ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

Nearly 15 years after the discovery of fast radio bursts (FRBs), the origin of the millisecond-long, deep-space cosmic explosions remains a mystery.  That may soon change, thanks to the work of an international team of scientists which tracked hundreds of the bursts from five different sources and found clues in FRB polarization patterns that may reveal their origin.

Researchers have discovered a new form of ice, redefining the properties of water at high pressures.

Researchers show that the earliest jaws in the fossil record were caught in a trade-off between maximizing their strength and their speed.

Researchers have developed a way to make lightweight fibers, for possible use in the bodies of cars, out of an ultracheap feedstock: the waste material from the refining of petroleum.

An international team provides new insights about how the inhabitants of the 'oldest city in the world' in Çatalhöyük (Turkey) buried their dead. Their bones were partially painted, excavated several times and reburied. The findings provide insight into the burial rituals of a fascinating society that lived 9000 years ago.

Humans are usually pretty good at recognizing when they get things wrong, but artificial intelligence systems are not. According to a new study, AI generally suffers from inherent limitations due to a century-old mathematical paradox.

Researchers have genetically engineered a microbial encapsulation system for therapeutic bacteria that can hide them from immune systems, enabling them to reach tumors more effectively and kill cancer cells in mice.

Researchers propose using the variations in distance between the Earth and the Moon, which can be measured with a precision of less than a centimeter, as a new gravitational wave detector within a frequency range that current devices cannot detect. The research could pave the way for the detection of signals from the early universe.

New research has discovered that monkeys use play to avoid conflict and reduce group tension. The study found that adult howler monkeys spend more time playing with other adults, rather than juveniles. And rather than being associated with fun or education, play increases when howler monkeys are foraging for fruit, which is a highly prized resource that generates competition.

In what they call surprise findings, scientists report that -- unlike fruit flies -- mosquitoes' odor sensing nerve cells shut down when those cells are forced to produce odor-related proteins, or receptors, on the surface of the cell. This 'expression' process apparently makes the bugs able to ignore common insect repellents.

The difference between a social butterfly and a lone wolf is actually at least eight differences, according to new findings by a team of brain researchers. By simultaneously spying on the electrical activity of several brain regions, researchers can both identify how social or solitary an individual mouse is, and, by zapping nodes within this social brain network, can prompt mice to be even more gregarious.