This Week In Science: Walruses Invade, Cyanide Clouds, and a Surprising ... - Huffington Post

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Seven days; lots of science in the news. Here's our roundup of this week's most notable and quotable items:

35,000 walruses came ashore on an Alaskan beach, seeking a resting place in lieu of their preferred perch, sea ice, which is becoming rarer in the Arctic. Five separate studies say Australia's record-smashing 2013 heat wave was a consequence of man-made climate change. Scientists discovered a huge rectangular shape buried beneath the surface of the moon, possibly the remnants of ancient rift valleys created as the early moon cooled. Acupuncture was found to be useless in treating chronic knee pain.

Researchers found a massive cloud of hydrogen cyanide ice over the south pole of Saturn's moon Titan. Drought and irrigation has completely drained the eastern basin of the Aral Sea, once the fourth-largest lake in the world. A change in a single gene may have split monarch butterfly populations into migratory and homebody cohorts. New York City's Central Park is home to at least 170,000 different kinds of microbes, including 2,000 species that have been found nowhere else in the world.

'This Week in Science' is brought to you by the World Science Festival. For engaging scientific news, conversations, events and more, check out the Festival's website.

A new theory on the origin of cancer speculates that rapid, uncontrolled growth and proliferation may be a kind of 'safe mode' for cells -- suggesting that treatments like oxygen and immunotherapy may be the best road to take. The secret to a hit pop song, according to science: backup singers. So much ice has melted in West Antarctica that its caused a slight dip in Earth's gravitational field over that region.

The extinct saber-toothed cat may have used its impressive upper fangs like an old-fashioned can opener. Thailand's government unveiled a robot designed to detect inauthentic Thai food. Some sharks are social, while others are shy. Researchers developed a new genetic test to find dog poop in water.

Entities 0 Name: Australia Count: 1 1 Name: Alaskan Count: 1 2 Name: New York City Count: 1 3 Name: World Science Festival Count: 1 4 Name: moon Count: 1 5 Name: West Antarctica Count: 1 6 Name: Aral Sea Count: 1 7 Name: moon Titan Count: 1 8 Name: Earth Count: 1 9 Name: Saturn Count: 1 10 Name: Thailand Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1nLVtR1 Title: Ancient magma plumbing found buried below moon's largest dark spot Description: Scientists have found a nearly square peg underneath a round hole-on the moon. Several kilometers below Oceanus Procellarum, the largest dark spot on the moon's near side, scientists have discovered a giant rectangle thought to be the remnants of a geological plumbing system that spilled lava across the moon about 3.5 billion years ago.