October 10, 2023: The origin of wine is different than we thought, a wild plan to save the Hawaiian honeycreeper and the CDC tries a new approach with its flu vaccine ads. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | A massive new study gives us the clearest picture yet of the prehistory of wine, overturning several commonly accepted narratives about when and where humans cultivated grapevines to make the world's wines. A large international group of researchers collected and analyzed the DNA from 2,503 unique vines from domesticated table and wine grapes and 1,022 wild grapevines.
What they found: Between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago grapes grew naturally across the western and central Eurasian continent before an ice age climate cleaved their lineages into two main groups. Humans in western Asia domesticated table grapes around 11,000 years ago (earlier than previously thought). Other people, in the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), domesticated wine grapes around the same time, though they didn't master wine-making for 2,000 to 3,000 more years.
Today's wine: Once farmers did began cultivating wine grapes in Europe, they developed many of the varietals we enjoy today–all largely from six geographic lineages. | | | Credit: Francesco Franchi; Source: "Dual Domestications and Origin of Traits in Grapevine Evolution," by Yang Dong et al., in Science, Vol. 379; March 2023 (data); Consultant: Wei Chen/Yunnan Agricultural University | | | Beginning in November, a consortium of more than a dozen state, federal, industry and conservation partners plans to drop 250,000 mosquitoes twice a week over about 3,000 acres in east Maui for a year. The mosquitoes have been bred with a particular gut bacteria that researchers hope will render them unable to produce viable offspring. If all goes well, mosquito populations will plummet and spare the rapidly disappearing bird, the honeycreeper.
Why this matters: Hawaii's iconic honeycreepers are crucial pollinators for many of Hawaii's plants. More than 50 species of honeycreepers once flitted across the archipelago, but because of introduced predators, habitat destruction and disease, that number has dwindled to only 17. Invasive Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes pose a particular threat because they spread the deadly avian malaria parasite. Rising temperatures are widening the mosquitoes' habitat, and every year they move higher up the mountain slopes where they kill the birds living there.
How it works: C. quinquefasciatus mosquitoes naturally contain Wolbachia bacteria in their gut. In order to produce offspring, mating mosquitoes must be infected with the same strain of the bacteria. Any existing female mosquitoes that mate with the male newcomers (bred with a different Wolbachia) will have incompatible Wolbachia bacteria, and will not produce viable offspring. | | | Iiwi (Vestiaria coccinea), a common nectar-feeding Hawaiian honeycreeper found only in the high mountain forest of the main Hawaiian Islands. Credit: Jack Jeffrey/Photo Resource Hawaii/Alamy Stock Photo | | | • A new kind of glasses automatically transcribes the words someone is saying and displays the text as subtitles on the lenses in front of the wearer's eyes. | 6 min read | | | • Solar storms may interfere with the magnetic compass that birds use for long-distance travel, hindering their migration. | 4 min read | | | • Climate disasters have displaced 43 million children in just six years--with the Philippines, India and China experiencing the greatest total number of kids displaced. | 6 min read | | | Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) | | | • "Authorities must start thinking about the intersection between climate change and drug use," writes Jerel Ezell, an assistant professor of community health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. "They must design climate literacy programs for drug users, build a housing policy that considers climate change's impact and make harm reduction programs more widely available." | 5 min read | | | The CDC's new "Wild to Mild" flu vaccine campaign hits just in time for Fat Bear Week, a competition co-run by the Katmai Conservancy (which supports the Katmai National Park in Alaska). Today is the last day to vote on the winning bear before they hunker down for a long winter. Who wouldn't benefit from looking at some amazing bears today? | Thank you for being readers of Today in Science. Take care of yourself and others. And email me any time with suggestions or comments: newsletters@sciam.com. Until tomorrow. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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