Lab notes: skin makes me cry, plus a zombie supernova in the sky

In a world full of sad news and "harmless" radioactive clouds drifting over Europe, one piece this week stood as a beacon of hope, warmed the cockles of our hearts and mixed any other metaphor you'd care to chuck in there. The story of scientists saving the life of a seven-year-old Syrian boy by growing a whole new skin for him was incredibly moving - and just plain incredible science-wise. That plus a "transformational" new prenatal DNA test that detects Down's, Edwards and Patau syndromes with 95% accuracy means that it's been a pretty darn good week for medical research. And that's before we even start to think about the sheep whose ability to recognise celebrities could help research into Huntington's disease. The last two stories are linked by the year 1954 (spooky, no?). That was the year a Roman Temple of Mithras was discovered beneath the London mud. It's also the year a star, iPTF14hls, first exploded in a supernova. The temple has just reopened, in a glorious new multi-sensory incarnation on its original site and the star ... well, the star has become something of a sensation, as it appears to have exploded in "fatal" supernovae multiple times since that 1954 sighting - the first star astronomers have witnessed doing so.