ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Scientists sequence genome of worm that can regrow body parts, seeking stem cell insights
• How a frog's molecules 'leaped,' and 'crawled,' to evolve violet vision
• Digestible batteries needed to power electronic pills
• A thermal invisibility cloak actively redirects heat
• 4-D technology allows self-folding of complex objects
• Artificial intelligence system solves sat geometry questions as well as average human test taker
• Tiny magnets mimic steam, water and ice

Scientists sequence genome of worm that can regrow body parts, seeking stem cell insights Posted: 21 Sep 2015 12:34 PM PDT Tourists spending a recuperative holiday on the Italian coast may be envious of the regenerative abilities of locally found flatworm M. lignano. Named for an Italian beach town, the tiny worm can regenerate almost its whole body following injury. Researchers have now sequenced its genome.

How a frog's molecules 'leaped,' and 'crawled,' to evolve violet vision Posted: 21 Sep 2015 10:39 AM PDT The African clawed frog's process for adaptive color vision is full of mysterious twists and turns, an evolutionary biologist explains in a new article about the frog's shift from ultraviolet to violet vision.

Digestible batteries needed to power electronic pills Posted: 21 Sep 2015 10:34 AM PDT Imagine a 'smart pill' that can sense problems in your intestines and actively release the appropriate drugs. We have the biological understanding to create such a device, but we're still searching for electronic materials (like batteries and circuits) that pose no risk if they get stuck in our bodies. Now researchers present a vision for creating safe, consumable electronics, such as those powered by the charged ions within our digestive tracts.

A thermal invisibility cloak actively redirects heat Posted: 21 Sep 2015 08:27 AM PDT Light, sound, and now, heat -- just as optical invisibility cloaks can bend and diffract light to shield an object from sight, and specially fabricated acoustic metamaterials can hide an object from sound waves, a recently developed thermal cloak can render an object thermally invisible by actively redirecting incident heat.

4-D technology allows self-folding of complex objects Posted: 21 Sep 2015 08:26 AM PDT Using components made from smart shape-memory materials with slightly different responses to heat, researchers have demonstrated a four-dimensional printing technology that allowed creation of complex self-folding structures.

Artificial intelligence system solves sat geometry questions as well as average human test taker Posted: 21 Sep 2015 06:51 AM PDT Computer science researchers have created an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can solve SAT geometry questions as well as the average American 11th-grade student, a breakthrough in AI research.

Tiny magnets mimic steam, water and ice Posted: 21 Sep 2015 06:12 AM PDT Researchers have created a synthetic material out of 1 billion tiny magnets. Astonishingly, it now appears that the magnetic properties of this so-called metamaterial change with the temperature, so that it can take on different states; just like water has a gaseous, liquid and a solid state. This material made of nanomagnets might well be refined for electronic applications of the future - such as for more efficient information transfer. A synthetic material - created from 1 billion nanomagnets - assumes different aggregate states depending on the temperature: the so-called metamaterial exhibits phase transitions, much like those between steam, water and ice.

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