ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Could Mario Kart teach us how to reduce world poverty and improve sustainability?
• Discovery of rare 'quadruply imaged quasars' can help solve cosmological puzzles
• Caught speeding: Clocking the fastest-spinning brown dwarfs
• Novel algorithm reveals birdsong features that may be key for courtship
• Curiosity rover explores stratigraphy of Gale crater
• More than 5,000 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth each year
• Mars didn't dry up in one go
• Living fossils: Microbe discovered in evolutionary stasis for millions of years
• 'Bug brain soup' expands menu for scientists studying animal brains
• Asteroid crater on Earth provides clues about Martian craters
• After Hurricane Maria, rhesus macaques in Puerto Rico sought out new social relationships
• Carbon dots from human hair boost solar cells
• Gorillas do not bluff when they chest beat: Honest signalling indicates body size
• How did 500 species of a fish form in a lake? Dramatically different body clocks

Could Mario Kart teach us how to reduce world poverty and improve sustainability? Posted: 08 Apr 2021 01:56 PM PDT A new study shows how the principles of Mario Kart -- especially the parts of it that make the game fun for players -- can be applied to reduce world poverty and improve sustainability in farming and agriculture.

Discovery of rare 'quadruply imaged quasars' can help solve cosmological puzzles Posted: 08 Apr 2021 12:23 PM PDT With the help of machine-learning techniques, a team of astronomers has discovered a dozen quasars that have been warped by a naturally occurring cosmic 'lens' and split into four similar images. Quasars are extremely luminous cores of distant galaxies that are powered by supermassive black holes.

Caught speeding: Clocking the fastest-spinning brown dwarfs Posted: 08 Apr 2021 12:23 PM PDT Astronomers have discovered the most rapidly rotating brown dwarfs known. They found three brown dwarfs that each complete a full rotation roughly once every hour. That rate is so extreme that if these 'failed stars' rotated any faster, they could come close to tearing themselves apart. Identified by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the brown dwarfs were then studied by ground-based telescopes including Gemini North, which confirmed their surprisingly speedy rotation.

Novel algorithm reveals birdsong features that may be key for courtship Posted: 08 Apr 2021 12:23 PM PDT Researchers have developed a new algorithm capable of identifying features of male zebra finch songs that may underlie the distinction between a short phrase sung during courtship, and the same phrase sung in a non-courtship context.

Curiosity rover explores stratigraphy of Gale crater Posted: 08 Apr 2021 12:22 PM PDT Gale Crater's central sedimentary mound (Aeolis Mons or, informally, Mount Sharp) is a 5.5-km-tall remnant of the infilling and erosion of this ancient impact crater. Given its thickness and age, Mount Sharp preserves one of the best records of early Martian climatic, hydrological, and sedimentary history.

More than 5,000 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth each year Posted: 08 Apr 2021 10:15 AM PDT Every year, our planet encounters dust from comets and asteroids. These interplanetary dust particles pass through our atmosphere and give rise to shooting stars. Some of them reach the ground in the form of micrometeorites. An international program conducted for nearly 20 has determined that 5,200 tons per year of these micrometeorites reach the ground.

Mars didn't dry up in one go Posted: 08 Apr 2021 10:14 AM PDT A research team has discovered that the Martian climate alternated between dry and wetter periods, before drying up completely about 3 billion years ago.

Living fossils: Microbe discovered in evolutionary stasis for millions of years Posted: 08 Apr 2021 10:14 AM PDT Research has revealed that a group of microbes found deep underground in three continents have been at an evolutionary standstill for millions of years. The discovery could have significant implications for biotechnology applications and scientific understanding of microbial evolution.

'Bug brain soup' expands menu for scientists studying animal brains Posted: 08 Apr 2021 10:14 AM PDT By mashing up brains from various insect species, neuroscientists introduce a practical technique for quantifying the neurons that make up the brains of invertebrate animals. In addition to revealing interesting insights into the evolution of insect brains, the work provides a more meaningful metric than traditional studies measuring brain size or weight.

Asteroid crater on Earth provides clues about Martian craters Posted: 08 Apr 2021 08:24 AM PDT The 15-million-year-old Nördlinger Ries is an asteroid impact crater filled with lake sediments. A research team has now discovered a volcanic ash layer in the crater. In addition, they show that the ground under the crater is sinking in the long-term, which provides important insights about craters on Mars, such as those currently being explored by the NASA Curiosity and Perseverance Rovers.

After Hurricane Maria, rhesus macaques in Puerto Rico sought out new social relationships Posted: 08 Apr 2021 08:24 AM PDT Natural disasters have a way of bringing people together to rebuild. Now, researchers have found that the same is true for rhesus macaques. The new study reports that after a major hurricane hit Puerto Rico, macaques living on Cayo Santiago Island became more tolerant of each other and sought new social connections.

Carbon dots from human hair boost solar cells Posted: 08 Apr 2021 08:24 AM PDT Researchers have used carbon dots, created from human hair waste sourced from a barbershop, to create a kind of 'armor' to improve the performance of cutting-edge solar technology.

Gorillas do not bluff when they chest beat: Honest signalling indicates body size Posted: 08 Apr 2021 08:23 AM PDT The gorilla chest beat is one of the most emblematic sounds in the animal kingdom. However, until recently it was unclear what information gorillas were conveying when they gave these impressive displays. A team of international researchers show that chest beats reliably indicate the body size of the chest beater. Body size indicates competitive ability in gorillas. Therefore this information is likely to be crucial for rival males as well as females in influencing mate choice.

How did 500 species of a fish form in a lake? Dramatically different body clocks Posted: 08 Apr 2021 08:23 AM PDT Despite the dramatic difference between day and nightlife, how fish exploit different times of day has not been studied systematically. Scientists explored alterations in the circadian timing of activity and the duration of rest-wake cycles in Lake Malawi's cichlids and identified the first single nocturnal species. Timing and duration of rest and activity varies dramatically, and continuously, between populations of Lake Malawi cichlids, providing a system for exploring the molecular and neural basis underlying variation in nocturnal activity.

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