ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• 'Dragon man' fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative
• Throwing an 'axion bomb' into a black hole challenges fundamental law of physics
• 'Fool's gold' not so foolish after all
• Tracking data show how the quiet of pandemic-era lockdowns allowed pumas to venture closer to urban areas
• Cosmic dawn occurred 250 to 350 million years after Big Bang
• Research team discovers Arctic dinosaur nursery
• Newly sequenced genome of extinct giant lemur sheds light on animal's biology
• Scientists may need to rethink which genes control aging, study suggests
• The fifth quartet: Excited neon discovery could reveal star qualities
• Being Anglo-Saxon was a matter of language and culture, not genetics
• 3,000-year-old shark attack victim
• These sea anemones have a diverse diet. And they eat ants
• Sneeze cam reveals best fabric combos for cloth masks
• Exoplanets in 2,034 star-systems get cosmic front-row seat to see Earth
• Pleistocene sediment DNA from Denisova Cave
• Asian elephants do more than just trumpet -- they buzz their lips to squeak
• Earth-like biospheres on other planets may be rare
• The origins of farming insects more than 100 million years ago
• Sound-induced electric fields control the tiniest particles
• Clear view of a boiling cauldron where stars are born
• Mongooses solve inequality problem
• Geckos might lose their tails, but not their dinner
• Using virtual populations for clinical trials
• Mind the gap: Scientists use stellar mass to link exoplanets to planet-forming disks
• New research adds a wrinkle to our understanding of the origins of matter in the Milky Way

'Dragon man' fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative Posted: 25 Jun 2021 09:04 AM PDT A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University. The largest of Homo skulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species named Homo longi or 'Dragon Man.' Their findings suggest that the Homo longi lineage may be our closest relatives -- and may reshape our understanding of human evolution.

Throwing an 'axion bomb' into a black hole challenges fundamental law of physics Posted: 25 Jun 2021 09:04 AM PDT New research shows how the fundamental law of conservation of charge could break down near a black hole.

'Fool's gold' not so foolish after all Posted: 25 Jun 2021 07:05 AM PDT New research has found tiny amounts of gold can be trapped inside pyrite, commonly known as 'fool's gold,' which would make it much more valuable than its name suggests.

Tracking data show how the quiet of pandemic-era lockdowns allowed pumas to venture closer to urban areas Posted: 24 Jun 2021 01:16 PM PDT Researchers were able to clearly connect declining levels of human mobility during regional shelter-in-place orders with pumas' increased willingness to utilize more urban habitat areas.

Cosmic dawn occurred 250 to 350 million years after Big Bang Posted: 24 Jun 2021 10:55 AM PDT A new study suggests that the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled to launch in November, will be sensitive enough to observe the birth of galaxies directly.

Research team discovers Arctic dinosaur nursery Posted: 24 Jun 2021 08:44 AM PDT Images of dinosaurs as cold-blooded creatures needing tropical temperatures could be a relic of the past. Scientists have found that nearly all types of Arctic dinosaurs, from small bird-like animals to giant tyrannosaurs, reproduced in the region and likely remained there year-round.

Newly sequenced genome of extinct giant lemur sheds light on animal's biology Posted: 24 Jun 2021 08:43 AM PDT Using an unusually well-preserved subfossil jawbone, a team of researchers has sequenced for the first time the nuclear genome of the koala lemur (Megaladapis edwardsi), one of the largest of the 17 or so giant lemur species that went extinct on the island of Madagascar between about 500 and 2,000 years ago.

Scientists may need to rethink which genes control aging, study suggests Posted: 24 Jun 2021 08:43 AM PDT Researchers fed fruit flies antibiotics and monitored the lifetime activity of hundreds of genes that scientists have traditionally thought control aging. To their surprise, the antibiotics not only extended the lives of the flies but also dramatically changed the activity of many of these genes. Their results suggested that only about 30% of the genes traditionally associated with aging set an animal's internal clock while the rest reflect the body's response to bacteria.

The fifth quartet: Excited neon discovery could reveal star qualities Posted: 24 Jun 2021 08:43 AM PDT Researchers show that an excited state previously predicted to exist in neon-20 is real by using particle scattering experiments. By merging into five groups of four, the protons and neutrons in neon-20 can exist in a special condensed state. This work may help scientists understand low-density nucleon many-body systems and neutron stars.

Being Anglo-Saxon was a matter of language and culture, not genetics Posted: 23 Jun 2021 11:49 AM PDT Archaeologists have provided important new evidence to answer the question 'who exactly were the Anglo-Saxons?' New findings based on studying skeletal remains clearly indicates the Anglo-Saxons were a melting pot of people from both migrant and local cultural groups and not one homogenous group from Western Europe.

3,000-year-old shark attack victim Posted: 23 Jun 2021 11:16 AM PDT Researchers reveal their discovery of a 3,000-year-old victim - attacked by a shark in the Seto Inland Sea of the Japanese archipelago.

These sea anemones have a diverse diet. And they eat ants Posted: 23 Jun 2021 10:07 AM PDT A new study provides an in-depth look into the rich diversity of prey that giant plumose anemones consume. This includes a surprising menu item: ants. And the occasional spider.

Sneeze cam reveals best fabric combos for cloth masks Posted: 23 Jun 2021 10:07 AM PDT Researchers have used high-speed videos of a person sneezing to identify the optimal cloth mask design.

Exoplanets in 2,034 star-systems get cosmic front-row seat to see Earth Posted: 23 Jun 2021 08:39 AM PDT Scientists have identified 2,034 nearby star-systems -- within the small cosmic distance of 326 light-years -- that could find Earth merely by watching our pale blue dot cross our sun.

Pleistocene sediment DNA from Denisova Cave Posted: 23 Jun 2021 08:38 AM PDT Researchers have analyzed DNA from 728 sediment samples from Denisova Cave. Their study provides unprecedented detail about the occupation of the site by both archaic and modern humans over 300,000 years. The researchers detected the DNA of Neandertals and Denisovans, the two forms of archaic hominins who inhabited the cave, and the DNA of modern humans who appeared around the time of the emergence of an archaeological culture called the Initial Upper Paleolithic around 45,000 years ago.

Asian elephants do more than just trumpet -- they buzz their lips to squeak Posted: 23 Jun 2021 08:38 AM PDT Communication is crucial for elephants that live in complex multi-tiered social systems. Apart from their iconic trumpets uttered through the trunk, Asian elephants also produce species-specific squeaks by buzzing their lips. This demonstrates once again the elephant's flexibility in sound production.

Earth-like biospheres on other planets may be rare Posted: 23 Jun 2021 08:38 AM PDT A new analysis of known exoplanets has revealed that Earth-like conditions on potentially habitable planets may be much rarer than previously thought. The work focuses on the conditions required for oxygen-based photosynthesis to develop on a planet, which would enable complex biospheres of the type found on Earth.

The origins of farming insects more than 100 million years ago Posted: 23 Jun 2021 08:38 AM PDT A beetle bores a tree trunk to build a gallery in the wood in order to protect its lay. As it digs the tunnel, it spreads ambrosia fungal spores that will feed the larvae. When these bore another tree, the adult beetles will be the transmission vectors of the fungal spores in another habitat. This mutualism among insects and ambrosia fungi could be more than 100 million years old, more than what was thought to date.

Sound-induced electric fields control the tiniest particles Posted: 23 Jun 2021 06:12 AM PDT Engineers have devised a system for manipulating particles approaching the miniscule 2.5 nanometer diameter of DNA using sound-induced electric fields. Dubbed 'acoustoelectronic nanotweezers,' the approach provides a label-free, dynamically controllable method of moving and trapping nanoparticles over a large area. The technology holds promise for applications in the fields ranging from condensed matter physics to biomedicine.

Clear view of a boiling cauldron where stars are born Posted: 23 Jun 2021 06:12 AM PDT Astronomers hav created a high-resolution image of an expanding bubble of hot plasma and ionized gas where stars are born.

Mongooses solve inequality problem Posted: 23 Jun 2021 06:12 AM PDT A fair society has evolved in banded mongooses because parents don't know which pups are their own, new research shows.

Geckos might lose their tails, but not their dinner Posted: 23 Jun 2021 06:11 AM PDT A new study finds geckos are fierce hunters whether or not their tails are attached to their bodies.

Using virtual populations for clinical trials Posted: 23 Jun 2021 06:11 AM PDT A study involving virtual rather than real patients was as effective as traditional clinical trials in evaluating a medical device used to treat brain aneurysms, according to new research. The findings are proof of concept for what are called in-silico trials, where instead of recruiting people to a real-life clinical trial, researchers build digital simulations of patient groups, loosely akin to the way virtual populations are built in various computer games.

Mind the gap: Scientists use stellar mass to link exoplanets to planet-forming disks Posted: 23 Jun 2021 06:11 AM PDT Data from 500 young stars observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submilliter Array (ALMA) is giving scientists a window back through time, allowing them to predict what exoplanetary systems looked like through each stage of their formation. And it all starts with a link between higher mass stars, disks with gaps in them, and a high occurrence of observed exoplanets.

New research adds a wrinkle to our understanding of the origins of matter in the Milky Way Posted: 19 Jun 2021 06:20 AM PDT New research suggests that carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen cosmic rays travel through the galaxy toward Earth in a similar way, but, surprisingly, that iron arrives at Earth differently. The international research team analyzed data from the CALET instrument on the International Space Station to arrive at the results, which help address the age-old question: How is matter generated and distributed across the universe?

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