Dolphins in Florida have been trained to sing the theme from the movie “Batman.” They have been taught to combine both rhythm and vocalizations to produce an extremely high-pitched, but recognizable, version of the Batman song.

Jennifer Viegas writes in Discovery News that researcher Heidi Harley did just do this for fun–it’s the first time that non-human mammals have shown that they recognize, and can reproduce, vocal rhythms.

Trained dolphins from Disney’s Epcot Center were used for the study. They were trained to “sing” the Batman song when shown a Batman doll, then rewarded with fish if they did it correctly.
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After nine years of effort, in a top secret program, scientists have recreated the deadly 1918 Spanish flu virus, which caused one of the biggest pandemics in human history. The virus is stockpiled in a government laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia. Despite the danger, the DNA sequence of this flu is now available to scientists over the internet.

Ian Sample writes in The Guardian that when the recreated virus was injected into mice by researcher Jeffery Taubenberger, they all died within six days. When mice were injected with another flu virus, they recovered.
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Riding a bicycle to work instead of driving may be good exercise, as well as good for the environment, but if you’re a man, it can end your sex life. Doctors have found that pressure on the scrotum of a male bike rider can not only adversely affect the ability to get an erection, it can also affect libido, which is the desire to have sex. Many men do not realize that Viagra only facilitates sexual ability, it doesn’t help you feel sexy (except as a placebo). If you want to find out whether you need Viagra or other sexual enhancement medicine, you need to take the postage stamp test.
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NASA has discovered that our sun has a twin that is nearly identical in temperature, rotation and age. Scientists hunting for extraterrestrial life hope to find planets orbiting around it.

Tariq Malik writes in the NASA website space.com that the star, called 18 Scorpii, is less than 50 light-years away in the constellation Scorpio. It burns only slightly hotter than the Sun, and rotates slightly faster, taking 23 days to complete a rotation rather than 25. But it’s an extremely close match.

If we can spot a planet orbiting around it that’s about the same distance away as the Earth, we may have a reason to make contact.

Art credit: http://gimp-savvy.com
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