ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Cosmic flashes pinpointed to a surprising location in space
• Colossal black holes locked in dance at heart of galaxy
• A Minecraft build can be used to teach almost any subject
• How some gut microbes awaken 'zombie' viruses in their neighbors
• Fate of the dinosaurs sealed in spring
• Astronomers map mysterious element in space
• Gene allowing humans to feel touch may play a role in sense of smell
• 'E-nose' could someday diagnose Parkinson's disease by 'smelling' skin
• 'Tatooine-like' exoplanet spotted by ground-based telescope
• Tiny probes could sail to outer planets with the help of low-power lasers
• New technology fused with photosynthetic life offers path to green energy
• What ingredients went into the galactic blender to create the Milky Way?
• 350-year-old remains in a Stone Age site in Portugal
• Frog with tapir-like nose found in Amazon rainforest, thanks to its 'beeping' call
• Molecule snapshot by explosion
• Physicists harness electrons to make 'synthetic dimensions'
• Balkanatolia: The forgotten continent that sheds light on the evolution of mammals
• Rats can estimate their timing accuracy
• Building artificial nerve cells
• Fish generate movable pairs of vortices to propel them forward like body waves
• COVID-19 genetic risk variant protects against HIV, study finds
• How to mix the 'un-mixable'

Cosmic flashes pinpointed to a surprising location in space Posted: 23 Feb 2022 10:35 AM PST Astronomers have been surprised by the closest source of mysterious flashes in the sky called fast radio bursts. Precision measurements with radio telescopes reveal that the bursts are made among old stars, and in a way that no one was expecting. The source of the flashes, in nearby spiral galaxy M 81, is the closest of its kind to Earth.

Colossal black holes locked in dance at heart of galaxy Posted: 23 Feb 2022 10:35 AM PST A sinusoidal light curve spanning 45 years points to the presence of orbiting supermassive black holes at the core of a distant galaxy.

A Minecraft build can be used to teach almost any subject Posted: 23 Feb 2022 08:12 AM PST A professor has used Minecraft to teach a class on the history and culture of modernity. The course was based entirely within the game server, with instructions, in-class communication and course work almost exclusively carried out within the Minecraft world and over the messaging app Discord. This new pedagogical framework presented the researchers with the opportunity to see how the students used the game to achieve academic goals.

How some gut microbes awaken 'zombie' viruses in their neighbors Posted: 23 Feb 2022 08:12 AM PST Gut bacteria brew all sorts of chemicals, but we don't know what most of them do. A new study suggests that one such compound, previously linked to cancer, may serve as a bizarre weapon in microbial skirmishes.

Fate of the dinosaurs sealed in spring Posted: 23 Feb 2022 08:12 AM PST The asteroid that killed nearly all dinosaurs struck Earth during springtime. An international team of scientists have determined when the meteorite crashed onto the Earth, after analyzing the remains of fishes that died just after the impact.

Astronomers map mysterious element in space Posted: 23 Feb 2022 07:49 AM PST A research team has provided an important clue to the origin of the element Ytterbium in the Milky Way, by showing that the element largely originates from supernova explosions. The groundbreaking research also provides new opportunities for studying the evolution of our galaxy.

Gene allowing humans to feel touch may play a role in sense of smell Posted: 23 Feb 2022 07:30 AM PST Researchers have determined that a gene linked to feeling touch may moonlight as an olfactory gene. That's the conclusion drawn from studying a very small, transparent worm that shares many similarities with the human nervous system.

'E-nose' could someday diagnose Parkinson's disease by 'smelling' skin Posted: 23 Feb 2022 05:58 AM PST Scientists have been trying to build devices that could diagnose Parkinson's disease (PD) through odor compounds on the skin. Now, researchers have developed a portable, artificially intelligent olfactory system, or 'e-nose,' that could someday diagnose the disease in a doctor's office.

'Tatooine-like' exoplanet spotted by ground-based telescope Posted: 23 Feb 2022 05:58 AM PST A rare exoplanet which orbits around two stars at once has been detected using a ground-based telescope. The planet, called Kepler-16b, has so far only been seen using the Kepler space telescope. It orbits around two stars, with the two orbits also orbiting one another, forming a binary star system.

Tiny probes could sail to outer planets with the help of low-power lasers Posted: 23 Feb 2022 05:54 AM PST Space travel can be agonizingly slow: For example, the New Horizons probe took almost 10 years to reach Pluto. Traveling to Proxima Centauri b, the closest habitable planet to Earth, would require thousands of years with even the biggest rockets. Now, researchers calculate that low-power lasers on Earth could launch and maneuver small probes equipped with silicon or boron nitride sails, propelling them to much faster speeds than rocket engines.

New technology fused with photosynthetic life offers path to green energy Posted: 22 Feb 2022 10:53 AM PST Researchers have developed a patented hybrid device -- part living organism, part bio battery, capable of producing stored energy by increasing energy flow under light conditions where natural photosynthesis is normally inhibited.

What ingredients went into the galactic blender to create the Milky Way? Posted: 22 Feb 2022 10:52 AM PST In its early days, the Milky Way was like a giant smoothie, as if galaxies consisting of billions of stars, and an enormous amount of gas had been thrown together into a gigantic blender. But a new study picks apart this mixture by analyzing individual stars to identify which originated inside the galaxy and which began 'life' outside.

350-year-old remains in a Stone Age site in Portugal Posted: 22 Feb 2022 10:52 AM PST An African man who lived just 350 years ago was buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. This was very surprising because Amoreira and other midden sites in the Muge region are well known by archaeologists for the cemeteries of the last hunter-gatherers living in the area 8,000 years ago. To investigate this burial researchers combined biomolecular archaeology, ancient DNA, and historical records.

Frog with tapir-like nose found in Amazon rainforest, thanks to its 'beeping' call Posted: 22 Feb 2022 10:51 AM PST A tiny burrowing frog that lives underground in the Amazon, known to local people as the 'tapir frog' because its long nose, has been given an official scientific description.

Molecule snapshot by explosion Posted: 22 Feb 2022 10:51 AM PST An international team of scientists has taken a snapshot of a cyclic molecule using a novel imaging method. Researchers used the world's largest X-ray laser to explode the molecule iodopyridine in order to construct an image of the intact molecule from the resulting fragments.

Physicists harness electrons to make 'synthetic dimensions' Posted: 22 Feb 2022 10:51 AM PST Physicists have learned to manipulate electrons in gigantic Rydberg atoms with such precision they can create 'synthetic dimensions' where the system acts as if it had extra spatial dimensions, which are important tools for quantum simulations.

Balkanatolia: The forgotten continent that sheds light on the evolution of mammals Posted: 22 Feb 2022 09:51 AM PST A team of geologists and palaeontologists has discovered that, some 50 million years ago, there was a low-lying continent separating Europe from Asia that they have named Balkanatolia. At the time, it was inhabited by an endemic fauna that was very different from those of Europe and Asia. Geographical changes 40 to 34 million years ago connected this continent to its two neighbors, paving the way for the replacement of European mammals by Asian mammals.

Rats can estimate their timing accuracy Posted: 22 Feb 2022 09:51 AM PST Just like humans, rats are able to estimate a temporal error in their actions. This discovery opens up new avenues for identifying the mechanisms and brain structures which underlie the internal representation of time.

Building artificial nerve cells Posted: 22 Feb 2022 09:13 AM PST Researchers have demonstrated an artificial organic neuron, a nerve cell, that can be integrated with a living plant and an artificial organic synapse. Both the neuron and the synapse are made from printed organic electrochemical transistors.

Fish generate movable pairs of vortices to propel them forward like body waves Posted: 22 Feb 2022 09:12 AM PST Researchers show that fish, through precise control of body fluctuations, generate movable vortex pairs of high- and low-pressure regions that enable them to swim. They used particle image velocimetry and high-speed cameras to analyze the spontaneous swimming of zebrafish in a tank, and the findings provide the groundwork in the design of flexible structures for a high-performance underwater bionic propeller.

COVID-19 genetic risk variant protects against HIV, study finds Posted: 21 Feb 2022 12:52 PM PST The major genetic risk variant for severe COVID-19, one we inherited from Neandertals, is surprisingly common. A new study shows that the same gene variant that increases the risk of falling seriously ill with COVID-19 protects from another serious disease -- it reduces a person's risk of contracting HIV by 27 percent.

How to mix the 'un-mixable' Posted: 21 Feb 2022 05:57 AM PST Imagine making some liquids mix that do not mix, then unmixing them. In one of the grand challenges of science, a device which previously 'unboiled' egg protein is now unraveling the mystery of incompatible fluids -- a development that could enhance many future products, industrial processes and even the food we eat.

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