ScienceDaily: Strange Science News |
- Dogs yawn more often in response to owners' yawns than strangers
- Eavesdropping plants prepare to be attacked
- Strangers invade the homes of giant bacteria
- The temperature tastes just right: Scientists discover previously unknown thermal sensor in insects linked to taste, smell
- Motional layers found in the brain: Neurobiologists discover elementary motion detectors in the fruit fly
- Of stars and stripes: NASA satellites used to predict zebra migrations
- Inca children were drugged with coca and alcohol before sacrifice
| Dogs yawn more often in response to owners' yawns than strangers Posted: 07 Aug 2013 05:48 PM PDT Dogs yawn contagiously when they see a person yawning, and respond more frequently to their owner's yawns than to a stranger's, according to new research.  |
| Eavesdropping plants prepare to be attacked Posted: 07 Aug 2013 05:46 PM PDT In a world full of hungry predators, prey animals must be constantly vigilant to avoid getting eaten. But plants face a particular challenge when it comes to defending themselves.  |
| Strangers invade the homes of giant bacteria Posted: 07 Aug 2013 10:41 AM PDT Life is not a walk in the park for the world's largest bacteria, that live as soft, noodle-like, white strings on the bottom of the ocean depths. Without being able to fend for themselves, they get invaded by parasitic microorganisms that steal the nutrition, that they have painstakingly retrieved. This newly discovered bizarre deep ocean relationship may ultimately impact ocean productivity, report researchers.  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2013 10:41 AM PDT Animals have evolved very sensitive temperature sensors to detect the relatively narrow margin in which they can survive. Until recently, scientists knew little about how these sensors operated. Now, scientists have discovered a previously unknown molecular temperature sensor in fruit flies responsible for sensing tastes and smells. These types of sensors are present in disease-spreading insects like mosquitoes and may help scientists better understand how insects target humans and spread disease.  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2013 10:35 AM PDT Recognizing movement and its direction is one of the first and most important processing steps in any visual system. By this way, nearby predators or prey can be detected and even one's own movements are controlled. More than fifty years ago, a mathematical model predicted how elementary motion detectors must be structured in the brain. However, which nerve cells perform this job and how they are actually connected remained a mystery.  |
| Of stars and stripes: NASA satellites used to predict zebra migrations Posted: 07 Aug 2013 09:29 AM PDT One of the world's longest migrations of zebras occurs in the African nation of Botswana, but predicting when and where zebras will move has not been possible until now. Using NASA rain and vegetation data, researchers can track when and where arid lands begin to green, and for the first time anticipate if zebras will make the trek or, if the animals find poor conditions en route, understand why they will turn back.  |
| Inca children were drugged with coca and alcohol before sacrifice Posted: 06 Aug 2013 06:18 AM PDT Scientists have examined the bodies of three 500-year-old Inca children. This has given new, detailed knowledge about the old Ince ritual "capacocha" which also involved sacrificing humans. Now we know more precisely what happened in an Inca sacrifice -- for example, to what extent coca and alcohol were used as part of the Inca ritual in the months and weeks preceding a sacrifice.  |
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