understand brain disorders.