ScienceDaily: Strange Science News |
- Saying 'Godspeed' to a Spidernaut: Eight-legged Nefertiti spent 100 days on International Space Station
- Three new species of venomous primate identified; May help protect rare primate from illegal trades
- Predatory fungi are listening for worms, then devouring prey
- Lowering barriers to DNA-based nanomanufacturing
- Too many antibiotics? Bacterial ecology that lives on humans has changed in last 100 years
- Wooden hip be lovely? Replacing damaged bones with implants based on wood
- Student engineers cook up devices for better cooking
- Cloud forest trees drink water through their leaves
- Dolphin hearing system component found in insects
- Rhesus monkeys cannot hear the beat in music
| Posted: 13 Dec 2012 05:52 PM PST Nefertiti didn't spin a web like Charlotte; her kind never could. But the red-back jumping spider earned a classy nickname, Spidernaut, as well as a bunk at the popular Insect Zoo of the National Museum of History of Washington for her out-of-this-world exploits. Her move to the nation's capital in late November followed a 100-day mission aboard the International Space Station. There Nefertiti demonstrated that, like humans, her eight-legged species can adapt to the microgravity of space, then transition back to life on Earth. On Dec. 3 the museum discovered that Nefertiti had died of natural causes. She lived for 10 months. Her species, Phidippus johnsoni, usually lives for one year.  |
| Three new species of venomous primate identified; May help protect rare primate from illegal trades Posted: 13 Dec 2012 02:23 PM PST A venomous primate with two tongues would seem safe from the pet trade, but the big-eyed, teddy-bear face of the slow loris (Nycticebus sp.) has made them a target for illegal pet poachers throughout the animal's range in southeastern Asia and nearby islands. Researchers recently identified three new species of slow loris. The primates had originally been grouped with another species.  |
| Predatory fungi are listening for worms, then devouring prey Posted: 13 Dec 2012 11:52 AM PST For over 25 years, Paul Sternberg has been studying worms -- how they develop, why they sleep, and, more recently, how they communicate. Now, he has flipped the script a bit by taking a closer look at how predatory fungi may be tapping into worm conversations to gain clues about their whereabouts.  |
| Lowering barriers to DNA-based nanomanufacturing Posted: 13 Dec 2012 11:23 AM PST Two major barriers to advancement of DNA nanotechnology beyond the research lab have been knocked down. This emerging technology employs DNA as a programmable building material for nanometer-scale structures. Many applications are envisioned, and researchers recently demonstrated synthetic membrane channels made from DNA. Until now, however, design processes were hobbled by a lack of feedback; assembly was slow and often of poor quality. Now researchers have removed these obstacles.  |
| Too many antibiotics? Bacterial ecology that lives on humans has changed in last 100 years Posted: 13 Dec 2012 10:25 AM PST A new study has demonstrated that ancient DNA can be used to understand ancient human microbiomes. The microbiomes from ancient people have broad reaching implications for understanding recent changes to human health, such as what good bacteria might have been lost as a result of our current abundant use of antibiotics and aseptic practices.  |
| Wooden hip be lovely? Replacing damaged bones with implants based on wood Posted: 13 Dec 2012 09:13 AM PST Could aging and damaged bones be replaced with implants based on wood? That's the question Italian researchers hope to answer.  |
| Student engineers cook up devices for better cooking Posted: 13 Dec 2012 09:11 AM PST Students in, of all things, a robotics class use engineering skills and advice from a chef to rig up devices to more accurately control cooking temperatures.  |
| Cloud forest trees drink water through their leaves Posted: 13 Dec 2012 07:42 AM PST Using water flow sensors and plastic "leaves" that measure wetness, biologists have discovered that trees living in tropical montane cloud forests drink through their leaves as well as their roots. This survival strategy, also adopted by California's redwoods, tides the trees over during dry seasons, but could lead to problems as clouds disappear because of global climate change.  |
| Dolphin hearing system component found in insects Posted: 13 Dec 2012 05:49 AM PST A hearing system component thought to be unique in toothed whales like dolphins has been discovered in insects, following research involving the University of Strathclyde.  |
| Rhesus monkeys cannot hear the beat in music Posted: 13 Dec 2012 05:49 AM PST Beat induction, the ability to pick up regularity -- the beat -- from a varying rhythm, is not an ability that rhesus monkeys possess, researchers have found.  |
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