On the ever-shrinking list of behaviors unique to humans, one stands out: selfless altruism.

Or so scientists thought. Even as they dismiss many of the kindnesses we do for others as selfish rather than selfless (that is, we help someone because we expect, even subconsciously, a favor in return one day, or because it makes us feel good), they concede that humans have the capacity to act on behalf of others even when there is no prospect of personal gain and even if it comes at a cost. In that, supposedly, we are unique.

Just as tool use and weaponry and culture and symbolic communication were once thought to be unique to humans but have now been found in chimps and other species, however, so has altruism. In a study in the open-access (that is, free) journal PLoS Biology, biologists led by Felix Warneken of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found that chimpanzees act altruistically toward unrelated and unfamiliar chimps, with no expectation of reward and even when some effort is required.

That was supposed to be the sole province of Homo sapiens. Chimps do nice things for each other—they share food, groom their friends, console troop-mates and form alliances against opponents—but in every case the action can be explained by increasing the chance that the do-gooder will either be on the receiving end of such a kindness in the future (you groom me, I’ll groom you) or will increase the chance that his relatives will survive and reproduce.

Still, there had been hints of pure altruism. In a 2006 study, for instance, scientists reported that chimpanzees helped their human caregiver fetch objects she was unable to reach. This was the first experimental evidence that chimps are capable of altruistic helping, but even it came with an asterisk: maybe the chimps hoped to eventually be rewarded for their kindness, which would make it less-than-pure altruism.

Finally, a genetically-modified food for the rest of us.

The first food marketed as genetically-modified (the overwhelming majority of such foods are not so labeled) was a tomato called the Flavr Savr introduced in 1993. Even though consumers said they liked the taste, the Flavr Savr bombed in the grocery store, and ever since almost all genetically-engineered crops (or Frankenfoods, as some opponents call them) have aimed to appeal to farmers, not consumers. The “transgenic” foods contain genes for traits such as tolerance to herbicides (so farmers can soak their fields in the poisons, making weed control easier) and resistance to insects (so they can use fewer insecticides to manage infestations). Not surprisingly, consumers leery of genetically-modified (GM) foods wondered, what’s in it for us?

Scientists in Israel have an answer. Writing in the current issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Efraim Lewinsohn and colleagues slipped a gene called Ocimum basilicum geraniol synthase into tomato seeds. The gene is a bit of an alchemist, turning one of the tomato’s biochemicals into another. The newly-formed compound, called geraniol, has “an intense rose scent,” the scientists write, and is a precursor to the biocompounds geranial and neral, both of which smell sort of lemony, as well as nerol, citronellol, geraniol ester and citronellol acetate ester, all of which smell like roses.