Physicists at the University of Chicago are researching a new fluid state essentially created by dropping a marble into loosely packed sand. This produces a jet of sand grains that briefly behaves like a special type of dense fluid. Perhaps the craziest part is you can duplicate the experiment at home. (Read the full story).

Scientists have recently found special neurons in the brainstem of rats which focus exclusively on new, novel sounds and help them ignore predictable and ongoing noises. These novelty detector neurons, as researchers call them, quickly stop firing if a sound or sound pattern is repeated. They will briefly resume firing if some aspect of the sound changes. The implications are, as usual, that we humans may be like rats.