Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Membrane in a minute: Singapore scientists produce in-vitro human skin

A piece of skin about the size of your thumbnail can be printed in less than a minute, scientists in Singapore say, a game-changing step for the future of non-animal testing for cosmetics and other products. Made up of skin cells from donors and collagen, the in-vitro skin has the same chemical and biological properties as human skin, says John Koh, lab manager at start-up DeNova Sciences, which is collaborating with Singapore's Nanyang Technological University on the product. China's huge mysterious extinct ape 'Giganto' was an orangutan cousin

Genetic material extracted from a 1.9 million-year-old fossil tooth from southern China shows that the world's largest-known ape - an extinct creature dubbed "Giganto" that once inhabited Southeast Asia - was an oversized cousin of today's orangutans. The findings, announced on Wednesday, shed light on a species, called Gigantopithecus blacki, that has been shrouded in mystery because its fossil remains are so sparse - just a collection of teeth and remnants of several lower jaws.