&63&,"A Nobel-Worthy Doodle
BARBARA MCCLINTOCK was an
American scientist who studied
genetics by experimenting on
corn with multicolored kernels.
She discovered that certain
genes can jump around within a
plant or animal’s DNA (the set of
instructions inside each cell).
These jumping genes can change
the behavior of genes around
them. McClintock won a Nobel
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work—but her work as an artist
wasn’t recognized until now.
A science historian working to
catalogue McClintock’s notebooks
found an interesting doodle in
the margins of one book. The
doodle shows ears of corn
playing on a playground. Some of
the ears of corn are on a seesaw.One is going down a slide. One
ear of corn is jumping rope—and
McClintock surrounded this part
of the doodle with stars and
arrows. Researchers think
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jumping genes while she was
drawing this picture."/5)3010-0(:The Paleo Diet
IT’S A GOOD THING Neanderthals didn’t oss. Scienti
found some intriguing hints about what these prehist
people ate by studying their tooth gunk.
Researchers sampled plaque—the stuf the denta
hygienist scrapes of your teeth—from Neander-
thal remains. (Neanderthals were ancient
cousins to humans.) h en they sequenced the
DNA in that plaque to learn what those people
might have been eating. In the mouth of a
Neanderthal from Belgium, they found woolly
rhinoceros and wild sheep DNA. But a Neande
thal from Spain had been eating veggies, not
meat. h is person’s plaque included DNA
from pine nuts, moss, and mushrooms.
h ere was also evidence that the
prehistoric people used medicines. One
Neanderthal had a tooth infection. In that
person’s plaque, the scientists found DNA
from the poplar tree—a natural painkille
and an antibiotic fungus.art by Jane Labowitch