Grape DNA reveals the true origins of wine

Hello Nature readers,
Today we confirm that an antimatter apple wouldn’t fall up into the sky (phew!), explore how to stop deepfakes from sinking society and learn the true origins of wine.

Antimatter falls down, not up

Antimatter experiences the same force of gravity as regular matter. Observing this simple phenomenon had eluded physicists for decades. Scientists at CERN made a thin gas of antihydrogen and dropped it from the top of a 3-metre-tall vertical shaft — a delicate task, because if the antiatoms come into contact with any regular matter, they both cease to exist.

Lockdown babies’ microbiomes are different

The gut microbes harboured by babies born during the early months of the COVID-19 lockdowns differ from those of babies born beforeprior to the pandemic. One study found that lockdown babies’ microbiomes — the community of microbes that live in the digestive tract — were less diverse. Another study (that has not yet been peer-reviewed) found that 12-month-oldat 12 months, lockdown babies had more of a a type of bacterial species promoted by breastfeeding and less of another that is usually picked up from the environment. It’s hard to unravel how these changes might affect overall health and development, but the altered microbiome strongly predicted the risk of developing eczema and allergies.

Arecibo moves into a new era

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) says that four institutions will take over stewardship of the iconic Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. In its heyday, the telescope starred in a James Bond film, but in 2020 it suffered a devastating collapse, captured in a gut-wrenching video. The long-awaited announcement from the NSF will see US and Puerto Rican universities collaborate to transform Arecibo into a science-education centre. But many researchers, especially those based in Puerto Rico, say they will mourn the end of research on the site.