ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Lab mimicry opens a window to the deep interiors of stars and planets
• Small thunderstorms may add up to massive cyclones on Saturn
• New type of gecko-like gripper created
• Why did the dinosaur cross the equator, then not stay there?
• Rheumatoid arthritis and giant cell arteritis linked with solar cycles
• Why is scratching an itch so rewarding?
• World's thinnest lightbulb: Graphene gets bright
• Newfound groups of bacteria are mixing up the tree of life
• Origins of Red Sea's mysterious 'cannon earthquakes' revealed
• Unveiling the ancient climate of Mars
• Scientists grow multiple brain structures and make connections between them
• Cells 'dance' as they draw together during early embryo development
• Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you if it means saving more strangers?
• Turning the Internet of things into the Internet of 'cha-ching'
• Speech recognition from brain activity
• Squid inspires camouflaging smart materials
• Secrets of innovation revealed in study of global video game industry
• Self-awareness not unique to humankind

Lab mimicry opens a window to the deep interiors of stars and planets Posted: 15 Jun 2015 01:26 PM PDT The matter that makes up distant planets and even-more-distant stars exists under extreme pressure and temperature conditions. This includes members of a family of seven elements called the noble gases, some of which -- such as helium and neon -- are household names. New work used laboratory techniques to mimic stellar and planetary conditions, and observe how noble gases behave under these conditions, in order to better understand the atmospheric and internal chemistry of these celestial objects.

Small thunderstorms may add up to massive cyclones on Saturn Posted: 15 Jun 2015 12:25 PM PDT Atmospheric scientists propose a possible mechanism for Saturn's polar cyclones: Over time, small, short-lived thunderstorms across the planet may build up angular momentum, or spin, within the atmosphere -- ultimately stirring up a massive and long-lasting vortex at the poles.

New type of gecko-like gripper created Posted: 15 Jun 2015 12:25 PM PDT Researchers are developing a new kind of gripper, motivated by the ability of animals like the gecko to grip and release surfaces. Like the gecko, the gripper has 'tunable adhesion,' meaning that, despite having no moving parts, its effective stickiness can be tuned from strong to weak. Unlike the gecko and other artificial imitators that rely on structures with complex shapes, the team's gripper uses a simpler, two-material structure that is easier to mass-produce.

Why did the dinosaur cross the equator, then not stay there? Posted: 15 Jun 2015 12:24 PM PDT A remarkably detailed picture of the climate and ecology during the Triassic Period explains why dinosaurs failed to establish dominance near the equator for 30 million years.

Rheumatoid arthritis and giant cell arteritis linked with solar cycles Posted: 15 Jun 2015 11:28 AM PDT A rare collaboration of physicists and medical researchers finds a correlation between rheumatoid arthritis and giant cell arteritis and solar cycles.

Why is scratching an itch so rewarding? Posted: 15 Jun 2015 10:28 AM PDT Researchers may be closer to understanding why scratching evokes a rewarding and pleasurable sensation in patients with chronic itch. Using advanced fMRI, they looked at brain activity while chronic itch patients and healthy subjects scratched. They found areas of the brain involved in motor control and reward processing were more activated in chronic itch patients while they scratched. This may help explain the addictive scratching experienced by these patients.

World's thinnest lightbulb: Graphene gets bright Posted: 15 Jun 2015 10:09 AM PDT Scientists have demonstrated -- for the first time -- an on-chip visible light source using graphene, an atomically thin and perfectly crystalline form of carbon, as a filament. They attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up.

Newfound groups of bacteria are mixing up the tree of life Posted: 15 Jun 2015 10:09 AM PDT Bacteria, one of the three major branches of the tree of life, are a fuzzy bit of foliage. While scientists know there are many unidentified species, they have not been classified or characterized because no one can culture them. Now biologists have sequenced a community of bacteria, assembled almost 800 nearly complete genomes and found that many of them represent completely new phyla: more than 35 in all.

Origins of Red Sea's mysterious 'cannon earthquakes' revealed Posted: 15 Jun 2015 10:08 AM PDT For many generations, Bedouin people living in the Abu Dabbab area on the Egyptian Red Sea coast have heard distinct noises -- like the rumbling of a quarry blast or cannon shot -- accompanying small earthquakes in the region. Now, a new study offers an explanation for this uniquely noisy seismic event.

Unveiling the ancient climate of Mars Posted: 15 Jun 2015 09:52 AM PDT The high seas of Mars may never have existed. According to a new study that looks at two opposite climate scenarios of early Mars, a cold and icy planet billions of years ago better explains water drainage and erosion features seen on the planet today.

Scientists grow multiple brain structures and make connections between them Posted: 15 Jun 2015 09:52 AM PDT Human stem cells can be differentiated to produce other cell types, such as organ cells, skin cells, or brain cells. While organ cells, for example, can function in isolation, brain cells require synapses, or connectors, between cells and between regions of the brain. Researchers now report successfully growing multiple brain structures and forming connections between them in vitro, in a single culture vessel, for the first time.

Cells 'dance' as they draw together during early embryo development Posted: 15 Jun 2015 09:52 AM PDT Cells "dance" as they draw together during early embryo development. Cells within an 8-cell embryo shown to 'dance' to the same rhythm.

Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you if it means saving more strangers? Posted: 15 Jun 2015 09:47 AM PDT The computer brains inside autonomous vehicles will be fast enough to make life-or-death decisions. But should they? A bioethicist weighs in on a thorny problem of the dawning robot age.

Turning the Internet of things into the Internet of 'cha-ching' Posted: 15 Jun 2015 09:47 AM PDT That Nest thermostat on your wall could be making you money. Not saving money, mind you. That's its day job: learning your habits so it can fine-tune your energy use and lower your power bills. But most of the time, it's just sitting there with nothing much to do. Add in some code written by a group of computer researchers, however, and that Nest -- along with all the other smart refrigerators, TVs, light bulbs, sensors and more that make up the Internet of Things -- could be helping traveling businesspeople crunch data, tourists Photoshop their vacation snaps, and more.

Speech recognition from brain activity Posted: 15 Jun 2015 08:24 AM PDT Speech is produced in the human cerebral cortex. Brain waves associated with speech processes can be directly recorded with electrodes located on the surface of the cortex. It has now been shown for the first time that is possible to reconstruct basic units, words, and complete sentences of continuous speech from these brain waves and to generate the corresponding text.

Squid inspires camouflaging smart materials Posted: 15 Jun 2015 07:39 AM PDT Researchers have shown it is possible to create artificial skin that can be transformed at the flick of a switch to mimic one of nature's masters of camouflage, the squid.

Secrets of innovation revealed in study of global video game industry Posted: 15 Jun 2015 06:36 AM PDT From the adventures of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider to the apocalyptic drama of Fallout - new research has revealed the secret to how some of the world's most iconic video games were created.

Self-awareness not unique to humankind Posted: 15 Jun 2015 06:35 AM PDT Humans are unlikely to be the only animal capable of self-awareness, a new study has shown. The study found that humans and other animals capable of mentally simulating environments require at least a primitive sense of self. The finding suggests that any animal that can simulate environments must have a form of self-awareness.

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