In the April 14 SN: Killer heat, mass insect migrations, the latest Saturn updates, rethinking the Nobel Prize, tectonics on Venus, the science of mass shootings, ancient tool trends and more.
PREDATOR OR PREY? Giant ground sloths like Megatherium, illustrated here, were elephant-sized herbivores that, with sharp claws and thick muscle, would have been difficult for prehistoric humans to hunt — though that doesn’t appear to have been a deterrent.
Jaime Chirinos/Science Source
GREEN MEDICINE Derived from sweet wormwood plants, the antimalarial compound artemisinin usually composes 0.1 to 1 percent of the dry weight of the leaves. New research more than triples a plant’s yield of artemisinin, to 3.2 percent.
Ton Rulkens/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Genetic evidence suggests that cicadas on 13- and 17-year schedules can hybridize.
Teiji Sota
