ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Fossil ankles indicate Earth's earliest primates lived in trees
• Predatory sea snails produce weaponized insulin
• Extremely short, sharp flash of radio waves from unknown source in the universe, caught as it was happening
• Preserved fossil represents oldest record of parental care in group of prehistoric reptiles
• President Lincoln’s cottage 3D laser-scanned by researchers

Fossil ankles indicate Earth's earliest primates lived in trees Posted: 19 Jan 2015 12:45 PM PST Earth's earliest primates have taken a step up in the world, now that researchers have gotten a good look at their ankles. A new study has found that Purgatorius, a small mammal that lived on a diet of fruit and insects, was a tree dweller. Paleontologists made the discovery by analyzing 65-million-year-old ankle bones collected from sites in northeastern Montana.

Predatory sea snails produce weaponized insulin Posted: 19 Jan 2015 12:43 PM PST Some cone snails add insulin to the venom cocktail they use to catch fish, biologists have discovered. Adding the hormone to the mix of venom toxins may have enabled predatory cone snails to disable entire schools of swimming fish with hypoglycemic shock. The snail insulin could prove useful as a tool to probe the systems the human body uses to control blood sugar and energy metabolism.

Extremely short, sharp flash of radio waves from unknown source in the universe, caught as it was happening Posted: 19 Jan 2015 05:32 AM PST A strange phenomenon has been observed by astronomers right as it was happening -- a 'fast radio burst'. The eruption is described as an extremely short, sharp flash of radio waves from an unknown source in the universe.

Preserved fossil represents oldest record of parental care in group of prehistoric reptiles Posted: 19 Jan 2015 05:30 AM PST New research details how a preserved fossil found in China could be the oldest record of post-natal parental care from the Middle Jurassic. The specimen, found by a farmer in China, is of an apparent family group with an adult, surrounded by six juveniles of the same species. Given that the smaller individuals are of similar sizes, the group interpreted this as indicating an adult with its offspring, apparently from the same clutch.

President Lincoln’s cottage 3D laser-scanned by researchers Posted: 16 Jan 2015 01:14 PM PST A team of undergraduate students traveled to Washington to document President Lincoln's Cottage -- the only designated national monument in the District of Columbia -- using 3D laser scanning technology. Images collected from the scanning will support preservation research, potentially impacting historical interpretation and public outreach at the site, which was used by Lincoln and his family to escape the summer heat of downtown Washington.

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