Odd Creatures: Earth & Climate

January 24, 2025

Top Headlines

London Cabbies' Planning Strategies Could Help Inform Future of AI

Jan. 23, 2025 — Researchers have measured the thinking time of London taxi drivers -- famous for their knowledge of more than 26,000 streets across the city -- as part of a study into the future of AI ...

'Buzz Me In:' Bees Wearing Itty Bitty QR Codes Reveal Hive Secrets

Jan. 23, 2025 — Several hundred bees in rural Pennsylvania and rural New York are sporting tiny QR codes on their backs to track when they go in and out of their hives. The work, a collaboration among entomologists and electrical engineers, is the first step in ...

Solving the Evolutionary Puzzle of Polyploidy: How Genome Duplication Shapes Adaptation

Jan. 23, 2025 — Scientists have developed a theoretical model that uncovers the dual role of polyploidy -- organisms carrying extra genome copies -- in evolution. Their findings reveal that polyploidy can stabilize ...

New Twist in Mystery of Dinosaurs' Origin

Jan. 23, 2025 — The remains of the earliest dinosaurs may lie undiscovered in the Amazon and other equatorial regions of South America and Africa, suggests a new ...

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Claims for the World's Deepest Earthquake Challenged by New Analysis

Jan. 23, 2025 — The magnitude 7.9 Bonin Islands earthquake sequence, which ruptured deep within the earth near the base of the upper mantle, did not include an aftershock that extended to record depths into the ...

Bacteria in Polymers Form Cables That Grow Into Living Gels

Jan. 17, 2025 — Experiments and modeling reveal the unexpected structure that can be seen in bacteria grown in mucus samples and ...

Bioinspired Weather-Responsive Adaptive Shading

Jan. 14, 2025 — Pine cones as a model: Researchers have developed a new, energy-autonomous facade system that adapts passively to the ...

Volcanic Eruption Caused Neolithic People to Sacrifice Unique 'Sun Stones'

Jan. 16, 2025 — 4,900 years ago, a Neolithic people on the Danish island Bornholm sacrificed hundreds of stones engraved with sun and field motifs. Archaeologists and climate scientists can now show that these ...

Asteroid Impact Sulfur Release Less Lethal in Dinosaur Extinction

Jan. 16, 2025 — Previous studies have posited that the mass extinction that wiped the dinosaurs off the face of the Earth was caused by the release of large volumes of sulfur from rocks within the Chicxulub impact ...

Pioneering Research Exposes Huge Loss of Glaciers in One of the Fastest-Warming Places on Earth

Jan. 16, 2025 — A new study has revealed the alarming extent glaciers have shrunk over the past 40 years in a global warming hotspot -- and the biggest retreat has ...

Cavity-Nesting Birds Decorate With Snake Skin to Deter Predators

Jan. 16, 2025 — When a bird drapes its nest with snake skin, it isn't just making an interesting decor choice. Researchers find that for some birds, it keeps predators at ...

Early Humans Adapted to Harsh Conditions More Than a Million Years Ago

Jan. 16, 2025 — A long-standing question about when archaic members of the genus Homo adapted to harsh environments such as deserts and rainforests has been answered in a new research ...

This Fast and Agile Robotic Insect Could Someday Aid in Mechanical Pollination

Jan. 15, 2025 — New insect-scale microrobots can fly more than 100 times longer than previous versions. The new bots, also significantly faster and more agile, could ...

Atop the Oregon Cascades, Team Finds a Huge Buried Aquifer

Jan. 13, 2025 — Scientists have mapped the amount of water stored beneath volcanic rocks at the crest of the central Oregon Cascades and found an aquifer many times larger than previously estimated -- at least 81 ...

Chornobyl Dogs' Genetic Differences Not Due to Mutation

Jan. 13, 2025 — Radiation-induced mutation is unlikely to have induced genetic differences between dog populations in Chornobyl City and the nearby Chornobyl Nuclear Power ...

New Fossil Discovery Sheds Light on the Early Evolution of Animal Nervous Systems

Jan. 10, 2025 — An international team of scientists has uncovered a fascinating piece of the evolutionary puzzle: how the ventral nerve cord, a key component of the central nervous system, evolved in ecdysozoan ...

'What Is That?' Scientists Explain White Patch That Appears Near Northern Lights

Jan. 10, 2025 — A whitish, grey patch that sometimes appears in the night sky alongside the northern lights has now been ...

A Fast-Moving Belly Flop: Researchers Unveil the Unique Skills of Cricket Frogs

Jan. 10, 2025 — The way cricket frogs move across the surface of water has long been thought to resemble walking on water, but researchers have now discovered a different ...

Electric Fungi: The Biobattery That Needs to Be Fed

Jan. 9, 2025 — A battery that needs feeding instead of charging? This is exactly what researchers have achieved with their 3D-printed, biodegradable fungal battery. The living battery could supply power to sensors ...

When the Past Meets the Future: Innovative Drone Mapping Unlocks Secrets of Bronze Age 'Mega Fortress' in the Caucasus

Jan. 8, 2025 — An academic has used drone mapping to investigate a 3000-year-old 'mega fortress' in the Caucasus mountains, revealing details that re-shape understanding of the site and contribute to a ...

Evolutionary Biology: Ants Can Hold a Grudge

Jan. 8, 2025 — Evolutionary biologists are investigating the extent to which ants learn from past experiences. After being attacked by ants from a particular nest, ants behave more aggressively towards others from ...

Oldest-Known Evolutionary 'Arms Race'

Jan. 3, 2025 — A new study presents what is believed to be the oldest known example in the fossil record of an evolutionary arms race. These 517-million-year-old predator-prey interactions occurred in the ocean ...

New Method Turns E-Waste to Gold

Jan. 2, 2025 — A research team has developed a method for extracting gold from electronics waste, then using the recovered precious metal as a catalyst for converting carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, to ...

Striking New Moray Eel Discovered in Central Indo-Pacific River Mouths, Named After God of the Underworld

Dec. 31, 2024 — A new species of black, slender moray eel has chosen the road less traveled, thriving in dim and muddy river mouths, unlike most of its marine relatives. It is found across the Central Indo-Pacific, ...

Wind Sensing by Biomimetic Flexible Flapping Wing With Strain Sensors

Dec. 26, 2024 — Bio-inspired wind sensing using strain sensors on flexible wings could revolutionize robotic flight control strategy. Researchers have developed a method to detect wind direction with 99% accuracy ...

Researchers Identify a Mysterious Fossil Seed to Reveal New Chapters in Climate History of Los Angeles

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientists have successfully identified a previously unknown species to Southern California from fossilized seeds, revealing a drought-fueled dance between two species of juniper with lessons for the ...

Chart of Life Extended by Nearly 1.5 Billion Years

Dec. 19, 2024 — Fossilized skeletons and shells clearly show how evolution and extinction unfolded over the past half a billion years, but a new analysis extends the chart of life to nearly 2 billion years ago. The ...

Carnivorous Squirrels Documented in California

Dec. 18, 2024 — California ground squirrels hunt, kill and eat voles, reveals a new study documenting evidence of widespread carnivorous behavior among ...

Travelers Weigh in on Weight-Based Airfares for Eco-Friendly Skies

Dec. 17, 2024 — The holidays are in full swing and people are shopping, wrapping and packing to visit loved ones. Along with the extra fees for checked baggage and seat upgrades, some airlines are also considering ...

Butchered Bones Suggest Violent 'Othering' of Enemies in Bronze Age Britain

Dec. 16, 2024 — Analysis of the remains of at least 37 individuals from Early Bronze Age England finds they were killed, butchered, and probably consumed before being thrown down a 15m-deep shaft. It is the ...

How the Dirt Under Our Feet Could Affect Human Health

Dec. 12, 2024 — Researchers are linking human activity to increased gene transfer from soil bacteria to ...

Superflares Once Per Century

Dec. 12, 2024 — Stars similar to the Sun produce a gigantic outburst of radiation on average about once every hundred years per star. Such superflares release more energy than a trillion hydrogen bombs and make all ...

Botanists Name Beautiful New Species of 'Lipstick Vine' from the Philippine Rainforest

Dec. 12, 2024 — Scientists have today announced the discovery of a species of lipstick vine completely new to science, from the depths of the Philippine rainforest. The team of botanists made the discovery during an ...

How 'Conan the Bacterium' Withstands Extreme Radiation

Dec. 12, 2024 — Thanks for a powerful antioxidant, Deinococcus radiodurans can withstand radiation doses 28,000 times greater than what would kill a human. In a new study, scientists discovered how the antioxidant ...