ScienceDaily: Strange Science News |
- Taking miniature organs from lab to clinic
- Distant star is roundest object ever observed in nature
- Looking for a city's DNA? Try its ATMs
- Solar smart window could offer privacy, light control on demand
- What can Pokémon Go teach the world of conservation?
- New AI algorithm taught by humans learns beyond its training
- Skilful cockatoos able to shape same tool from different materials
| Taking miniature organs from lab to clinic Posted: 16 Nov 2016 11:38 AM PST Scientists have developed a gel for growing miniaturized body organs that can be used in clinical diagnostics and drug development. Organoids are miniature organs that can be grown in the lab from a person's stem cells. They can be used to model diseases, and in the future could be used to test drugs or even replace damaged tissue in patients. |
| Distant star is roundest object ever observed in nature Posted: 16 Nov 2016 11:31 AM PST Stars are not perfect spheres. While they rotate, they become flat due to the centrifugal force. A team of researchers has now succeeded in measuring the oblateness of a slowly rotating star with unprecedented precision. The researchers have determined stellar oblateness using asteroseismology -- the study of the oscillations of stars. The technique is applied to a star 5000 light years away from Earth and revealed that the difference between the equatorial and polar radii of the star is only 3 kilometers -- a number that is astonishing small compared to the star's mean radius of 1.5 million kilometers; which means that the gas sphere is astonishingly round. |
| Looking for a city's DNA? Try its ATMs Posted: 16 Nov 2016 10:19 AM PST Automated teller machine keypads in New York City hold microbes from human skin, household surfaces, or traces of food, a study has found. The work shows that ATMs can provide a repository to offer a picture of a city's DNA. |
| Solar smart window could offer privacy, light control on demand Posted: 16 Nov 2016 09:02 AM PST Smart windows get darker to filter out the sun's rays on bright days, and turn clear on cloudy days to let more light in. This feature can help control indoor temperatures and offers some privacy without resorting to aids such as mini-blinds. Now scientists report a new development in this growing niche: solar smart windows that can turn opaque on demand and even power other devices. |
| What can Pokémon Go teach the world of conservation? Posted: 16 Nov 2016 07:31 AM PST Launched in July this year, Pokémon Go has become a global phenomenon, reaching 500 million downloads within two months of release. The augmented reality game, designed for mobile devices, allows users to capture, battle and train virtual creatures called Pokémon that appear on screen as if part of the real-world environment. But can the game's enormous success deliver any lessons to the fields of natural history and conservation? |
| New AI algorithm taught by humans learns beyond its training Posted: 16 Nov 2016 07:22 AM PST Researchers have designed an algorithm that learns directly from human instructions, rather than an existing set of examples, and outperformed conventional methods of training neural networks by 160 per cent. But more surprisingly, their algorithm also outperformed its own training by nine per cent -- it learned to recognize hair in pictures with greater reliability than that enabled by the training, marking a significant leap forward for artificial intelligence. |
| Skilful cockatoos able to shape same tool from different materials Posted: 15 Nov 2016 06:00 PM PST Tool manufacture was once regarded a defining feature of humankind, but it is now known that a variety of animal species use and make their own tools. In nature, some of the most striking cases of tool-related behavior are seen not just among close relatives of Homo sapiens, such as chimps and other primates, but among birds including crows, vultures and Galapagos finches. Researchers have now shown that Goffin's cockatoos can make and use elongated tools of appropriate shape and length out of amorphous materials, suggesting that the birds can anticipate how the tools will be used. |
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