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Categories: Offbeat: General, Paleontology: General
Published Stretchable e-skin could give robots human-level touch sensitivity
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A stretchy electronic skin could equip robots and other devices with the same softness and touch sensitivity as human skin, opening up new possibilities to perform tasks that require a great deal of precision and control of force.
Published Random robots are more reliable
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source New algorithm encourages robots to move more randomly to collect more diverse data for learning. In tests, robots started with no knowledge and then learned and correctly performed tasks within a single attempt. New model could improve safety and practicality of self-driving cars, delivery drones and more.
Published Significant new discovery in teleportation research -- Noise can improve the quality of quantum teleportation
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers succeeded in conducting an almost perfect quantum teleportation despite the presence of noise that usually disrupts the transfer of quantum state.
Published This highly reflective black paint makes objects more visible to autonomous cars
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Driving at night might be a scary challenge for a new driver, but with hours of practice it soon becomes second nature. For self-driving cars, however, practice may not be enough because the lidar sensors that often act as these vehicles' 'eyes' have difficulty detecting dark-colored objects. New research describes a highly reflective black paint that could help these cars see dark objects and make autonomous driving safer.
Published Wild orangutan treats wound with pain-relieving plant
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A wild orangutan was observed applying a plant with known medicinal properties to a wound, a first for a wild animal.
Published Webb telescope probably didn't find life on an exoplanet -- yet
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Recent reports of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope finding signs of life on a distant planet understandably sparked excitement. A new study challenges this finding, but also outlines how the telescope might verify the presence of the life-produced gas.
Published 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal from cave where species buried their dead
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments by a team of archaeologists and conservators.
Published A 'cosmic glitch' in gravity
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have discovered a potential 'cosmic glitch' in the universe's gravity, explaining its strange behavior on a cosmic scale.
Published Rock solid evidence: Angola geology reveals prehistoric split between South America and Africa
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A research team has found that ancient rocks and fossils from long-extinct marine reptiles in Angola clearly show a key part of Earth's past -- the splitting of South America and Africa and the subsequent formation of the South Atlantic Ocean.
Published Marriage of synthetic biology and 3D printing produces programmable living materials
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists are harnessing cells to make new types of materials that can grow, repair themselves and even respond to their environment. These solid 'engineered living materials' are made by embedding cells in an inanimate matrix that's formed in a desired shape. Now, researchers have 3D printed a bioink containing plant cells that were then genetically modified, producing programmable materials. Applications could someday include biomanufacturing and sustainable construction.
Published Earth-like environment likely on ancient Mars
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A research team using the ChemCam instrument onboard NASA's Curiosity rover discovered higher-than-usual amounts of manganese in lakebed rocks within Gale Crater on Mars, which indicates that the sediments were formed in a river, delta, or near the shoreline of an ancient lake.
Published Revised dating of the Liujiang skeleton renews understanding of human occupation of China
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have provided new age estimates and revised provenance information for the Liujiang human fossils, shedding light on the presence of Homo sapiens in the region. Using advanced dating techniques including U-series dating on human fossils, and radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating on fossil-bearing sediments, the study revealed new ages ranging from approximately 33,000 to 23,000 years ago. Previously, studies had reported ages of up to 227,000 years of age for the skeleton.
Published Time zones and tiredness strongly influence NBA results, study of 25,000 matches shows
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The body clock has a significant impact on the performance of NBA players. Data shows vastly better win ratio for home teams from the Western Time Zone Area (PDT) when playing an EDT team, compared to vice versa.
Published Webb captures top of iconic horsehead nebula in unprecedented detail
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show the top of the 'horse's mane' or edge of this iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing the region's complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution.
Published Researchers parse oddity of distantly related bats in Solomon Islands that appear identical
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A study of body size in leaf-nosed bats of the Solomon Islands has revealed surprising genetic diversity among nearly indistinguishable species on different islands.
Published NASA's Webb maps weather on planet 280 light-years away
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have successfully used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b.
Published Trotting robots reveal emergence of animal gait transitions
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A four-legged robot trained with machine learning has learned to avoid falls by spontaneously switching between walking, trotting, and pronking -- a milestone for roboticists as well as biologists interested in animal locomotion.
Published The double-fanged adolescence of saber-toothed cats
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source How did North America's saber-toothed cats hunt without breaking their unwieldy saber-like canines, which are vulnerable to sideways bending stresses? A paleontologist provides mechanical evidence that during adolescence, when young cats were learning to hunt, their baby teeth remained in place for up to 30 months to laterally buttress the emerging permanent sabers. By the time the baby teeth fell out, presumably the adult cat knew how to protect its sabers during attacks.
Published Fading lights: Multiple threats to North America's firefly populations
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have applied a data-driven approach to understanding firefly population dynamics on a continental scale. Key findings from this new study indicate that fireflies, part of the beetle order, are sensitive to various environmental factors, from short-term weather conditions to longer climatic trends, including the number of growing-degree days related to temperature accumulations.
Published Long snouts protect foxes when diving headfirst in snow
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source When hunting for mice in winter, red and arctic fox are known to plunge headfirst at speeds of 2-4 meters per second, but their sharp noses reduce the impact force in snow and protect them from injury, according to a new study.