ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Flashes from 'photonic booms' may help illuminate astronomical secrets
• 3-D 'pop-up' silicon structures: Transforming planar materials into 3-D microarchitectures
• Poker-playing program knows when to fold 'em: Heads-up limit for hold 'em poker solved
• Astronomers use vanishing neutron star to measure space-time warp
• Hunting bats rely on 'bag of chips effect'
• Monkeys can learn to see themselves in the mirror
• Moving origami techniques forward for self-folding 3-D structures
• Students testing Indian toilets
• Longest-ever case of sperm storage in sharks documented

Flashes from 'photonic booms' may help illuminate astronomical secrets Posted: 08 Jan 2015 03:42 PM PST 'Photonic booms' may turn out to help illuminate a variety of astronomical objects such as asteroids and the moon.

3-D 'pop-up' silicon structures: Transforming planar materials into 3-D microarchitectures Posted: 08 Jan 2015 11:47 AM PST Researchers have invented simple routes to complex classes of 3-D micro/nanostructures in high performance materials, with relevance to electronics, photovoltaics, batteries, biomedical devices, and other microsystems technologies.

Poker-playing program knows when to fold 'em: Heads-up limit for hold 'em poker solved Posted: 08 Jan 2015 11:47 AM PST For over a half-century, games have been test beds for new ideas in Artificial Intelligence and the resulting successes have marked significant milestones: Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in chess, and Watson defeated Jennings and Rutter on Jeopardy! However, defeating top human players is not the same as actually solving a game, and for the first time researchers have essentially solved heads-up limit hold 'em poker.

Astronomers use vanishing neutron star to measure space-time warp Posted: 08 Jan 2015 10:19 AM PST In an interstellar race against time, astronomers have measured the space-time warp in the gravity of a binary star and determined the mass of a neutron star--just before it vanished from view.

Hunting bats rely on 'bag of chips effect' Posted: 08 Jan 2015 10:00 AM PST When bats hunt in groups at night, they rely on the sounds of their fellow bats to tip them off on the best places to a grab a good meal. Researchers reporting their findings are calling this behavior the 'bag of chips effect.'

Monkeys can learn to see themselves in the mirror Posted: 08 Jan 2015 10:00 AM PST Unlike humans and great apes, rhesus monkeys don't realize when they look in a mirror that it is their own face looking back at them. But, according to a new report, that doesn't mean they can't learn. What's more, once rhesus monkeys in the study developed mirror self-recognition, they continued to use mirrors spontaneously to explore parts of their bodies they normally don't see.

Moving origami techniques forward for self-folding 3-D structures Posted: 08 Jan 2015 08:37 AM PST Though the past 15 years have seen an exciting run of creative scientific advances in fabricating three-dimensional (3-D) structures by self-folding of 2-D sheets, the complexity of structures achieved to date falls far short of what can easily be folded by hand using paper, says a polymer scientist. Now he has developed an approach that could open the door to a new wave of discoveries.

Students testing Indian toilets Posted: 08 Jan 2015 08:35 AM PST A group students and researchers spent New Year's in an unconventional way -- installing sanitation systems in India. The systems employ breathable fabric, the sort you'd find in raincoats and tents, to contain waste and protect nearby groundwater from contamination.

Longest-ever case of sperm storage in sharks documented Posted: 08 Jan 2015 07:06 AM PST Biologists were taken aback when a shark egg case dropped by an adult bamboo shark, who spent nearly 4 years isolated from males, showed signs of healthy development. Their results mark the longest documented case of sperm storage in any species of shark, and highlight a bright bit of news for the future of wild sharks threatened by overfishing and habitat loss.

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