The Importance of Ancient History in Scientific Debates

Cloning vigorous crops, and finding the first romantic kiss

First up this week, building resilience into crops. Staff Writer Erik Stokstad joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss all the tricks farmers use now to make resilient hybrid crops of rice or wheat and how genetically engineering hybrid crop plants to clone themselves may be the next step.

After that we ask: When did we start kissing? Troels Pank Arbøll is an assistant professor of Assyriology in the department of cross-cultural and regional studies at the University of Copenhagen. He and Sarah chat about the earliest evidence for kissing—romantic style—and why it is unlikely that such kisses had a single place or time of origin.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Erik Stokstad

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7436

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