dracodraconis | Talking plants and Green blood (Reply)

Plants Can Recognize, Communicate With Relatives, Studies Find - Plants are able to recognize close family members, treating them differently than unrelated neighbors, new research suggests. Susan Dudley and Amanda File of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, report they have demonstrated for the first time that plants can recognize their kin. This suggests that plants, though lacking cognition and memory, are capable of complex social interactions.

From News @ Nature

Ouch, I saw that - Some people literally feel what they see. 'Mirror touch' synaesthesia is a strange but real condition, and it might be wide-spread, psychologists have found. So-called mirror-touch synaesthetes actually feel a touch on their own skin when they watch someone else being touched. Perhaps as a consequence, they also show more emotional empathy than normal people.

From Space.com

Amazing New Mirror Reflects Ambition for Lunar Telescope - Scientists have successfully coated a liquid surface with a thin layer of silver metal, creating a highly reflective mirror that could be used to create mammoth liquid-mirror telescopes on the moon. Such a lunar observatory could be as wide as football a field, letting scientists peer back to a time when the first stars in the universe were born. Researchers led by Ermanno Borra of Laval University in Quebec, Canada, applied the silver film layer to the surface of an ionic liquid, a fluid that consists only of charged particles

Pilotless Spy Planes and Automatic Airliners - For aviation, UAVs represent the wave of the future, particularly for military uses. But a major problem must be solved for UAVs to see wide application in civil aviation. The world's civil aviation regulators must become satisfied that UAVs can operate safely and seamlessly within the complex air traffic control and civil airspace systems established for human-piloted aircraft.

Deep Hole Found on Mars - A very dark spot on Mars could be an entrance to a deep hole or cavern. The hole might be the sort of place that could support life or serve as a habitat for future astronauts, researchers speculated.

From EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science

Moon jobs will tax mental health of workers - According to Chester Spell, an associate professor of management at the Rutgers School of Business—Camden, the lunar settlements of tomorrow – or, for that matter, the space stations of today – carry long-term implications for the mental health of employees working in isolation for extended periods. Depression and anxiety will reach new levels among those employees, creating mental and cardiovascular health problems as well as a sharp decline in productivity.

DIY anti-satellite system - Satellite tracking software freely available on the Internet and some textbook physics could be used by any organization that can get hold of an intermediate range rocket to mount an unsophisticated attack on military or civilian satellites.

From BBC News - Science and Nature

Patient bleeds dark green blood - A team of Canadian surgeons got a shock when the patient they were operating on began shedding dark greenish-black blood, the Lancet reports.

Bear robot to rescue troops - The US military is developing a robot with a teddy bear-style head to help carry injured soldiers away from the battlefield.