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The telepathic cyborg lives, sort of. University of Washington scientists Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco claim that they are the first to demonstrate human brain-to-brain communication. Rao sent a signal into a Stocco's brain via the Internet that caused him to move his right hand.

Amazing what evolution can lead to!

see my post from the 12th below Interacting Gears Synchronize Propulsive Leg Movements in a Jumping Insect http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6151/1254

2nd find within a year of unknown lifeforms. 23% unknown DNA.

New method could help to reconnect injured organs or build functional human tissues from the ground up

not even gears are a human invention it seems ... Gears are found rarely in animals and have never been reported to intermesh and rotate functionally like mechanical gears. We now demonstrate functional gears in the ballistic jumping movements of the flightless planthopper insect Issus. The nymphs, but not adults, have a row of cuticular gear (cog) teeth around the curved medial surfaces of their two hindleg trochantera. The gear teeth on one trochanter engaged with and sequentially moved past those on the other trochanter during the preparatory cocking and the propulsive phases of jumping. Close registration between the gears ensured that both hindlegs moved at the same angular velocities to propel the body without yaw rotation. At the final molt to adulthood, this synchronization mechanism is jettisoned.

This December, NASA plans to launch a set of packs, filled with a material akin to kitty litter, functioning as planters for six romaine lettuce plants. The lettuce will be grown under bright-pink LED lights, ready to harvest after just 28 days. Once harvested, it will be frozen and stored away for testing back on Earth. No one is allowed to eat anything before the plants are thoroughly vetted for cosmic microbes.

"Horsetail plant spores use 'legs' to walk and jump!"

The reason why butterflies do not get wet wings.

This is seriously scary. Basically the only thing that hospitals could still help you with are broken arms and alcohol poisoning... :-\

And the scary part is antibiotics use for human medicine is dwarfed by antibiotics use in livestock, at least in most countries I think.

Engineering and improving great tits so they can better withstand climate change. By selectively breeding and genetically engineering the birds scientists try to keep the time when the birds produce offspring in sync with the changing availability of food sources in spring (mainly grubs).

Get well, Tom! We urgently need you back.

thanx it is strange, they keep saying they have this synthetic spider silk but there is absolutely no mention of the actual properties of the thing...for a few years now... And I remember we have tested some, way back and it was really bad.

An ant raft stays on top of the water surface even when it is hardly pressed by a branch -- showing water repellency and buoyancy. What do Jell-O, toothpaste, and floating fire-ant rafts have in common?

It's a strategy the ants actually actively exploit in the wild: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A042J0IDQK4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r04kAnzgjR4

somebody showed such videos some years ago in one of our talks on swarm cooperation ... probably Tobias? or P. Dario? ... still impressive indeed

Droplets already bounce off water-repellent surfaces, but scientists have engineered materials that speed up the bounce to repel water faster. Even the brief contact time between a surface and a droplet that bounces off it can allow water to freeze or collect on the surface and cause damage.

This sort of reminds me of that Festo robot thing. Except this one was more of a baloon type model: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVf9QY_TFs

First paper I know of that seems to confirm what we see with our daughters since they are born ... Would this also be observable with astronauts? We should have some data from the ISS it seems to me...

Scientists inch closer to building a drug-delivering nanorobot

Some sort of organic carbon has been detected by the sampling of Curiosity; the contamination source was isolated and the signal persists. The scientists suggest as a source meteorites transporting interstellar matter, or maybe some sort of ancient life whose biomass production only survived cosmic radiation as it was buried underground. a big deal: six relevant articles were published simultaneously online: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/extra/curiosity/index.xhtml?utm_content=&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=Science&utm_source=shortener

bacteria apparently specialised in space clean rooms ...

I'm trying to read the abstract, but I simply can't manage...

it seems that there are indications that we are differently wired .... Sex differences in human behavior show adaptive complementarity: Males have better motor and spatial abilities, whereas females have superior memory and social cognition skills. Studies also show sex differences in human brains but do not explain this complementarity. In this work, we modeled the structural connectome using diffusion tensor imaging in a sample of 949 youths (aged 8-22 y, 428 males and 521 females) and discovered unique sex differences in brain connectivity during the course of development. Connection-wise statistical analysis, as well as analysis of regional and global network measures, presented a comprehensive description of network characteristics. In all supratentorial regions, males had greater within-hemispheric connectivity, as well as enhanced modularity and transitivity, whereas between-hemispheric connectivity and cross-module participation predominated in females. However, this effect was reversed in the cerebellar connections. Analysis of these changes developmentally demonstrated differences in trajectory between males and females mainly in adolescence and in adulthood. Overall, the results suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.

I like this abstract: sex, sex, sex, sex, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX...!!! I wonder if the "sex differences" are related to gender-specific differences...