{
  "id": 600513,
  "title": "Early farmers' larger grains may reflect rainfall, not genetic selection",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/11/early-farmers-larger-grains-may-reflect-rainfall-not-genetic-selection",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-08-11T19:40:05.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-08-early-farmers-larger-grains-rainfall.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "A new archaeobotanical study by researchers from the University of Oxford and Kiel University (CAU) has revealed that increases in cereal grain size at the dawn of agriculture, more than 11,000 years ago, were initially driven by plants' plastic responses to favorable growing conditions, rather than by genetic selection under cultivation as previously thought.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}