This week in Science News, we saw a new sustainable prawn feed.
Are we losing the battle with drugs in sport?
And does the full moon mess with your sleep?
The old wives tale that a full moon affects your behaviour
may actually have an element of truth to it.
A Swiss study measured brain patterns of volunteers as they slept in a lab,
along with their eye movements and hormone secretions.
And what do you know?
When there was a full moon, deep sleep brain activity dropped by 30%.
They took five minutes longer to fall asleep and slept for 20 minutes less overall.
Also, levels of melatonin, that's the hormone that regulates sleep cycles,
decreased when there was a full moon.
All this happened despite the volunteers not knowing the phase of the moon.
It looks like our battle against drugs in sport is doomed to fail.
Research from the University of Adelaide shows that the cost of testing athletes is so high,
and the probability of detection so low,
that sports authorities can't properly tackle the problem.
Researchers looked at 93 different sports and estimated that a drug-using athlete
tested 12 times per year only has a 33% chance of being picked up.
To detect 100% of doping, we would have to test each athlete 16 to 50 times per year,
costing about $25,000, which is obviously not sustainable.
Rather than using fish to feed farmed prawns, CSIRO has developed a more sustainable new food.
Queenless honeybees still show allegiance to their hive by defending and feeding the colony
rather than going it alone.
Graphene has been engineered to have a higher energy density,
creating a compact and efficient way to store energy.
And monogamy in primates may have evolved to reduce the threats of infant murder from males.
And now for a bit of fun.
This week's science quiz question.
Researchers this week suggested that eating Watt increases your chance of winning a Nobel Prize.
A. Goji berries B. Oats
C. Chocolate
Or D. Pizza
Tweet me your answer at R.I.UnderscoreOz
Hashtag Week in Cy, and it'll be revealed next week.
That's it for this week in science. I'll catch you next week.
