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Hot rivals compel men to take risks
Wolfgang Steffen, Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM
in Brief Werewolf plant waits for full moon
Before-and-after shots show how stars get massive THE violent birth of massive stars has been captured for the first time in dramatic before-and-after images, which are already overturning theories about how these planet-factories form. Massive stars – those at least eight times the mass of our sun – are relatively rare in the universe. They act as factories that create the heavier elements required for the formation of planets and life. But how they grow so massive is a mystery, as they emit so much radiation that it pushes away incoming material. One possibility is that the radiation comes from the
poles of the forming star, allowing material to fall in around its equator. But all the models showing this depend on the outflow being focused from the very beginning of the star’s formation, says Carlos Carrasco-González of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Now, in a pair of radio images taken 18 years apart with the Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico, Carrasco-González and colleagues have revealed a massive star switching from a state with no focused outflow to one where the outflow clearly shoots out from the poles (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa7216). Inspired by this observation, the team developed a model that suggests the matter surrounding the star has a doughnut shape, which squeezes the outflowing radiation and forces it to focus along one axis.
Flame-proof fabric fights water too NOW you can safely wash your flame-proof suit. A coating can make cotton fabric both flame retardant and water repellent. Fabrics with flame-retardant coatings are fire-fighter chic, but they are also used for curtains and furniture. The problem is these coatings are water soluble, so can be worn away by washing. Now Junqi Sun of Jilin University in China and his 16 | NewScientist | 11 April 2015
colleagues say they have the answer. Water-repellent coatings already exist – why not combine the two into a single material? The team took ordinary cotton and soaked it in a solution of a polymer called polyethylenimine, which acts as a binding agent, then in a solution of ammonium polyphosphate, a common flame retardant. Finally, they dipped the fabric in a mix of ethanol and a
silsesquioxane, a cage-like molecule that has shown promise as a water repeller. The result was a fabric that refuses to catch fire and is easily cleaned. The team placed a strip of uncoated cotton over a flame and it burned up completely in just 14 seconds. When they did the same with the coated fabric, it charred slightly and was extinguished as soon as the flame was removed (ACS Nano, doi.org/297).
IS THE moon at its fullest? This shrub will know – it’s the first plant ever discovered to sync its activity to the lunar cycle. A relative of conifers and cycads, Ephedra foeminea oozes tiny beads of sugary liquid to attract nocturnal pollinating insects. But Catarina Rydin and Kristina Bolinder of Stockholm University in Sweden found that the plant only springs into action when the moon is full. “At night, the many pollination drops glitter like diamonds in the full moonlight, a spectacular sight also for the human eye,” Rydin and Bolinder report (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/ rsbl.2014.0993). They made this discovery by accident, returning to visit plants in Croatia and Greece every year, but failing to witness any pollination during their 2013 trip. “All of a sudden, there was a eureka moment,” says Rydin.
Hot rivals compel men to take risks THERE’s nothing like the sight of a rival to embolden a man, it seems. When straight men see another man they perceive as more attractive than themselves, they try to quickly increase their wealth by making high-risk decisions, says Eugene Chan from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. His team showed images of male models to heterosexual male volunteers and got them to play lab-based betting games. Making the group imagine wooing a woman also made them bolder (Evolution and Human Behaviour, doi.org/3bz). “This financial risk-taking occurs because men want to appear more desirable to women, and having more money is one way to do so,” says Chan.
in Brief Werewolf plant waits for full moon
Before-and-after shots show how stars get massive THE violent birth of massive stars has been captured for the first time in dramatic before-and-after images, which are already overturning theories about how these planet-factories form. Massive stars – those at least eight times the mass of our sun – are relatively rare in the universe. They act as factories that create the heavier elements required for the formation of planets and life. But how they grow so massive is a mystery, as they emit so much radiation that it pushes away incoming material. One possibility is that the radiation comes from the
poles of the forming star, allowing material to fall in around its equator. But all the models showing this depend on the outflow being focused from the very beginning of the star’s formation, says Carlos Carrasco-González of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Now, in a pair of radio images taken 18 years apart with the Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico, Carrasco-González and colleagues have revealed a massive star switching from a state with no focused outflow to one where the outflow clearly shoots out from the poles (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa7216). Inspired by this observation, the team developed a model that suggests the matter surrounding the star has a doughnut shape, which squeezes the outflowing radiation and forces it to focus along one axis.
Flame-proof fabric fights water too NOW you can safely wash your flame-proof suit. A coating can make cotton fabric both flame retardant and water repellent. Fabrics with flame-retardant coatings are fire-fighter chic, but they are also used for curtains and furniture. The problem is these coatings are water soluble, so can be worn away by washing. Now Junqi Sun of Jilin University in China and his 16 | NewScientist | 11 April 2015
colleagues say they have the answer. Water-repellent coatings already exist – why not combine the two into a single material? The team took ordinary cotton and soaked it in a solution of a polymer called polyethylenimine, which acts as a binding agent, then in a solution of ammonium polyphosphate, a common flame retardant. Finally, they dipped the fabric in a mix of ethanol and a
silsesquioxane, a cage-like molecule that has shown promise as a water repeller. The result was a fabric that refuses to catch fire and is easily cleaned. The team placed a strip of uncoated cotton over a flame and it burned up completely in just 14 seconds. When they did the same with the coated fabric, it charred slightly and was extinguished as soon as the flame was removed (ACS Nano, doi.org/297).
IS THE moon at its fullest? This shrub will know – it’s the first plant ever discovered to sync its activity to the lunar cycle. A relative of conifers and cycads, Ephedra foeminea oozes tiny beads of sugary liquid to attract nocturnal pollinating insects. But Catarina Rydin and Kristina Bolinder of Stockholm University in Sweden found that the plant only springs into action when the moon is full. “At night, the many pollination drops glitter like diamonds in the full moonlight, a spectacular sight also for the human eye,” Rydin and Bolinder report (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/ rsbl.2014.0993). They made this discovery by accident, returning to visit plants in Croatia and Greece every year, but failing to witness any pollination during their 2013 trip. “All of a sudden, there was a eureka moment,” says Rydin.
Hot rivals compel men to take risks THERE’s nothing like the sight of a rival to embolden a man, it seems. When straight men see another man they perceive as more attractive than themselves, they try to quickly increase their wealth by making high-risk decisions, says Eugene Chan from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. His team showed images of male models to heterosexual male volunteers and got them to play lab-based betting games. Making the group imagine wooing a woman also made them bolder (Evolution and Human Behaviour, doi.org/3bz). “This financial risk-taking occurs because men want to appear more desirable to women, and having more money is one way to do so,” says Chan.