ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Forget handheld virtual reality controllers: a smile, frown or clench will suffice
• New medicines for treating heart patients
• Scientists reveal how Venus fly trap plants snap shut
• More evidence suggests self-awareness is also for some fish
• Flies possess more sophisticated cognitive abilities than previously known
• Astronomers discover widest separation of brown dwarf pair to date
• Ancient dwarf galaxy reconstructed with MilkyWay@home volunteer computer
• Musicians, chemists use sound to better understand science
• A fish story with a human tell
• The surprising structural reason your kitchen sponge is disgusting
• Can a planet have a mind of its own? Thought experiment
• How to design a sail that won’t tear or melt on an interstellar voyage
• New study illuminates how tiny flies solve complex navigational challenges
• Researchers use solar cells to achieve fast underwater wireless communication
• Atomic clocks measure Einstein's general relativity at millimeter scale
• Ultraprecise atomic clock poised for new physics discoveries
• Supermassive black hole caught hiding in a ring of cosmic dust
• Introducing Nikola, the emotional android kid
• 'Freeze or flee' reactions run in fish families

Forget handheld virtual reality controllers: a smile, frown or clench will suffice Posted: 18 Feb 2022 07:07 AM PST An international team of researchers has taken facial recognition technology to the next level, using a person's expression to manipulate objects in a virtual reality setting without the use of a handheld controller or touchpad.

New medicines for treating heart patients Posted: 17 Feb 2022 11:13 AM PST New research discovered a unique class of medications that act as blood thinners by inhibiting an enzyme in the genes of tick saliva. The research focused on novel direct thrombin inhibitors from tick salivary transcriptomes, or messenger RNA molecules expressed by an organism. The result is the development of new anticoagulant medications that can be used to treat patients with a variety of coronary issues, including heart attacks.

Scientists reveal how Venus fly trap plants snap shut Posted: 17 Feb 2022 11:13 AM PST Scientists have revealed the three-dimensional structure of Flycatcher1, an aptly named protein channel that may enable Venus fly trap plants to snap shut in response to prey. The structure of Flycatcher1 helps shed light on longstanding questions about the remarkably sensitive touch response of Venus fly traps. The structure also gives the researchers a better understanding of how similar proteins in organisms including plants and bacteria, as well as proteins in the human body with similar functions (called mechanosensitive ion channels), might operate.

More evidence suggests self-awareness is also for some fish Posted: 17 Feb 2022 11:13 AM PST Researchers address criticisms to previous work by providing additional evidence to suggest the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus has Mirror Self-Recognition.

Flies possess more sophisticated cognitive abilities than previously known Posted: 17 Feb 2022 11:12 AM PST Common flies feature more advanced cognitive abilities than previously believed. Using a custom-built immersive virtual reality arena, neurogenetics and real-time brain activity imaging, researchers found attention, working memory and conscious awareness-like capabilities in fruit flies.

Astronomers discover widest separation of brown dwarf pair to date Posted: 17 Feb 2022 11:12 AM PST A team of astronomers has discovered a rare pair of brown dwarfs that has the widest separation of any brown dwarf binary system found to date. They're 12 billion miles apart, or three times the separation of Pluto from the Sun. The discovery is exceptional considering brown dwarf binaries share a weaker gravitational force than binary stars with the same separation, and thus are more likely to break up over time.

Ancient dwarf galaxy reconstructed with MilkyWay@home volunteer computer Posted: 17 Feb 2022 10:47 AM PST Astrophysicists for the first time have calculated the original mass and size of a dwarf galaxy that was shredded in a collision with the Milky Way billions of years ago.

Musicians, chemists use sound to better understand science Posted: 17 Feb 2022 10:19 AM PST A team of researchers from music, chemistry and computer science is using sound to better understand biochemical processes such as the physical mechanisms of protein folding.

A fish story with a human tell Posted: 17 Feb 2022 09:23 AM PST Elephant sharks offer a novel perspective on how humans evolved. A new study parses some previously unexplained reproductive differences.

The surprising structural reason your kitchen sponge is disgusting Posted: 17 Feb 2022 09:23 AM PST Researchers have uncovered a basic but surprising fact: your kitchen sponge is a better incubator for diverse bacterial communities than a laboratory Petri dish. But it's not just the trapped leftovers that make the cornucopia of microbes swarming around so happy and productive, it's the structure of the sponge itself.

Can a planet have a mind of its own? Thought experiment Posted: 16 Feb 2022 12:38 PM PST Astrophysicists combine current scientific understanding about the Earth with broader questions about how life alters a planet to ask: if a planet with life has a life of its own, can it also have a mind of its own? The research raises new ideas about the ways in which humans might tackle global issues such as climate change.

How to design a sail that won’t tear or melt on an interstellar voyage Posted: 16 Feb 2022 10:03 AM PST Breakthrough Starshot plans to send microscopic probes to Alpha Centauri using lightsails. Previous conceptions of these structures have imagined them being passively pushed by light from the sun, but Starshot's laser-based approach requires rethinking the sail's shape and composition so it won't melt or tear during acceleration to relativistic speeds.

New study illuminates how tiny flies solve complex navigational challenges Posted: 16 Feb 2022 10:03 AM PST The Gnat Ogre is a tiny predator that grabs other insects out of the air, catching them with extreme precision. New research reveals how and may have implications for future nature-inspired innovations.

Researchers use solar cells to achieve fast underwater wireless communication Posted: 16 Feb 2022 08:22 AM PST Researchers have shown that solar cells can be used to achieve underwater wireless optical communication with high data rates. The new approach -- which used an array of series-connected solar cells as detectors -- could offer a cost-effective, low-energy way to transmit data underwater.

Atomic clocks measure Einstein's general relativity at millimeter scale Posted: 16 Feb 2022 08:22 AM PST Physicists have measured Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, or more specifically, the effect called time dilation, at the smallest scale ever, showing that two tiny atomic clocks, separated by just a millimeter or the width of a sharp pencil tip, tick at different rates.

Ultraprecise atomic clock poised for new physics discoveries Posted: 16 Feb 2022 08:22 AM PST Physicists have made one of the highest performance atomic clocks ever. ­­ Their instrument, known as an optical lattice atomic clock, can measure differences in time to a precision equivalent to losing just one second every 300 billion years and is the first example of a 'multiplexed' optical clock, where six separate clocks can exist in the same environment. Its design allows the team to test ways to search for gravitational waves, attempt to detect dark matter, and discover new physics with clocks.

Supermassive black hole caught hiding in a ring of cosmic dust Posted: 16 Feb 2022 08:22 AM PST The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO's VLTI) has observed a cloud of cosmic dust at the centre of the galaxy Messier 77 that is hiding a supermassive black hole. The findings have confirmed predictions made around 30 years ago and are giving astronomers new insight into "active galactic nuclei", some of the brightest and most enigmatic objects in the universe.

Introducing Nikola, the emotional android kid Posted: 16 Feb 2022 06:58 AM PST Researchers have made an android child named Nikola that successfully conveys six basic emotions -- happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. Facial expressions are generated by moving 'muscles' in Nikola's face. This is the first time that the quality of android-expressed emotion has been tested and verified for these six emotions.

'Freeze or flee' reactions run in fish families Posted: 15 Feb 2022 06:55 AM PST Families of fish tend to share similar reactions to stressful situations, new research shows.

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