ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Not everyone wants cheering up, new study suggests
• Morphable surfaces cut air resistance: Golf ball-like dimples on cars may improve fuel efficiency
• Bizarre parasite from the Jurassic had mouthparts for sucking blood of salamanders
• Sweet, sweet straw: Scientists learn to produce sweetener from straw and fungi
• Fat of the bone: Exercise, diabetes affect amount of fat inside bones
• Facelock: New password alternative which plays to the strengths of human memory
• Cell phones reflect our personal microbiome
• Should the Higgs boson have caused our universe to collapse? Findings puzzle cosmologists
• When it rains, it pours ... on the sun
• Sound waves harnessed to enable precision micro- and nano-manufacturing
• Emergence of bacterial vortex explained
• Cautionary tales: Mustaches, home oxygen therapy, sparks do not mix

Not everyone wants cheering up, new study suggests Posted: 24 Jun 2014 11:23 AM PDT You may want to rethink cheering up your friends who have low self-esteem because chances are they don't want to hear it. People with low self-esteem have overly negative views of themselves, and often interpret critical feedback, romantic rejections, or unsuccessful job applications as evidence of their general unworthiness. A new study found that they likely don't want you to try to boost their spirits.

Morphable surfaces cut air resistance: Golf ball-like dimples on cars may improve fuel efficiency Posted: 24 Jun 2014 08:07 AM PDT Testing over the years has proved that a golf ball's irregular surface dramatically increases the distance it travels, because it can cut the drag caused by air resistance in half. Now researchers are aiming to harness that same effect to reduce drag on a variety of surfaces -- including domes that sometimes crumple in high winds, or perhaps even vehicles.

Bizarre parasite from the Jurassic had mouthparts for sucking blood of salamanders Posted: 24 Jun 2014 07:58 AM PDT Around 165 million years ago, a spectacular parasite was at home in the freshwater lakes of present-day Inner Mongolia (China): A fly larva with a thorax formed entirely like a sucking plate. With it, the animal could adhere to salamanders and suck their blood with its mouthparts formed like a sting. To date no insect is known that is equipped with a similar specialized design.

Sweet, sweet straw: Scientists learn to produce sweetener from straw and fungi Posted: 24 Jun 2014 07:58 AM PDT The calorie free sweetener erythritol is widely used in Asia; it is also gaining popularity in Europe and America. Now, a new cheap method has been developed to produce erythritol from straw with the help of mould fungi. Erythritol has many great advantages: it does not make you fat, it does not cause tooth decay, it has no effect on the blood sugar and, unlike other sweeteners, it does not have a laxative effect.

Fat of the bone: Exercise, diabetes affect amount of fat inside bones Posted: 24 Jun 2014 07:50 AM PDT A new kind of imaging technique shows how exercise and diabetes drugs affect the amount of fat inside our bones, which could play roles in the health of our bones. Our bones are not stagnant, rock-like things. They change. Marrow -- the tissue inside bones -- is full of various kinds of cells. And marrow is also full of fat. The amounts of these cells and fats can decrease or increase over time. And the production of these marrow cells and fat depend on a specific type of progenitor cell called a mesenchymal stem cell.

Facelock: New password alternative which plays to the strengths of human memory Posted: 24 Jun 2014 06:33 AM PDT Forgotten passwords are a serious problem for both IT managers and users. The root of the problem is a trade-off between memorability and security: simple passwords are easy to remember but easy to crack; complex passwords are hard to crack but hard to remember. A newly proposed alternative based on the psychology of face recognition was announced today. Dubbed 'Facelock', it could put an end to forgotten passwords, and protect users from prying eyes.

Cell phones reflect our personal microbiome Posted: 24 Jun 2014 06:33 AM PDT Smartphones are everywhere, and they may be smarter than you think. Our cell phones actually reflect the personal microbial world of their owners, with potential implications for their use as bacterial and environmental sensors, according to new research. New research focused on the personal microbiome -- the collection of microorganisms on items regularly worn or carried by a person -- demonstrates the significant microbiological connection we share with our phones.

Should the Higgs boson have caused our universe to collapse? Findings puzzle cosmologists Posted: 24 Jun 2014 06:32 AM PDT British cosmologists are puzzled: they predict that the universe should not have lasted for more than a second. This startling conclusion is the result of combining the latest observations of the sky with the recent discovery of the Higgs boson.

When it rains, it pours ... on the sun Posted: 24 Jun 2014 06:32 AM PDT Just like on Earth, the sun has spells of bad weather, with high winds and showers of rain. But unlike storms on Earth, rain on the sun is made of electrically charged gas (plasma) and falls at around 200,000 kilometers an hour from the outer solar atmosphere, the corona, to the sun's surface. Now a team of solar physicists has pieced together an explanation for this intriguing phenomenon with imagery that shows a 'waterfall' in the atmosphere of the sun.

Sound waves harnessed to enable precision micro- and nano-manufacturing Posted: 24 Jun 2014 06:25 AM PDT In a breakthrough discovery, researchers have harnessed the power of sound waves to enable precision micro- and nano-manufacturing. The researchers have demonstrated how high-frequency sound waves can be used to precisely control the spread of thin film fluid along a specially designed chip.

Emergence of bacterial vortex explained Posted: 23 Jun 2014 12:47 PM PDT When a bunch of B. subtilis bacteria are confined within a droplet of water, a very strange thing happens. The chaotic motion of individual swimmers spontaneously organizes into a swirling vortex, with bacteria on the outer edge of the droplet moving in one direction while those on the inside move the opposite direction. Researchers have now explained for the first time how that dual-motion vortex is generated.

Cautionary tales: Mustaches, home oxygen therapy, sparks do not mix Posted: 23 Jun 2014 10:08 AM PDT Facial hair and home oxygen therapy can prove a dangerously combustible combination, report finds. To reach that conclusion, researchers reviewed home oxygen therapy-related burn cases and experimented with a mustachioed mannequin, a facial hair-free mannequin, nasal oxygen tubes and sparks. They found that facial hair raises the risk of home oxygen therapy-related burns, and encourage health care providers to counsel patients about the risk.

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