The brightest take on this week’s science

Tinnitus is a phantom sound that only the affected person can hear.

But that doesn't mean the condition is all in their head.

Now, a small study of around 80 adults, half of them with tinnitus, has found a clue in the blood.

People with tinnitus had about 50 percent more of an ear protein called prestin, roughly one and a half times the usual level.

This doesn't mean prestin causes tinnitus, and it can't yet be used to reliably diagnose the condition.

But it's still an interesting discovery, because this ear protein provides a potential target for future drug research.

For a phantom sound, prestin is a very real lead.

Read more.

Anyone who lives with a cat knows they can be quite vocal. But what are they trying to communicate?

Researchers in Brazil have now put that question to the test, using just under 40 pet cats and a treat sealed in a plastic box.

With a human in the room, the pets let out 86 meows in total.

Left alone, however, they managed just 20. That's about a quarter as many.

The results don't mean that every meow from a cat is a deliberate request. These cats were already known to be vocal about food.

But in the study, the pets often looked from their human to the box and back again.

It seems they know just how to manipulate us.

Read more.

A) Lily pollen
B) Dandruff
C) Dried yeast cells
D) Sea urchin eggs

Answer at the bottom.

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Asteroids are supposed to go where gravity and sunlight push them.

But a small space rock called 1998 KY26 is accelerating in a way that defies those expectations.

One explanation is that it's a 'dark' comet, quietly puffing out gas from hidden ice.

But a new model suggests even the asteroid's coldest regions average at least 212 Kelvin, or minus 61 degrees Celsius, which is far too warm for most ice to last.

We won't have to wait long to see if this model is right.

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft is due to arrive at the asteroid in July 2031.

Read more.

The image above is a computer model of a Bose-Einstein condensate, an exotic state of matter that forms just above absolute zero.

Physicists aboard China's Tiangong space station have now reached an equivalent temperature of 9.7 picokelvins, 280 billion times colder than the background of space.

Pack a jacket.

Read more about it here.

A robotic hand in Switzerland has learned to walk on its fingertips, right itself after a fall, and press keys on a keyboard.

Read more about this creepy crawler here.

Microscope answer: Lily pollen.

These golden, honeycomb-patterned spheres are lily pollen grains, magnified 750 times. Each grain's mesh-like outer wall is built to help it survive a journey to another flower.