Strange & Offbeat News -- ScienceDaily

Did Neandertals make jewelry 130,000 years go? Eagle claws provide clues Posted: 11 Mar 2015 01:04 PM PDT Krapina Neandertals may have manipulated white-tailed eagle talons to make jewelry 130,000 years ago, before the appearance of modern humans in Europe.

Highly evolved bacteria found near hydrothermal vents: Iron-oxidizing bacteria found along Mid-Atlantic Ridge Posted: 11 Mar 2015 01:03 PM PDT Bacteria that live on iron were found for the first time at three well-known vent sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. These bacteria likely play an important role in deep-ocean iron cycling, and are dominant members of communities near and adjacent to sulfur-rich hydrothermal vents prevalent along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This group of iron-oxidizing bacteria, Zetaproteobacteria, appears to be restricted to environments where iron is plentiful, suggesting they are highly evolved to utilize iron for energy.

Mystery of the dancing droplets solved Posted: 11 Mar 2015 01:03 PM PDT A puzzling observation, pursued through hundreds of experiments, has led researchers to a simple yet profound discovery: under certain circumstances, droplets of fluid will move like performers in a dance choreographed by molecular physics. The unexpected findings may prove useful in semiconductor manufacturing and self-cleaning solar panels.

Saharan 'carpet of tools' is earliest known human-made landscape Posted: 11 Mar 2015 01:02 PM PDT A new intensive survey of the Messak Settafet escarpment, a massive outcrop of sandstone in the middle of the Saharan desert, has shown that stone tools occur "ubiquitously" across the entire landscape: averaging 75 artefacts per square meter, or 75 million per square kilometer.

Particle jets reveal the secrets of the most exotic state of matter Posted: 11 Mar 2015 09:46 AM PDT Shortly following the Big Bang, the Universe was filled with a chaotic primordial soup of quarks and gluons, particles which are now trapped inside of protons and neutrons. Study of this quark-gluon plasma requires the use of the most advanced theoretical and experimental tools. Physicists have taken one crucial step towards a better understanding of the plasma and its properties.

The corrugated galaxy: Milky Way may be much larger than previously estimated Posted: 11 Mar 2015 09:41 AM PDT The Milky Way galaxy is at least 50 percent larger than is commonly estimated, according to new findings that reveal that the galactic disk is contoured into several concentric ripples.

CT scanning shows why tilting trees produce better biofuel Posted: 11 Mar 2015 05:17 AM PDT Medical imaging techniques have been used to explore why making willow trees grow at an angle can vastly improve their biofuel yields. Using micro-CT scans, the team showed that the trees respond to being tilted by producing a sugar-rich, gelatinous fibre, which helps them stay upright.

Honey, I shrunk the ants: How environment controls size Posted: 11 Mar 2015 05:12 AM PDT Until now scientists have believed that the variations in traits -- such as our height, skin color, tendency to gain weight or not, intelligence, tendency to develop certain diseases, etc., all of them traits that exist along a continuum -- were a result of both genetic and environmental factors. But they didn't know how exactly these things worked together. By studying ants, researchers have identified a key mechanism by which environmental (or epigenetic) factors influence the expression of all of these traits, along with many more.