A joint US-Japan project dug deep this past week. Very deep.
Scientists with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) have been drilling in the mid atlantic ocean bed, hoping to bring back a core sample of the intriguingly named Mohorovicic discontinuity. This is the boundary between the thin rocky crust we live on and the hot plastic mantle beneath.
They actually came within about 1,000 feet of the mantle on this attempt, and hope to break through on a future try.
Science.Ars covers that as well as new insights into our genetic make-up gleaned from the Human Genome Project. There's even some rather surprising news on one unexpected benefit of smoking marijuana. Take a deep breath and read on.

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