ScienceDaily: Strange Science News |
- Evolution picks up hitchhikers: Pervasive genetic hitchhiking and clonal interference in evolving yeast populations
- Bees 'betray' their flowers when pollinator species decline
- Microchips that mimic the brain: Novel microchips imitate the brain's information processing in real time
- How to survive without sex: Rotifer genome reveals its strategies
- 'Love hormone' is two-faced: Oxytocin strengthens bad memories and can increase fear and anxiety
- Scientific experiment creates a wave frozen in time
- Move like an octopus: Underwater propulsion from a 3-D printer
- Magnets make droplets dance: Reversible switching between static and dynamic self-assembly
| Posted: 22 Jul 2013 05:30 PM PDT In a twist on "survival of the fittest," researchers have discovered that evolution is driven not by a single beneficial mutation but rather by a group of mutations, including ones called "genetic hitchhikers" that are simply along for the ride. These hitchhikers are mutations that do not appear to have a role in contributing to an organism's fitness and therefore its evolution, yet may play an important role down the road.  |
| Bees 'betray' their flowers when pollinator species decline Posted: 22 Jul 2013 12:27 PM PDT Remove even one bumblebee species from an ecosystem and the impact is swift and clear: their floral "sweethearts" produce significantly fewer seeds. The results show how reduced competition among pollinators disrupts floral fidelity, or specialization, among the remaining bees in the system, leading to less successful plant reproduction. The alarming trend suggests that global declines in pollinators could have a bigger impact on flowering plants and food crops than was previously realized.  |
| Posted: 22 Jul 2013 12:27 PM PDT Neuroinformatics researchers have demonstrated how complex cognitive abilities can be incorporated into electronic systems made with so-called neuromorphic chips: They show how to assemble and configure these electronic systems to function in a way similar to an actual brain.  |
| How to survive without sex: Rotifer genome reveals its strategies Posted: 22 Jul 2013 09:32 AM PDT How a group of animals can abandon sex, yet produce more than 460 species over evolutionary time, became a little less mysterious this week with the publication of the complete genome of a bdelloid rotifer (Adineta vaga).  |
| 'Love hormone' is two-faced: Oxytocin strengthens bad memories and can increase fear and anxiety Posted: 22 Jul 2013 09:32 AM PDT Oxytocin is known as the hormone that promotes feelings of love, bonding and well-being. It's even being tested as an anti-anxiety drug. But new research shows oxytocin also can cause emotional pain. Oxytocin appears to be the reason stressful social situations, perhaps being bullied at school or tormented by a boss, reverberate long past the event and can trigger fear and anxiety in the future. That's because the hormone actually strengthens social memory in the brain.  |
| Scientific experiment creates a wave frozen in time Posted: 22 Jul 2013 07:56 AM PDT Scientists have created, in a laboratory, a static pipeline wave, with a crest that moves neither forward nor backward. This research will allow improvement in boat and seaport designs and will enable analysis of how carbon dioxide exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere occurs.  |
| Move like an octopus: Underwater propulsion from a 3-D printer Posted: 22 Jul 2013 07:55 AM PDT Octopods, which are also known as octopuses or squid, generally move along the ocean floor with their eight arms, they flee by swimming head-first, in line with the principles of propulsion. When the mollusk does this, water is taken into its mantle, which is then closed by contracting sphincter muscles. The water is then squirted back out at a high pressure through a funnel. The resulting propulsion pushes the octopus forward in the opposite direction. By changing the position of the funnel, the octopus can precisely steer its direction of travel. For researchers this intelligent propulsion principle served as a role model for the development of an underwater propulsion system.  |
| Magnets make droplets dance: Reversible switching between static and dynamic self-assembly Posted: 22 Jul 2013 04:19 AM PDT Researchers have placed water droplets containing magnetic nanoparticles on strong water repellent surfaces and have made them align in various static and dynamic structures using periodically oscillating magnetic fields. This is the first time researchers have demonstrated reversible switching between static and dynamic self-assembly.  |
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