ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Can't put your phone down? Are You a Nomophobe?
• Unusual use of blue pigment found in ancient mummy portraits
• Something to crow about: New Caledonian crows show strong evidence of social learning
• Earth's mineralogy unique in the cosmos
• Fertilization discovery: Do sperm wield tiny harpoons?
• Even cockatoos draw conclusions
• Earth's extremes point the way to extraterrestrial life
• Where bread began: Ancient tools used to reconstruct -- and taste -- prehistoric cuisine
• Can't count sheep? You could have aphantasia
• Robotically steered flexible needles navigate in tissue
• Microscopic fish are 3-D-printed to do more than swim
• Home sweet microbe: Dust in your house can predict geographic region, gender of occupants
• Fossil remains of Old World lizard discovered in the New World overturn long-held hypothesis of lizard evolution

Can't put your phone down? Are You a Nomophobe? Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:43 PM PDT Rsearchers have developed a questionnaire to help you determine if you suffer from nomophobia or a fear of being without your mobile phone.

Unusual use of blue pigment found in ancient mummy portraits Posted: 26 Aug 2015 11:41 AM PDT In an unexpected discovery, a research team of scientists and art conservators has found an unusual use of the pigment Egyptian blue in Roman-era Egyptian mummy portraits. No blue is visible to the naked eye in the paintings, but when the researchers used analytical tools for an in-depth study, they discovered the ancient artists used the pigment as material for underdrawings and for modulating color -- a finding never before documented.

Something to crow about: New Caledonian crows show strong evidence of social learning Posted: 26 Aug 2015 08:38 AM PDT Among our greatest achievements as humans, some might say, is our cumulative technological culture -- the tool-using acumen that is passed from one generation to the next. As the implements we use on a daily basis are modified and refined over time, they seem to evolve right along with us.

Earth's mineralogy unique in the cosmos Posted: 26 Aug 2015 08:36 AM PDT New research predicts that Earth has more than 1,500 undiscovered minerals and that the exact mineral diversity of our planet is unique and could not be duplicated anywhere in the cosmos.

Fertilization discovery: Do sperm wield tiny harpoons? Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:22 AM PDT Could the sperm harpoon the egg to facilitate fertilization? That's the intriguing possibility raised by the discovery that a protein within the head of the sperm forms spiky filaments, suggesting that these tiny filaments may lash together the sperm and its target.

Even cockatoos draw conclusions Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:20 AM PDT If there is a certain pool of choices and we can exclude A and B, we can easily deduce that C must be the appropriate choice. The ability of animals to be able to solve this has been the focus of many studies in recent comparative cognitive research. A team of researchers have now found a method to test if Goffin cockatoos have the ability to infer by exclusion.

Earth's extremes point the way to extraterrestrial life Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:16 AM PDT Astrobiologists draw upon what is known about Earth's most extreme lifeforms and the environments of Mars and Titan, Saturn's moon, to paint a clearer picture of what life on other planets could be like.

Where bread began: Ancient tools used to reconstruct -- and taste -- prehistoric cuisine Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:16 AM PDT A group of intrepid Israeli researchers recently went back to the dawn of the Stone Age to make lunch. Using 12,500-year-old conical mortars carved into bedrock, they reconstructed how their ancient ancestors processed wild barley to produce groat meals, as well as a delicacy that might be termed 'proto-pita' -- small loaves of coal-baked, unleavened bread. In so doing, they re-enacted a critical moment in the rise of civilization.

Can't count sheep? You could have aphantasia Posted: 26 Aug 2015 07:16 AM PDT If counting sheep is an abstract concept, or you are unable to visualize the faces of loved ones, you could have aphantasia -- a newly defined condition to describe people who are born without a 'mind's eye'.

Robotically steered flexible needles navigate in tissue Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:21 AM PDT Robotically steering flexible needles can reach their intended target in tissue with sub-millimetre level accuracy. A major advantage of steering flexible needles is that one can avoid obstacles or sensitive tissues and can re-orient the path of the needle in real time as you insert the needle.

Microscopic fish are 3-D-printed to do more than swim Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:17 AM PDT Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego used an innovative 3-D printing technology they developed to manufacture multipurpose fish-shaped microrobots -- called microfish -- that swim around efficiently in liquids, are chemically powered by hydrogen peroxide and magnetically controlled. These proof-of-concept synthetic microfish will inspire a new generation of 'smart' microrobots that have diverse capabilities such as detoxification, sensing and directed drug delivery, researchers said.

Home sweet microbe: Dust in your house can predict geographic region, gender of occupants Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:17 AM PDT The humble dust collecting in the average American household harbors a teeming menagerie of bacteria and fungi, and as researchers have discovered, it may be able to predict not only the geographic region of a given home, but the gender ratio of the occupants and the presence of a pet as well.

Fossil remains of Old World lizard discovered in the New World overturn long-held hypothesis of lizard evolution Posted: 26 Aug 2015 05:17 AM PDT Paleontologists have discovered a new species of lizard, named Gueragama sulamericana, in the municipality of Cruzeiro do Oeste in Southern Brazil in the rock outcrops of a Late Cretaceous desert, dated approximately 80 million years ago.

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