ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Scientists use GPS to track baboon troop's movement in urban spaces for the first time
• Scientists regrow frog's lost leg
• Robot performs first laparoscopic surgery without human help
• Song sparrows shuffle and repeat to keep their audience listening
• Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have seen before
• Quantum computing: Vibrating atoms make robust qubits, physicists find
• Liquid water beneath Martian south polar cap?
• Getting hydrogen out of banana peels
• A soft, stretchable thermometer
• Extraordinary black hole found in neighboring galaxy
• New control technique uses solar panels to reach desired Mars orbit
• Cracking chimpanzee culture
• Transparency in butterflies, from A-Z: It’s more of a superpower than we thought
• Hope for present-day Martian groundwater dries up in new study

Scientists use GPS to track baboon troop's movement in urban spaces for the first time Posted: 26 Jan 2022 11:41 AM PST In a unique study, researchers have used GPS collars to study the collective behaviour of a troop of baboons living on the outskirts of the City of Cape Town.

Scientists regrow frog's lost leg Posted: 26 Jan 2022 11:40 AM PST Scientists have triggered long-term growth of legs in adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs. The frogs regrew a lost leg over months, triggered by just 24 hour exposure to a five-drug cocktail held under a bioreactor. The new legs were functional enough to enable sensation and locomotion.

Robot performs first laparoscopic surgery without human help Posted: 26 Jan 2022 11:39 AM PST A robot has performed laparoscopic surgery on the soft tissue of a pig without the guiding hand of a human -- a significant step in robotics toward fully automated surgery on humans.

Song sparrows shuffle and repeat to keep their audience listening Posted: 26 Jan 2022 09:24 AM PST Biologists have found an animal for the first time that communicates with the complexity of human language: song sparrows. According to a new study, male song sparrows memorize a 30-minute long playlist of their recently belted tunes and use that information to curate both their current playlist and the next one. The findings suggest that song sparrows deliberately shuffle and repeat their songs possibly to keep a female's attention.

Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have seen before Posted: 26 Jan 2022 09:24 AM PST A team mapping radio waves in the Universe has discovered something unusual that releases a giant burst of energy three times an hour, and it's unlike anything astronomers have seen before. Spinning around in space, the strange object sends out a beam of radiation that crosses our line of sight, and for a minute in every twenty, is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky.

Quantum computing: Vibrating atoms make robust qubits, physicists find Posted: 26 Jan 2022 09:24 AM PST Physicists have discovered a new quantum bit, or 'qubit,' in the form of vibrating pairs of atoms known as fermions. The new qubit appears to be extremely robust, able to maintain superposition between two vibrational states, even in the midst of environmental noise, for up to 10 seconds, offering a possible foundation for future quantum computers.

Liquid water beneath Martian south polar cap? Posted: 25 Jan 2022 09:40 AM PST Scientists measured the properties of ice-brine mixtures as cold as -145 degrees Fahrenheit to help confirm that salty water likely exists between grains of ice or sediment under the ice cap at Mars' south pole. Laboratory measurements support oddly bright reflections detected by the MARSIS subsurface sounding radar aboard ESA's Mars Express orbiter.

Getting hydrogen out of banana peels Posted: 25 Jan 2022 06:30 AM PST Scientists have developed a way to maximize hydrogen yields from biowaste, within few milliseconds. The method uses rapid photo-pyrolysis to produce hydrogen gas and solid conductive carbon from banana peels.

A soft, stretchable thermometer Posted: 24 Jan 2022 04:49 PM PST The next generation of soft robotics, smart clothing and biocompatible medical devices are going to need integrated soft sensors that can stretch and twist with the device or wearer. The challenge: most of the components used in traditional sensing are rigid. Now, researchers have developed a soft, self-powered thermometer that can be integrated into stretchable electronics and soft robots.

Extraordinary black hole found in neighboring galaxy Posted: 24 Jan 2022 12:10 PM PST At one hundred thousand solar masses, it is smaller than the black holes we have found at the centers of galaxies, but bigger than the black holes that are born when stars explode. This makes it one of the only confirmed intermediate-mass black holes, an object that has long been sought by astronomers.

New control technique uses solar panels to reach desired Mars orbit Posted: 24 Jan 2022 08:50 AM PST Aerospace engineers have developed a way to use articulated solar panels to steer the satellite during aerobraking, reducing the number of passes needed, resulting in potential savings in propellant, time, and money.

Cracking chimpanzee culture Posted: 24 Jan 2022 08:50 AM PST Chimpanzees don't automatically know what to do when they come across nuts and stones. Researchers have now used field experiments to show that chimpanzees thus do not simply invent nut cracking with tools, but need to learn such complex cultural behaviors from others. Their culture is therefore more similar to human culture than often assumed.

Transparency in butterflies, from A-Z: It’s more of a superpower than we thought Posted: 24 Jan 2022 07:38 AM PST Wing transparency as a flexible weapon for self-defense is one of many findings from a multi-year study spanning the physics, biology, ecology, and evolution of transparency in butterflies conducted by several groups.

Hope for present-day Martian groundwater dries up in new study Posted: 24 Jan 2022 06:05 AM PST Liquid water previously detected under Mars' ice-covered south pole is probably just a dusty mirage, according to a new study of the Red Planet. The finding challenges a 2018 study that appeared to find liquid water under Mars' south polar cap.

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