ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Precisely targeted electrical brain stimulation alters perception of faces, study finds
• Summer babies less likely to be CEOs
• Whale racket: Sounding out how loud the oceans were from whale vocalizing prior to industrial whaling
• Nineteen species of fern named for Lady Gaga; Researcher says the inspiration was literally written in the DNA sequences
• Puppies don't pick up on yawns: Dogs, like humans, show a gradual development of susceptibility to contagious yawning
• The Generation X report: How many Gen Xers know their cosmic address?
• Circuit diagram of the mouse brain: Scientists aim to analyse a whole mouse brain under the electron microscope
• Lung mucus gel scaffold prevents nanoparticles from getting through

Precisely targeted electrical brain stimulation alters perception of faces, study finds Posted: 23 Oct 2012 02:21 PM PDT Scientists have shown that mild electrical stimulation of two nerve clusters spaced a half-inch apart in a brain structure called the fusiform gyrus caused the subject's perception of faces to instantly become distorted while leaving his perception of other body parts and inanimate objects unchanged.

Summer babies less likely to be CEOs Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:48 AM PDT A person's date of birth can affect their climb up the corporate ladder, new research suggests.

Whale racket: Sounding out how loud the oceans were from whale vocalizing prior to industrial whaling Posted: 23 Oct 2012 09:39 AM PDT Concern is growing that human-generated noise in the ocean disrupts marine animals that rely on sound for communication and navigation. In the modern ocean, the background noise can be ten times louder than it was just 50 years ago. But new modeling based on recently published data suggests that 200 years ago -- prior to the industrial whaling era -- the ocean was even louder than today due to the various sounds whales make.

Nineteen species of fern named for Lady Gaga; Researcher says the inspiration was literally written in the DNA sequences Posted: 23 Oct 2012 08:25 AM PDT Pop music megastar Lady Gaga is being honored with the name of a new genus of ferns found in Central and South America, Mexico, Arizona and Texas. A genus is a group of closely related species; in this case, 19 species of ferns will carry the name Gaga.

Puppies don't pick up on yawns: Dogs, like humans, show a gradual development of susceptibility to contagious yawning Posted: 23 Oct 2012 07:09 AM PDT Do you get tired when others yawn? Does your dog get tired when you yawn? New research from Sweden establishes that dogs catch yawns from humans. But not if the dogs are too young. The study found that, like humans, dogs show a developmental trend in susceptibility to contagious yawning. While dogs above seven months of age catch human yawns, younger dogs are immune to yawn contagion.

The Generation X report: How many Gen Xers know their cosmic address? Posted: 23 Oct 2012 06:10 AM PDT Less than half of Generation X adults can identify our home in the universe, a spiral galaxy, according to a new report.

Circuit diagram of the mouse brain: Scientists aim to analyse a whole mouse brain under the electron microscope Posted: 23 Oct 2012 06:05 AM PDT What happens in the brain when we see, hear, think and remember? To be able to answer questions like this, neuroscientists need information about how the millions of neurons in the brain are connected to each other. Scientists have taken a crucial step towards obtaining a complete circuit diagram of the brain of the mouse, a key model organism for the neurosciences. Researchers have developed a method for preparing the whole mouse brain for a special microscopy process. With this, the resolution at which the brain tissue can be examined is so high that the fine extensions of almost every single neuron are visible.

Lung mucus gel scaffold prevents nanoparticles from getting through Posted: 23 Oct 2012 06:05 AM PDT Scientists have unraveled lung mucus's physical properties: They discovered that a rigid gel scaffold in lung mucus separates large, fluid-filled pores and prevents nanoparticle movement beyond individual pore boundaries. Their findings deepen our understanding of diseases of the respiratory system, notably infections, and support the development of new inhaled medications.

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