ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Sound separates cancer cells from blood samples
• Breastfeeding women and sex: Higher sex drive or relationship management?
• Under the microscope, strong-swimming swamp bacteria spontaneously organize into crystals
• Internet-style 'local area networks' in cerebral cortex of rats
• Stress and obesity: Your family can make your fat
• Producing rubber from lettuce
• The brain game: How decreased neural activity may help you learn faster
• For ticks, researchers find lemur noses to be males only in Madagascar
• Engineers gain control of gene activity by synthetically creating key component of epigenome
• Endangered tortoises thrive on invasive plants
• Dwarf dragons discovered in the Andes of Peru and Ecuador

Sound separates cancer cells from blood samples Posted: 06 Apr 2015 01:54 PM PDT Separating circulating cancer cells from blood cells for diagnostic, prognostic and treatment purposes may become much easier using an acoustic separation method and an inexpensive, disposable chip, according to a team of engineers.

Breastfeeding women and sex: Higher sex drive or relationship management? Posted: 06 Apr 2015 01:54 PM PDT New mothers in the Philippines spend more time in the bedroom with their partner in the first few weeks after giving birth than they did before they became pregnant. This might be a type of survival strategy to keep the relationships with the fathers of their new babies alive and well, to ensure continued support for their offspring.

Under the microscope, strong-swimming swamp bacteria spontaneously organize into crystals Posted: 06 Apr 2015 01:51 PM PDT The researchers dubbed the individual cells "microscopic tornadoes" for their rapid rotation, which both forms the crystals by drawing in other cells and then powers the crystals' own motion.

Internet-style 'local area networks' in cerebral cortex of rats Posted: 06 Apr 2015 12:30 PM PDT Studying 40 years' worth of data on rat brains, scientists found that the rat cerebral cortex has hubs and 'local area networks,' much like the Internet.

Stress and obesity: Your family can make your fat Posted: 06 Apr 2015 10:36 AM PDT A new study suggests a relationship between long-term exposure to three specific types of family stressors and children becoming obese by the time they turn 18.

Producing rubber from lettuce Posted: 06 Apr 2015 10:36 AM PDT Prickly lettuce, a common weed that has long vexed farmers, has potential as a new cash crop providing raw material for rubber production, according to scientists. These findings open the way for breeding for desired traits and developing a new crop source for rubber in the Pacific Northwest.

The brain game: How decreased neural activity may help you learn faster Posted: 06 Apr 2015 09:13 AM PDT Why are some people able to master a new skill quickly while others require extra time or practice? Counterintuitive as it may seem, study participants who showed decreased neural activity learned the fastest. The critical distinction was in areas not directly related to seeing the cues or playing the notes that participants were trying to learn: the frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. These cognitive control centers are thought to be most responsible for what is known as executive function. The frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex are among the last brain regions to fully develop in humans, which may help explain why children are able to acquire new skills quickly as compared to adults.

For ticks, researchers find lemur noses to be males only in Madagascar Posted: 06 Apr 2015 09:10 AM PDT Out of 295 ticks collected from the noses of lemurs in Madagascar, 100 percent of them were male. The chosen location may provide a convenient jump-off point for male ticks to switch hosts as the lemurs sniff each other.

Engineers gain control of gene activity by synthetically creating key component of epigenome Posted: 06 Apr 2015 09:10 AM PDT Researchers have developed a new method to activate genes by synthetically creating a key component of the epigenome that controls how our genes are expressed. The new technology allows researchers to turn on specific gene promoters and enhancers -- pieces of our genomes that control our gene activity -- by chemically manipulating proteins that package our DNA.

Endangered tortoises thrive on invasive plants Posted: 06 Apr 2015 09:08 AM PDT Introduced plants make up roughly half the diet of two subspecies of endangered tortoise, field research in the Galapagos reveals. Tortoises seem to prefer non-native to native plants and the plants may help them to stay well-nourished during the dry season.

Dwarf dragons discovered in the Andes of Peru and Ecuador Posted: 06 Apr 2015 07:09 AM PDT Scientists have discovered three new species of dragon-esque woodlizards in the Andes of Peru and Ecuador. The new species differ from their closest relatives in scale features, coloration and DNA.

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