ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Mass participation experiment reveals how to create wonderful dreams
• Canal between ears helps alligators pinpoint sound
• Crows understand water displacement at the level of a small child: Show causal understanding of a 5- to 7-year-old child
• Cuvier's beaked whales set new breath-hold diving records: Whales dive to nearly two miles depth, for over two hours
• Bamboo-loving giant pandas also have a sweet tooth
• Solar system has a new most-distant member
• Ancient sea creatures filtered food like modern whales
• First ring system around asteroid: Chariklo found to have two rings
• Significant progress toward creating 'benchtop human' reported
• Cereal flake size influences calorie intake
• Dark energy hides behind phantom fields
• Last drinks: Brain's mechanism knows when to stop
• An answer to the perennial question: Is it safe to pee in the pool?
• Goats are far more clever than previously thought, and have an excellent memory
• Altruistic side of aggressive greed
• Male Eurasian jays know that their female partners' desires can differ from their own
• Doctors raise blood pressure in patients
• Study yields 'Genghis Khan' of brown bears, and brown and polar bear evolution
• X-rays film inside live flying insects -- in 3-D
• Famous paintings help study Earth’s past atmosphere
• Rain used to illuminate low income homes
• Hunt for an unidentified electron object

Mass participation experiment reveals how to create wonderful dreams Posted: 26 Mar 2014 06:27 PM PDT Psychologists have announced the results of a two-year study into dream control. The experiment shows that it is now possible for people to create their perfect dream, and so wake up feeling especially happy and refreshed. Researchers also discovered that people's dreams were especially bizarre around the time of a full moon.

Canal between ears helps alligators pinpoint sound Posted: 26 Mar 2014 03:22 PM PDT Alligators can accurately pinpoint the source of sounds. But it wasn't clear exactly how they did it because they lack external auditory structures. A new study shows that the alligator's ear is strongly directional because of large, air-filled channels connecting the two middle ears. This configuration is similar in birds, which have an interaural canal that increases directionality.

Crows understand water displacement at the level of a small child: Show causal understanding of a 5- to 7-year-old child Posted: 26 Mar 2014 03:20 PM PDT New Caledonian crows may understand how to displace water to receive a reward, with the causal understanding level of a 5- to 7-year-old child. Understanding causal relationships between actions is a key feature of human cognition. However, the extent to which non-human animals are capable of understanding causal relationships is not well understood. Scientists used the Aesop's fable riddle -- in which subjects drop stones into water to raise the water level and obtain an out-of reach-reward -- to assess New Caledonian crows' causal understanding of water displacement.

Cuvier's beaked whales set new breath-hold diving records: Whales dive to nearly two miles depth, for over two hours Posted: 26 Mar 2014 03:20 PM PDT Scientists monitored Cuvier's beaked whales' record-breaking dives to depths of nearly two miles below the ocean surface and some dives lasted for over two hours.

Bamboo-loving giant pandas also have a sweet tooth Posted: 26 Mar 2014 03:19 PM PDT Despite the popular conception of giant pandas as continually chomping on bamboo, new research reveals that this highly endangered species also has a sweet tooth. Behavioral and molecular genetic studies demonstrate that the panda possesses functional sweet taste receptors and shows a strong preference for natural sweeteners.

Solar system has a new most-distant member Posted: 26 Mar 2014 12:37 PM PDT The Solar System has a new most-distant member, bringing its outer frontier into focus. New work reports the discovery of a distant dwarf planet, called 2012 VP113, which was found beyond the known edge of the Solar System. This is likely one of thousands of distant objects that are thought to form the so-called inner Oort cloud. The work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of inner Oort cloud objects.

Ancient sea creatures filtered food like modern whales Posted: 26 Mar 2014 11:22 AM PDT Ancient, giant marine animals used bizarre facial appendages to filter food from the ocean, according to new fossils discovered in northern Greenland. The new study describes how the strange species, called Tamisiocaris, used these huge, specialized appendages to filter plankton, similar to the way modern blue whales feed today.

First ring system around asteroid: Chariklo found to have two rings Posted: 26 Mar 2014 11:18 AM PDT Astronomers have made the surprise discovery that the remote asteroid Chariklo is surrounded by two dense and narrow rings. This is the smallest object by far found to have rings and only the fifth body in the Solar System — after the much larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — to have this feature. The origin of these rings remains a mystery, but they may be the result of a collision that created a disc of debris.

Significant progress toward creating 'benchtop human' reported Posted: 26 Mar 2014 10:53 AM PDT Scientists are reporting significant progress toward creating "homo minutus" -- a benchtop human. Researchers have successfully developed and analyzed a liver human organ construct that responds to exposure to a toxic chemical much like a real liver.

Cereal flake size influences calorie intake Posted: 26 Mar 2014 08:46 AM PDT People eat more breakfast cereal, by weight, when flake size is reduced, according to researchers, who showed that when flakes are reduced by crushing, people pour a smaller volume of cereal into their bowls, but still take a greater amount by weight and calories.

Dark energy hides behind phantom fields Posted: 26 Mar 2014 08:45 AM PDT Quintessence and phantom fields, two hypotheses formulated using data from satellites are among the many theories that try to explain the nature of dark energy. Now researchers suggest that both possibilities are only a mirage in the observations and it is the quantum vacuum which could be behind this energy that moves our universe. Cosmologists believe that some three quarters of the universe are made up of a mysterious dark energy which would explain its accelerated expansion. The truth is that they do not know what it could be, therefore they put forward possible solutions.

Last drinks: Brain's mechanism knows when to stop Posted: 26 Mar 2014 07:27 AM PDT Our brains are hardwired to stop us drinking more water than is healthy, according to a new brain imaging study. The study found a 'stop mechanism' that determined brain signals telling the individual to stop drinking water when no longer thirsty, and the brain effects of drinking more water than required.

An answer to the perennial question: Is it safe to pee in the pool? Posted: 26 Mar 2014 07:27 AM PDT Sanitary-minded pool-goers who preach 'no peeing in the pool,' despite ordinary and Olympic swimmers admitting to the practice, now have scientific evidence to back up their concern. Researchers are reporting that when mixed, urine and chlorine can form substances that can cause potential health problems.

Goats are far more clever than previously thought, and have an excellent memory Posted: 26 Mar 2014 06:26 AM PDT Goats learn how to solve complicated tasks quickly and can recall how to perform them for at least 10 months, which might explain their remarkable ability to adapt to harsh environments, say researchers. The goats' ability to remember the task was tested after one month and again at 10 months. They learned the task within 12 trials and took less than two minutes to remember the challenge.

Altruistic side of aggressive greed Posted: 26 Mar 2014 06:26 AM PDT In many group-living species, high-rank individuals bully their group-mates to get what they want, but their contribution is key to success in conflict with other groups, according to a study that sheds new light on the evolutionary roots of cooperation and group conflict. In a series of mathematical models, researchers uncovered a mechanism for explaining how between-group conflict influences within-group cooperation and how genes for this behavior might be maintained in the population by natural selection.

Male Eurasian jays know that their female partners' desires can differ from their own Posted: 25 Mar 2014 06:06 PM PDT Researchers investigated the extent to which males could disengage from their own current desires to feed the female what she wants. The behavior suggests the potential for 'state-attribution' in these birds -- the ability to recognize and understand the internal life and psychological states of others.

Doctors raise blood pressure in patients Posted: 25 Mar 2014 06:06 PM PDT Doctors routinely record blood pressure levels that are significantly higher than levels recorded by nurses, the first thorough analysis of scientific data has revealed. A systematic review has discovered that recordings taken by doctors are significantly higher than when the same patients are tested by nurses.

Study yields 'Genghis Khan' of brown bears, and brown and polar bear evolution Posted: 25 Mar 2014 06:06 PM PDT By mining the genome of a recently sequenced polar bear, researchers developed Y chromosome-specific markers, and analyzed several regions of the Y chromosome from a broad geographic sample of 130 brown and polar bears. "This pattern in brown bears covers even larger geographic areas than analogous findings from humans, where the Y-chromosomal lineage of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, was spread across much of Asia," said experts.

X-rays film inside live flying insects -- in 3-D Posted: 25 Mar 2014 04:08 PM PDT Scientists have used a particle accelerator to obtain high-speed 3-D x-ray visualizations of flight muscles in flies. The team developed a CT scanning technique to allow them to film inside live flying insects.

Famous paintings help study Earth’s past atmosphere Posted: 25 Mar 2014 06:44 AM PDT A team of Greek and German researchers has shown that the colours of sunsets painted by famous artists can be used to estimate pollution levels in the Earth's past atmosphere. In particular, the paintings reveal that ash and gas released during major volcanic eruptions scatter the different colors of sunlight, making sunsets appear more red.

Rain used to illuminate low income homes Posted: 24 Mar 2014 03:14 PM PDT By collecting rainwater, students were able to generate electricity using a microturbine and supplying the vital liquid to homes in a poor community in Iztapalapa, in Mexico City. This system is similar to that used in dams, which uses rainwater to rotate a microturbine and generate electricity. Currently, it is only possible to recharge portable 12 volt batteries, whose energy is sufficient to power LED lamps but not to provide power to the entire house.

Hunt for an unidentified electron object Posted: 24 Mar 2014 12:40 PM PDT New research sheds light on the nature of 'unidentified electron objects' -- a mysterious class of objects that exists in superfluid helium at low temperature. Researchers have developed a new mathematical framework capable of describing motions in superfluids -- low temperature fluids that exhibit classical as well as quantum behavior.

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