ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

---

• Honey bees fend off giant hornets with animal feces
• First-known fossil iguana burrow found in the Bahamas
• 'Spooky Interactions', shocking adaptations discovered in electric fish of Brazil's Amazon
• Wielding a gun makes a shooter perceive others as wielding a gun, too
• New tools 'turn on' quantum gases of ultracold molecules
• Science of sandcastles is clarified, finally
• A simple rule drives the evolution of useless complexity
• Archaeopteryx fossil provides insights into the origins of flight
• Spiders in space: Without gravity, light becomes key to orientation
• Space weather discovery puts 'habitable planets' at risk
• Tomatoes offer affordable source of Parkinson's disease drug
• New superhighway system discovered in the Solar System
• In new step toward quantum tech, scientists synthesize 'bright' quantum bits
• Using targeted microbubbles to administer toxic cancer drugs

Honey bees fend off giant hornets with animal feces Posted: 09 Dec 2020 02:07 PM PST Researchers discovered honeybees in Vietnam collect and apply animal dung around hive entrances to deter deadly nest raids by giant hornets. This finding is the first to document the use of tools by honeybees. Researchers found the hornets spent less time and did less chewing at hives with moderate to heavy dung spotting. They were also less likely to launch mass attacks on the more heavily spotted hives.

First-known fossil iguana burrow found in the Bahamas Posted: 09 Dec 2020 02:06 PM PST The fossilized burrow dates back to the Late Pleistocene Epoch, about 115,000 years ago, and is located on the island of San Salvador -- best known as the likely spot where Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in his 1492 voyage.

'Spooky Interactions', shocking adaptations discovered in electric fish of Brazil's Amazon Posted: 09 Dec 2020 11:03 AM PST Researchers have shown how a cave-adapted glass knifefish species of roughly 300 living members (Eigenmannia vicentespelea) has evolved from surface-dwelling relatives (Eigenmannia trilineata) that still live just outside their cave door -- by sacrificing their eyes and pigmentation, but gaining slightly more powerful electric organs that enhance the way they sense prey and communicate in absolute darkness.

Wielding a gun makes a shooter perceive others as wielding a gun, too Posted: 09 Dec 2020 09:50 AM PST Nearly a decade ago, cognitive psychologist Jessica Witt wondered if the mere act of wielding a firearm could bias someone to perceive another person as wielding one, too -- and more importantly, if such a bias could be scientifically measured. A series of experiments later, Witt and her research team concluded, yes and yes. The team has recently published a new set of experiments further underscoring what they call the 'gun embodiment effect'.

New tools 'turn on' quantum gases of ultracold molecules Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:52 AM PST Researchers have developed tools to 'turn on' quantum gases of ultracold molecules, gaining control of long-distance molecular interactions for potential applications such as encoding data for quantum computing and simulations.

Science of sandcastles is clarified, finally Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:52 AM PST New research provides a solution for the century-and-half-old puzzle of why capillary condensation, a fundamentally microscopic phenomenon involving a few molecular layers of water, can be described reasonably well using macroscopic equations and macroscopic characteristics of bulk water. Is it a coincidence or a hidden law of nature?

A simple rule drives the evolution of useless complexity Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:52 AM PST A new study has shown that elaborate protein structures accumulate over deep time even when they serve no purpose, because a universal biochemical property and the genetic code force natural selection to preserve them.

Archaeopteryx fossil provides insights into the origins of flight Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:52 AM PST Molting is thought to be unorganized in the first feathered dinosaurs because they had yet to evolve flight, so determining how molting evolved can lead to better understanding of flight origins. Recently researchers discovered that the earliest record of feather molting from the famous early fossil bird Archaeopteryx found in southern Germany in rocks that used to be tropical lagoons ~150 million years ago.

Spiders in space: Without gravity, light becomes key to orientation Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:51 AM PST Humans have taken spiders into space more than once to study the importance of gravity to their web-building. What originally began as a somewhat unsuccessful PR experiment for high school students has yielded the surprising insight that light plays a larger role in arachnid orientation than previously thought.

Space weather discovery puts 'habitable planets' at risk Posted: 09 Dec 2020 06:43 AM PST Stellar flares with a chance of radio bursts: that's the weather from Proxima Centauri. New research suggests exoplanets around red dwarf M-type stars will likely be exposed to coronal mass ejections, making the likelihood of finding life as we know it pretty slim.

Tomatoes offer affordable source of Parkinson's disease drug Posted: 09 Dec 2020 06:42 AM PST Scientists have produced a tomato enriched in the Parkinson's disease drug L-DOPA in what could become a new, affordable source of one of the world's essential medicines.

New superhighway system discovered in the Solar System Posted: 09 Dec 2020 06:42 AM PST Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network to travel through the Solar System much faster than was previously possible. Such routes can drive comets and asteroids near Jupiter to Neptune's distance in under a decade and to 100 astronomical units in less than a century. They could be used to send spacecraft to the far reaches of our planetary system relatively fast, and to monitor and understand near-Earth objects that might collide with our planet.

In new step toward quantum tech, scientists synthesize 'bright' quantum bits Posted: 08 Dec 2020 11:26 AM PST Qubits (short for quantum bits) are often made of the same semiconducting materials as our everyday electronics. But now an interdisciplinary team of chemists and physicists has developed a new method to create tailor-made qubits: by chemically synthesizing molecules that encode quantum information into their magnetic, or 'spin,' states. This new bottom-up approach could ultimately lead to quantum systems that have extraordinary flexibility and control, helping pave the way for next-generation quantum technology.

Using targeted microbubbles to administer toxic cancer drugs Posted: 08 Dec 2020 09:10 AM PST New research has shown how microbubbles carrying powerful cancer drugs can be guided to the site of a tumor using antibodies. Microbubbles are small manufactured spheres half the size of a red blood cell - and scientists believe they can be used to transport drugs to highly specific locations within the body.

You are subscribed to email updates from Strange & Offbeat News -- ScienceDaily. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States