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A new kind of brain cell has been spotted and it acts like a hybrid of two others. Plus: how cannabis became our favourite weed

RICCARDO CASSIANI-INGONI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Brain cell discovery

A new type of brain cell, called a glutamatergic astrocyte, has been discovered. It could help explain how a variety of neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s, develop. Brain cells can largely be categorised into two types: neurons and glia. Neurons are typically considered to be brain cells that communicate with each other across the synapses or junctions between them, whereas glia are cells found in the central nervous system that don’t use this type of signalling. The newly discovered cells seem to be a hybrid of the two types. Read more.

Cannabis’s origins

It is the kind of question that might be raised in a smoky room, as the asker flicks back the wheel on a lighter, about to hold the flame to a joint: Where did weed even come from? Not the marijuana dispensary down the street or that guy your cousin goes to – but long, long before that? Scientists have now pieced together pot’s origin story using traces of its seeds and pollen frozen in time in the fossil record, as well as genetics that trace its lineage back to ancestral weeds. Read more.

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RICHARD JONES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

The standard model of particle physics is our best theory of the most fundamental particles and forces that constitute reality, and it came to fruition in the early 1970s. Although its roots lay in the quantum revolution, building the standard model was more like the forming of a new order by dozens of physicists the world over. Throughout the upheaval, many expected the new order to fail, but it did not. In fact, by most measures, it has proved to be the most successful theory ever devised by humankind. This is the story of how such an amazing theory was put together. Read more.

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Thanks for reading and have a great Thursday.

Chris Simms

Assistant news editor, New Scientist

Email me at [email protected]

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