ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Using wireless interface, operators control multiple drones by thinking of various tasks
• Shocking new role found for the immune system: Controlling social interaction
• Stellar outburst brings water snowline around a young star into view
• Playing action video games boosts visual motor skill underlying driving
• Analysis of ant colonies could improve network algorithms
• Advancing self-driving car design, other shared human- and machine-controlled systems
• Graphene-infused packaging is a million times better at blocking moisture
• Engineers develop octopus-inspired smart adhesive pads
• Boredom can lead to more extreme political views, researchers find

Using wireless interface, operators control multiple drones by thinking of various tasks Posted: 13 Jul 2016 11:37 AM PDT A researcher has discovered how to control multiple robotic drones using the human brain. A controller wears a skull cap outfitted with 128 electrodes wired to a computer. The device records electrical brain activity. If the controller moves a hand or thinks of something, certain areas light up. A wireless system sends the thought to the robots.

Shocking new role found for the immune system: Controlling social interaction Posted: 13 Jul 2016 11:31 AM PDT The immune system affects -- and even controls -- social behavior, a new study has found. Researchers discovered that blocking a single type of immune molecule made mouse brains go hyperactive and caused abnormal behavior; restoring it fixed both. The discovery could have enormous implications for neurological conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.

Stellar outburst brings water snowline around a young star into view Posted: 13 Jul 2016 11:30 AM PDT A violent outburst by the young star V883 Orionis has given astronomers using ALMA their first view of a water 'snowline' in a protoplanetary disk -- the transition point around the star where the temperature and pressure are low enough for water ice to form.

Playing action video games boosts visual motor skill underlying driving Posted: 13 Jul 2016 07:58 AM PDT Playing action-based video games may boost players' ability to coordinate incoming visual information with their motor control, a skill critical to many real-world behaviors including driving, new research shows.

Analysis of ant colonies could improve network algorithms Posted: 13 Jul 2016 07:58 AM PDT An analysis of ant colony behavior could yield better algorithms for network communication, say investigators. Biologists have long suspected that ants base their population-density estimates on the frequency with which they -- literally -- bump into other ants while randomly exploring their environments. That theory gets new support from a theoretical paper. The paper shows that observations from random exploration of the environment converge very quickly on an accurate estimate of population density. Indeed, they converge about as quickly as is theoretically possible.

Advancing self-driving car design, other shared human- and machine-controlled systems Posted: 13 Jul 2016 07:16 AM PDT Computer scientists have described a new approach to managing the challenge of transferring control between a human and an autonomous system.

Graphene-infused packaging is a million times better at blocking moisture Posted: 13 Jul 2016 07:12 AM PDT Plastic packaging might seem impenetrable -- and sometimes nearly impossible to remove -- but water molecules can still pass through. And this permeability to moisture can limit the lifespan of a product. To better protect goods such as electronics and medicines, scientists have developed a new kind of packaging that incorporates a single layer of graphene. Their material reduces by a million fold how much water can get through.

Engineers develop octopus-inspired smart adhesive pads Posted: 12 Jul 2016 08:02 AM PDT A team of Korean scientists has recently found a way to make building flexible pressure sensors easier -- by mimicking the suction cups on octopus's tentacles.

Boredom can lead to more extreme political views, researchers find Posted: 07 Jul 2016 08:54 AM PDT Boredom may be contributing to a widening of political views among voters, according to a new study. The findings are based on one experiment and two scientific surveys carried out in the Republic of Ireland.

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