Snakes alive! First serpents may have lived 170m years ago

A new look at four fossils has revealed that snakes' earliest known ancestor lived as many as 70 million years earlier than thought. Until now, the fossil record had suggested snakes slithered onto the scene in the Upper Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago. By re-analysing fossils in museum collections, scientists found that the oldest among them belonged to the earliest identifiable snake, which lived between 143 and 167 million years ago. Its skull has key features that have continued to appear among snakes since. AFP

Researchers from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, have invented a strain of probiotics, testing the friendly bacteria on 60 children allergic to peanuts. The study revealed that 80 per cent of them tolerated the probiotics, in addition with either peanut protein or a placebo, without any allergic reaction. Of the 28 children tested with peanut protein, three were able to eat peanuts after the study. "It seems we have been able to modify the allergic response to peanuts," researcher Mimi Tang said. Xinhua