ScienceDaily: Strange Science News |
- Dust devil and the details: Spinning up a storm on Mars
- In one aspect of vision, computers catch up to primate brain
- Crows are smarter than you think: Crows join humans, apes and monkeys in exhibiting advanced rational thinking
- Birds sensed severe storms and fled before tornado outbreak
- Kepler proves it can still find planets
- Surprise gene finding on 'back or belly' decision in sea anemones
| Dust devil and the details: Spinning up a storm on Mars Posted: 18 Dec 2014 12:44 PM PST Spinning up a dust devil in the thin air of Mars requires a stronger updraft than is needed to create a similar vortex on Earth, researchers show. "To start a dust devil on Mars you need convection, a strong updraft," said Bryce Williams, an atmospheric science graduate student at UAH. "We looked at the ratio between convection and surface turbulence to find the sweet spot where there is enough updraft to overcome the low level wind and turbulence. And on Mars, where we think the process that creates a vortex is more easily disrupted by frictional dissipation – turbulence and wind at the surface – you need twice as much convective updraft as you do on Earth." Williams and UAH's Dr. Udaysankar Nair looked for the dust devil sweet spot by combining dat |
| In one aspect of vision, computers catch up to primate brain Posted: 18 Dec 2014 11:10 AM PST For decades, neuroscientists have been trying to design computer networks that can mimic visual skills such as recognizing objects, which the human brain does very accurately and quickly. Until now, no computer model has been able to match the primate brain at visual object recognition during a brief glance. Now neuroscientists have found that one of the latest generation of 'deep neural networks' matches the primate brain. |
| Posted: 18 Dec 2014 10:14 AM PST Crows have the brain power to solve higher-order, relational-matching tasks, and they can do so spontaneously, according to new research. That means crows join humans, apes and monkeys in exhibiting advanced relational thinking, according to the research. |
| Birds sensed severe storms and fled before tornado outbreak Posted: 18 Dec 2014 10:14 AM PST Golden-winged warblers apparently knew in advance that a storm that would spawn 84 confirmed tornadoes and kill at least 35 people last spring was coming, according to a new report. The birds left the scene well before devastating supercell storms blew in. |
| Kepler proves it can still find planets Posted: 18 Dec 2014 09:08 AM PST To paraphrase Mark Twain, the report of the Kepler spacecraft's death was greatly exaggerated. Despite a malfunction that ended its primary mission in May 2013, Kepler is still alive and working. The evidence comes from the discovery of a new super-Earth using data collected during Kepler's 'second life.' |
| Surprise gene finding on 'back or belly' decision in sea anemones Posted: 18 Dec 2014 05:11 AM PST A gene that controls one of the earliest decisions in the life of an animal, where to place the back and the belly on the body, is identified in a sea anemone by researchers. |
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