History tells us how Bavarians innovated what now makes up 94 per cent of the world's beer market after noticing how beer stored in caves over the winter continued to ferment, creating a lighter and smoother drop.
Less clear, however is the origins of thetwo yeast species, S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus, which make up the lager hybrid strains.
Now, US scientists have used next-generation sequencing to assemble a high-quality genome of S. eubayanus, finding that it's taken a different evolutionary path to S. cerevisiae.
According to study author Chris Todd Hittinger, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the unlikely marriage between these lager yeasts - although as different from each other as humans and birds - happened at least twice during their domestication.
With the findings clarifying origins of the major lineages of the hybrid yeasts used to brew lagers, science has given us a roadmap for future research in the domestication of lager yeasts. Let's drink to that.
'UFOs' give bears the heebie jeebies
A yellowstone black bear. Photo / Getty Images
Unless you're David Duchovny's agent Fox Mulder from the X-Files, it's a sure bet that seeing a UFO flash across the sky would get your heart racing.
Not surprisingly, this is just what happens to bears when they see drones used by wildlife researchers.
Drones have allowed them to monitor many animal species without setting foot in their habitats, and it was thought the fly-bys didn't phase them.
But US researchers have just found that while American black bears appear calm when the robots come near, cardiac bio-loggers revealed their heartbeats soar - in one instance at a rate of 400 per cent above normal.
Bugs that live on thin air
There are some hardy bugs living on the edge in the Central North Island.
Scientists from Otago University and GNS Science have looked to the rather extreme case of a strain of acidobacteria named Pyrinomonas methylaliphatogenes.
Found in heated, acidic geothermal soils in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, it can scavenge trace amounts of the fuel hydrogen from the air after its carbohydrate nutrient sources become exhausted.
Put simply, these bacteria can live on thin air - a finding that deepens our understanding of how bacterial communities can survive in soils.
Ants sense BO - in full HD
While getting stuck next to a smelly passenger on the bus isn't pleasant, just be thankful you're not picking up what an ant would.
Ants are known to distinguish friend from foe based on chemical pheromones, which are detected via sensors in their antennae, and now scientists have found how assessing body odours is a big part of it. The insects can detect almost all hydrocarbon components.
"The ants can recognise the various castes in the colony as well as intruders from another colony," said study leader Anandasankar Ray, of the University of California.
As they close in on the functional roles of the ants' odorant receptors, the researchers say they are particularly interested to find those that detect pheromones from the ant queen, whose cues are responsible for keeping the colony in order.
Till bolt-cutters do us part...
When a man presented with a very swollen left ring finger adorned by a titanium band doctors were faced with a headache. Photo / Thinkstock
Soul diva Laura Lee once sang "wedlock is a padlock" - and in one strange case at a UK emergency department, the only escape fittingly turned out to be a pair of bolt cutters.
When a man presented with a very swollen left ring finger adorned by a titanium band - a popular alternative to gold and silver - doctors were faced with a headache.
Ring constriction - a relatively common problem in emergency care and, in this instance, the result of a long stint in a spa bath - can cut off blood supply, leading to tissue death and ultimately loss of the finger.
The doctors tried using elevation, lubrication, finger binding and a manual ring cutter without success.
Plastic surgeons finally found a speedy solution - bolt cutters.
"Our method used simple equipment that is readily available and took less than 30 seconds to perform," the authors wrote in the online Emergency Medicine Journal.
