Lab notes: Dracula, weird sex and hunting for aliens – a B-movie week in science

The biggest and most exciting news this week is, of course, that remarkable success in a drug trial for Huntington's disease means we may be at a turning point in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. However, the stories that have most captured reader imagination are, naturally, the ones to do with the discovery of the first solar system with as many planets as our own, scanning 'Oumuamua for signs that it might be an alien spacecraft and another story about weird monkey-deer sex (following on from January's monkey-deer sex revelation). Add to that an enormous ancient penguin, Dracula, the bloodsucking tick which feasted on dinosaurs 99m years ago, found by fossil-hunters amongst the remains of a feathered dinosaur nest and the grim news that the risk of a fatal motorcycle crash is higher under a full moon and frankly you've probably got enough to keep your brain busy until the new year.