ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• How a single cell slime mold makes smart decisions without a central nervous system
• The way a fish swims reveals a lot about its personality, say scientists
• Saki monkeys get screen time for more control over their lives in captivity
• The Milky Way may be swarming with planets with oceans and continents like here on Earth
• Big galaxies steal star-forming gas from their smaller neighbors
• Lack of symmetry in qubits can't fix errors in quantum computing, might explain matter/antimatter
• Traditional hydrologic models may misidentify snow as rain, new citizen science data shows
• NASA's Swift helps tie neutrino to star-shredding black hole
• New dating techniques reveal Australia's oldest known rock painting, and it's a kangaroo
• Scientists image a bright meteoroid explosion in Jupiter's atmosphere
• Can bacteria make stronger cars, airplanes and armor?
• Magnetic effect without a magnet
• Binary stars are all around us, new map of solar neighborhood shows
• A speed limit also applies in the quantum world
• New crystalline form of ice

How a single cell slime mold makes smart decisions without a central nervous system Posted: 23 Feb 2021 09:16 AM PST Having a memory of past events enables us to take smarter decisions about the future. Researchers have now identified how the slime mold Physarum polycephalum saves memories - although it has no nervous system.

The way a fish swims reveals a lot about its personality, say scientists Posted: 23 Feb 2021 08:07 AM PST Personality has been described in all sorts of animal species, from ants to apes. Some individuals are shy and sedentary, while others are bold and active. Now a new study has revealed that the way a fish swims tells us a lot about its personality.

Saki monkeys get screen time for more control over their lives in captivity Posted: 23 Feb 2021 07:07 AM PST Scientists have designed and built an on-demand video device for white-faced saki monkeys to activate as and when they like. It's up to the animals to decide whether they want to step inside the device - the equivalent of pressing play - to watch the video of the week, from sealife like fish and jellyfish to wiggly worms and other zoo animals to abstract art and lush forests.

The Milky Way may be swarming with planets with oceans and continents like here on Earth Posted: 22 Feb 2021 04:28 PM PST According to a new study, Earth, Venus and Mars were created from small dust particles containing ice and carbon. The discovery opens up the possibility that the Milky Way may be filled with aquatic planets.

Big galaxies steal star-forming gas from their smaller neighbors Posted: 22 Feb 2021 01:42 PM PST Astronomers have discovered that large galaxies are stealing the material that their smaller counterparts need to form new stars.

Lack of symmetry in qubits can't fix errors in quantum computing, might explain matter/antimatter Posted: 22 Feb 2021 01:41 PM PST A team of quantum theorists seeking to cure a basic problem with quantum annealing computers -- they have to run at a relatively slow pace to operate properly -- found something intriguing instead.

Traditional hydrologic models may misidentify snow as rain, new citizen science data shows Posted: 22 Feb 2021 11:14 AM PST Normally, we think of the freezing point of water as 32°F - but in the world of weather forecasting and hydrologic prediction, that isn't always the case. In the Lake Tahoe region of the Sierra Nevada, the shift from snow to rain during winter storms may actually occur at temperatures closer to 39.5°F, according to new research from the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Lynker Technologies, and citizen scientists from the Tahoe Rain or Snow project.

NASA's Swift helps tie neutrino to star-shredding black hole Posted: 22 Feb 2021 09:47 AM PST For only the second time, astronomers have linked an elusive particle called a high-energy neutrino to an object outside our galaxy. Using ground- and space-based facilities, they traced the neutrino to a black hole tearing apart a star, a rare cataclysmic occurrence called a tidal disruption event.

New dating techniques reveal Australia's oldest known rock painting, and it's a kangaroo Posted: 22 Feb 2021 09:47 AM PST Researchers successfully date Australia's oldest intact rock painting, using pioneering radiocarbon technique.

Scientists image a bright meteoroid explosion in Jupiter's atmosphere Posted: 22 Feb 2021 09:45 AM PST From aboard the Juno spacecraft, an instrument observing auroras serendipitously spotted a bright flash above Jupiter's clouds last spring. The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) team studied the data and determined that they had captured a bolide, an extremely bright meteoroid explosion in the gas giant's upper atmosphere.

Can bacteria make stronger cars, airplanes and armor? Posted: 22 Feb 2021 06:50 AM PST Biological systems can harness their living cells for growth and regeneration, but engineering systems cannot. Until now.Researchers are harnessing living bacteria to create engineering materials that are strong, tolerant, and resilient.

Magnetic effect without a magnet Posted: 22 Feb 2021 06:50 AM PST Electric current is deflected by a magnetic field -- this leads to the so-called Hall effect. A surprising discovery has now been made: an exotic metal was examined and a giant Hall effect was found to be produced by the material, in the total absence of any magnetic field.

Binary stars are all around us, new map of solar neighborhood shows Posted: 22 Feb 2021 06:22 AM PST A doctoral student has mined the most recent Gaia survey for all binary stars near Earth and created a 3D atlas of 1.3 million of them. The last local survey included about 200 binary pairs. With such census data, astronomers can conduct statistical analyses on binary populations. For pairs that contain white dwarfs, it's possible to determine the age of their main-sequence companion, and thus of any exoplanets around them.

A speed limit also applies in the quantum world Posted: 19 Feb 2021 12:59 PM PST Even in the world of the smallest particles with their own special rules, things cannot proceed infinitely fast. Physicists have now shown what the speed limit is for complex quantum operations. The results are important for the realization of quantum computers, among other things.

New crystalline form of ice Posted: 18 Feb 2021 06:45 AM PST Three years ago, chemists found evidence for the existence of a new variety of ice. Until then, 18 types of crystalline ice were known. The team now reports on the elucidation of the crystal structure of ice XIX using neutron diffraction.

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