ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

After the Big Bang came the earliest galaxies. Due to the expansion of the universe, these galaxies are receding away from us. This causes their emissions to be redshifted (shifted towards longer wavelengths). By studying these redshifts, it is possible to characterize the 'motion' within the galaxies as well as their distance. In a new study, astronomers have now revealed a likely rotational motion of one such distant galaxy.

A research team develops a sound-sensing skin-attachable acoustic sensor. The new sensor decreased in size and increased in flexibility and is applicable as auditory electronic skin.

Using pickled snakes collected decades ago and stored in an underground bunker of collections, scientists have found ways to get DNA samples from specimens previously considered near-impossible to get genetic data from. They used that DNA to solve a long-standing mystery about which family an elusive snake from the island of Borneo belongs to.

Researchers studying ancient sea bed burrows and trails have discovered that bottom burrowing animals were among the first to bounce back after the end-Permian mass extinction.

Microorganisms in aquifers deep below the earth's surface produce similar amounts of biomass as those in some marine waters. Applying a unique, ultra-sensitive measurement method using radioactive carbon, they were able to demonstrate for the first time that these biotic communities in absolute darkness do not depend on sunlight. Instead, they can obtain energy autonomously from rock oxidation or from compounds transported into the deep.

Australian palaeontologists have described a new genus of giant fossil kangaroo from the mountains of central Papua New Guinea. The new description of the fossil kangaroo has found that, rather than being closely related to Australian kangaroos, it most likely belongs to a unique genus of more primitive kangaroo found only in PNG.