WEIRD STUFF

Smartphones rarely appear in your dreams

Even though people spend hours glued to their phones, dreams remain strangely untouched by the digital age. According to leading Harvard dream researchers, smartphones, readable words, coherent numbers, smells and tastes -- and even your own realistic reflection -- rarely make an appearance.

An analysis of 16,000 dream reports found mobiles feature in just 3.55 per cent of women's dreams and 2.69 per cent of men's.

Instead, cars, storms and snakes dominate, which researchers link to the "threat simulation hypothesis," the theory that dreams function as a built-in survival tool.

Dr Deirdre Barrett, author of The Committee of Sleep, told the Daily Mail: "Content relevant only to modern-day life is under-represented in dreams. Our dreaming minds are still prioritising what mattered over 95 per cent of human evolution."

Even basic tasks become distorted. Try reading a book in a dream and the text is likely to shimmer, shift or collapse into nonsense. That's because the language-processing regions of the brain power down during REM sleep, making stable words and numbers nearly impossible. Neuroscientist Dr Benjamin Baird explained: "Fine details tend to be unstable or morph when you look back."

Sensory details rarely show up either. Smells and tastes appear in barely one per cent of dream accounts, since they contribute little to a dream's emotional storyline, according to Dr Kelly Bulkeley. Reflections fare no better -- mirrors, when they appear at all, twist your face into strange ages, injuries or even other people.

Researchers say these oddities stem from the way dreams are constructed: from the top down, with almost no real-world input to stabilise them. So while dreams are powerful emotional rehearsal rooms, they remain spectacularly bad at recreating the modern world.

Scorpions could help defeat breast cancer

A compound hidden inside the venom of an Amazonian scorpion may offer a new weapon against breast cancer, according to groundbreaking research from the University of Sao Paulo's Ribeirao Preto School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (FCFRP-USP).

Scientists studying the toxin of Brotheas amazonicus have identified a potent molecule that appears to attack breast cancer cells directly. The discovery, presented at FAPESP Week France, was made in collaboration with the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) and Amazonas State University (UEA).

Professor Eliane Candiani Arantes, who led the project, said: "Through bioprospecting, we were able to identify a molecule in the species of this Amazonian scorpion that is similar to that found in the venoms of other scorpions and that acts against breast cancer cells."

Early lab tests show the peptide -- named BamazScplp1 -- delivers damage comparable to paclitaxel, one of the world's most widely used chemotherapy drugs. It triggers necrosis, a violent form of cell death long associated with venom toxins.

This breakthrough is part of a broader push to convert venom components into advanced medical tools. Researchers at FCFRP-USP and partner institutions have spent years cloning snake and scorpion proteins, achieving one major success already: a patented fibrin sealant, described as a "biological glue," now in phase-three clinical trials.

Prisoner sues to eat his favourite snack

(AP): A prisoner is challenging an Australian state's ban on inmates eating Vegemite, claiming in a lawsuit that withholding the yeast-based spread breaches his human right to "enjoy his culture as an Australian".

Andre McKechnie, 54, serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle for the salty, sticky, brown byproduct of brewing beer to the Supreme Court of Victoria, according to documents released to The Associated Press on Tuesday. Most Australians revere Vegemite as an unfairly maligned culinary icon, and more than 80 per cent of Australian households are estimated to have a jar in their pantries. But inmates in all 12 prisons in Victoria are going without.

McKechnie is suing Victoria's Department of Justice and Community Safety and the agency that manages the prisons, Corrections Victoria. The case is scheduled for trial next year. Vegemite has been banned from Victorian prisons since 2006, with Corrections Victoria saying it "interferes with narcotic detection dogs". Inmates used to smear packages of illicit drugs with Vegemite in the hope that the odor would distract the dogs from the contraband.

Manufactured in Australia since 1923 as an alternative to Britain's marmite, Vegemite was long marketed as a source of vitamin B for growing children.