ScienceDaily: Quirky - July 24, 2024
Top quirky research news
Study uses Game of Thrones to advance understanding of face blindness
Psychologists have used the hit TV series Game of Thrones to understand how the brain enables us to recognize faces. Their findings provide new insights into prosopagnosia or face blindness, a condition that impairs facial recognition.
Image: Corona Borealis Studio/Shutterstock.com
Researchers have found a link between some of the largest and smallest objects in the cosmos: supermassive black holes and dark matter particles. Their new calculations reveal that pairs of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) can merge into a single larger black hole because of previously overlooked behavior of dark matter particles, proposing a solution to the longstanding 'final parsec problem' in astronomy.
Smell of human stress affects dogs' emotions leading them to make more pessimistic choices
Dogs experience emotional contagion from the smell of human stress, leading them to make more 'pessimistic' choices, new research finds. Researchers tested how human stress odors affect dogs' learning and emotional state.
Birds need entertainment during avian flu lockdowns
Birds need varied activities during avian flu lockdowns, new research shows.
Chimpanzees gesture back and forth quickly like in human conversations
When people are having a conversation, they rapidly take turns speaking and sometimes even interrupt. Now, researchers who have collected the largest ever dataset of chimpanzee 'conversations' have found that they communicate back and forth using gestures following the same rapid-fire pattern.
Life signs could survive near surfaces of Enceladus and Europa
Europa and Enceladus, icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, have evidence of oceans beneath their crusts. A NASA experiment suggests -- if these oceans support life -- signatures of that life in the form of organic molecules (like amino acids and nucleic acids) could survive just under the surface ice despite the harsh, ionizing radiation on these worlds. If robotic landers were to go to these moons to look for life signs, they would not have to dig very deep to find amino acids that have survived being altered or destroyed by radiation.
Can consciousness exist in a computer simulation?
A new essay explores which conditions must be met for consciousness to exist. At least one of them can't be found in a computer.
Another intermediate-mass black hole discovered at the center of our galaxy
So far, only about ten intermediate-mass black holes have been discovered in the entire universe. The newly identified black hole causes surrounding stars in a cluster to move in an unexpectedly orderly way.
The courtship of leopard seals off the coast of South America
A pioneering study has unveiled the first paired observations of sexual behavior and vocalizations in wild leopard seals. The study on the mysterious leopard seal represents a major advance in understanding the behavior of one of the most difficult apex predators to study on Earth.
Singing the science: Using karaoke to examine blushing
A new collaboration explores the neural substrates of blushing in a MRI scanner.
Ant insights lead to robot navigation breakthrough
Have you ever wondered how insects are able to go so far beyond their home and still find their way? The answer to this question is not only relevant to biology but also to making the AI for tiny, autonomous robots. Drone-researchers felt inspired by biological findings on how ants visually recognize their environment and combine it with counting their steps in order to get safely back home. They have used these insights to create an insect-inspired autonomous navigation strategy for tiny, lightweight robots. It allows such robots to come back home after long trajectories, while requiring extremely little computation and memory (0.65 kiloByte per 100 m). In the future, tiny autonomous robots could find a wide range of uses, from monitoring stock in warehouses to finding gas leaks in industrial sites.
Want to spot a deepfake? Look for the stars in their eyes
In an era when the creation of artificial intelligence (AI) images is at the fingertips of the masses, the ability to detect fake pictures -- particularly deepfakes of people -- is becoming increasingly important. So what if you could tell just by looking into someone's eyes? That's the compelling finding of new research which suggests that AI-generated fakes can be spotted by analyzing human eyes in the same way that astronomers study pictures of galaxies.
Completely stretchy lithium-ion battery for flexible electronics
When you think of a battery, you probably don't think stretchy. But batteries will need this shape-shifting quality to be incorporated into flexible electronics, which are gaining traction for wearable health monitors. Now, researchers report a lithium-ion battery with entirely stretchable components, including an electrolyte layer that can expand by 5000%, and it retains its charge storage capacity after nearly 70 charge/discharge cycles.
What fat cats on a diet may tell us about obesity in humans
Pet cats may be excellent animal models for the study of obesity origins and treatment in humans, a new study of feline gut microbes suggests -- and both species would likely get healthier in the research process, scientists say.
Smart soil can water and feed itself
A newly engineered type of soil can capture water out of thin air to keep plants hydrated and manage controlled release of fertilizer for a constant supply of nutrients.
Cuttlefish can form false memories, too
During an event, details like what you saw, smelled, and felt aren't stored as a single memory. Rather, they are encoded and stored in your brain separately. To retrieve that memory, those pieces must get put back together. When that doesn't happen in the right way or details are distorted, it can lead to the creation of false memories. Now researchers have evidence that the common cuttlefish may create false memories, too.
Astronomers spot a 'highly eccentric' planet on its way to becoming a hot Jupiter
The newly discovered planet TIC 241249530 b has the most highly elliptical, or eccentric, orbit of any known planet. It appears to be a juvenile planet that is in the midst of becoming a hot Jupiter, and its orbit is providing some answers to how such large, scorching planets evolve.
Psilocybin generates psychedelic experience by disrupting brain network
Researchers report that psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, destabilizes a critical network of brain areas involved in introspective thinking. The findings provide a neurobiological explanation for the drug's mind-bending effects.
Enzyme-powered 'snot bots' help deliver drugs in sticky situations
Snot might not be the first place you'd expect nanobots to be swimming around. But this slimy secretion exists in more places than just your nose and piles of dirty tissues -- it also lines and helps protect the lungs, stomach, intestines and eyes. And now, researchers have demonstrated in mice that their tiny, enzyme-powered 'snot bots' can push through the defensive, sticky layer and potentially deliver drugs more efficiently.