ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Five-legged kangaroo? Telling the tale of a kangaroo's tail
• How do ants get around? Ultra-sensitive machines measure their every step
• Plants respond to leaf vibrations caused by insects' chewing
• New metamaterial gives light a one-way ticket
• Behind a marine creature's bright green fluorescent glow
• Muscle-powered bio-bots walk on command
• Tags reveal Chilean devil rays are among ocean's deepest divers
• Insect diet helped early humans build bigger brains: Quest for elusive bugs spurred primate tool use, problem-solving skills
• Weave a cell phone into your shirt? Engineers envision an electronic switch just three atoms thick

Five-legged kangaroo? Telling the tale of a kangaroo's tail Posted: 01 Jul 2014 04:33 PM PDT Kangaroos may be nature's best hoppers. But when they are grazing on all fours, which is most of the time, their tail becomes a powerful fifth leg, says a new study. It turns out that kangaroo tails provide as much propulsive force as their front and hind legs combined as they eat their way across the landscape.

How do ants get around? Ultra-sensitive machines measure their every step Posted: 01 Jul 2014 04:32 PM PDT How do ants manage to move so nimbly whilst coordinating three pairs of legs and a behind that weighs up to 60 percent of their body mass? Scientists have recently developed a device that may reveal the answer and could even help design micro-robots in the future. Researchers used an elastic polycarbonate material to produce a miniature force plate. Springs arranged at right angles to each other enabled forces to be measured across the plate in the micro-Newton range.

Plants respond to leaf vibrations caused by insects' chewing Posted: 01 Jul 2014 03:38 PM PDT Previous studies have suggested that plant growth can be influenced by sound and that plants respond to wind and touch. Now, researchers, in a collaboration that brings together audio and chemical analysis, have determined that plants respond to the sounds that caterpillars make when eating plants and that the plants respond with more defenses.

New metamaterial gives light a one-way ticket Posted: 01 Jul 2014 03:38 PM PDT Researchers have built a silver, glass and chromium nanostructure that can all but stop visible light cold in one direction while giving it a pass in the other. The device could someday play a role in optical information processing and in novel biosensing schemes.

Behind a marine creature's bright green fluorescent glow Posted: 01 Jul 2014 02:01 PM PDT Probing the mysterious glow of light produced naturally by animals, scientists have deciphered the structural components related to fluorescence brightness in the primitive sea creature known as amphioxus. The study carries implications for a variety of industries looking to maximize brightness of natural fluorescence, including applications in biotechnology such as adapting fluorescence for biomedical protein tracers and tracking gene expression in the human body.

Muscle-powered bio-bots walk on command Posted: 01 Jul 2014 11:28 AM PDT A new generation of miniature biological robots is flexing its muscle. Engineers have demonstrated a class of walking 'bio-bots' powered by muscle cells and controlled with electrical pulses, giving researchers unprecedented command over their function.

Tags reveal Chilean devil rays are among ocean's deepest divers Posted: 01 Jul 2014 11:28 AM PDT Thought to dwell mostly near the ocean's surface, Chilean devil rays (Mobula tarapacana) are most often seen gliding through shallow, warm waters. But a new study reveals that these large and majestic creatures are actually among the deepest-diving ocean animals.

Insect diet helped early humans build bigger brains: Quest for elusive bugs spurred primate tool use, problem-solving skills Posted: 01 Jul 2014 11:01 AM PDT Figuring out how to survive on a lean-season diet of hard-to-reach ants, slugs and other bugs may have spurred the development of bigger brains and higher-level cognitive functions in the ancestors of humans and other primates, suggests new research.

Weave a cell phone into your shirt? Engineers envision an electronic switch just three atoms thick Posted: 01 Jul 2014 06:20 AM PDT Researchers believe they've discovered a crystal that can form a monolayer three atoms thick. Computer simulations show that this crystal, molybdenum ditelluride, can act like a switch: its crystal lattice can be mechanically pulled and pushed, back and forth, between two different atomic structures -- one that conducts electricity well, the other that does not. The team hopes experimental scientists will make this semiconductor crystal and use it to fashion flexible electronics.

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