ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Skin: An additional tool for the versatile elephant trunk
• Insects harbor over a thousand genes from microbes, which help them survive
• 'Black hole police' discover a dormant black hole outside our galaxy
• Robot dog learns to walk in one hour
• Deformable pump gives soft robots a heart
• Does this ring a bell? Wild bats can remember sounds for years
• Music-making and the flow of aerosols
• Wireless activation of targeted brain circuits in less than one second
• 'Life-like' lasers can self-organize, adapt their structure, and cooperate
• Woodpeckers' heads act more like stiff hammers than safety helmets
• Stress transmitter wakes your brain more than 100 times a night -- and it is perfectly normal
• Virtual reality app trial shown to reduce common phobias
• Researchers capture the first example of an extremely bright, and fast-evolving astronomical event in the distant universe
• An ocean of galaxies awaits
• A robot learns to imagine itself
• This is how water fleas defend themselves against carnivorous plants

Skin: An additional tool for the versatile elephant trunk Posted: 18 Jul 2022 12:43 PM PDT A new study suggests that an elephant's muscles aren't the only way it stretches its trunk -- its folded skin also plays an important role. The combination of muscle and skin gives the animal the versatility to grab fragile vegetation and rip apart tree trunks. The research finds that an elephant's skin doesn't uniformly stretch. The top of the trunk is more flexible than the bottom, and the two sections begin to diverge when an elephant reaches more than 10%. When stretching for food or objects, the dorsal section of the trunk slides further forward.

Insects harbor over a thousand genes from microbes, which help them survive Posted: 18 Jul 2022 09:22 AM PDT Hundreds of millions of years ago, microbes and plants might have given insects an evolutionary advantage by passing genes to them through horizontal gene transfer. Researchers now report that more than 1,400 genes across 218 insect species, including butterflies and moths, originated from bacteria, viruses, fungi, and plants. The study argues that these genes might have been essential for insect evolution by allowing them to develop beneficial traits in mating behavior, nutrition, growth, and adaptation to environmental changes.

'Black hole police' discover a dormant black hole outside our galaxy Posted: 18 Jul 2022 09:22 AM PDT A team of international experts, renowned for debunking several black hole discoveries, have found a stellar-mass black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbor galaxy to our own. The researchers found that the star that gave rise to the black hole vanished without any sign of a powerful explosion.

Robot dog learns to walk in one hour Posted: 18 Jul 2022 09:22 AM PDT Like a newborn animal, a four-legged robot stumbles around during its first walking attempts. But while a foal or a giraffe needs much longer to master walking, the robot learns to move forward fluently in just one hour. A computer program acts as the artificial presentation of the animal's spinal cord, and learns to optimize the robot's movement in a short time. The artificial neural network is not yet ideally adjusted at the beginning, but rapidly self-adjusts.

Deformable pump gives soft robots a heart Posted: 15 Jul 2022 12:10 PM PDT Researchers have leveraged hydrodynamic and magnetic forces to drive a rubbery, deformable pump that can provide soft robots with a circulatory system, in effect mimicking the biology of animals.

Does this ring a bell? Wild bats can remember sounds for years Posted: 14 Jul 2022 04:04 PM PDT There are certain skills that once we acquire them, we rarely have to relearn them, like riding a bike or looking both ways before crossing a street. Most studies on learning and long-term memory in the wild focus on a handful of animal species. Now, researchers share the first report of long-term memory in frog-eating bats.

Music-making and the flow of aerosols Posted: 14 Jul 2022 01:58 PM PDT If simply breathing can spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus to others nearby, what about blowing into a tuba? Researchers used fluid mechanics to study the movement of aerosols generated by professional musicians.

Wireless activation of targeted brain circuits in less than one second Posted: 14 Jul 2022 01:58 PM PDT Neuroengineers have created wireless technology to remotely activate brain circuits. Researchers showed they could control the behavior of freely moving fruit flies using magnetic signals that activated genetically engineered neurons causing the flies to perform specific behaviors.

'Life-like' lasers can self-organize, adapt their structure, and cooperate Posted: 14 Jul 2022 11:50 AM PDT By mimicking features of living systems, self-organizing lasers could lead to new materials for sensing, computing, light sources and displays.

Woodpeckers' heads act more like stiff hammers than safety helmets Posted: 14 Jul 2022 11:50 AM PDT Scientists had long wondered how woodpeckers can repeatedly pound their beaks against tree trunks without doing damage to their brains. This led to the notion that their skulls must act like shock-absorbing helmets. Now, researchers have refuted this notion, saying that their heads act more like stiff hammers. In fact, their calculations show that any shock absorbance would hinder the woodpeckers' pecking abilities.

Stress transmitter wakes your brain more than 100 times a night -- and it is perfectly normal Posted: 14 Jul 2022 07:30 AM PDT You may think that a good night's sleep should be uninterrupted. But in fact, the neurotransmitter noradrenaline causes you to wake up more than 100 times a night, new research concludes. It is perfectly normal and may even indicate that you have slept well.

Virtual reality app trial shown to reduce common phobias Posted: 14 Jul 2022 06:11 AM PDT The trial studied phobia patients using a headset and a smartphone app treatment programme -- a combination of Virtual Reality (VR) 360-degree video exposure therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Researchers capture the first example of an extremely bright, and fast-evolving astronomical event in the distant universe Posted: 14 Jul 2022 06:11 AM PDT Astronomers have discovered a mysterious short-duration astronomical event that was as bright as a superluminous supernova, but evolving much faster.

An ocean of galaxies awaits Posted: 13 Jul 2022 12:28 PM PDT New COMAP radio survey will peer beneath the 'tip of the iceberg' of galaxies to unveil a hidden era of star formation.

A robot learns to imagine itself Posted: 13 Jul 2022 11:39 AM PDT Researchers have created a robot that is able to learn a model of its entire body from scratch, without any human assistance. In a new study, the researchers demonstrate how their robot created a kinematic model of itself, and then used its self-model to plan motion, reach goals, and avoid obstacles in a variety of situations. It even automatically recognized and then compensated for damage to its body.

This is how water fleas defend themselves against carnivorous plants Posted: 13 Jul 2022 08:46 AM PDT Fleas are only a few millimeters in size. But they do have a whole arsenal of defenses -- even against aggressive plants.

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