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Archive for the ‘Science news’ Category

Supergiant amphipods were discovered over 4 miles deep in Kermadec Trench, north of New Zealand, by scientists from the University of Aberdeen and the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA), who led a joint UK/New Zealand expedition to the area.

Amphipods are a type of crustacean which are particularly common in the deep sea. Typically deep sea amphipods are 2 to 3 centimeters long with the exception of the slightly larger 'giant' amphipod found in Antarctica. The 28cm to 34cm long (about one foot long) supergiants dwarf the Antarctic giant and are about ten times the size of regular-sized amphipods.

Voyage leader Alan Jamieson, from the University of Aberdeen, says, "At the moment the traps came on deck we were elated at the sight of the snailfish as we have been after these fish for years. However, seconds later I stopped and thought 'what on earth is that?' whilst catching a glimpse of an amphipod far bigger than I ever thought possible."

Take a look:



Photo: Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen, UK

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are studying butterfly's flight patterns with high-resolution cameras. Information used from the research - funded by U.S. defense agencies - will be used to make better micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) for reconnaissance and other missions. An insect-inspired flapping-wing MAV under development at Harvard University is pictured above.

Butterflies move much too quickly for someone to see butterly wing tactics clearly with the naked eye, so Tiras Lin, a Whiting School of Engineering undergraduate, working with graduate student Lingxiao Zheng, used high-speed, high-resolution videogrammetry to mathematically document the trajectory and body conformation of painted lady butterflies. They accomplished this with three video cameras capable of recording 3,000 one-megapixel images per second.

Take a look:



Photo: Robert J. Wood, associate professor, and Pratheev Sreetharan, Microrobotics Lab, Harvard University

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NASA's GRAIL mission has shared its first video recording of the far side of the Moon. The south pole of the far side of the Moon is pictured above. The imagery was taken on Jan. 19 by the MoonKAM aboard the mission's Ebb spacecraft. The twin GRAIL satellites were recently named Ebb and Flow by fourth graders. Take a look:



Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Here is a video of buzzing nano quadrotors swarming together and flying in formation. The little quadrotors were developed by KMel Robotics. The GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania show how they were able to get the little quadrotors to work together, fly in formation and even navigate obstacles. Take a look:



(via PopSci)

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The Guardian reports that researchers recorded the brain activity of volunteers while they were listening to audio of spoken words. The volunteers were current epilepsy patients that were already in the hospital for an operation that involves removing the top of the skull. The researchers were able to place electrodes directly onto the brains of the patients for the experiment.

A software program created by the researchers was then used to translate the recorded brain activity back into words. The program was able to decipher some of the words the volunteers had heard. This included the words "Waldo," doubt" and "property."

Brian Pasley, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and lead author of the study, told ABC News, "As you listen to a sound, it activates certain parts of the auditory cortex of your brain. We're interested in how the brain converts sound into meaning, so we looked at an early step in a long process."

The technology could pave the way for a device that could help people communicate for coma patients. It may also be a step towards a dream recording device or an intrusive way to record people's thoughts, but so far the technology is only able to translate the brain activity that resulted from someone directly hearing a word. The brain activity that occurs when someone spontaneously thinks of a word could be very different than the brain activity that occurs when someone hears a word. The brain activity may even vary from person to person, which would make translating a person's thoughts into words an extraordinary complex task.

Take a look:



The research was published here in PLoS Biology.

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NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the edge of the Endeavour Crater on Mars. The crater will give NASA to study rocks that have never been examined before. It took Opportunity three years to get to the crater after traveling nearly 13 miles. The crater is 14 miles in diameter. The west rim of the crater is pictured above. You can see a larger image here.

NASA project manager John Callas says, "We are interested in Endeavor crater because we see in its rim evidence of clay minerals. Clay minerals are a class of mineral that form in neutral Ph water. This is very exciting from the possibility of Mars at one time being a habitable planet."

Take a looK:





Photos: NASA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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Here is an incredibly creepy video from Animal Planet about a family that was forced to abandon their home due to a massive tick infestation. The family initially thought the ticks were coming from their dogs, but they were wrong. The ticks were coming from the walls of the house. The house was filled with ticks. The ticks were identified as Rhipicephalus sanguineus Latreille, known as the brown dog tick. The University of Florida Department of Entomoloy says the tick is unusual in that it can complete its entire life cycle indoors. The ticks are known for explosive infestations in homes. The first sign of an infestation may be ticks seen crawling up a wall or curtain.

Exterminators tried to get rid of the ticks, but when the family returned to the house it was filled with even more ticks. It is pretty clear why the people finally decided to abandon this home. Take a look:



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