ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Water filter from the sapwood in pine tree branches
• Photopharmacology: Optoswitches turn pain off and sight on
• Can a simple handshake predict cancer survival rates?
• Moths trapped with plant-produced sex pheromone
• Language of love: Matching conjunctions, pronouns could spell a match better than good looks and fast cars
• Offshore wind farms could tame hurricanes before they reach land
• Did five years of drought lead to two years of revolution in Syria?
• 'Super-Earths' may be dead worlds: Being in habitable zone is not enough
• 'Team of rivals' approach works for sparrows defending territories
• Increasing brain acidity may reduce anxiety
• Phantom limb pain relieved when amputated arm is put back to work
• New approach to chip design could yield light speed computing
• Bullying black holes force galaxies to stay red and dead
• Does solitary confinement fuel more crime? Study says no
• Reciprocity and parrots: Griffin the grey parrot appears to understand benefits of sharing, study suggests
• First contagious airborne WiFi virus discovered
• How did the universe begin? Hot Big Bang or slow thaw?
• Ventriloquist delight: Scientists twist sound with metamaterials so sound appears to come from somewhere else
• System that automatically fills gaps in computer programmers' code gains power
• Using stolen computer processing cycles to mine Bitcoin
• Carbon dating uncovers forged Cubist painting
• Ceausescu's flying bears: Molecular genetics provides evidence for an unusual dispersal mode in European brown bears
• As hubs for bees, pollinators, flowers may be crucial in disease transmission
• Lightning harnessed to protect power grid components

Water filter from the sapwood in pine tree branches Posted: 26 Feb 2014 02:45 PM PST If you've run out of drinking water during a lakeside camping trip, there's a simple solution: Break off a branch from the nearest pine tree, peel away the bark, and slowly pour lake water through the stick. The improvised filter should trap any bacteria, producing fresh, uncontaminated water. In fact, scientists have discovered that this low-tech filtration system can produce up to four liters of drinking water a day -- enough to quench the thirst of a typical person. The researchers demonstrate that a small piece of sapwood can filter out more than 99 percent of the bacteria E. coli from water.

Photopharmacology: Optoswitches turn pain off and sight on Posted: 26 Feb 2014 10:28 AM PST Photoreactive compounds developed by scientists directly modulate nerve-cell function, and open new routes to the treatment of neurological diseases, including chronic pain and certain types of visual impairment. All modes of sensory perception are based on communication between nerve cells. Both the response to the primary stimulus and the transmission of the resulting signal depend on the function of specialized receptor proteins that are associated with the surface membranes of neurons. Many sensory neurons respond only to a single sensory modality, such as mechanical stimulation or temperature. However, researchers have developed a method which, in principle, enables all types of neuroreceptors to be controlled by light.

Can a simple handshake predict cancer survival rates? Posted: 26 Feb 2014 09:53 AM PST New acquaintances are often judged by their handshake. Research has now recognized the simple squeeze as an important diagnostic tool in assessing strength and quality of life among critical care patients. The test was simple: 203 patients fighting advanced-stage cancers squeezed a device known as a dynamometer with their dominant hand. The instrument then measured peak grip strength and information gleaned from that could predict, to some degree, survival rates among cancer patients.

Moths trapped with plant-produced sex pheromone Posted: 26 Feb 2014 09:52 AM PST By engineering plants that emitted sex pheromones that mimic those naturally produced by two species of moths, researchers have demonstrated that an effective, environmentally friendly, plant-based method of insect control is possible. While a proof-of-concept experiment, engineering plants to be insect pheromone-producing factories creates an environmentally friendly alternative to pesticides as well as an easier and less expensive method of synthesizing insect pheromones

Language of love: Matching conjunctions, pronouns could spell a match better than good looks and fast cars Posted: 26 Feb 2014 08:06 AM PST People who use the same kinds of function words are more likely to find a match, a researcher suggests. After analyzing speed dating results, researchers discovered a positive correlation of function-word similarity with speed-daters' odds of going on a second date and long-term couples' odds of still being together three months after the study. Language similarity became an even better predictor of relationship stability when compared to other related variables, such as the perceived similarity with one's date, perceived relationship quality, and how many words people spoke to each other during each conversation.

Offshore wind farms could tame hurricanes before they reach land Posted: 26 Feb 2014 04:50 AM PST Computer simulations have shown that offshore wind farms with thousands of wind turbines could have sapped the power of three real-life hurricanes, significantly decreasing their winds and accompanying storm surge, and possibly preventing billions of dollars in damages. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, the computer model revealed that an array of 78,000 wind turbines off the coast of New Orleans would have significantly weakened the hurricane well before it made landfall.

Did five years of drought lead to two years of revolution in Syria? Posted: 26 Feb 2014 04:49 AM PST Negotiators in Geneva might not have brought the conflict in Syria to an end last week, but new research explains how the 2006–10 drought contributed to its start.

'Super-Earths' may be dead worlds: Being in habitable zone is not enough Posted: 26 Feb 2014 04:49 AM PST In the last 20 years the search for Earth-like planets around other stars has accelerated, with the launch of missions like the Kepler space telescope. Using these and observatories on the ground, astronomers have found numerous worlds that at first sight have similarities with the Earth. A few of these are even in the 'habitable zone' where the temperature is just right for water to be in liquid form and so are prime targets in the search for life elsewhere in the universe. New results suggest that for some of the recently discovered super-Earths, such as Kepler-62e and -62f, being in the habitable zone is not enough to make them habitats.

'Team of rivals' approach works for sparrows defending territories Posted: 25 Feb 2014 04:34 PM PST A new study of territorial songs used by chipping sparrows to defend their turf reveals that males sometimes will form a "dear enemy" alliance with a weaker neighbor to prevent a stronger rival from moving in. For the first time findings demonstrate the birds' use of a stereotyped, specialized signal, in this case chipping sparrow trills, to establish brief periods of cooperation among neighbor birds who are otherwise rivals.

Increasing brain acidity may reduce anxiety Posted: 25 Feb 2014 04:32 PM PST Increasing acidity in the brain's emotional control center reduces anxiety, according to an animal study. Anxiety disorders, which are characterized by an inability to control feelings of fear and uncertainty, are the most prevalent group of psychiatric diseases. At the cellular level, these disorders are associated with heightened activity in the basolateral amygdala (BLA), which is known to play a central role in emotional behavior. Many cells in the BLA possess acid-sensing ion channels called ASIC1a, which respond to pH changes in the environment outside of the cell. Researchers have found that activating ASIC1a decreased the activity of nearby cells and reduced anxiety-like behavior in animals

Phantom limb pain relieved when amputated arm is put back to work Posted: 25 Feb 2014 01:26 PM PST A new method for the treatment of phantom limb pain after an amputation has been developed. The method is based on a unique combination of several technologies, and has been initially tested on a patient who has suffered from severe phantom limb pain for 48 years. A case study shows a drastic reduction of pain. The new method uses muscle signals from the patient's arm stump to drive a system known as augmented reality. The electrical signals in the muscles are sensed by electrodes on the skin. The signals are then translated into arm movements by complex algorithms. The patients can see themselves on a screen with a superimposed virtual arm, which is controlled using their own neural command in real time.

New approach to chip design could yield light speed computing Posted: 25 Feb 2014 10:45 AM PST Researchers are the first to create a device that integrates both optical and electronic signals to perform the most elementary computational operations that could inform 'light speed' computing.

Bullying black holes force galaxies to stay red and dead Posted: 25 Feb 2014 10:43 AM PST Astronomers have discovered massive elliptical galaxies in the nearby Universe containing plenty of cold gas, even though the galaxies fail to produce new stars. Comparison with other data suggests that, while hot gas cools down in these galaxies, stars do not form because jets from the central supermassive black hole heat or stir up the gas and prevent it from turning into stars. Giant elliptical galaxies are the most puzzling type of galaxy in the Universe.

Does solitary confinement fuel more crime? Study says no Posted: 25 Feb 2014 09:25 AM PST Solitary confinement does not make supermax prison inmates more likely to re-offend once they're released, finds a study on the controversial penitentiaries. The study -- one of the first to examine recidivism rates among supermax inmates -- refute critics' claims that serving extended time in isolation leads to more crime. Super-maximum security units, known as supermax units or prisons within prisons, are designed to house problematic inmates by keeping them isolated for as long as 23 hours a day.

Reciprocity and parrots: Griffin the grey parrot appears to understand benefits of sharing, study suggests Posted: 25 Feb 2014 09:23 AM PST A study into whether grey parrots understand the notion of sharing suggests that they can learn the benefits of reciprocity. The research involved a grey parrot called Griffin, who consistently favoured the option of 'sharing' with two different human partners.

First contagious airborne WiFi virus discovered Posted: 25 Feb 2014 08:29 AM PST Researchers have shown for the first time that WiFi networks can be infected with a virus that can move through densely populated areas as efficiently as the common cold spreads between humans.

How did the universe begin? Hot Big Bang or slow thaw? Posted: 25 Feb 2014 08:19 AM PST Did the universe begin with a hot Big Bang or did it slowly thaw from an extremely cold and almost static state? A physicist has developed a theoretical model that complements the nearly 100-year-old conventional model of cosmic expansion. According to the new theory, the Big Bang did not occur 13.8 billion years ago -- instead, the birth of the universe stretched into the infinite past. This view holds that the masses of all particles constantly increase. The scientist explains that instead of expanding, the universe is shrinking over extended periods of time.

Ventriloquist delight: Scientists twist sound with metamaterials so sound appears to come from somewhere else Posted: 25 Feb 2014 08:18 AM PST A Chinese-U.S. research team is exploring the use of metamaterials -- artificial materials engineered to have exotic properties not found in nature -- to create devices that manipulate sound in versatile and unprecedented ways. They now report a simple design for a device, called an acoustic field rotator, which can twist wave fronts inside it so that they appear to be propagating from another direction.

System that automatically fills gaps in computer programmers' code gains power Posted: 25 Feb 2014 07:16 AM PST A system that automatically fills in the gaps in programmers' code becomes more powerful. A recent programming language called Sketch allows programmers to simply omit some of the computational details of their code. Sketch then automatically fills in the gaps.

Using stolen computer processing cycles to mine Bitcoin Posted: 25 Feb 2014 07:15 AM PST Computer scientists have taken an unprecedented, in-depth look at how malware operators use the computers they infect to mine Bitcoin, a virtual currency whose value is highly volatile. Researchers examined more than 2,000 pieces of malware used by Bitcoin mining operations in 2012 and 2013. They were able to estimate how much money operators made off their operations and which countries were most affected.

Carbon dating uncovers forged Cubist painting Posted: 25 Feb 2014 07:11 AM PST Physicists have used carbon dating to confirm that an alleged Fernand Léger painting was definitely a fake. This is the first time it has been possible to identify a fake painting by relying on the anomalous behavior of the concentration of the radioactive form of carbon (14C) in the atmosphere after 1955 to date the canvas.

Ceausescu's flying bears: Molecular genetics provides evidence for an unusual dispersal mode in European brown bears Posted: 25 Feb 2014 07:11 AM PST Scientists use genetics to confirm the legend of bears flown in for the hunting pleasures of other countries' rulers. A genetic study of brown bears in Bulgarian mountain regions provided evidence for the existence of individuals of Carpathian origin. How did they get there? Natural dispersal is unlikely. Rather, the bears were brought in by air transport.

As hubs for bees, pollinators, flowers may be crucial in disease transmission Posted: 24 Feb 2014 11:04 AM PST Like a kindergarten or a busy airport where cold viruses and other germs circulate freely, flowers are common gathering places where pollinators such as bees and butterflies can pick up fungal, bacterial or viral infections that might be as benign as the sniffles or as debilitating as influenza. A recent survey of scientific literature has identified this issue as a promising area for future research: how floral traits influence pathogen transmission. 'Given recent concerns about pollinator declines caused in part by pathogens, the role of floral traits in mediating pathogen transmission is a key area for further research,' authors of the new article conclude.

Lightning harnessed to protect power grid components Posted: 24 Feb 2014 09:38 AM PST The foes of power grids everywhere, lightning and other high voltage currents now can help utilities track the health of components throughout their systems. Researchers have developed a system that uses natural transients to measure the wear and tear on power components. The method will save power grid operators money in equipment replacements and maintenance, while keeping customers powered up.

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