Odd Creatures: Earth & Climate

May 3, 2025

Top Headlines

Juvenile Salmon Roam Between Salt and Fresh Water While Exploring Coast and Rivers, New Research Finds

Apr. 30, 2025 — The well-known salmon life cycle has long been described as going only one way at a time. Juvenile salmon hatch and swim down rivers to the ocean, where they grow and mature before returning to the ...

Palatable Versus Poisonous: Eavesdropping Bats Must Learn to Identify Which Prey Is Safe to Eat

Apr. 29, 2025 — Scientists found that the fringe-lipped bat, known to eavesdrop on frog and toad mating calls to find its prey, learns to distinguish between palatable and unpalatable frogs and toads through ...

Oceans Are Heating Faster in Two Bands Stretching Around Globe

May 1, 2025 — The world's oceans are heating faster in two bands stretching around the globe, one in the southern hemisphere and one in the north, according to climate ...

Social 'Hippie' Spiders Don't Believe in Labels: Study Challenges Long-Held Assumptions About Animal Personalities

Apr. 28, 2025 — Scientists suggest social spiders are more about going with the flow than sticking to a role, after new research challenges the idea of fixed ...

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Rhythmically Trained Sea Lion Returns for an Encore -- And Performs as Well as Humans

May 1, 2025 — Animal research on biomusicality, which looks at whether different species are capable of behaving in ways that show they recognize aspects of music, ...

Seasonal Changes Affect Alcohol Tolerance and Your Waistline

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers have found that drug effectiveness, alcohol tolerance, and carbohydrate metabolism change with the seasons. Their findings are based on a comprehensive seasonal gene expression map, which ...

Zoo Life Boosts Object Exploration in Orangutans

Apr. 30, 2025 — A new study comparing wild and zoo-housed Sumatran orangutans reveals that life in a zoo significantly alters how orangutans interact with their environment. Researchers analyzed over 12,000 ...

Personality Test for Bees

Apr. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered that honey bees from the same colony have different preferences in terms of defensive behavior. While some are still hesitating, others are already ...

Elephant Instead of Wild Boar? What Could Have Been in Europe

Apr. 28, 2025 — Even under today's climatic conditions, the long-extinct straight-tusked elephant could still live in Europe. This is the conclusion of a recent study. For this finding, the research group combined ...

Anatomy of a 'Zombie' Volcano: Investigating the Cause of Unrest Inside Uturuncu

Apr. 28, 2025 — Scientists have collaborated to analyze the inner workings of Bolivia's 'zombie' volcano, Uturuncu. By combining seismology, physics models and ...

Geoengineering Technique Could Cool Planet Using Existing Aircraft

Apr. 28, 2025 — A technique to cool the planet, in which particles are added to the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, would not require developing special aircraft but could be achieved using existing large planes, ...

Strong Shaking at Fault Stepover Has Rocks--Briefly--Defying Gravity

Apr. 23, 2025 — When a seismologist visited the site of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes two days after the event, he noticed something strange. Pebble- to boulder-sized rocks clearly had been moved by the ...

Female Bonobos Keep Males in Check -- Not With Strength, but With Solidarity

Apr. 24, 2025 — Female bonobos team up to suppress male aggression against them -- the first evidence of animals deploying this strategy. In 85% of observed ...

New Species of Electricity-Conducting Organism, Name It After Tribe

Apr. 22, 2025 — Scientists have identified a novel species of bacteria that acts as electrical wiring, potentially ushering in a new era of bioelectronic devices for use in medicine, industry, food safety, and ...

Better Feed, Fewer Burps: Scientists Target Dairy Gas Emissions

Apr. 22, 2025 — Researchers are testing a new type of cattle feed that could help dairy cows release less methane gas from burps and flatulence and use nutrients more efficiently. Because methane traps heat in the ...

How Activity in Earth's Mantle Led the Ancient Ancestors of Elephants, Giraffes, and Humans Into Asia and Africa

Apr. 21, 2025 — What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and ...

What If Mother Earth Could Sue for Mistreatment?

Apr. 21, 2025 — The study highlights the transformative potential of the Rights of Nature, which views nature as a rights-bearing entity, not merely an object of regulation and subjugation by extractive industries. ...

Extreme Drought Contributed to Barbarian Invasion of Late Roman Britain, Tree-Ring Study Reveals

Apr. 17, 2025 — Three consecutive years of drought contributed to the 'Barbarian Conspiracy', a pivotal moment in the history of Roman Britain, a new study reveals. Researchers argue that Picts, Scotti and ...

Sunscreen, Clothes and Caves May Have Helped Homo Sapiens Survive 41,000 Years Ago

Apr. 16, 2025 — A study suggests that Homo sapiens may have benefited from the use of ochre and tailored clothing during a period of increased UV light 41,000 years ago, during the Laschamps ...

Holiday Flights Could Carry Fewer Passengers as World Warms

Apr. 16, 2025 — By the 2060s, some airports with shorter runways may need to reduce their maximum take-off weight by the equivalent of approximately 10 passengers per flight during summer ...

A Step Toward Harnessing Clean Energy from Falling Rainwater

Apr. 16, 2025 — When two materials come into contact, charged entities on their surfaces get a little nudge. This is how rubbing a balloon on the skin creates static electricity. Likewise, water flowing over some ...

Living Fungus-Based Building Material Repairs Itself for Over a Month

Apr. 16, 2025 — Engineers have developed a building material that uses the root-like mycelium of a fungus and bacteria cells. Their results show that this material -- which is manufactured with living cells at low ...

First Confirmed Footage of a Colossal Squid -- And It's a Baby!

Apr. 16, 2025 — An international team of scientists and crew on board Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too) was the first to film the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural ...

Scientists Find Evidence That Overturns Theories of the Origin of Water on Earth

Apr. 16, 2025 — Researchers have helped overturn the popular theory that water on Earth originated from asteroids bombarding its surface; Scientists have analyzed a meteorite analogous to the early Earth to ...

Studying How Seals Adapt to Extreme Environments Could Lead to Benefits in Human Reproductive Health

Apr. 15, 2025 — Wild animals that have acquired adaptions to maximize their reproductive output in some of the world's most extreme conditions may provide answers to some of the most pressing problems in the ...

Man's Best Friend May Be Nature's Worst Enemy, Study on Pet Dogs Suggests

Apr. 10, 2025 — New research into the overlooked environmental impact of pet dogs has found far-reaching negative effects on wildlife, ecosystems and ...

Sink or Swim: The Fate of Sinking Tectonic Plates Depends on Their Ancient Tectonic Histories

Apr. 9, 2025 — New findings provide a greater understanding of plate subduction, or how tectonic plates slide beneath one another. This recycling of surface materials and volatile elements deep into the ...

With New Database Researchers May Be Able to Predict Rare Milky Seas Bioluminescent, Glowing Event

Apr. 9, 2025 — Milky seas are a rare bioluminescent phenomenon where vast areas of the ocean glow at night, sometimes for months. This glow, likely caused by Vibrio harveyi bacteria, has been reported by sailors ...

Mediterranean Hunter Gatherers Navigated Long-Distance Sea Journeys Well Before the First Farmers

Apr. 9, 2025 — Evidence shows that hunter-gatherers were crossing at least 100 kilometers (km) of open water to reach the Mediterranean island of Malta 8,500 years ago, a thousand years before the arrival of the ...

8 Million Years of 'Green Arabia'

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new study reveals the modern arid desert between Africa and Saudi Arabia was once regularly lush and green with rivers and lakes over a period of 8 million years, allowing for the occupation and ...

Scientists Discover Microbes in Earth's Deep Soil

Apr. 7, 2025 — Scientists have discovered a new phylum of microbes in the Earth's Critical Zone, an area of deep soil that restores water quality. Ground water, which becomes drinking water, passes through ...

Biodegradable Fake Fingernails Make Manicures More Sustainable

Apr. 2, 2025 — A new kind of press-on nails come in all shapes and colors -- and when you're done with them, you can melt them down and reuse the materials to make your next ...

Scientists Solve 'Cocktail Party' Mystery of Bat Echolocation

Mar. 31, 2025 — Every night, bats emerge out of roosts in massive numbers, creating what scientists have called a 'cocktail party nightmare' of clashing echolocations. Nobody knew how bats managed this ...

Human Urine, a Valuable Resource as Fertilizer for Sustainable Urban Agriculture, Study Concludes

Mar. 27, 2025 — The reuse of human urine would allow for the production of sustainable fertilizers for urban agriculture, with significant environmental benefits, a new study concludes. The research evaluates the ...