ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Astronomers pinpoint 'Venus Zone' around stars
• Psychological study of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 conspiracy theories
• Three extinct squirrel-like species discovered: Mammals may have originated much earlier than thought
• Mysterious quasar sequence explained
• Gibbon genome sequence deepens understanding of primates rapid chromosomal rearrangements
• Algorithms reveal forecasting power of tweets, predicts individual's behavior
• Highest resolution ever with X-ray microscopy
• Healthcare workers wash hands more often when in presence of peers
• Ancient swamp creature had lips like Mick Jagger
• Nerve impulses can collide, continue unaffected
• Bright clumps in Saturn ring now mysteriously scarce
• Female baboons with male companions live longer
• Back pain killing your sex life? Study reveals best positions to save your spine
• Sloths are no slouches when it comes to evolution
• First graphene-based flexible display produced
• This star cluster is not what it seems: Messier 54 shows lithium problem also applies outside our galaxy

Astronomers pinpoint 'Venus Zone' around stars Posted: 10 Sep 2014 06:41 PM PDT Astronomers have defined the 'Venus Zone,' the area around a star in which a planet is likely to exhibit the unlivable conditions found on the planet Venus. The research will aid Kepler astronomers searching for exoplanets, helping them determine which are likely to be similar to Earth and which are more likely to resemble Venus.

Psychological study of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 conspiracy theories Posted: 10 Sep 2014 06:40 PM PDT Conspiracy theories flourish even when there is no official explanation to react against, finds a psychologist who has examined reactions to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 -- the passenger jet that disappeared without a trace in March 2014. Scientists asked 250 participants to rate their agreement with a range of conspiracy explanations for the disappearance of MH370. They were also asked to rate their agreement with well-known conspiracy theories, such as those about the 9/11 attacks and the death of Princess Diana.

Three extinct squirrel-like species discovered: Mammals may have originated much earlier than thought Posted: 10 Sep 2014 10:25 AM PDT Paleontologists have described three new small squirrel-like species that place a poorly understood Mesozoic group of animals firmly in the mammal family tree. The study supports the idea that mammals -- an extremely diverse group that includes egg-laying monotremes such as the platypus, marsupials such as the opossum, and placentals like humans and whales -- originated at least 208 million years ago in the late Triassic, much earlier than some previous research suggests.

Mysterious quasar sequence explained Posted: 10 Sep 2014 10:25 AM PDT Quasars are supermassive black holes that live at the center of distant massive galaxies. They shine as the most luminous beacons in the sky by rapidly accelerating matter into their gravitationally inescapable centers. New work solves a quasar mystery that astronomers have been puzzling over for decades. It shows that most observed quasar phenomena can be unified with two simple quantities: how efficiently the hole is being fed, and the viewing orientation of the astronomer.

Gibbon genome sequence deepens understanding of primates rapid chromosomal rearrangements Posted: 10 Sep 2014 10:25 AM PDT With the completion of the sequencing and analysis of the gibbon genome, scientists now know more about why this small ape has a rapid rate of chromosomal rearrangements, providing information that broadens understanding of chromosomal biology.

Algorithms reveal forecasting power of tweets, predicts individual's behavior Posted: 10 Sep 2014 10:24 AM PDT Researchers used 500 million tweets to develop algorithms that not only paint a picture of everyday human dynamics, but can predict an individual's behavior hours in advance.

Highest resolution ever with X-ray microscopy Posted: 10 Sep 2014 09:06 AM PDT Researchers used 'soft' X-rays to image structures only five nanometers in size. This resolution is the highest ever achieved with X-ray microscopy.

Healthcare workers wash hands more often when in presence of peers Posted: 10 Sep 2014 09:04 AM PDT Nationally, hand hygiene adherence by healthcare workers remains staggeringly low despite its critical importance in infection control. A new study found that healthcare workers' adherence to hand hygiene is better when other workers are nearby.

Ancient swamp creature had lips like Mick Jagger Posted: 10 Sep 2014 09:04 AM PDT A swamp-dwelling, plant-munching creature that lived 19 million years ago in Africa has been named after Rolling Stones lead singer Sir Mick Jagger, because of its big, sensitive lips and snout. The name of the animal, Jaggermeryx naida, translates to 'Jagger's water nymph.'

Nerve impulses can collide, continue unaffected Posted: 10 Sep 2014 09:04 AM PDT According to the traditional theory of nerves, two nerve impulses sent from opposite ends of a nerve annihilate when they collide. New research now shows that two colliding nerve impulses simply pass through each other and continue unaffected. This supports the theory that nerves function as sound pulses.

Bright clumps in Saturn ring now mysteriously scarce Posted: 10 Sep 2014 07:20 AM PDT Compared to the age of the solar system -- about four-and-a-half billion years -- a couple of decades are next to nothing. Some planetary locales change little over many millions of years, so for scientists who study the planets, any object that evolves on such a short interval makes for a tempting target for study. And so it is with the ever-changing rings of Saturn.

Female baboons with male companions live longer Posted: 10 Sep 2014 06:32 AM PDT Numerous studies have linked social interaction to improved health and survival in humans, and new research confirms that the same is true for baboons. A long-term study of more than 200 wild female baboons finds that the most sociable females live two to three years longer than their socially isolated counterparts. Socializing with males gave females an even bigger longevity boost than socializing with other females, the researchers found.

Back pain killing your sex life? Study reveals best positions to save your spine Posted: 10 Sep 2014 06:32 AM PDT Contrary to popular belief, spooning is not always the best sex position for those with a bad back, according to new research. For the first time ever, scientists have successfully documented the way the spine moves during sex and discovered exactly why certain positions are better than others when it comes to avoiding back pain.

Sloths are no slouches when it comes to evolution Posted: 10 Sep 2014 05:38 AM PDT Today's sloths might be known as slow, small animals, but their ancestors developed large body sizes at an amazing rate, according to an evolutionary reconstruction. The fast rate of change suggests that factors such as environmental conditions, or competition with other species must have strongly favored the bigger sloths, before they died out.

First graphene-based flexible display produced Posted: 10 Sep 2014 05:33 AM PDT A flexible display incorporating graphene in its pixels' electronics has been successfully demonstrated, the first time graphene has been used in a transistor-based flexible device.

This star cluster is not what it seems: Messier 54 shows lithium problem also applies outside our galaxy Posted: 10 Sep 2014 05:33 AM PDT A new image from the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in northern Chile shows a vast collection of stars, the globular cluster Messier 54. This cluster looks very similar to many others but it has a secret. Messier 54 doesn't belong to the Milky Way, but is part of a small satellite galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. This unusual parentage has now allowed astronomers to use the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to test whether there are also unexpectedly low levels of the element lithium in stars outside the Milky Way.

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