Weird Science

(Newser) - Both men and women cuddle with and smell their loved ones' clothing when they can't be together, MSNBC reports. "When I was going through high school and college, I would wear a boyfriend’s shirt to bed," said the author of a new study on how scent evokes memory. Three-quarters of women and two-thirds of men report doing the same. More »

(Newser) - Coked-up bees get as buzzed as their human counterparts, the New York Times reports. Researchers probing the nature of addiction discovered that when bees were given a dose of cocaine their judgment was altered and they became much more enthusiastic about food finds, performing the waggle dance more often, faster, and for longer. More »

(Newser) - Lou Hawthorne's canine cloning business is well on its way—with clients paying upwards of $130,000 to duplicate their pets—but the copies of his own beloved family dog have hardly replaced her. Clones Mira and MissyToo vary in size and color, and Hawthorne's mother—keeper of the original Missy, now deceased—refuses to keep the genetic offspring, saying they lack the donor's robust calm. More »

(Newser) - A blind man has surprised scientists by walking an obstacle course with the strange power of "blindsight," the Times of London reports. The man, blinded by brain-damaging strokes, cleanly walked the course without using a cane. He had already baffled experts by reacting to people's facial expressions. “This is absolutely the first study of this ability in humans," said Professor Beatrice de Gelder, who led the Dutch study. More »

(Newser) - Sexual thoughts cause some people to have fits of sneezing, the Guardian reports. Psychiatrists at a British hospital were turned on to the problem by a patient, and a survey of Internet chat rooms found others afflicted, including three people who sneezed after orgasm. More »

(Newser) - Swimmers sometimes complain that water can be “evil,” but water is water, right? Wrong. So-called dead water—a naval phenomenon that happens when waves form between layers of warmer and cooler water, reducing a ship’s speed—may affect swimmers too, the New Scientist reports. And it might be what’s behind the otherwise-mysterious drownings of seasoned swimmers. More »

(Newser) - Sleepy high-school students slumped over their desks just can’t help it, CNN reports. Most school start times play havoc with teens’ circadian rhythms: Teens naturally go to bed later than adults, and need more sleep. A new study finds pushing the high-school start time from 7:30am to 8:30 increased the number of students getting 8 hours of sleep dramatically. More »

(Newser) - Mosquitoes land, swap a little of your blood for parasites that head straight to your liver, and so cause a million malaria-related deaths every year, writes Jason Fagone in Esquire . But what if you took those same mosquitoes and irradiated them? You get weakened parasites that make the perfect vaccine, says a maverick doc who's not afraid to experiment on himself to rid the world of malaria. More »

(Newser) - Attention-disorder drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall are becoming so commonly used for the off-label purpose of gaining a mental edge that they should be legalized for such use, says a team of neuroscientists and ethicists. They make their case in Nature , arguing that laws "should be adjusted to avoid making felons out of those who seek to use safe cognitive enhancements," Wired reports. More »