Dinosaur bones found on the shores of an African Great Lake, and unintentional explosions get London’s birds into a flap, in our weekly dip into Nature’s archive.

Adapting plant architecture to tolerate dense planting is an important strategy for enhancing maize yields. A newly identified mutant gene confers a ‘smart canopy’ architecture, with upright upper leaves, less-erect middle leaves and relatively flat lower leaves. Plants with this gene yield more grain under high-density planting than their wild-type counterparts do.

Bacteria in the gut have been shown to cause the severe side effects associated with treating blood diseases with genetically dissimilar, and thus immunologically incompatible, blood stem cells (allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation). An enzyme derived from viruses that infect these bacteria demonstrates potential for eradication therapy.

Abnormal filaments of a single type of protein are hallmarks of neurodegeneration. Structural studies reveal filaments made from two discrete but interwoven proteins, giving clues about the origin of neurodegenerative conditions.