ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Atomically thick metal membranes
• Patients with schizophrenia have impaired ability to imitate, brain mapping confirms
• Fighting for oral dominance: Good fungi keep bad ones in check in healthy mouths
• Emotion detectors could make driving safer
• Stem cells inside sutures could improve healing in Achilles tendon injuries
• Facebook feelings are contagious, study shows
• Promoting love, relationships in marketing can punish sales
• First food web inside humans suggests potential new treatments for infection

Atomically thick metal membranes Posted: 14 Mar 2014 08:14 AM PDT For the first time researchers have shown that freestanding metal membranes consisting of a single layer of atoms can be stable under ambient conditions. The success and promise of atomically thin carbon, in which carbon atoms are arranged in a honeycomb lattice, also known as graphene has triggered enormous enthusiasm for other two dimensional materials, for example, hexagonal boron nitride and molybdenum sulphide. These materials share a common structural aspect, namely, they are layered materials that one can think of as individual atomic planes that can be pulled away from their bulk 3D structure.

Patients with schizophrenia have impaired ability to imitate, brain mapping confirms Posted: 14 Mar 2014 06:35 AM PDT A brain-mapping study of patients with schizophrenia has found that areas associated with the ability to imitate are impaired, providing new support for the theory that deficits in this basic cognitive skill may underlie the profound difficulty with social interactions that characterize the disorder. According to psychologists, imitation is something that we all do whenever we learn a new skill, whether it is dancing or how to behave in specific social situations.

Fighting for oral dominance: Good fungi keep bad ones in check in healthy mouths Posted: 13 Mar 2014 02:35 PM PDT Human mouths contain a balanced mix of microbes which, when disrupted, can lead to oral diseases. A new study compares the bacteria and fungi present in the mouths of healthy individuals with those from patients infected with HIV and illustrates why oral candidiasis (aka 'thrush') is a common complication of HIV infection.

Emotion detectors could make driving safer Posted: 13 Mar 2014 02:30 PM PDT Technology now allows us to read facial expressions and identify which of the seven universal emotions a person is feeling: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, or suspicion. This is very useful in video game development, medicine, marketing, and, perhaps less obviously, in driver safety. We know that in addition to fatigue, the emotional state of the driver is a risk factor.

Stem cells inside sutures could improve healing in Achilles tendon injuries Posted: 12 Mar 2014 03:20 PM PDT Sutures embedded with stem cells led to quicker and stronger healing of Achilles tendon tears than traditional sutures, according to a new study. Achilles tendon injuries are common for professional, collegiate and recreational athletes. These injuries are often treated surgically to reattach or repair the tendon if it has been torn. Patients have to keep their legs immobilized for a while after surgery before beginning their rehabilitation.

Facebook feelings are contagious, study shows Posted: 12 Mar 2014 03:19 PM PDT Emotions can spread in an online social network, a study shows. The study also demonstrated that positive emotions spread more than negative. The researchers believe their findings have widespread implications. Emotions, they write, "might ripple through social networks to generate large-scale synchrony that gives rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals." And with ever more avenues for expression in a digitally connected world, they write, "we may see greater spikes in global emotion that could generate increased volatility in everything from political systems to financial markets."

Promoting love, relationships in marketing can punish sales Posted: 12 Mar 2014 07:35 AM PDT The prevalent marketing practice of highlighting relationships in advertising and promotions can have substantial negative consequences for sales and consumers' willingness to indulge themselves, new research indicates. The results of the study surprisingly revealed that reminders of romantic relationships caused single consumers to choose fewer high-end personal care products than their coupled counterparts. But the implications reach beyond the romantic relationship. When single consumers were reminded of close platonic relationships, they indulged as much as coupled individuals because singles have that type of valued relationship.

First food web inside humans suggests potential new treatments for infection Posted: 12 Mar 2014 05:28 AM PDT Imagine going to the doctor with an infection and being sent home with a course of drugs. Unknown to your doctor you actually have two infections. If you take the drugs will the other infection go away by itself? What if you take the drugs and the other infection gets worse? This quandary faces those treating patients with multiple infections. A new study has taken a novel approach to understanding this problem, shedding light on how multiple parasites interact within humans.

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