Lab notes: is tartan T. rex about to enter the textbooks?

The potential for a massive shakeup of the dinosaur family tree (including a possible common ancestor from Scotland) was mooted this week - will a new classification come in and overturn over a century of evolutionary assumptions? Stay tuned, dino-lovers. In the meanwhile, I may have to reverse my personal policy on our eight-legged friends with the news that and ingredient in funnel web spider venom can protect cells from being destroyed by a stroke. Alongside this is the news that a new test can predict age when Alzheimer's disease will appear. It's based on 31 genetic markers could be used to calculate any individual's yearly risk for onset of disease. So all this is great news, but I've saved the best 'til last: we might even be en route to understanding how to undo the ravages of time, as a new study has show that purging the body of 'retired', or senescent, cells could reverse ageing. Mice today, me tomorrow? I don't know how long we could expect to live if they perfect the technique, but chances are that none of us will look as good after 700 years as the Cambridge man whose face has been brought to life in a detailed reconstruction. It's part of a research project aimed at gaining insights into the anonymous poor of the medieval city. And finally, a low-cost but high-tech breakthrough could mean that fertility testing for men could become as simple and affordable as home pregnancy testing. A gadget designed to clip onto a smartphone has been shown to detect abnormal sperm samples with 98% accuracy in trials. Great news for those struggling to conceive but nervous or embarrassed by clinics.