“Are these planets without orbits? Astronomers have found 10 potential planets as massive as Jupiter wandering through a slice of the Milky Way galaxy, following either very wide orbits or no orbit at all. And scientists think they are more common than the stars. These mysterious bodies, apparently gaseous balls like the largest planets in our solar system, may help scientists understand how planets form. “They’re finding evidence for a lot of pretty big planets,” said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who wasn’t involved in the research. If they orbit stars, their sheer number suggests every star in the galaxy has one or two of them, “which is astounding” because that’s five or 10 times the number of stars scientists had thought harbored such gas-giant planets, he said. And if instead they are wandering free, that “would be really stunning” because it’s hard to explain how they formed, he said. If that’s the case, it would give a boost to some theories that say planets can be thrown out of orbit during formation, said Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, another outside expert.” w/ photos

“A parasitic wasp has injected her eggs into a caterpillar — and now they’re ready to hatch.” — N.G

“Some planets are just flipping backward. Of the more than 500 planets detected around stars besides our Sun, the vast majority appear to spin the same way the star does, scientists reported in the journal Nature. But some of these extrasolar planets spin in the opposite direction of the stars they orbit, astronomers found. These strange, backward-spinning planets are usually gassy giants called hot Jupiters, not rocky orbs like Earth. Besides their backwards twirling, which the astronomers call flipped orbits, these big planets huddle close to their stars, unlike Jupiter, which is about 483 million miles from the Sun, more than five times as distant from the Sun as Earth. “That’s really weird, and it’s even weirder because the planet is so close to the star,” Frederic Rasio of Northwestern University said in a statement. “How can one be spinning one way and the other orbiting exactly the other way? It’s crazy. It so obviously violates our most basic picture of planet and star formation.” Astronomers have long theorized that big gas planets form further away from their stars, while Earth-like rocks are born closer in. But just because a Jupiter-like planet forms in the planetary boondocks doesn’t mean it stays there, Rasio and his colleagues reported.” w/ photos

“Today I found out why fingers wrinkle in water. For the quick answer, water washes away an oily substance that protects your skin. When that happens, a certain type of dead cell on your skin will absorb the water causing the cells to swell up, but the layer underneath does not. So the swelling, combined with the places the skin is connected underneath to the non-swelled layer, causes your finger tips to look all wrinkly.” w/ photo

“Here’s another doozy: Phantom Recorder, a contraption that amputees could conceivably use to “record and keep their phantom [limb] sensation, to be awoken on request.” It may look like a bong from Woody Allen’s Sleeper, but the idea is certainly intriguing. Before you scoff at the concept, consider that (as usual) Cohen has grounded her fanciful design in a firm bedrock of facts. She created Phantom Recorder in collaboration with scientists from The Cambridge Center for Brain Repair, “in response in response to the implant they are developing – a regenerative peripheral nerve interface,” she tells Co.Design. “They experiment with the implant prototype, [but] I would obviously not be allowed to, and I was working out my concept through discussions with the team based on their experiments.” Cohen’s concept is based on the increasingly un-out-there idea of brain/machine interfaces, in which the human nervous system is directly linked in a feedback loop with an electronic device. The scientists who inspired Cohen developed an implant that will let nerves associated with a missing limb re-grow onto terminals which can register their electrical activity and control assistive devices or prosthetics.” w/ photos + video

“As long as people have wanted to piss off their parents be part of a social group, there have been tattoos. Part of the human condition for over 5,000 years, tattoo tools have come in variety of shapes and sizes. However, they all share one trait.” w/ photos

“Researchers at South Korea’s Rural Development Administration are looking at developing a ‘Kiss Apple’, which can freshen breath before a romantic encounter, Reuters reported. The tiny ping-pong-ball-sized fruit is designed to be kept in the pocket and eaten just before people lock lips, although there are those questioning whether this will ruin the moment or not. Hwang Hye-sung, a researcher at the Rural Development Administration, described the apple as a ‘do-it-yourself bad breath treatment’. ‘We want young people to eat many apples and came up with the idea of portable apples for your bags,’ the scientist said. ‘We can mass produce the species with stronger functions that control food odors in as few as two years.” w/ photo

“Obesity is contagious – with people who have a higher number of fat friends or relatives at greater risk of becoming obese themselves, new research warns. And while standing beside a fat pal has long been regarded as a way of looking good in pictures, the new findings could spell the end of fat-thin friendships. Researchers have found a number of ways that fat people could influence their pals’ girth. It can be subliminal – where having overweight pals can make people see their weight as ‘normal’ and eat accordingly until they’re the same size. It can also be more direct, with obese people putting pressure on their slimmer friends to eat more and exercise less until they ‘achieve the same body size’. And even being around larger pals can put you at risk of gaining weight yourself, as socialising with them is likely to revolve more around eating or watching TV and less about exercising or engaging in energetic activity.” w/ photo

“For years, doctors have been telling us that too much salt is bad for us. Until now.
A study claims that cutting down on salt can actually increase the risk of dying from a heart attack or a stroke. The research has left nutritionists scratching their heads. Its findings indicate that those who eat the least sodium – about one teaspoon a day – don’t show any health advantage over those who eat the most. In fact, those with less salty diets  actually had slightly higher death rates from heart disease. The study, which followed 3,681 healthy European men and women aged 60 or younger, for about eight years, also found that above-average salt intake did not appear to increase the danger of developing high blood pressure.” w/ photo

“Spectacular sequence of woman’s immune system killing sperm in cervix from episode one of Inside the Human Body.” — BBC