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Categories: Offbeat: Earth and Climate, Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound

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Disturbances to Earth's magnetic field can lead birds astray -- a phenomenon scientists call 'vagrancy' -- even in perfect weather, and especially during fall migration. While other factors such as weather likely play bigger roles in causing vagrancy, researchers found a strong correlation between birds that were captured far outside of their expected range and the geomagnetic disturbances that occurred during both fall and spring migrations.

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Until now, microscopic robotic systems have had to make do without arms. Now researchers have developed an ultrasonically actuated glass needle that can be attached to a robotic arm. This lets them pump and mix minuscule amounts of liquid and trap particles.

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A study examined the effects of anthropogenic noise on cognition, beak color, and growth in the zebra finch. Researchers first tested adult zebra finches on a battery of cognition assays while they were exposed to playbacks of urban noise versus birds tested without noise. Urban noises caused the birds to take longer to learn a novel foraging task and to learn an association-learning task. Urban noise exposure also resulted in treated males to develop less bright beak coloration, and females developed beaks with brighter orange coloration, respectively, than untreated birds. Findings suggest that urban noise exposure may affect morphological traits, such as beak color, which influence social interactions and mate choice.

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Radiation, used to treat half of all cancer patients, can be measured during treatment for the first time with precise 3D imaging. By capturing and amplifying tiny sound waves created when X-rays heat tissues in the body, medical professionals can map the radiation dose within the body, giving them new data to guide treatments in real time. It's a first-of-its-kind view of an interaction doctors have previously been unable to 'see.'

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A team has developed a 'deep learning-based ultrasound hologram generation framework' technology that can freely configure the form of focused ultrasound in real time based on holograms. It is expected to be used as a basic technology in the field of brain stimulation and treatment that requires precision in the future.

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Taking Hong Kong's famous Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak offers stunning views of its central business district, Victoria Harbor, and the surrounding islands. But a team of international scientists has recently discovered that the trams winding journey provides a previously unrecognized situation where our vertical perception gets distorted.

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A study found that inexpensive, easy-to-assemble Corsi-Rosenthal boxes can help reduce exposure to indoor air pollutants. The air filters have already been shown to reduce particles carrying the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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New research shows that glassfrogs -- known for their highly transparent undersides and muscles -- perform their 'disappearing acts' by stowing away nearly all of their red blood cells into their uniquely reflective livers. The work could lead to new avenues of research tied to blood clots, which the frogs somehow avoid while packing and unpacking about 90 percent of their red blood cells into their livers on a daily basis.

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Kickstarting the brain's natural ability to adjust to new circumstances, or neuroplasticity, improves how effectively a cochlear implant can restore hearing loss, a new study in deaf rats shows. The investigation, researchers say, may help explain the extreme variation in hearing improvements experienced by implant recipients.

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New research reveals that the animals that perceive time the fastest are those that are small, can fly, or are marine predators.

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An international research team examines a rich fossil bed in the renowned Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada's Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, where many 50-foot-long ichthyosaurs (Shonisaurus popularis) lay petrified in stone. The study offers a plausible explanation as to how at least 37 of these marine reptiles came to meet their ends in the same locality -- a question that has vexed paleontologists for more than half a century. The research presents evidence that these ichthyosaurs died at the site in large numbers because they were migrating to this area to give birth for many generations across hundreds of thousands of years.

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Researchers didn't know what to make of sunken pieces of wood that were so thoroughly chewed-up by clams that the wood crumbled in their hands. It turns out, the super-chewer wood-eating clams had a secret weapon for forcing out other species. The clams, who have special adaptations that let them survive in dirty, low-oxygen water, built chimneys out of their own feces, making the wood a 'crappy' home for any animal except them.

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Though plants can serve as a source of food, oxygen and décor, they're not often considered to be a good source of electricity. But by collecting electrons naturally transported within plant cells, scientists can generate electricity as part of a 'green,' biological solar cell. Now, researchers have used a succulent plant to create a living 'bio-solar cell' that runs on photosynthesis.

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Discoveries at a major new fossil site in Morocco suggest giant arthropods -- relatives of modern creatures including shrimps, insects and spiders -- dominated the seas 470 million years ago.

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Without clocks or modern tools, ancient Mexicans watched the sun to maintain a farming calendar that precisely tracked seasons and even adjusted for leap years.

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Analysis of teeth of extinct lemurs has revealed fascinating clues to the evolution of humans, a new study has found.

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Researchers calculated that 74 metric tons of microplastics are dropping out of the atmosphere onto the city annually, the equivalent of more than 3 million plastic bottles falling from the sky.

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Wildlife researchers have completed a study that may settle the question of why, in October 2009, a group of coyotes launched an unprovoked fatal attack on a young woman who was hiking in a Canadian park. Researchers concluded that the coyotes were forced to rely on moose instead of smaller mammals for the bulk of their diet -- and as a result of adapting to that unusually large food source, perceived a lone hiker as potential prey.

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MIT researchers developed a scalable fabrication technique to produce ultrathin, flexible, durable, lightweight solar cells that can be stuck to any surface. Glued to high-strength fabric, the solar cells are only one-hundredth the weight of conventional cells while producing about 18 times more power-per-kilogram.

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The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria acquire nutrients from rocks in Chile's Atacama Desert has inspired engineers at the University of California, Irvine to think of new ways microbes might help humans build colonies on the moon and Mars.