Lab notes: all mouth (but no anus) - a gobby week for science

It looks like a hell-beast from the depth of Lovecraft ’s imagination, but this creature with itshuge mouth and no anus this could be our earliest known ancestor. Thought to have lived 540 million years ago, the discovery ofSaccorhytus coronarious fossils sheds light on the early stages of evolution. And if you need more nighttime fear-fuel, how about contemplatingwhat makes a frog ’s tongue a near inescapable trap. Apparently frog saliva has special properties: it switches between being thin and watery as the whip-like tongue hits its target, to thick and sticky as the insect is reeled in. Yum. But if understanding frog tongues doesn ’t seem like a big deal, here’s something that definitely is. A groundbreaking “brain reading” system hasallowed patients with completely locked-in syndrome to communicate for the first time in years. Patients paralysed by ALS were able to answer “yes” or “no” – and told doctors they are happy with life. Far out, right? And speaking of which, have you seenthese amazing pics of Saturn ’s rings? The new images from Nasa ’s Cassini spacecraft are the most detailed ever taken and raise the possibility that the rings could contain millions of “moonlets”. And if that doesn’t blow your mind, there’s news about our home galaxy too. It is known that the Milky Way is being pulled through space, but cosmologists s uspected it was being pushed as well. New research points to acosmic dead zone that might be providing that pu...

Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - February 3, 2017 Category: Science Authors: Tash Reith-Banks Tags: Science Source Type: news