ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Ready for your close-up? Distance at which facial photos are taken influences perception, study shows
• Researchers discover what vampire squids eat: It's not what you think
• Artificially intelligent game bots pass the Turing test on Turing's centenary
• Tracking koala disease: New findings from old DNA
• Biologist discovers mammal with salamander-like regenerative abilities
• Large 2012 earthquake triggered temblors worldwide for nearly a week
• How is a Kindle like a cuttlefish? Parallels between e-Paper technology and biological organisms that change color
• New simulation method produces realistic fluid movements
• Ancient Buddhist statue made of meteorite, new study reveals
• Robotic surgery through the mouth safe for removing tumors of the voice box, study shows
• Computers match humans in understanding art
• Backpack-toting birds help researchers reveal migratory divide, conservation hotspots
• Slave rebellion is widespread in ants
• Researchers uncover biochemical chain of events needed to maintain an erection

Ready for your close-up? Distance at which facial photos are taken influences perception, study shows Posted: 26 Sep 2012 12:30 PM PDT As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Previous studies have examined how our social judgments of pictures of people are influenced by factors such as whether the person is smiling or frowning, but until now one factor has never been investigated: the distance between the photographer and the subject. According to a new study, this turns out to make a difference.

Researchers discover what vampire squids eat: It's not what you think Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:32 AM PDT Over the last 100 years, perhaps a dozen scientific papers have been published on the mysterious vampire squid, but no one has been able to figure out exactly what it eats. A new article shows for the first time that the vampire squid uses two thread-like filaments to capture bits of organic debris that sink down from the ocean surface into the deep sea.

Artificially intelligent game bots pass the Turing test on Turing's centenary Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:32 AM PDT An artificially intelligent virtual gamer has won the BotPrize by convincing a panel of judges that it was more human-like than half the humans it competed against. The victory comes 100 years after the birth of mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, whose "Turing test" stands as one of the foundational definitions of what constitutes true machine intelligence.

Tracking koala disease: New findings from old DNA Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:32 AM PDT DNA extracted from the skins of koalas displayed in European and North American museums shows that a retrovirus has been a problem for the animals for much longer than was thought, according to researchers.

Biologist discovers mammal with salamander-like regenerative abilities Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:31 AM PDT A small African mammal with an unusual ability to regrow damaged tissues could inspire new research in regenerative medicine, a new study finds.

Large 2012 earthquake triggered temblors worldwide for nearly a week Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:31 AM PDT This year's largest earthquake, a magnitude 8.6 temblor on April 11 centered in the East Indian Ocean off Sumatra, did little damage, but it triggered quakes around the world for at least a week, according to a new analysis by seismologists.

How is a Kindle like a cuttlefish? Parallels between e-Paper technology and biological organisms that change color Posted: 26 Sep 2012 08:01 AM PDT New research examines parallels between e-Paper technology (the technology behind sunlight-readable devices like the Kindle) and biological organisms that change color.

New simulation method produces realistic fluid movements Posted: 26 Sep 2012 08:01 AM PDT What does a yogurt look like over time? The food industry will soon be able to answer this question using a new fluid simulation tool.

Ancient Buddhist statue made of meteorite, new study reveals Posted: 26 Sep 2012 07:42 AM PDT An ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analyzed by a team of scientists. The probably 1,000-year-old statue, called the "Iron Man", weighs 10 kilograms, portrays the Buddhist god Vaisravana and is believed to originate from the pre-Buddhist Bon culture of the 11th Century. Geochemical analyses by the German-Austrian research team revealed that the priceless statue was carved from an ataxite, a very rare class of iron meteorites.

Robotic surgery through the mouth safe for removing tumors of the voice box, study shows Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:45 AM PDT Robotic surgery though the mouth is a safe and effective way to remove tumors of the throat and voice box, according to a new study.

Computers match humans in understanding art Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:45 AM PDT Understanding and evaluating art has widely been considered as a task meant for humans, until now. Computer scientists tackled the question "can machines understand art?" The results were very surprising. In fact, an algorithm has been developed that demonstrates computers are able to "understand" art in a fashion very similar to how art historians perform their analysis, mimicking the perception of expert art critiques.

Backpack-toting birds help researchers reveal migratory divide, conservation hotspots Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:45 AM PDT By outfitting two British Columbia subspecies of Swainson's thrushes with penny-sized, state-of-the-art geolocators, researchers have been able to map their wildly divergent migration routes and pinpoint conservation hotspots.

Slave rebellion is widespread in ants Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:29 AM PDT Enslaved worker ants kill the offspring of their parasites and thereby improve the chances of survival for their neighboring relatives. According to new research, this behavior now appears to be a widespread characteristic that is not limited to isolated occurrences.

Researchers uncover biochemical chain of events needed to maintain an erection Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:17 AM PDT For two decades, scientists have known the biochemical factors that trigger penile erection, but not what's needed to maintain one. Now new research uncovers the biochemical chain of events involved in that process. The information, say scientists, may lead to new therapies to help men who have erectile dysfunction.

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