ScienceDaily: Strange Science News |
- Did dinosaur-killing asteroid trigger largest lava flows on Earth?
- How some beetles produce a scalding defensive spray
- Brain scan reveals out-of-body illusion
- Keen sense of touch allows bats to fly with breathtaking precision
- Wild bearded capuchin monkeys really know how to crack a nut
- Light -- not pain-killing drugs -- used to activate brain's opioid receptors
- New tool can switch behavior -- such as voracious eating -- 'on' and 'off'
- Observing the solar eclipse over the Arctic
- No Hogwarts invitation required: Invisibility cloaks move into the real-life classroom
- Eagle Nebula: The Pillars of Creation revealed in 3-D
- Desirable defects: Flaws introduced to liquid crystals could lead to new generation of advanced materials
| Did dinosaur-killing asteroid trigger largest lava flows on Earth? Posted: 30 Apr 2015 02:07 PM PDT The theory that an asteroid impact killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is well accepted, but one puzzle is why another global catastrophe -- the huge, million-year eruption of the Deccan Traps flood basalts in India -- occurred at the same time. Geologists now argue this is not a coincidence. The impact probably rang Earth like a bell, reigniting an underground magma plume and generating the largest lava flows on Earth.  |
| How some beetles produce a scalding defensive spray Posted: 30 Apr 2015 11:51 AM PDT Bombardier beetles, which exist on every continent except Antarctica, have a pretty easy life. Virtually no other animals prey on them, because of one particularly effective defense mechanism: When disturbed or attacked, the beetles produce an internal chemical explosion in their abdomen and then expel a jet of boiling, irritating liquid toward their attackers.  |
| Brain scan reveals out-of-body illusion Posted: 30 Apr 2015 09:41 AM PDT Neuroscientists have created an out-of-body illusion in participants placed inside a brain scanner. They then used the illusion to perceptually 'teleport' the participants to different locations in a room and show that the perceived location of the bodily self can be decoded from activity patterns in specific brain regions.  |
| Keen sense of touch allows bats to fly with breathtaking precision Posted: 30 Apr 2015 09:41 AM PDT Bats fly with breathtaking precision because their wings are equipped with highly sensitive touch sensors, cells that respond to even slight changes in airflow, researchers demonstrated.  |
| Wild bearded capuchin monkeys really know how to crack a nut Posted: 30 Apr 2015 09:40 AM PDT When it comes to cracking nuts, wild bearded capuchin monkeys are more skilled than anyone had given them credit for, according to researchers.  |
| Light -- not pain-killing drugs -- used to activate brain's opioid receptors Posted: 30 Apr 2015 09:40 AM PDT Neuroscientists have attached the light-sensing protein rhodopsin to opioid receptor parts to activate the receptor pathways using light from a laser fiber-optic device. They also influenced the behavior of mice using light, rather than drugs, to activate the reward response. When an opioid receptor is exposed to a pain-killing drug, it initiates activity in specific chemical pathways in the brain and spinal cord. And when the researchers shone light on the receptors that contained rhodopsin, the same cellular pathways were activated. Neurons in that part of the brain release chemicals such as dopamine that create feelings of euphoria.  |
| New tool can switch behavior -- such as voracious eating -- 'on' and 'off' Posted: 30 Apr 2015 09:40 AM PDT Researchers have perfected a noninvasive "chemogenetic" technique that allows them to switch off a specific behavior in mice -- such as voracious eating -- and then switch it back on. The method works by targeting two different cell surface receptors.  |
| Observing the solar eclipse over the Arctic Posted: 30 Apr 2015 08:36 AM PDT Scientists braved Arctic weather to successfully observe the total solar eclipse of March 20 from Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago east of northern Greenland.  |
| No Hogwarts invitation required: Invisibility cloaks move into the real-life classroom Posted: 30 Apr 2015 08:35 AM PDT Scientists have developed a portable invisibility cloak that can be taken into classrooms and used for demonstrations. It can't hide a human, but it can make small objects disappear from sight without specialized equipment.  |
| Eagle Nebula: The Pillars of Creation revealed in 3-D Posted: 30 Apr 2015 05:28 AM PDT Astronomers have produced the first complete three-dimensional view of the famous Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, Messier 16. The new observations demonstrate how the different dusty pillars of this iconic object are distributed in space and reveal many new details. Intense radiation and stellar winds from the cluster's brilliant stars have sculpted the dusty Pillars of Creation over time and should fully evaporate them in about three million years.  |
| Posted: 30 Apr 2015 05:23 AM PDT Introducing flaws into liquid crystals by inserting microspheres and then controlling them with electrical fields: that, in a nutshell, is the rationale behind a method that could be exploited for a new generation of advanced materials, potentially useful for optical technologies, electronic displays and e-readers.  |
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