ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Tidal forces gave moon its shape, according to new analysis
• Double Star with Weird and Wild Planet-forming Discs
• Dissolvable fabric loaded with medicine might offer faster protection against HIV
• Finding quantum lines of desire
• Dimly lit working environments: Correcting body clock is possible
• Nature inspires a greener way to make colorful plastics
• Exploring 3-D printing to make organs for transplants
• Climate extremes are here to stay: Expect more heat waves and cold snaps
• Fossils found in Siberia suggest all dinosaurs could have been feathered

Tidal forces gave moon its shape, according to new analysis Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:31 AM PDT The shape of the moon deviates from a simple sphere in ways that scientists have struggled to explain. A new study shows that most of the moon's overall shape can be explained by taking into account tidal effects acting early in the moon's history.

Double Star with Weird and Wild Planet-forming Discs Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:29 AM PDT Astronomers have found wildly misaligned planet-forming gas discs around the two young stars in the binary system HK Tauri. These new observations provide the clearest picture ever of protoplanetary discs in a double star. The new result also helps to explain why so many exoplanets — unlike the planets in the Solar System — came to have strange, eccentric or inclined orbits.

Dissolvable fabric loaded with medicine might offer faster protection against HIV Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:24 AM PDT Bioengineers have discovered a potentially faster way to deliver a topical drug that protects women from contracting HIV. Their method spins the drug into silk-like fibers that quickly dissolve when in contact with moisture, releasing higher doses of the drug than possible with other topical materials.

Finding quantum lines of desire Posted: 30 Jul 2014 10:24 AM PDT What paths do quantum particles, such as atoms or photons, follow through quantum state space? Scientists have used an "artificial atom" to continuously and repeatedly record the paths through quantum state space. From the cobweb of a million paths, a most likely path between two quantum states emerged, much as social trails emerge as people round off corners or cut across lawns between buildings.

Dimly lit working environments: Correcting body clock is possible Posted: 30 Jul 2014 09:02 AM PDT Researchers have, for the first time, conducted a study under real conditions on the body clocks of members of an international polar research station. The researchers have shown that a particular kind of artificial light is capable of ensuring that their biological rhythms are correctly synchronized despite the absence of sunlight.

Nature inspires a greener way to make colorful plastics Posted: 30 Jul 2014 07:41 AM PDT Long before humans figured out how to create colors, nature had already perfected the process -- think stunning, bright butterfly wings of many different hues, for example. Now scientists are tapping into those secrets to develop a more environmentally friendly way to make colored plastics. Their method uses structure -- or the shapes and architectures of materials -- rather than dyes, to produce colors.

Exploring 3-D printing to make organs for transplants Posted: 30 Jul 2014 07:41 AM PDT Printing whole new organs for transplants sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the real-life budding technology could one day make actual kidneys, livers, hearts and other organs for patients who desperately need them. Scientists are reporting new understanding about the dynamics of 3-D bioprinting that takes them a step closer to realizing their goal of making working tissues and organs on-demand.

Climate extremes are here to stay: Expect more heat waves and cold snaps Posted: 30 Jul 2014 06:40 AM PDT Researchers show how they've used advanced computational data science tools to demonstrate that despite global warming, we may still experience severe cold snaps due to increasing variability in temperature extremes.

Fossils found in Siberia suggest all dinosaurs could have been feathered Posted: 30 Jul 2014 02:05 AM PDT The first ever example of a plant-eating dinosaur with feathers and scales has been discovered in Russia. Previously only flesh-eating dinosaurs were known to have had feathers, so this new find raises the possibility that all dinosaurs could have been feathered.

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