Say What?
- Animals
‘Bag of chips effect’ helps bats find a meal
Bats get a clue to where dinner is by listening to peers attacking prey.
- Health & Medicine
Sleep drunkenness might be common
A new survey shows that about 15 percent of people sometimes wake up disoriented and confused, a condition called sleep drunkenness.
- Planetary Science
To explain asteroid composition, scientists invoke nuts
Brazil nut effect may explain why only large boulders dot surfaces of asteroids.
- Psychology
Vocal fry
At the lowest registers of the human voice, a creaky, popping sound known as vocal fry emerges.
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- Plants
Kleptoplast
A cellular part such as a light-harvesting chloroplast that an organism takes from algae it has eaten.
- Earth
Cryovolcano
An ice volcano that erupts slurries of volatile compounds such as water or methane instead of lava.
By Erin Wayman - Plants
Tannosome
A newly discovered structure where mouth-puckering compounds called tannins form inside plant cells.
By Susan Milius - Materials Science
Qingsongite
This newly christened mineral has an atomic structure that’s similar to diamond and nearly as hard.
- Planetary Science
Shergottite SHER-goh-tite n.
Shergottite is the most common kind of Martian meteorite.