SCIENCE LAB SCENICS

 

1.- Bludgeoning its way through the water.

People joke about asking horses, ''Why the long face?'' We should redirect the question to hammerhead sharks.

Their head extensions, called Cephalfoils, can measure three feet from eye to eye. And scientists are still trying nail down exactly what purpose they serve.

A new study has explored how the sharks strangely shaped craniums affect the way they swim. 

Although the Cephalofoil helped with maneuverability, it did not seem to generate lift. In fact it added a lot of drag - so much that hummerheads may need to use roughly 10 times as much force as other sharks, just to get through water, said Glenn R. Parsons, a biological oceanographer at the University of Mississippi and one of the new paper's authors.

But there are some benefits to having a hammer for a head, Most experts agree that the widely spaced eyes, nostrils and electroreceptors allow the hunters to better pinpoint their prey.

The heads can also serve as a weapons - for example, to bludgeon a stingray. And in his years of sharkwatching, Dr. Parsons has noticed that hammerheads are particularly nimble. ''They make these real quick, kind of jerky turns,'' he said  [Cara Giaimo]

2.- Life and Planets 

''The probability of finding life or past life on another world keeps going up.'' [Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator]

3.- A big-brained bee is smart about meals

This is Panurgus banksianus, or the large shaggy  bee. It lives alone, burrowing into sandy grasslands across Europe. It prefers to feed on on yellow-flowered members of the aster family.

The large shaggy bee also has a very large brain.

Just like mammals or birds, insect species of the same size may have different endowments inside their heads.  Researchers have discovered some factors linked to brain size in back-boned animals.

But in insects, the drivers of  brain size have been more of mystery. In a new study, scientists scrutinized hundreds of bee brains for patterns. Bees with specialized diets seem to have larger brains, while social behavior appears unrelated to brain size. [Elizabeth Preston].