An analysis that combined behavioural data from 46,000 dogs with DNA sequences from 4,000 dogs has pinpointed genetic variants linked to their characteristic behaviours, such as nervousness or aggression (E. V. Dutrow et al. Cell 185, 4737'4755; 2022). To trace the genetic origins of behavioural traits, researchers scrapped the conventional breed categories ' which had been found to be a poor predictor for behaviour ' and sorted dogs into ten genetic lineages. An analysis of DNA sequences associated with different behaviours identified a number of variants linked with the development of the nervous system. Herding sheepdogs, for example, had genes that, in mice, are associated with mothers' instincts to protect their pups. NASA's Orion capsule splashed down safely off the coast of Mexico on 11 December, bringing a close to the first test flight of a new spaceship designed to carry people back to the Moon. Researchers are excited to download data from the successful 25-day flight to the Moon and back, known as Artemis I....

Research on the science of sport is heavily skewed towards male athletes, finds a review of hundreds of sports-medicine studies1. The imbalance leaves large gaps in knowledge about female sports and sport-related injuries. Researchers reviewed 669 studies published between 2017 and 2021 in six leading sports-science journals. They wanted to put some numbers to their observations that there were many more studies on male sports compared with female sports. 'We wanted to quantify these discrepancies in the current sports-medicine research to show that there is a need for female-athlete centred research, especially as we continue to learn how females experience different injuries than males across many sports,' says co-author Meghan Bishop, a surgeon at the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Just 9% of the studies focused exclusively on female athletes, whereas 71% focused only on male athletes. 'While stark, these results were not particularly surprising,' says Bishop. The starkest comparison between sexes, she adds, was in baseball and softball, with 91% of studies focusing on male players and only 5% focusing on female players....