ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Zombie ant fungi 'know' brains of their hosts
• Yellow pigment in eye may aid vision through haze
• Promise in automated reasoning, hypothesis generation over complete medical literature
• Expectant parents' play with doll predicts later parenting behavior
• Scientists grow an organ in an animal from cells created in lab
• Deploying exosomes to win a battle of the sexes
• 'Robo Brain' will teach robots everything from the Internet
• Driving brain rhythm makes mice more sensitive to touch
• In our digital world, are young people losing the ability to read emotions?
• Playing hunger games: Are gamified health apps putting odds in your favor?
• 'Suicide tourism' to Switzerland has doubled within four years
• Pica in pregnant teens linked to low iron

Zombie ant fungi 'know' brains of their hosts Posted: 25 Aug 2014 11:21 AM PDT A parasitic fungus that reproduces by manipulating the behavior of ants emits a cocktail of behavior-controlling chemicals when encountering the brain of its natural target host, but not when infecting other ant species, a new study shows. The findings, which suggest that the fungus "knows" its preferred host, provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, according to researchers.

Yellow pigment in eye may aid vision through haze Posted: 25 Aug 2014 09:33 AM PDT Individuals with greater amounts of yellow pigment in the eye may be better able to see distant objects in hazy conditions, suggests a study. Increased macular pigment (MP) may help in filtering out "blue haze," thus making distant objects more visible, researchers say.

Promise in automated reasoning, hypothesis generation over complete medical literature Posted: 25 Aug 2014 08:50 AM PDT With approximately 50 million scientific papers available in public databases -- and a new one publishing nearly every 30 seconds -- scientists cannot know about every relevant study when they are deciding where to take their research next. A new tool in development by computational biologists and analytics experts tested as a 'proof-of-principle' may one day help researchers mine all public medical literature and formulate hypotheses that promise the greatest reward when pursuing new scientific studies.

Expectant parents' play with doll predicts later parenting behavior Posted: 25 Aug 2014 08:50 AM PDT Having expectant parents role-play interacting with an infant using a doll can help predict which couples may be headed for co-parenting conflicts when their baby arrives. Results showed that couples acted similarly toward each other with the real baby as they did with the doll -- in both positive and negative ways.

Scientists grow an organ in an animal from cells created in lab Posted: 25 Aug 2014 07:00 AM PDT Scientists have grown a fully functional organ from transplanted laboratory-created cells in a living animal for the first time. The researchers have created a thymus -- an organ next to the heart that produces immune cells known as T cells that are vital for guarding against disease.

Deploying exosomes to win a battle of the sexes Posted: 25 Aug 2014 06:58 AM PDT A study provides further detail into how male fruit flies deploy exosomes to alter the mating behavior of females. The findings also identify a signaling pathway that might play a role in human cancers of tissues that secrete exosomes, such as the prostate and breast.

'Robo Brain' will teach robots everything from the Internet Posted: 25 Aug 2014 05:49 AM PDT Robo Brain -- a large-scale computational system that learns from publicly available Internet resources -- is currently downloading and processing about 1 billion images, 120,000 YouTube videos, and 100 million how-to documents and appliance manuals. The information is being translated and stored in a robot-friendly format that robots will be able to draw on when they need it.

Driving brain rhythm makes mice more sensitive to touch Posted: 24 Aug 2014 12:23 PM PDT In a new study researchers show that they could make faint sensations more vivid by triggering a brain rhythm that appears to shift sensory attention. The study in mice provides the first direct evidence that the brain's 'gamma' rhythms have a causal role in processing the sense of touch.

In our digital world, are young people losing the ability to read emotions? Posted: 22 Aug 2014 06:42 AM PDT Are young people losing the ability to read emotions in our digital world? Scientists report that sixth-graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or other screen did substantially better at reading emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who, as usual, spent hours each day looking at their smartphones and other screens.

Playing hunger games: Are gamified health apps putting odds in your favor? Posted: 22 Aug 2014 05:42 AM PDT For many people, finding motivation to exercise is a challenge. Thankfully, there are Zombies chasing you. At least that's the approach of Zombies, Run! -- one of more than 31,000 health and fitness apps on the market today, and one of the growing number of apps that use games to increase physical activity. Gamification is currently the popular trend for mobile fitness apps, but whether or not it's the best way to exercise remains to be seen.

'Suicide tourism' to Switzerland has doubled within four years Posted: 21 Aug 2014 06:06 AM PDT The numbers of 'suicide tourists' going to Switzerland to take their own lives has doubled within the space of four years, reports a study. In all, residents from 31 different countries were helped to die in Switzerland between 2008 and 2012, with German (268) and UK (126) nationals making up almost two thirds of the total. Other countries in the top 10 included France (66), Italy (44), USA (21), Austria (14), Canada (12), Spain and Israel (each with 8).

Pica in pregnant teens linked to low iron Posted: 20 Aug 2014 01:40 PM PDT In a study of 158 pregnant teenagers in Rochester, NY, nearly half engaged in pica -- the craving and intentional consumption of ice, cornstarch, vacuum dust, baby powder and soap, and other nonfood items, reports a new study. Moreover, such teens had significantly lower iron levels as compared with teens who did not eat nonfood substances.

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