ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

Astronomers have discovered two previously invisible galaxies 29 billion light-years away. Their discovery suggests that up to one in five such distant galaxies remain hidden from our telescopes, camouflaged by cosmic dust. The new knowledge changes perceptions of our universe's evolution since the Big Bang.

A white dwarf star that completes a full rotation once every 25 seconds is the fastest spinning confirmed white dwarf, according to a team of astronomers.

It sounds like modern-day alchemy: Transforming sugar into hydrocarbons found in gasoline. But that's exactly what scientists have done. Researchers report harnessing the wonders of biology and chemistry to turn glucose (a type of sugar) into olefins (a type of hydrocarbon, and one of several types of molecules that make up gasoline).

For people with serious bacterial infections, antibiotics can be life-saving drugs. But they can also cause collateral damage to the complex microbial community that breaks down food and maintains health in the gut. And not just in people. A new study in lemurs shows that an ancient if gross-sounding treatment can help hasten recovery and get the gut microbiome back to normal.

Scientists have used mouse brains to demonstrate a new neural-optic system to manipulate memories. The technique hinders nerve activity -- known as long-term potentiation or LTP -- which would otherwise consolidate memory during sleep. The research team illuminates mouse brains to inhibit cofilin, a protein essential for LTP. When the specific areas of the brain are irradiated twice, once immediately after the mouse learns a task and then again during sleep after learning, memory is erased.