Demand, disease and climate change are threatening cocoa, but new more productive and hardy clones often lack flavour – the fight is on to save chocolate from becoming as bland as the supermarket tomato. Image: edhi
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There’s more to Darwin’s finches than meets the eye. Famously, the 14 species found on the Galapagos islands are distinguished from one another largely by differences in beak shape. But the first full genome analysis of the birds shows the approach isn’t foolproof, because some characteristic beak shapes appear to have evolved on two or three separate occasions. Image: David Cook Wildlife Photography
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The coco de mer palm of the Seychelles is the stuff of legend. Its seeds – the largest and heaviest in the world – were once believed to grow on trees beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean, and to hold great healing powers. How does a plant that grows in poor quality soil on just two islands produce record-breaking seeds that reach half a metre in diameter and can weigh in at around 25 kilograms? Image: Christopher Kaiser-Bunbury
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We may be a step closer to understanding how some meat-eating fungi turned predator. It turns out that the edible oyster mushroom uses a special class of immune system proteins to kill its parasites – and possibly its prey. We carry similar proteins, as do many of our pathogens, and understanding their action could help us fight common diseases. Image: a.bower
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Appearances can be deceptive. At first glance, the sea ice that covers polar regions in winter seems rather barren – but clinging to the bottom of it are remarkable upside-down algal “forests” that support a wide array of creatures. Image: Scheherazade Al Arab
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