ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Preschoolers can outsmart college students at figuring out gizmos
• Fighting for survival in the gut: Unravelling the hidden variation in bacteria
• Icy wreckage discovered in nearby planetary system
• 'Seeing' bodies with sound (no sight required)
• Some people really just don't like music
• Are you smarter than a 5-year-old? Preschoolers can do algebra
• Storing extra rocket fuel in space for future missions?
• IT security for the daily life: Withdrawing money at cash machines with 'Google Glass'
• Robotic prosthesis turns drummer into a three-armed cyborg
• Testis size matters for genome evolution
• New research could help make 'roll-up' digital screens a reality for all
• Elephant age estimated from voice: A powerful conservation tool?
• Pumping iron: A hydrogel actuator with mussel tone
• Shadows of Petra awaken its astronomical orientation
• Aggression, rule-breaking common among Taiwanese teenagers who have early sex

Preschoolers can outsmart college students at figuring out gizmos Posted: 06 Mar 2014 04:15 PM PST Preschoolers can be smarter than college students at figuring out how unusual toys and gadgets work because they're more flexible and less biased than adults in their ideas about cause and effect, according to new research.

Fighting for survival in the gut: Unravelling the hidden variation in bacteria Posted: 06 Mar 2014 04:14 PM PST Our intestines harbor an astronomical number of bacteria, around 100 times the number of cells in our body, known as the gut microbiota. These bacteria belong to thousands of species that co-exist, interact with each other and are key to our health. While it is clear that species imbalances may result in disease, it is unclear at what pace does each species in the gut evolves, a process that contributes to the chance of a particular innocuous species becoming harmful to the host.

Icy wreckage discovered in nearby planetary system Posted: 06 Mar 2014 11:25 AM PST Astronomers have discovered the splattered remains of comets colliding together around a nearby star. The researchers believe they are witnessing the total destruction of one of these icy bodies once every five minutes.

'Seeing' bodies with sound (no sight required) Posted: 06 Mar 2014 10:04 AM PST People born unable to see are readily capable of learning to perceive the shape of the human body through soundscapes that translate images into sound, according to researchers. With a little training, soundscapes representing the outlines and silhouettes of bodies cause the brain's visual cortex -- and specifically an area dedicated in normally sighted people to processing body shapes -- to light up with activity.

Some people really just don't like music Posted: 06 Mar 2014 10:04 AM PST It is often said that music is a universal language. However, a new report finds that music doesn't speak to everyone. There are people who are perfectly able to experience pleasure in other ways who simply don't get music in the way the rest of us do.

Are you smarter than a 5-year-old? Preschoolers can do algebra Posted: 06 Mar 2014 10:00 AM PST Millions of high school and college algebra students are united in a shared agony over solving for x and y, and for those to whom the answers don't come easily, it gets worse: Most preschoolers and kindergarteners can do some algebra before even entering a math class. A new study finds that most preschoolers and kindergarteners, or children between 4 and 6, can do basic algebra naturally.

Storing extra rocket fuel in space for future missions? Posted: 06 Mar 2014 08:23 AM PST Future lunar missions may be fueled by gas stations in space, according to engineers: A spacecraft might dock at a propellant depot, somewhere between the Earth and the moon, and pick up extra rocket fuel before making its way to the lunar surface. Orbiting way stations could reduce the fuel a spacecraft needs to carry from Earth -- and with less fuel onboard, a rocket could launch heavier payloads, such as large scientific experiments.

IT security for the daily life: Withdrawing money at cash machines with 'Google Glass' Posted: 06 Mar 2014 06:54 AM PST Mini-computers with head-mounted display like 'Google Glass' don't just alarm privacy activists. Rather, they also enable applications increasing data protection. Computer scientists demonstrate this by combining Google Glass with cryptography methods and novel techniques of image processing to withdraw money at cash machines or to read encrypted documents.

Robotic prosthesis turns drummer into a three-armed cyborg Posted: 06 Mar 2014 06:51 AM PST Scientists have created a robotic drumming prosthesis with motors that power two drumsticks. The first stick is controlled both physically by the musicians' arms and electronically using electromyography (EMG) muscle sensors. The other stick "listens" to the music being played and improvises.

Testis size matters for genome evolution Posted: 06 Mar 2014 06:38 AM PST Scientists used a sequence dataset from 55 species of primates to test for a correlation between molecular evolutionary rates across a genome (substitution rates) and testes weights, used in the study as a proxy for increased sperm production and competition.

New research could help make 'roll-up' digital screens a reality for all Posted: 06 Mar 2014 06:36 AM PST New technology could make flexible electronics such as roll-up tablet computers, widely available in the near future. So far, this area of electronic design has been hampered by unreliability and complexity of production.

Elephant age estimated from voice: A powerful conservation tool? Posted: 06 Mar 2014 06:36 AM PST Researchers have been able to estimate the age of an elephant based on its vocal sounds. Results showed that they could distinguish infants, calves, juveniles, and adults with 70 percent accuracy and youngsters (infants/calves) from adults with 95 percent accuracy. The call feature that was most useful for doing this was overall frequency -- not surprisingly, since vocal frequency usually decreases as an animal grows larger.

Pumping iron: A hydrogel actuator with mussel tone Posted: 05 Mar 2014 04:15 PM PST Using iron ions and chemistry found in the adhesive proteins of a certain mollusk, scientists have developed a hydrogel actuator that moves when its pH is raised. Hydrogels are soft networks of polymers with high water content, like jello. Because of their soft, gentle texture, they have the potential to interact safely with living tissues and have applications in a number of medical areas, including tissue engineering. The hydrogel moved on its own, bending like an inchworm where the ions had been deposited.

Shadows of Petra awaken its astronomical orientation Posted: 05 Mar 2014 05:46 AM PST During the winter solstice, the sun is filtered into the Monastery at Petra, Jordan, illuminating the podium of a deity. Just at this moment, the silhouette of the mountain opposite draws the head of a lion, a sacred animal. These are examples from a study where researchers showed how celestial events influenced the orientation of the great constructions of the Nabataeans.

Aggression, rule-breaking common among Taiwanese teenagers who have early sex Posted: 04 Mar 2014 06:45 AM PST Sex in teenage years can influence emotions and behavior of Asian youngsters, a new study has demonstrated. Nearly 19,000 sixteen- to nineteen-year-old Taiwanese adolescents took part in a national survey. The team found that sexual initiation during adolescence was consistently associated with externalizing problems including rule-breaking and aggressive behavior. This was especially true for adolescents who started having sex at a very young age, and for females.

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