Benefits of world’s only vaccine against tuberculosis were underestimated as new findings reveal it protects against the disease for at least 20 yearsThe BCG, an old vaccine but the only one against tuberculosis, is more effective than was thought, offering protection for at least 20 years, a new study shows.BCG vaccination used to be routine in all secondary schools in the UK for young teenagers, but in recent years it has been given only to those at risk, such as children living in inner-city areas with relatively high TB rates. Continue reading...

Llanbedr, Gwynedd With sadness I realised a proposed road, improving access to the planned spaceport, would cut across the floodplain I had just exploredThe train along the Cambrian coast route stops at Llanbedr only by request, and on this occasion I was the only passenger to alight. To the west fields of wet grassland, divided by drainage channels brimming with rushes, spread towards the sea.Related: Snowdonia fears impact of UK spaceport decision Continue reading...

Novartis medication marketed as Kymriah treats most common type of childhood cancer, but some fear it could spur wave of highly expensive drugsUS regulators have approved the first cancer drug that uses a patient’s own cells to fight cancer. But the drug is priced at $475,000.Oncologists described the drug, made by Novartis and marketed as Kymriah, as revolutionary, but critics say the first-of-its-kind cancer treatment could usher in a new class of ultra-expensive medications. Continue reading...

Scientists say one of the most rapid periods of warming in Earth’s history was due to gradual release of CO2, warning current levels of emissions were even higherA dramatic period of global warming 56 million years ago that saw temperatures climb by up to five degrees and triggered extinctions of marine organisms was down to volcanic eruptions, researchers have revealed, in a study they say offers insights into the scale and possible impact of global warming today.One of the most rapid periods of warming in Earth’s history, the Palaeocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), occurred as Greenland pulled away from Europe. Continue reading...

Algorithms based on NHS records could seed an ‘entirely new industry’ in AI-based diagnostics and mint billions for tech companies, strategic review revealsThe government must act urgently to ensure that patients and UK taxpayers – not just tech companies – gain from new commercial applications of NHS data, an independent review of the UK life sciences industry has said.Sir John Bell, a professor of medicine at Oxford university who led the government-commissioned review, said that NHS patient records are uniquely suited for driving the development of powerful algorithms that could transform healthcare and seed an “entirely new industry” in AI-based diagnostics. Continue reading...

Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queriesWhen it comes to speed records, one animal beats all others on both land and a Google search. But the cheetah has now been usurped by the not-so-humble raven. This is thanks to a particularly fantastical bit of editing in the penultimate episode of season seven of Game of Thrones. No spoilers here. All I’ll say is that it left the audience wondering just what kind of flight speed the daddy of the crow family can muster if it were to have travelled such long distances in what appeared, at least on screen, to be such little time. (My favourite meme featured a raven with jet engines under its wings.)If, like me, you’re a fan of animal record breakers, you’ll know the fastest flight recorded is the stoop of a peregrine falcon – over 200mph. That’s vertical though, plunging down toward prey, so it’s working with gravity not against it. Flying horizontally takes more effort so we can expect speeds to be lower. Continue reading...

Visitors are often confounded by the idea that some specimens are not originals, but this does not make them fake or guessworkPerhaps the most common question that is posed to museum staff and educators dealing with things like fossils and other artefacts is: “Is it real?”. In itself, it’s a perfectly reasonable question, especially when someone has the unexpected privilege to touch and hold a specimen and wants to know if this really is an original of some kind.Often though it can come from incredulity, that something like a tyrannosaur tooth really could exist or be real. In my own case, working with dinosaurs, this is also a quite reasonable question – their bones can be so outsized, bizarrely proportioned and downright strange that some scepticism that these could possibly be genuine is quite understandable. However, the intonation of the query if often plain that someone quite simply doesn’t believe that these things are actually real but in some way a fabrication, and here is where things get tricky as some specimens and exhibits are rather more ‘real’ than others. Continue reading...

This was a responsible look at a troubling subject, even if Ian Brady’s inclusion felt like a gimmick. Plus, Celebrity Island with Bear GryllsFor some unknowable reason, last night’s Horizon: What Makes a Psychopath? – an investigation into people who score highly for personality traits such as grandiosity, superficiality, lying, being easily bored, having short attention spans and an inability to empathise with others or feel guilt or remorse – felt timely.Psychologist Prof Uta Frith was our guide on a tour of what defines and creates such a being and whether he (or presumably she, although there was no mention of a distaff counterpart to the men interviewed or referred to in the programme) can ever be successfully treated. Continue reading...

Nicola Davis delves into the world of plastics to find out exactly how and why they became so widespread, and what can now be done to curtail the ever-present problems they can causeSubscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterEarlier this year, the first global analysis of all mass–produced plastics found that humans have produced over 8.3bn tonnes of the stuff since the 1950s. And with this figure predicted to rise to 34bn by 2050, issues around its production, usage, and disposal, are of the utmost importance. But what is it about plastics that makes them so widespread? Where does most of it end up? And looking to the future – what can now be done to address the ever-growing threats that plastics can pose? Continue reading...

Residue in terracotta jars suggests drink was being made and consumed on the island in the fourth millennium BCResearchers have discovered traces of what could be the world’s oldest wine at the bottom of terracotta jars in a cave in Sicily, showing that the fermented drink was being made and consumed in Italy more than 6,000 years ago.Previously scientists had believed winemaking developed in Italy around 1200 BC, but the find by a team from the University of South Florida pushes that date back by at least three millennia. Continue reading...

Finding debunks long-held idea that teeth of prehistoric animals were shaped to allow water to sieve through themAustralian researchers have produced new evidence disputing a popular theory of whale evolution proffered by scientists from Charles Darwin onwards about the development of baleen, the hair-like strands used to filter krill out of the water and down the gullet of the largest mammals on the planet.Using 3D modelling of a prehistoric tooth dug out of the rocks near Torquay on Victoria’s southern coastline in 2016 and comparing it to similar modelling of modern predators, a team of scientists based at Museums Victoria found that rather than being shaped as a precursor to filter-feeding, the teeth of ancestral whales were surprisingly sharp. Continue reading...

Lethal autonomous weapons are a reality, but the campaign to prevent their use is ours to winThe first meeting of the UN-backed group of experts, intended to start work on getting a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, was supposed to wrap up at the end of last week. But only days before it was due to start it was cancelled: funding shortfalls were blamed. A lack of will feels the more likely explanation. Alarmed by the delay the day it was due to begin, more than 100 of those most closely involved in developing the artificial intelligence on which such weapons would rely, led by Tesla’s Elon Musk and Alphabet’s Mustafa Suleyman, wrote a public letter of bleak warning: killer robots amount to a third revolution in warfare, the sequel to gunpowder and nuclear weapons. They are right. The only thing more frightening than a machine that can’t decide for itself who to kill is one that can.But the technology is out there, within reach of scientists backed by billions of dollars poured into the development of AI by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, and certainly matched in other less transparent regimes. Some semi-autonomous weaponry is already available, like the border guarding system on the ceasefire line between North and South Korea. The process of what its critics, such as the campaigning group Article 36, call “bureaucratising” weapons, where targets are defined according to an explicit hierarchy, is under way. Continue reading...

Almost six-year wrangle delays release of anonymous surveys done after elite athletics events in 2011, in which 57% of competitors doing admitted doping compared to under 4% in Wada results

Largest ever such survey of British 11- to 16-year-olds reveals experimentation with vaping devices does not translate into regular use and smoking rates still in decline

Across the US, towns and metropolises like mine are united to meet the Paris climate agreement’s targets and protect our residents and businessesWhile the Trump administration is dropping the mantle of leadership on climate change, American cities from coast to coast are picking it up. From small towns to metropolises and from the coasts to the heartland, Republican and Democratic mayors are united in common cause to curb emissions, shrink our carbon footprints and fight for a greener future.Rather than accepting the White House’s wrongheaded withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, cities are redoubling our efforts to meeting the landmark accords’ benchmarks. We not only have the power to take action, but unlike Washington we have the will to get the job done. Continue reading...

This is a manmade climate-related disaster. To ignore this ensures our greatest challenge goes unanswered and helps push the world towards catastrophe• Tropical storm Harvey – live updatesIt is not only Donald Trump’s government that censors the discussion of climate change; it is the entire body of polite opinion. This is why, though the links are clear and obvious, most reports on Hurricane Harvey have made no mention of the human contribution to it.In 2016 the US elected a president who believes that human-driven global warming is a hoax. It was the hottest year on record, in which the US was hammered by a series of climate-related disasters. Yet the total combined coverage for the entire year on the evening and Sunday news programmes on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News amounted to 50 minutes. Our greatest predicament, the issue that will define our lives, has been blotted from the public’s mind. Continue reading...

But our processed foods are full of highly engineered additives. Let’s call them drugs. And these really are addictiveMany of my colleagues – researchers who study overeating – now routinely use the term food addiction, and advocate for its recognition as a psychiatric diagnosis.It’s true that rats, monkeys and humans show addiction-like behaviour when exposed to highly palatable, calorie-dense foods, sometimes even preferring them to drugs such as cocaine. But I’ve come to see that nearly all the foods that elicit addictive behaviour share one thing in common: they have been significantly altered or enhanced through manufactured flavour chemicals and ingredients – also known as drugs. Continue reading...

The painkiller and anaesthetic is 50 times more potent than morphine, is powerfully addictive, fatal even in tiny amounts, and has become a huge part of America’s opioid crisis

New research reveals daily dose of just 375g of fruit, vegetables and beans are sufficient to reduce risk of stroke, heart disease or premature death, and could help low-income consumers

Study predicts power consumption to rise with hotter temperatures, increasing need for renewable sources, while northern Europe’s demand may fall

The answers to today’s puzzlesOn my puzzle blog earlier today I set the following three riddles, here reprinted with the answers.The ideas all come from card tricks. In the comments section you might want to suggest the best way to perform card tricks that are based on these mathematical patterns. Continue reading...

Riffle shuffle your brain cells with three of a kindUPDATE: The solutions are now up hereLadies and gentlemen,Today, three magic tricks. I mean three riddles. Continue reading...

US researchers find heart attack survivors given anti-inflammatory injections have fewer future episodes and lower cancer riskAnti-inflammatory injections could lower the risk of heart attacks and may slow the progression of cancer, a study has found, in what researchers say is the biggest breakthrough since the discovery of statins.Heart attack survivors given injections of a targeted anti-inflammatory drug called canakinumab had fewer attacks in the future, scientists found. Cancer deaths were also halved in those treated with the drug, which is normally used only for rare inflammatory conditions. Continue reading...

The event of the month will take place at Saturn on 15 September, when Cassini is due to plunge to its destruction in the planet’s atmosphereIn a month when half the entries in our Diary concern planets that stand low in our E pre-dawn sky, the highlight is the dramatic conclusion to the Cassini mission at Saturn. Almost twenty years since its launch and thirteen since it arrived at its target world, the spacecraft is due to plunge to its destruction in the Saturnian atmosphere on the 15th.

The correspondence, dating from 1949 to 1954, was found by an academic in a storeroom at the University of ManchesterA lost collection of nearly 150 letters from the codebreaker Alan Turing has been uncovered in an old filing cabinet at the University of Manchester.The correspondence, which has not seen the light of day for at least 30 years, contains very little about Turing’s tortured personal life. It does, however, give an intriguing insight into his views on America. Continue reading...

Robb Kulin is about to begin two years of intensive astronaut training. At the end, if he’s lucky, he’ll go to space

The eyeless subterranean salamanders that live in the watery depths of Postojna Cave are under threat – but there’s hope in sightPostojna Cave in Slovenia is one of Europe’s longest cave networks and one of the world’s most spectacular subterranean tourist sites. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come here every year to gaze at its wonders: its huge stalactites and stalagmites, its curtains of coloured rock and bridges that have been carved out of the local limestone by the river Pivka over millions of years.Given such glories, it is not surprising that few tourists take note of the two concrete huts draped with black polythene that have been erected in a shadowy alcove in one obscure part of the 24km-long labyrinth. But the huts contain wonders of their own. In racks of trays of water, scientists have placed specimens of one of the world’s strangest creatures: the blind aquatic salamander Proteus anguinus – or olm, as it is known locally. It constitutes a project that could have profound implications for the future of these remarkable creatures. Continue reading...

A critical decision in a life or death situation could determine the fate of you and your group. Consider this scenario and discover what it says about youHow utilitarian are you, and what does this predict about your personality? What would you do when faced with the following dilemma…You and three other people are trapped in a mine. One of the other three is bleeding and will die within the hour without medical attention. The rescue team says it will take 36 hours to reach you, and also that given the size of the space you are trapped in there is only enough oxygen for three people to survive for 36 hours, but definitely not four. Is it morally appropriate for you to withdraw medical attention and allow the bleeding crew member to die, in order to save yourself and the rest of the crew? Continue reading...

From Joe Root’s bid to retain the Ashes to the last days of Cassini’s mission to Saturn, our specialist writers pick the season’s best in arts, sports, politics, science and trends Continue reading...

Companies have been told to accept moral responsibility and provide counselling for people who inadvertently discover health risksPeople who use genetic tests to trace their ancestry only to discover that they are at risk of succumbing to an incurable illness are being left to suffer serious psychological problems. Dementia researchers say the problem is particularly acute for those found to be at risk of Alzheimer’s disease, which has no cure or effective treatment. Yet these people are stumbling upon their status inadvertently after trying to find their Viking, Asian or ancient Greek roots.“These tests have the potential to cause great distress,” said Anna Middleton, head of society and ethics research at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge. “Companies should make counselling available, before and after people take tests.” The issue is raised in a paper by Middleton and others in the journal Future Medicine. Continue reading...

There are a million heroin users in the US, and the UK has Europe’s highest rate of use. It is a huge problem. But can there be a chemical answer to a social issue?The effect of heroin has been described as “a warm blanket on the brain”. Within seconds of the drug entering the bloodstream, it hits receptor molecules in the brain’s neurons that induce a surge of euphoria, followed by a prolonged sense of tranquillity. Yes, it feels good – and that’s the problem.But what if you took heroin and felt nothing? What if there was a treatment that cancelled its effects on the brain? Who then would bother to take it? Continue reading...

It’s International Bat Weekend, an annual celebration of the flying mammals that live in trees or in the crevices of buildings

If an acoustic weapon is responsible for the ‘attacks’ on US diplomats it is likely to be ultrasonic, but chemical causes must first be ruled out, say experts

Wine production to fall by 18% on 2016 after spring frosts ravage vines, but hot summer could deliver top vintagesFrance is expecting its poorest wine grape harvest since 1945 after an unusually mild March and a frosty April, experts have said, although the hot summer promises to deliver excellent quality.“At harvests everywhere, in places where we thought there would be a little less, there’s a lot less,” Jérôme Despey, head of a governmental wine advisory board, said on Friday. This year’s harvest will be the smallest since 1945, he told a news conference. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Prof Sophie Scott will give the 2017 Royal Institution Christmas lectures on the evolution of language - and explain why gifs and emojis aren’t stupidEmojis enhance human interaction by putting “emotional, non-verbal information back in”, argues Prof Sophie Scott, who has been named as the 2017 Royal Institution Christmas lecturer.Rather than marking a dismal low-point for communication, Scott believes that social media is allowing us to become increasingly sophisticated in our use of some of the most potent, but least studied, aspects of communication. Continue reading...

Let your house get dirty enough and you really might get a nasty illness. The same can’t be said for a non-alphabetised bookshelfRecently, thanks to multiple studies, the old consensus that “a tidy desk equals a tidy mind” has been shouldered aside by its opposite. These days, mess is a sign of creativity. Frankly, as a neat-freak, I consider this offensive, though I confess there’s a solid argument for it, stated most cogently in Tim Harford’s 2016 book Messy. Learning to embrace disarray, he argues, helps disrupt our tendency to think along the same pre-ploughed furrows, and permits the fresh associations that allow new ideas to form. Fair enough. But don’t expect me to stop arranging my notebooks and pens in a perfect line on my desktop. And don’t give me all that stuff about how this is an external manifestation of a desperate quest to retain a sense of control in the face of a meaningless cosmos. I’m just not a slob. OK?Except I’ve realised, over the last few years, that this slob versus neatnik dichotomy – subject of a thousand slanging matches between spouses – is an oversimplification. I’m a tidy person, but decidedly average when it comes to cleanliness; whereas my partner values cleanliness enormously, while being somewhat untidy. I’m baffled that she thinks it’s OK to leave books strewn across the coffee table, when they could be nicely stacked. She’s baffled that I care so much about arranging the rug so it’s perpendicular to the floorboards, while apparently not seeing the crumbs and bits of pasta accumulating along its edge. Continue reading...

The Babylonians weren’t just eye-catching gardeners, they were also ace mathematicians, it seems. Dating from 1,000 years before Pythagoras expounded his theorem, a Babylonian clay tablet is a trigonometric table more accurate than any today, say researchers. This was my favourite story of the week, as although it contains my personal downfall, maths, it also includes some interesting inside gen on Indiana Jones. Less directly useful to pyramid building, but nevertheless interesting, a new bone analysis has unpicked the life cycle of the long-extinct dodo. Scientists also think they can explain how the horse became the only living animal with a single toe. What they’re still arguing about, however, is whether or not sugar is as addictive as cocaine. It’s a pretty heated debate, which is why it might be a good plan to step back and wonder at the universe instead. You can start with this new view of Antares. The red supergiant is 550 light years from Earth and remarkably, astronomers have managed to capture images of it - the best images, in fact, ever taken of any star’s surface and atmosphere apart from the sun. If that isn’t exciting enough, how about some space sparkle? In a bling-tastic move, scientists have recreated the diamond rain of Neptune and Uranus using, er, polystyrene. And lasers. All very Blue Peter, I’m sure but it doesn’t quite beat this recycling excitement: astronaut urine, faeces and breath could be used to produce food supplements and plastics for 3D printing, freeing up space on long journeys, say researchers. Puts my half-hearted compost bin use to shame. Continue reading...

Don’t wait for astronauts to show us how to recycle bodily waste into useful products. Here’s how you can extract value from your own liquid assets nowScientists in South Carolina have this week described how astronauts of the future could recycle their own urine, breath and other forms of waste into useful products, such as fuel, nutrients, clean drinking water, and even polymer plastics.Related: Space savers: astronaut urine could make supplies from nutrients to tools Continue reading...

Heated debate has greeted an article in a medical journal suggesting sugar should be considered an addictive drug, as experts deride the claims as ‘absurd’An article suggesting that sugar should be considered an addictive substance, and could even be on a par with abusive drugs such as cocaine, has sparked a furious backlash with experts describing the claims as “absurd”.In a narrative review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine the authors write that sugar could act as a gateway to alcohol and other addictive substances, adding that like sugar, like cocaine and opium, is refined from plants to yield pure white crystals – a process they say “significantly adds to its addictive properties.” Continue reading...

Scientists have discovered that higher levels of the hormone cause aggression and impaired decision-making. It’s all good news for older menAs a man – the sort of thoughtful, Fawcett Society-supporting man who lowers the toilet seat after peeing, even when he has the house to himself – it’s hard to talk about women and their hormones. There’s no doubt that they affect minds and bodies, through puberty, pregnancy and premenstrual syndrome (PMS). The National Association for Premenstrual Syndrome’s list of “common” symptoms includes mood swings, depression, tiredness, anxiety, feeling out of control, irritability, aggression, headaches, sleep disorder, food cravings, breast tenderness, bloating, weight gain and clumsiness.Related: More middle-aged men taking steroids to look younger Continue reading...

The NHS is facing severe crises, from staffing to funding. Hunt misquoting me and misrepresenting research doesn’t helpThe secretary of state for health, Jeremy Hunt, has challenged me on Twitter and in an article for the Sunday Telegraph over a talk I gave recently to the Royal Society of Medicine in defence of the NHS. Having been accused by Hunt of spreading “pernicious falsehoods”, I feel the need to respond.Related: Jeremy Hunt’s dismissal of Stephen Hawking on the NHS | Letters Continue reading...

West Knoyle, Wiltshire It skitters up the fabric to the pinnacle, dropping down several feet then looping back up again, and again, and againTaking respite from the hubbub of milling outdoor and bushcraft enthusiasts attending the Wilderness Gathering, I lie back under the shade of a conical bell tent. Gazing upwards into the canvas peak I watch a wasp skittering up the ivory fabric to the pinnacle, dropping down several feet then looping back up again, and again, and again.Related: Conservationists slam 'hateful' survey promoting wasp killing Continue reading...

Agency’s Proba-3 mission plans pair of formation-flying spacecraft to form eclipses in space for corona researchA mission by the European Space Agency to create artificial eclipses in space is nearing a crucial milestone in development. The critical design review will take place this autumn and determine whether the spacecraft can proceed to fabrication, test and finally launch.The launch date scheduled for Proba-3 is 2020. The venture will help solar research by providing scientists with long, uninterrupted, views of the sun’s tenuous outer atmosphere, the corona. Continue reading...

My father, Martin Aitken, who has died aged 95, was a scientist who pioneered the application of physics to archaeology. He coined, with the archaeologist Christopher Hawkes, the term archaeometry, helping to make huge advances in dating finds from as early as the Lower Palaeolithic period.He was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, the younger son of Percy Aitken, an engineer draughtsman, and his wife, Ethel (nee Brittain), who farmed with her mother until her marriage. Martin was educated at Stamford school and studied physics at Wadham College, Oxford, before becoming a fellow of Linacre College and later a member of the Royal Society. He became Oxford professor of archaeometry in 1985 before retiring in 1989. Continue reading...

My father Roy Bentley, who has died aged 87, was a medical physicist whose career spanned almost the entire history of the speciality.The son of Frank, a chartered accountant, and his wife, Stella (nee Barker), who helped out in the family hosiery and glove business, Roy was educated at West Bridgford grammar school, Nottingham, and Birmingham University. His PhD, awarded in 1955, focused on the uptake of radioisotopes in fats and laid significant ground for the use of markers in medical imaging. Continue reading...

Relying on exact DNA science to identify the fire’s victims could lead to years of cruel uncertainty. We should learn from other disasters, trying new approachesTen weeks on from the Grenfell fire, 58 victims of its victims have been formally identified. But the number who died is thought to number at least 80, and could be many more. Some families who lost their loved ones face a wait of months, perhaps even years, to know with absolute certainty what happened to them.As someone who has studied the implications of DNA technology on a community’s ability to recover from disasters such as explosive forces and fires, I’ve seen first-hand how the science can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it enables the reliable identification of victims in a tragedy like Grenfell. On the other, the long wait for certainty can leave families in limbo for years. Continue reading...

From egg-laying to moulting, a new bone analysis has unpicked the biology of the long-extinct birdBulbous-beaked, plump and puny-winged, the dodo has been immortalised by humans in art, literature and song.But while the peculiar animals have inspired a panoply of research, not least as to whether they were really bird-brained or as corpulent as portraits implied, much about the dodo’s life has remained a mystery until now. Continue reading...

With a crewed version of its Dragon cargo capsule in development, the SpaceX chief executive reveals the suits set to be worn by the company’s astronautsSpaceX has unveiled a sleek white spacesuit for astronauts on its crewed flights expected to take off next year.Chief executive Elon Musk revealed the suit on Instagram on Wednesday. He said it was not him pictured in the new suit, but a SpaceX engineer. Continue reading...

With the stakes in clinical research so high, today sees the launch of a new and much-needed way of reporting clinical trialsIn tumultuous times, it is easy to miss the fact that science is undergoing a quiet revolution. For several years now, concerns have been peaking in biomedicine about the reliability of published research – that the results of too many studies cannot be reproduced when the methods are repeated. Alongside growing discontent, the scientific community has answered by driving forward a raft of open science reforms. From initiatives to making research data publicly available, to ensuring that all published research can be read by the public, the aim of these reforms is simple: to make science more credible and accessible, for the benefit of other scientists and the public who fund scientific research.Today one of these reforms takes hold for the first time in clinical medicine: a new type of journal article called a Registered Report in which the journal commits to publishing clinical trials regardless of their outcome. This might sound like common sense – because that’s exactly what it is – but in the competitive world of science and academia it represents a significant departure from the status quo. Continue reading...

The fossil record for flowering plants has been a hot topic since Darwin’s day and despite recent breakthroughs remains ‘an abominable mystery’A recent study proposed a hypothetical “first flower”: a prediction of what the flower of the shared ancestor of all flowering plants (or angiosperms) would have looked like. This prediction was based on evolutionary trees constructed from molecular data from 792 modern angiosperms, coupled with physical floral traits for each species, such as number and arrangement of petals and sepals (collectively known as tepals), and whether there were separate male and female, or bisexual, flowers.