ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Rare blurring of black hole light spotted
• Scared of crime? Science shows that healthy fear of crime is a good thing
• Awake within a dream: lucid dreamers show greater insight in waking life
• Antarctic insect's genome, newly sequenced, is smallest to date: Bare-bones genome is adaptation to deep freeze
• Geckos use toe hairs to turn stickiness on/off

Rare blurring of black hole light spotted Posted: 12 Aug 2014 11:20 AM PDT Scientists have captured an extreme and rare event in the regions immediately surrounding a supermassive black hole. A compact source of X-rays that sits near the black hole, called the corona, has moved closer to the black hole over a period of just days.

Scared of crime? Science shows that healthy fear of crime is a good thing Posted: 12 Aug 2014 09:23 AM PDT A healthy fear of crime is a good thing, a study by a criminologist says. The study suggests adolescents who are more fearful of crime are less apt to become victims and offenders of violent acts. Essentially, fearful youth tend to avoid potentially dangerous people, locations and activities such as drug-fueled parties, said the lead researcher.

Awake within a dream: lucid dreamers show greater insight in waking life Posted: 12 Aug 2014 09:18 AM PDT People who are aware they are asleep when they are dreaming have better than average problem-solving abilities, new research has discovered. Experts say that those who experience 'lucid dreaming' – a phenomena where someone who is asleep can recognize that they are dreaming – can solve problems in the waking world better than those who remain unaware of the dream until they wake up. The concept of lucid dreaming was explored in the 2010 film Inception, where the dreamers were able to spot incongruities within their dream. It is thought some people are able to do this because of a higher level of insight, meaning their brains detect they are in a dream because events would not make sense otherwise.

Antarctic insect's genome, newly sequenced, is smallest to date: Bare-bones genome is adaptation to deep freeze Posted: 12 Aug 2014 09:13 AM PDT Scientists who sequenced the genome of the Antarctic midge suspect the genome's small size – the smallest in insects described to date – can probably be explained by the midge's adaptation to its extreme living environment.

Geckos use toe hairs to turn stickiness on/off Posted: 12 Aug 2014 09:13 AM PDT If you've ever watched a gecko, you probably wondered about their uncanny ability to adhere to any surface -- including upside down. It turns out the little lizards can turn the "stickiness" of toe hairs on their feet on and off, which enables them to run at great speeds or cling to ceilings without expending much energy. Researchers describe new work exploring the subtleties of geckos' adhesion system mechanism.

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