ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Analyzing sun-like stars that eat Earth-like planets
• I like your genes: People more likely to choose a spouse with similar DNA
• Engineer invents a way to beam power to medical chips deep inside the body
• Taste test: Could sense of taste affect length of life?
• Possible cause, source of Kawasaki disease: Windborne agent from northeast China
• Liberating devices from their power cords
• Earth organisms survive under Martian conditions: Methanogens stay alive in extreme heat and cold
• Whale communication could explain how extreme ultrasonic bushcrickets transfer sound
• Dads can parent, too: Neural pathway to parenthood seen in mice

Analyzing sun-like stars that eat Earth-like planets Posted: 19 May 2014 06:50 PM PDT Astronomers have developed a model that estimates the effect that ingesting large amounts of the rocky material from which 'terrestrial' planets like Earth, Mars and Venus are made has on a star's chemical composition and has used the model to analyze a pair of twin stars which both have their own planets.

I like your genes: People more likely to choose a spouse with similar DNA Posted: 19 May 2014 01:07 PM PDT Individuals are more genetically similar to their spouses than they are to randomly selected individuals from the same population, according to a new study. Scientists already knew that people tend to marry others who have similar characteristics, including religion, age, race, income, body type and education, among others. Scientists now show that people also are more likely to pick mates who have similar DNA.

Engineer invents a way to beam power to medical chips deep inside the body Posted: 19 May 2014 01:07 PM PDT Researchers have invented a way to wirelessly beam power to programmable devices deep inside the body. These medical chips could be as small as a grain of rice. They would sit alongside nerves, muscles and other tissues. The chips could be programmed for a wide variety of medical tasks. The wireless power recharging would enable them to be implanted once and repowered as need be. This is a platform technology to enable a new therapeutic category -- 'electroceutical' devices.

Taste test: Could sense of taste affect length of life? Posted: 19 May 2014 01:05 PM PDT Perhaps one of the keys to good health isn't just what you eat but how you taste it. Taste buds -- yes, the same ones you may blame for that sweet tooth or French fry craving -- may in fact have a powerful role in a long and healthy life -- at least for fruit flies. Bitter tastes could have negative effects on lifespan, sweet tastes had positive effects, and the ability to taste water had the most significant impact -- flies that could not taste water lived up to 43% longer than other flies.

Possible cause, source of Kawasaki disease: Windborne agent from northeast China Posted: 19 May 2014 01:05 PM PDT The likely causative agent of Kawasaki disease (KD) in Japan is a windborne agent originating from a source in northeast China, an international research team has concluded. KD is a mysterious childhood ailment that can permanently damage coronary arteries, and is the most common cause of acquired heart disease in children. It is difficult to diagnose and, without treatment, 25 percent of children with KD develop coronary artery aneurysms -- balloon-like bulges of heart vessels -- that may eventually result in heart attacks, congestive heart failure or sudden death.

Liberating devices from their power cords Posted: 19 May 2014 09:25 AM PDT A new type of supercapacitor that can hold a charge when it takes a lickin' has been developed. It is the first "multi-functional" energy storage device that can operate while subject to realistic static and dynamic loads – advancing the day when everything from cell phones to electric vehicles will no longer need separate batteries.

Earth organisms survive under Martian conditions: Methanogens stay alive in extreme heat and cold Posted: 19 May 2014 08:42 AM PDT New research suggests that methanogens -- among the simplest and oldest organisms on Earth -- could survive on Mars. Methanogens, microorganisms in the domain Archaea, use hydrogen as their energy source and carbon dioxide as their carbon source, to metabolize and produce methane, also known as natural gas. Methanogens live in swamps and marshes, but can also be found in the gut of cattle, termites and other herbivores as well as in dead and decaying matter.

Whale communication could explain how extreme ultrasonic bushcrickets transfer sound Posted: 19 May 2014 06:22 AM PDT Ultrasonic bushcrickets could be using a similar method to communicate as that used by whales, according to newly published research. Katydid species that have extreme ultrasonic frequencies face a problem: ultrasounds travelling in air suffer excess attenuation (weakening) because the wavelength is too short, therefore objects in the dispersive path, such as leaves and branches, interfere and degrade the signal. Sound attenuation is also imposed by environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity.

Dads can parent, too: Neural pathway to parenthood seen in mice Posted: 15 May 2014 08:33 AM PDT Galanin neurons in the brain's medial preoptic area that appear to regulate parental behavior, a mouse study finds. If similar neurons are at work in humans, it could offer clues to the treatment of conditions like post-partum depression. "If you look across different animal species, there are some species in which the father contributes to caring for the young -- sometimes the work is divided equally, sometimes the father does most of the work -- and there are species in which the father does nothing," a researcher said. "The essential question is where is that variability coming from? We may be tempted to say that the mom has the neurons required to engage in parental behavior, and dads don't -- this paper shows that's wrong."

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