ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Caution: Weird material shrinks when warm
• Wet paleoclimate of Mars revealed by ancient lakes at Gale Crater
• Inside-out plants let biologists watch how cellulose forms
• Machines have nothing on mom when it comes to listening
• Scientists build a digital piece of a rat's brain
• Popular crime shows may help reduce sexual assault
• More 'global' individuals contribute less
• A quantum simulator of impossible physics
• Perfectly accurate clocks turn out to be impossible
• Tiny ancient fossil from Spain shows birds flew over the heads of dinosaurs
• Why hasn't he/she replied yet?

Caution: Weird material shrinks when warm Posted: 08 Oct 2015 02:35 PM PDT Most materials swell when warm, and shrink when cool. But some weird materials do the opposite. Although thermal expansion, and the cracking and warping that often result, occurs everyday -- in buildings, electronics, and almost anything else exposed to wide temperature swings -- physicists have trouble explaining why solids behave that way. New research into a material that has negative thermal expansion may lead to a better understanding of why materials change volume with temperature at all.

Wet paleoclimate of Mars revealed by ancient lakes at Gale Crater Posted: 08 Oct 2015 12:29 PM PDT Scientists have described ancient water flows and lakes on Mars, and what this might mean about the ancient climate.

Inside-out plants let biologists watch how cellulose forms Posted: 08 Oct 2015 12:28 PM PDT Researchers have been able to watch the interior cells of a plant synthesize cellulose for the first time by tricking the cells into growing on the plant's surface, according to a new paper. Cellulose, the structural component of cell walls that enables plants to stay upright, is the most abundant biopolymer on earth. It's a critical resource for pulp and paper, textiles, building materials, and renewable biofuels.

Machines have nothing on mom when it comes to listening Posted: 08 Oct 2015 11:26 AM PDT More than 99% of the time, two words are enough for people with normal hearing to distinguish the voice of a close friend or relative amongst other voices. His study involved playing recordings to Canadian French speakers, who were asked to recognize on multiple trials which of the ten male voices they heard was familiar to them. "Merci beaucoup" turned out to be all they needed to hear.

Scientists build a digital piece of a rat's brain Posted: 08 Oct 2015 11:22 AM PDT If you want to learn how something works, one strategy is to take it apart and put it back together again. For 10 years, a global initiative called the Blue Brain Project has been attempting to do this digitally with a section of juvenile rat brain. The project presents a first draft of this reconstruction, which contains over 31,000 neurons, 55 layers of cells, and 207 different neuron subtypes.

Popular crime shows may help reduce sexual assault Posted: 08 Oct 2015 07:12 AM PDT Viewers of 'Law and Order' have a better grasp of sexual consent than viewers of other crime dramas such as 'CSI' or 'NCIS,' suggesting that individuals who watch programs in which sexual predators are punished may avoid sexual predatory behavior in real life, research suggests.

More 'global' individuals contribute less Posted: 08 Oct 2015 06:51 AM PDT The more individuals perceive themselves as "citizens of the world," the less likely they are to contribute to collective public goods and the more likely to hitch a "free ride" on the contributions of other citizens, new research indicates.

A quantum simulator of impossible physics Posted: 08 Oct 2015 05:40 AM PDT In an unusual experiment atoms are made to simulate absurd actions "as if they were actors in a quantum theater."

Perfectly accurate clocks turn out to be impossible Posted: 07 Oct 2015 08:09 AM PDT Can the passage of time be measured precisely, always and everywhere? The answer will upset many watchmakers. A team of physicists have just shown that when we are dealing with very large accelerations, no clock will actually be able to show the real passage of time, known as 'proper time.'

Tiny ancient fossil from Spain shows birds flew over the heads of dinosaurs Posted: 06 Oct 2015 11:24 AM PDT A new discovery documents the intricate arrangement of the muscles and ligaments that controlled the main feathers of the wing of an ancient bird, supporting the notion that at least some of the most ancient birds performed aerodynamic feats in a fashion similar to those of many living birds.

Why hasn't he/she replied yet? Posted: 05 Oct 2015 12:12 PM PDT A study probes how factors that affect how quickly people respond to email. The researchers are also able to predict when an email thread will fizzle out. When users first email each other, they mimic each other with regards to the length of emails, but as the email chain continues, this synchronicity drops off. In general, users are synchronized until the middle of the conversation. The researchers identify telltale signs that the person with whom you are emailing isn't going to respond again. A long delay in the final response signals to both parties that the conversation is probably over.

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