Will a new strain of cacao tree save us from the coming chocolate shortage?

Over the summer, we revealed the bad news: An impending, immense shortage of chocolate was on its way. Crop yields were faltering in Africa as cacao trees age and get sick, while demand worldwide was going up.

Now that shortage is real. We're consuming about 70,000 more tons of chocolate than we can produce in a year. And that deficit is set to increase dramatically, maybe 14-fold. If it does, that will mean a dramatic spike in chocolate prices, according to Mother Jones.

To counter the shortage, farmers are investing in new strains of cacao trees. One of them, a breed called CCN51, is renowned because it produces almost seven times more cocoa beans than traditional plants and because it is disease-resistant. Sounds great — except there's just one problem: The cocoa produced by them doesn't taste very good. So scientists still have some work to do.

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And you thought your bus ride was crappy

Passengers taking the bus between the city of Bath and the Bristol airport in the United Kingdom may find their bus being powered by human waste. Yes, the "poo bus" — more politely referred to as the “Bio-Bus” — is now in service. It makes the 13-mile trip using biomethane gas, generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste, according to The Guardian. 

Engineers call the 40-passenger bus "a sustainable way of fueling public transport while improving urban air quality."  It produces fewer emissions than a conventionally-powered bus, and elminates a waste gas the would otherwise be released into the environment. As for that gas — it's produced through a process known as anaerobic digestion, where bacteria degrade and consume sewage at a waste treatment plant.  

In Indonesia, some police recruits have to pass a virginity test

Just as Indonesia tries to increase the number of women serving in its police force, a new report has finally revealed a 50-year-old practice that might well discourage some women from applying. New recruits are given a vaginal exam to detect if they are virgins.

Female police recruits are led into a room, in pairs, where a female doctor inserts two fingers into their vaginas to perform what is billed as a reproductive-health test aimed at detecting disease. The test, however, bears little resemblance to an actual medical exam.

PRI's The World talked to Andreas Harsano, an Indonesian journalist and researcher who unveiled the practice in a report for Human Rights Watch. According to Harsano, top Indonesia generals admitted that the test was actually a virginity check. Their justification is that they're looking for women "with good morals — not sex workers or those involved in pre-marital sex."

Here's what a Mafia initiation looks like

The initiation ritual for Italy’s most powerful crime organization — ‘Ndrangheta — was caught on tape this past April and revealed to the world this week after Italian authorities arrested 40 members of the notorious crime family. The footage captures the swearing in of new members to an "elite" division of the syndicate known as "Santa," according to a report in The Independent, which also includes the surveillance video itself.

While the oath begins with high-minded references to stars, the moon and "holy splendor," it gets down to business quickly. New members are told that they are now under an oath of poison — if they betray their new brotherhood, they are expected to kill themselves or be killed. The initiation ceremony had been rumored for years. This is the first time it's ever actually been seen in public.

Jurassic Park created dinosaurs the easy way

For the folks behind "Walking With Dinosaurs" — a live performance version of the popular BBC show of the same name — creating dinosaurs wasn't a matter of genetics. It was art, with a little research and technology thrown in.

Their high-tech puppets look realistic down to the details, complete with weighted bags to give the dinosaurs muscle tone and hydraulics so that a punch in the nose is met with the appropriate resistance. The life-size dino-puppets perform on some of the biggest stages, with a recent performance at New York's Barclays Center — home to the New York Nets of the NBA. 

PRI's Science Friday visited the show to learn how different dinosaurs are put together. The puppet creators are always looking to make their creations ever more realistic, revising and changing them as scientists learn more about the giant beasts that once roamed the Earth. Check out the video.

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Beijing is known for its pollution — even if it did go out of its way to blue up the skies for this month's APEC summit. But if you've ever wanted proof of how polluted the city can get, these photos offer that. A photographer took the same photo, of a Beijing landmark, every day for a year and lined them up side-by-side. It's stunning how much you can see in some — and how little in others. Petapixel has collected the photos.