Cool Science: Check out what we found for you this week - the breath of ancient life, dark matter discovered, dream-reading computers and so much more.
10. Computers see people's dreams
A computer can predict what you're dreaming about based on brain wave activity, new research suggests.
By measuring people's brain activity during waking moments, researchers were able to pick out the signatures of specific dream imagery - such as keys or a bed - while the dreamer was asleep.
9. Dark matter possibly found
A massive particle detector mounted on the International Space Station may have detected elusive dark matter at last, scientists announced today (April 3).
The detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), measures cosmic-ray particles in space. After detecting billions of these particles over a year and a half, the experiment recorded a signal that may be the result of dark matter, the hidden substance that makes up more than 80 percent of all matter in the universe.
8. Near-death experiences more vivid than real life
Long after a near-death experience, people recall the incident more vividly and emotionally than real and false memories, new research suggests.
"It's really something that stays in the mind of people as a clear trace, and it's even more clear than a real memory," said Vanessa Charland-Verville, a neuropsychologist in the Coma Science Group at the University of Liege in Belgium. She, along with colleagues, detailed the study online March 27 in the journal PLOS ONE.
7. Sun's heartbeat revealed
A magnetic "solar heartbeat" beats deep in the sun's interior, generating energy that leads to solar flares and sunspots, according to new research.
A new supercomputer simulation, described in the April 4 edition of the journal Science, probes the sun's periodic magnetic field reversals. Every 40 years, according to the model, the sun's zonal magnetic field bands switch their orientation, or polarity.
6. Ancient life breathes rocket fuel
An ancient form of life can use an ingredient in rocket fuel for energy, suggesting creatures with this odd ability are more diverse than anyone thought.
The new discovery might offer insight into the history of life on the early Earth, and the evolution of metabolisms like ours that use reactive chemicals like oxygen.
5. Bats caught in act of oral sex
Credit: Maruthupandian J, Marimuthu G (2013) Cunnilingus Apparently Increases Duration of Copulation
in the Indian Flying Fox, Pteropus giganteus. PLoS ONE 8(3): e59743.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059743
in the Indian Flying Fox, Pteropus giganteus. PLoS ONE 8(3): e59743.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059743
Male bats perform oral sex on females, apparently to make sex last longer, researchers say.
These findings, the first discovery of male-to-female oral sex in bats, match prior studies revealing that female bats perform fellatio, or oral sex, on male bats.
4. How North America was created
It's time to redraw the map of the world during the reign of the dinosaurs, two scientists say.
Picture the U.S. West Coast as a tortured tectonic boundary, similar to Australia and Southeast Asia today. Erase the giant subduction zone researchers have long nestled against western North America. Drop a vast archipelago into the ancient Panthalassa Ocean, usually drawn as an empty void, the kind on which medieval mapmakers would have depicted fantastical beasts.
3. Pluto's 'Gate to Hell' found
A “gate to hell” has emerged from ruins in southwestern Turkey, Italian archaeologists have announced.
Known as Pluto's Gate - Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin - the cave was celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition.
2. Dancing sea lion keeps a beat
Though dancing may come naturally to (some) humans, it doesn't quite have a parallel in the animal kingdom. Now, a California sea lion named Ronan may be the first non-human mammal to bop to the rhythm of a song.
After being trained to bob her head to some simple tracks, Ronan showed she could pick up the beat of songs she hadn't heard before, like the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody" and Earth Wind & Fire's "Boogie Wonderland." Ronan's remarkable ability challenges the assumption that only animals with a capacity for complex vocal learning - such as humans and some birds - can keep a beat.
1. Sleep disorder makes people see 'demons'
Credit: Carla MacKinnon
When filmmaker Carla MacKinnon started waking up several times a week unable to move, with the sense that a disturbing presence was in the room with her, she didn't call up her local ghost hunter. She got researching.
Now, that research is becoming a short film and multiplatform art project exploring the strange and spooky phenomenon of sleep paralysis. The film, supported by the Wellcome Trust and set to screen at the Royal College of Arts in London, will debut in May.
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