Headlines 

Coronavirus outliers: four nations with very different approaches to the crisis

Some nations have managed to maintain surprisingly low death rates even without swinging into lockdown Harrowing images of emergency workers struggling to cope with the onslaught of Covid-19 cases have made front pages around the world, highlighting the terrible impact the disease is having. Death tolls in Italy and Spain have been especially alarming. But not every nation has suffered to the same grim extent. Some have avoided lockdowns but have still not suffered huge leaps in case numbers. Others have introduced strict monitoring and contact tracing of infected individuals…

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Headlines 

Where Did Plants Come From? This Ancient Algae Offers Clues

Around 500 million years ago—when the Earth was already a ripe 4 billion years old—the first green plants appeared on dry land. Precisely how this occurred is still one of the big mysteries of evolution. Before then, terrestrial land was home only to microbial life. The first green plants to find their way out of the water were not the soaring trees or even the little shrubs of our present world. They were most likely soft and mossy, with shallow roots and few of the adaptations they would later evolve…

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