The odd, long-life of brain cells, telepathic rats and a trip for two to Mars top the cool stories brought to us in Science this week. Check these out.
10. Ancient Romans ate like animals
Ancient Romans are known for eating well, with mosaics from the empire portraying sumptuous displays of fruits, vegetables, cakes - and, of course, wine. But the 98 percent of Romans who were non-elite and whose feasts weren't preserved in art may have been stuck eating birdseed.
Common people in ancient Rome ate millet, a grain looked down upon by the wealthy as fit only for livestock, according to a new study published in the March issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. And consumption of millet may have been linked to overall social status, with relatively poorer suburbanites eating more of the grain than did wealthier city dwellers.
9. Pessimists may live longer
Low expectations for a happy future might actually propel you into old age.
Compared with their counterparts with a sunnier outlook, older Germans who are more pessimistic tend to live longer, healthier lives, a group of researchers found.
8. Telepathic rats?
Scientists have engineered something close to a mind meld in a pair of lab rats, linking the animals' brains electronically so that they could work together to solve a puzzle. And this brain-to-brain connection stayed strong even when the rats were 2,000 miles apart.
The experiments were undertaken by Duke neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis, who is best known for his work in making mind-controlled prosthetics.
7. Nut-cracking monkeys show off
Nut-cracking monkeys don't just use tools. They use tools with skill.
That's the conclusion of a new study that finds similar tool-use strategies between humans and Brazil's bearded capuchin monkeys, which use rocks to smash nuts for snacks. Both monkeys and humans given the nut-smashing task take the time to place the nuts in their most stable position on a stone "anvil," the study found, keeping the tasty morsels from rolling away.
6. Wanted: Married couple for Mars trip
A new non-profit led by the world's first space tourist is mounting an ambitious plan to launch the first manned mission to Mars in 2018, a voyage that could include an adventurous married crew.
The project, led by American millionaire Dennis Tito - who paid his own way to space in 2001 - aims not to land people on the surface of the Red Planet, but to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment that would allow a relatively easy, quick flyby of Mars.
5. Saw-tooth shark
An ancient sea predator had a spiralling whorl of teeth that acted as a lethal slicing tool, according to new scans of a mysterious fossil.
Helicoprion was a bizarre creature that went extinct some 225 million years ago. Like modern-day sharks, Helicoprion had cartilaginous bones rather than calcified ones, so the only traces it left in the fossil record were weird, whorl-like spirals of teeth that look quite unlike anything sharks sport today.
4. Brain cells can outlive body
Credit: iDesign, Shutterstock
Brain cells can live at least twice as long as the organisms in which they reside, according to new research.
The study, published today (Feb. 25) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that mouse neurons, or brain cells, implanted into rats can survive with the rats into old age, twice as long as the life span of the original mice.
3. When Iliad was published
Scientists who decode the genetic history of humans by tracking how genes mutate have applied the same technique to one of the Western world's most ancient and celebrated texts to uncover the date it was first written.
The text is Homer's "Iliad," and Homer - if there was such a person - probably wrote it in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years, the researchers found. The "Iliad" tells the story of the Trojan War - if there was such a war - with Greeks battling Trojans.
2. Ancient shoes turn up in temple
More than 2,000 years ago, at a time when Egypt was ruled by a dynasty of kings of Greek descent, someone, perhaps a group of people, hid away some of the most valuable possessions they had - their shoes.
Seven shoes were deposited in a jar in an Egyptian temple in Luxor, three pairs and a single one. Two pairs were originally worn by children and were only about 7 inches (18 centimetres) long. Using palm fibre string, the child shoes were tied together within the single shoe (it was larger and meant for an adult) and put in the jar. Another pair of shoes, more than 9 inches (24 cm) long that had been worn by a limping adult, was also inserted in the jar.
1. Bones of Cleopatra's sister?
Credit: Adam Carr, distributed by Wikimedia under a Creative Commons License
A Viennese archaeologist lecturing in North Carolina this week claims to have identified the bones of Cleopatra's murdered sister or half-sister. But not everyone is convinced.
That's because the evidence linking the bones, discovered in an ancient Greek city, to Cleopatra's sibling Arsinoe IV is largely circumstantial. A DNA test was attempted, said Hilke Thur, an archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a former director of excavations at the site where the bones were found. However, the 2,000-year-old bones had been moved and handled too many times to get uncontaminated results.
