ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Mechanism that helps parasites manipulate their hosts may have been discovered
• More than a million stars are forming in a mysterious dusty gas cloud in a nearby galaxy
• Insect wings might serve gyroscopic function, new research suggests
• How planthoppers got (and changed) their wings
• Body Temperature and Obesity: New Study Suggests Connection
• Protein sequencing solves Darwinian mystery of strange South American mammals
• Bats are surprisingly fast decision makers
• Male fish dig pits and build sand castles at the bottom of Lake Malawi to attract females
• Moral decisions can be influenced by eye tracking
• Parasite turns shrimp into voracious cannibals
• Buyer's remorse: Model shows people demand all that bad news
• Scientists move closer to 'two for one deal' on solar cell efficiency

Mechanism that helps parasites manipulate their hosts may have been discovered Posted: 18 Mar 2015 12:39 PM PDT Rodents infected with a common parasite lose their fear of cats, resulting in easy meals for the felines. Now researchers have identified a new way the parasite may modify brain cells, possibly helping explain changes in the behavior of mice -- and humans.

More than a million stars are forming in a mysterious dusty gas cloud in a nearby galaxy Posted: 18 Mar 2015 11:55 AM PDT An extremely hot, dusty cloud of molecular gases is forming more than a million young stars in a tiny nearby galaxy, astronomers report.

Insect wings might serve gyroscopic function, new research suggests Posted: 18 Mar 2015 11:55 AM PDT Gyroscopes are rarely found in nature. But researchers have discovered that insect wings may act as gyroscopes, helping insects perform aerial acrobatics and maintain stability and direction.

How planthoppers got (and changed) their wings Posted: 18 Mar 2015 11:54 AM PDT Each year, rice faces a big threat from a sesame seed-sized insect called the brown planthopper. Now, a study reveals the molecular switch that enables some planthoppers to develop short wings and others long based on environmental conditions such as day length and temperature -- a major factor in their ability to invade new rice fields.

Body Temperature and Obesity: New Study Suggests Connection Posted: 18 Mar 2015 11:48 AM PDT A new study suggests that a biological inability to create sufficient core body heat could be linked to the obesity epidemic.

Protein sequencing solves Darwinian mystery of strange South American mammals Posted: 18 Mar 2015 11:48 AM PDT Scientists have resolved pieces of a nearly 200-year-old evolutionary puzzle surrounding the group of mammals that Charles Darwin called the "strangest animals ever discovered." New research shows that South America's native ungulates, or hooved mammals -- the last of which disappeared only 10,000 years ago -- are actually related to mammals like horses rather than elephants and other species with ancient evolutionary ties to Africa as some taxonomists have maintained.

Bats are surprisingly fast decision makers Posted: 18 Mar 2015 10:07 AM PDT Bats are not as stereotyped when they hunt as previously believed. New research shows that these flying mammals are capable of making ultra-fast decisions about how to attack their prey -- or maybe even call off the attack. It takes only milliseconds.

Male fish dig pits and build sand castles at the bottom of Lake Malawi to attract females Posted: 18 Mar 2015 10:03 AM PDT A new study shows that courtship rituals evolve exceptionally fast among cichlid fish in Lake Malawi. Only in shallow waters where the light is good, males attract females by building sand castles.

Moral decisions can be influenced by eye tracking Posted: 18 Mar 2015 07:14 AM PDT Our opinions are affected by what our eyes are focusing on in the same instant we make moral decisions. Researchers have managed to influence people's responses to questions such as 'is murder defensible?' by tracking their eye movements. When the participants had looked at a randomly pre-selected response long enough, they were asked for an immediate answer. Fifty-eight percent chose that answer as their moral position.

Parasite turns shrimp into voracious cannibals Posted: 18 Mar 2015 07:12 AM PDT Parasites can play an important role in driving cannibalism, according to a new study. Researchers found a tiny parasite, Pleistophora mulleri, not only significantly increased cannibalism among the indigenous shrimp Gammarus duebeni celticus but made infected shrimp more voracious, taking much less time to consume their victims.

Buyer's remorse: Model shows people demand all that bad news Posted: 18 Mar 2015 04:45 AM PDT Bad news in the media got you down? News consumers have only themselves to blame, says new research showing that it's actually buying habits that drive negative press.

Scientists move closer to 'two for one deal' on solar cell efficiency Posted: 16 Mar 2015 10:54 AM PDT The underlying mechanism behind an enigmatic process called 'singlet exciton fission,' which could enable the development of significantly more powerful solar cells, has been identified by scientists in a new study.

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