It’s a short month and slow in terms of interesting science news, so I don’t have much.

• First we have a long feature about the earliest known domesticated dogs. Based on studies of both human and dog DNA as well as the observation that the genetic lines of dogs and humans tend to merge or spit together in the same places because humans bring their dogs along with them as they move, the current hypothesis is that dogs were first domesticated somewhere in northern Siberia roughly 23,000 years ago. Unfortunately just as more successful human settlers killed off natives as they invade, so do the dogs they bring displace the dog lineages of the natives, all of which can be noted in the mitochondrial DNA evidence.
• Here is an amusing story about how pigs can seemingly be trained to play simple video games. They used a ruggedized version of a familiar joystick and had a dispenser for food rewards when the pigs won. Yet some of the pigs still played even after the dispenser mechanism broke down. This isn’t too surprising a result as we already know that pigs are quite intelligent and yes, I would agree that there is a moral imperative to move towards synthetic meat.
• Finally this is potentially a huge thing once it can be proven to work on humans. Despite decades of effort, there is currently no contraceptive pill that can be taken by men. This paper talks about triptonide, a natural compound extracted and purified from a herb used in traditional Chinese medicine. Studies involving mice and monkeys show that it induces deformed sperm, greatly reducing its movement ability and hence causes infertility. Moreover it is fully reversible several weeks after cessation of the drug and seems to have no toxic side effects. Needless to say once it becomes available for humans, it will help shift the burden of preventing unwanted pregnancies from being borne entirely by women.