ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Getting bacteria and yeast to talk to each other, thanks to a 'nanotranslator'
• Ancient ice reveals scores of gigantic volcanic eruptions
• Scientists discover how to 3D print testicular cells
• How grasshopper mouths resemble those of mammals
• Antelope, a Gulf region cultural icon, gets another chance at survival
• Intensity control of projectors in parallel: A doorway to an augmented reality future
• Stackable 'holobricks' can make giant 3D images
• Look! Up in the sky! Is it a planet? Nope, just a star
• Do sharks get their ZZZs? New evidence shows it’s not all about the hunt
• When it comes to sleep, it’s quality over quantity
• Treating cancer with light-sensitive nanoscale biomaterials
• Comet 67P’s abundant oxygen more of an illusion, new study suggests
• Rapid changes to the Arctic seafloor noted as submerged permafrost thaws
• Photo or the real thing? Mice can inherently recall and tell them apart, experiments show
• Meteorites that helped form Earth may have formed in the outer solar system
• Baby white wallaby harboring hopping DNA
• One step closer to artificial rhino eggs
• Forget mammoths: These researchers are exploring bringing back the extinct Christmas Island rat
• How baboons keep healthy family boundaries

Getting bacteria and yeast to talk to each other, thanks to a 'nanotranslator' Posted: 16 Mar 2022 08:50 AM PDT Cells communicate with one another in the language of chemistry, but those from different kingdoms, such as bacteria and yeast, speak dialects virtually unintelligible to the other. By learning how microbes 'talk,' researchers hope to one day manipulate their behavior to protect against disease, for example. Efforts like this are in their infancy, but researchers now describe the first system that enables two unrelated organisms to communicate.

Ancient ice reveals scores of gigantic volcanic eruptions Posted: 16 Mar 2022 08:50 AM PDT Ice cores drilled in Antarctica and Greenland have revealed gigantic volcanic eruptions during the last ice age. Sixty-nine of these were larger than any eruption in modern history. According to the physicists behind the research, these eruptions can teach us about our planet's sensitivity to climate change.

Scientists discover how to 3D print testicular cells Posted: 16 Mar 2022 08:49 AM PDT Scientists have 3D printed human testicular cells and identified promising early signs of sperm-producing capabilities. The researchers hope the technique will one day offer a solution for people living with presently untreatable forms of male infertility.

How grasshopper mouths resemble those of mammals Posted: 16 Mar 2022 06:17 AM PDT Palaeobiologists have identified startling similarities between the mouths of grasshoppers and mammal teeth.

Antelope, a Gulf region cultural icon, gets another chance at survival Posted: 16 Mar 2022 06:17 AM PDT The DNA of a vulnerable species, the iconic Arabian Oryx, has been decoded. An international team undertook this project to help ensure the survival of the species, by using the genetic data to inform breeding programs.

Intensity control of projectors in parallel: A doorway to an augmented reality future Posted: 16 Mar 2022 06:17 AM PDT A challenge to adopting augmented reality (AR) in wider applications is working with dynamic objects, owing to a delay between their movement and the projection of light onto their new position. But, scientists may have a workaround. They have developed a method that uses multiple projectors while reducing delay time. Their method could open the door to a future driven by AR, helping us live increasingly technology-centered lives.

Stackable 'holobricks' can make giant 3D images Posted: 15 Mar 2022 04:36 PM PDT Researchers have developed a new method to display highly realistic holographic images using 'holobricks' that can be stacked together to generate large-scale holograms.

Look! Up in the sky! Is it a planet? Nope, just a star Posted: 15 Mar 2022 12:01 PM PDT Among thousands of known exoplanets,astronomers have flagged three that are actually stars.

Do sharks get their ZZZs? New evidence shows it’s not all about the hunt Posted: 15 Mar 2022 11:17 AM PDT The first physiological evidence that sharks take a break from tracking prey to catch a few winks has been uncovered by a researcher who specializes in sleep among aquatic creatures, from sharks to crocodiles. The comparative sleep physiologist studied the metabolic signatures of sleep and behavioral sleep indicators among New Zealand's draughtsboard sharks. His research found that they produced a lower metabolic rate and recumbent body posture when inactive for longer than five minutes, supporting the idea that they were conserving energy by sleeping.

When it comes to sleep, it’s quality over quantity Posted: 15 Mar 2022 08:29 AM PDT Some people are gifted with genes that pack the benefits of slumber into an efficient time window, keeping them peppy on only four or six hours of sleep a night. In addition, the scientists said, these 'elite sleepers' show psychological resilience and resistance to neurodegenerative conditions that may point the way to fending off neurological disease.

Treating cancer with light-sensitive nanoscale biomaterials Posted: 15 Mar 2022 08:29 AM PDT Treating cancer and other diseases with laser light is not currently considered routine, but new approaches using nanoparticles show some promise in improving existing techniques. Researchers review the status of the field and by combining photothermal therapy or photodynamic therapy with nanomaterials, they have been able to apply these types of phototherapies while also delivering drugs to sites in the body that are otherwise inaccessible. It is also possible to combine PTT and PDT into a single treatment, creating an even more powerful treatment method.

Comet 67P’s abundant oxygen more of an illusion, new study suggests Posted: 14 Mar 2022 12:44 PM PDT When the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft discovered abundant molecular oxygen bursting from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) in 2015, it puzzled scientists. They had never seen a comet emit oxygen, let alone in such abundance. But most alarming were the deeper implications: that researchers had to account for so much oxygen, which meant reconsidering everything they thought they already knew about the chemistry of the early solar system and how it formed. A new analysis, however, shows Rosetta's discovery may not be as strange as scientists first imagined. Instead, it suggests the comet has two internal reservoirs that make it seem like there's more oxygen than is actually there.

Rapid changes to the Arctic seafloor noted as submerged permafrost thaws Posted: 14 Mar 2022 12:44 PM PDT A new study has documented how the thawing of permafrost submerged underwater at the edge of the Arctic Ocean is affecting the seafloor.

Photo or the real thing? Mice can inherently recall and tell them apart, experiments show Posted: 14 Mar 2022 06:57 AM PDT The ability to make perceptual and conceptual judgements such as knowing the difference between a picture of an object and the actual 3D object itself has been considered a defining capacity of primates, until now. A study provides the very first behavioral evidence that laboratory mice are capable of higher-order cognitive processes. Findings also provide strong support that the mouse's hippocampus, like that of humans, is required for this form of nonspatial visual recognition memory and picture-object equivalence.

Meteorites that helped form Earth may have formed in the outer solar system Posted: 12 Mar 2022 07:30 AM PST Earth is believed to have formed partly from carbonaceous meteorites, which are thought to come from outer main-belt asteroids. Telescopic observations of outer main-belt asteroids suggest that they formed with ammonia ice which is only stable at very low temperatures. A new study suggests these materials may have formed very far out in the early Solar System then been transported into the inner Solar System by chaotic mixing processes.

Baby white wallaby harboring hopping DNA Posted: 10 Mar 2022 08:51 AM PST A genetic cause of albinism, or loss of pigmentation, in the small kangaroo-like wallaby has been explored. Researchers examined the gene for the enzyme tyrosinase or TYR, known for its role in producing melanin, the natural skin pigment. In the TYR gene, they discovered that an extra DNA fragment led to albinism.

One step closer to artificial rhino eggs Posted: 10 Mar 2022 08:51 AM PST To prevent the extinction of the northern white rhino, researchers are attempting to create artificial egg cells from stem cells. A team has now revealed that they are one step closer to achieving this goal.

Forget mammoths: These researchers are exploring bringing back the extinct Christmas Island rat Posted: 09 Mar 2022 08:10 AM PST Dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, mammoths 4,000 years ago, and the Christmas Island Rat 119 years ago. Since becoming a popular concept in the 1990s, de-extinction efforts have focused on grand animals with mythical stature, but now a team of paleogeneticists has turned their attention to Rattus macleari, and their findings provide insights into the limitations of de-extinction across all species.

How baboons keep healthy family boundaries Posted: 07 Mar 2022 01:20 PM PST Drawing on 48 years of data on the family trees and mate choices of 1,624 wild baboons in Kenya, a new study finds that baboons generally steer clear of mates that are half-siblings or closer. But baboons proved less discriminating with their father's side of the family than their mother's, the researchers report.

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