Odd Creatures News
July 2, 2025
Top Headlines
July 2, 2025 — Locked-down Hungarians who gained or lost pets saw almost no lasting shift in mood or loneliness, and new dog owners actually felt less calm and satisfied over time—hinting that the storied “pet effect” may be more myth than mental-health ...
June 27, 2025 — Beneath the Afar region in Ethiopia, scientists have discovered pulsing waves of molten rock rising from deep within the Earth — a geological heartbeat that could eventually split Africa in two. ...
June 27, 2025 — Zooplankton like copepods aren’t just fish food—they’re carbon-hauling powerhouses. By diving deep into the ocean each winter, they’re secretly stashing 65 million tonnes of carbon far below ...
June 27, 2025 — At Flinders University, scientists have cracked a cleaner and greener way to extract gold—not just from ore, but also from our mounting piles of e-waste. By using a compound normally found in pool ...
June 26, 2025 — South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted ...
June 26, 2025 — Urban wildlife is evolving right under our noses — and scientists have the skulls to prove it. By examining over a century’s worth of chipmunk and vole specimens from Chicago, researchers discovered subtle yet significant evolutionary changes in ...
June 25, 2025 — Two newly discovered viruses lurking in bats are dangerously similar to Nipah and Hendra, both of which have caused deadly outbreaks in humans. Found in fruit bats near villages, these viruses may spread through urine-contaminated fruit, raising ...
June 24, 2025 — Over 300 million years ago, Earth experienced powerful bursts of carbon dioxide from natural sources—like massive volcanic eruptions—that triggered dramatic drops in ocean oxygen levels. These ...
June 24, 2025 — Two Ice Age wolf pups once thought to be early dogs have been identified as wild wolves, thanks to detailed DNA and chemical analysis. Surprisingly, their last meals included woolly rhinoceros ...
June 24, 2025 — Exploration for deep-sea minerals in the Clarion Clipperton Zone threatens to disrupt an unexpectedly rich ecosystem of whales and dolphins. New studies have detected endangered species in the area and warn that mining noise and sediment could ...
June 23, 2025 — In a remarkable twist of science, researchers have transformed a fungus long associated with death into a potential weapon against cancer. Found in tombs like that of King Tut, Aspergillus flavus was ...
June 21, 2025 — Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed an astonishing new material: a printable gel that’s alive. Infused with ancient cyanobacteria, this "photosynthetic living material" not only grows but also removes CO₂ from the air, twice over. The ...
Latest Headlines
updated 10:03am EDT
July 2, 2025 — Wild orcas across four continents have repeatedly floated fish and other prey to astonished swimmers and boaters, hinting that the ocean’s top predator likes to make friends. Researchers cataloged ...
July 2, 2025 — Female chimpanzees that forge strong, grooming-rich friendships with other females dramatically boost their infants’ odds of making it past the perilous first year—no kin required. Three decades ...
June 29, 2025 — Footprints found in the ancient lakebeds of White Sands may prove that humans lived in North America 23,000 years ago — much earlier than previously believed. A new study using radiocarbon-dated ...
June 29, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered a surprising new way that urea—an essential building block for life—could have formed on the early Earth. Instead of requiring high temperatures or complex catalysts, ...
June 27, 2025 — For over half a billion years, Earth’s magnetic field has risen and fallen in sync with oxygen levels in the atmosphere, and scientists are finally uncovering why. A NASA-led study reveals a ...
June 27, 2025 — Remove the top male spotty fish and, within minutes, the next-in-line female morphs into the tank s new tyrant charging and nipping rivals while her body quietly begins a weeks-long transition to ...
June 27, 2025 — A groundbreaking study suggests that the famous Cambrian explosion—the dramatic burst of diverse animal life—might have actually started millions ...
June 26, 2025 — Cats overwhelmingly choose to sleep on their left side, a habit researchers say could be tied to survival. This sleep position activates the ...
June 26, 2025 — New research reveals why early human attempts to leave Africa repeatedly failed—until one group succeeded spectacularly around 50,000 years ago. Scientists discovered that before this successful ...
June 26, 2025 — Poachers are using a sneaky loophole to bypass the international ivory trade ban—by passing off illegal elephant ivory as legal mammoth ivory. Since the two types look deceptively similar, law ...
Earlier Headlines
June 26, 2025 — Experiments and simulations show Paleolithic paddlers could outwit the powerful Kuroshio Current by launching dugout canoes from northern Taiwan and steering southeast toward Okinawa. A modern crew ...
June 26, 2025 — Farming didn t emerge in the Andes due to crisis or scarcity it was a savvy and resilient evolution. Ancient diets remained stable for millennia, blending wild and domesticated foods while cultural ...
June 25, 2025 — The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping ...
June 25, 2025 — Leafcutter ants live in highly organized colonies where every ant has a job, and now researchers can flip those jobs like a switch. By manipulating just two neuropeptides, scientists can turn ...
June 24, 2025 — Southern resident killer whales have been caught on drone video crafting kelp tools to groom one another—an unprecedented behavior among marine mammals. This suggests a deeper social and cultural ...
June 23, 2025 — DNA from a skull found at Newgrange once sparked theories of a royal incestuous elite in ancient Ireland, but new research reveals no signs of such a hierarchy. Instead, evidence suggests a ...
June 20, 2025 — In a twist on conventional wisdom, researchers have discovered that in ocean-like fluids with changing density, tiny porous particles can sink faster than larger ones, thanks to how they absorb salt. ...
June 20, 2025 — A century-old mystery of a stubborn cold patch in the North Atlantic is finally being unraveled. A new study links this anomaly to a long-term weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning ...
June 20, 2025 — Even after 20 million years of evolutionary separation, two tiny worm species show astonishingly similar patterns in how they turn genes on and off. Scientists mapped every cell s activity during ...
June 19, 2025 — Every query typed into a large language model (LLM), such as ChatGPT, requires energy and produces CO2 emissions. Emissions, however, depend on the model, the subject matter, and the user. ...
June 19, 2025 — Researchers investigating the enigmatic and antibiotic-resistant Pandoraea bacteria have uncovered a surprising twist: these pathogens don't just pose risks they also produce powerful natural ...
June 19, 2025 — AI researchers in Switzerland have found a way to dramatically cut cement s carbon footprint by redesigning its recipe. Their system simulates thousands of ingredient combinations, pinpointing those ...
June 18, 2025 — New research is shaking up our understanding of evolution by revealing that some species may not evolve gradually at all. Instead, scientists discovered that certain marine worms experienced an ...
June 20, 2025 — Beneath the forest floor lies an overlooked secret: many plants grow a second set of roots far deeper than expected sometimes over three feet down tapping into hidden nutrient stores and potentially ...
June 17, 2025 — Beetles that can see the color red? That s exactly what scientists discovered in two Mediterranean species that defy the norm of insect vision. While most insects are blind to red, these beetles use ...
June 17, 2025 — A massive, extinct salamander with jaws like a vice once roamed ancient Tennessee and its fossil has just rewritten what we thought we knew about Appalachian amphibians. Named Dynamognathus ...
June 17, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered that fish biofluorescence a captivating ability to glow in vivid colors has ancient roots stretching back over 100 million years. This trait evolved independently in reef ...
June 16, 2025 — A lifelong fascination with nature and fieldwork led this researcher to the world of ethnobiology a field where ecology, culture, and community come together. Investigating how local people relate to ...
June 16, 2025 — Sea anemones may hold the key to the ancient origins of body symmetry. A study from the University of Vienna shows they use a molecular mechanism known as BMP shuttling, once thought unique to ...
June 14, 2025 — Ten thousand years after mastodons disappeared, scientists have unearthed powerful fossil evidence proving these elephant cousins were vital seed spreaders for large-fruited trees in South America. ...
Thursday, June 26, 2025
- This Team Tried to Cross 140 Miles of Treacherous Ocean Like Stone-Age Humans—and It Worked
- Farming Without Famine: Ancient Andean Innovation Rewrites Agricultural Origins
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
- Mammals Didn't Walk Upright Until Late—here's What Fossils Reveal
- Scientists Reprogram Ant Behavior Using Brain Molecules
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Monday, June 23, 2025
Friday, June 20, 2025
- Gravity, Flipped: How Tiny, Porous Particles Sink Faster in Ocean Snowstorms
- The Atlantic's Chilling Secret: A Century of Data Reveals Ocean Current Collapse
- Frozen in Time: Transparent Worms Keep Genes in Sync for 20 Million Years
Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Thinking AI Models Emit 50x More CO2—and Often for Nothing
- Microscopic Heist: How Lung Bacteria Forge Weapons to Steal Iron and Survive
- The AI That Writes Climate-Friendly Cement Recipes in Seconds
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Friday, June 20, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
- These Beetles Can See a Color Most Insects Can’t
- Monster Salamander With Powerful Jaws Unearthed in Tennessee Fossil Find
- Rainbow Reefs Revealed: The Secret 112-Million-Year Saga of Glowing Fish
Monday, June 16, 2025
- Cluck Once, and the River Shakes: Inside the Amazon’s Giant Snake Saga
- 600-Million-Year-Old Body Blueprint Found in Sea Anemones
Saturday, June 14, 2025
- Fruit-Eating Mastodons? Ancient Fossils Confirm a Long-Lost Ecological Alliance
- Space-Laser AI Maps Forest Carbon in Minutes—a Game-Changer for Climate Science
- Africa's Pangolin Crisis: The Delicacy That's Driving a Species to the Brink
Friday, June 13, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 2025
- Something More Toxic Than Gators Is Hiding in the Swamps
- Pincer Plot Twist: How Female Earwigs Evolved Deadly Claws for Love and War
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Sunday, June 15, 2025
- Tiny Wasp’s Shocking Reproductive Trick May Transform Global Agriculture
- 83% of Earth’s Climate-Critical Fungi Are Still Unknown
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
- What a Dinosaur Ate 100 Million Years ago—Preserved in a Fossilized Time Capsule
- 2,000 Miles Through Rivers and Ice: Mapping Neanderthals’ Hidden Superhighways Across Eurasia
Friday, June 6, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
- Forever Chemicals' Toxic Cousin: MCCPs Detected in U. S. Air for First Time
- Clever Worms Form Superorganism Towers to Hitch Rides on Insects
Sunday, June 8, 2025
- Earth's Core Mystery Solved: How Solid Rock Flows 3,000 Kilometers Beneath Us
- How Outdated Phones Can Power Smart Cities and Save the Seas
- 160 Million Years Ago, This Fungus Pierced Trees Like a Microscopic Spear
Saturday, June 7, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Monday, June 2, 2025
Thursday, May 29, 2025
- Long Shot Science Leads to Revised Age for Land-Animal Ancestor
- Birds Nested in Arctic Alongside Dinosaurs
- Could 'pausing' Cell Death Be the Final Frontier in Medicine on Earth and Beyond?
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
- Nearly Five Million Seized Seahorses Just 'tip of the Iceberg' In Global Wildlife Smuggling
- Europe's Most Complete Stegosaurian Skull Unearthed in Teruel, Spain
- Chemists Recreate How RNA Might Have Reproduced for First Time
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
- Cryogenic Hydrogen Storage and Delivery System for Next-Generation Aircraft
- Oldest Whale Bone Tools Discovered
Monday, May 26, 2025
Friday, May 23, 2025
- Mystery of 'very Odd' Elasmosaur Finally Solved: Fiercely Predatory Marine Reptile Is New Species
- Earliest Use of Psychoactive and Medicinal Plant 'harmal' Identified in Iron Age Arabia
Thursday, May 22, 2025
- The Scent of Death? Worms Experience Altered Fertility and Lifespan When Exposed to Dead Counterparts
- An Artificial Protein That Moves Like Something Found in Nature
- Scientists Have Figured out How Extinct Giant Ground Sloths Got So Big and Where It All Went Wrong
- 'Selfish' Genes Called Introners Proven to Be a Major Source of Genetic Complexity
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
- Shrinking Nemo: Clownfish Survive Heatwaves by Shrinking
- Can Plants Hear Their Pollinators?
- Why Some Spiders Are More Venomous Than Others
- Toothache from Eating Something Cold? Blame These Ancient Fish
- A New Technology for Extending the Shelf Life of Produce
- Hand2: Positional Code That Allows Axolotls to Regrow Limbs Found
- Extreme Weather Cycles Change Underwater Light at Lake Tahoe
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Monday, May 19, 2025
- A Head and a Hundred Tails: How a Branching Worm Manages Reproductive Complexity
- Nimble Dimples: Agile Underwater Vehicles Inspired by Golf Balls
- How to Swim Without a Brain
- Capuchin Monkeys Develop Bizarre 'fad' Of Abducting Baby Howlers
- Mice Use Chemical Cues Such as Odors to Sense Social Hierarchy
Friday, May 16, 2025
- Light-to-Electricity Nanodevice Reveals How Earth's Oldest Surviving Cyanobacteria Worked
- Wild Orangutans Show Communication Complexity Thought to Be Uniquely Human
Thursday, May 15, 2025
- Dual Associations With Two Fungi Improve Tree Fitness
- Scientists Track Down Mutation That Makes Orange Cats Orange
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
- Dexterity and Climbing Ability: How Ancient Human Relatives Used Their Hands
- Fossil Tracks Show Reptiles Appeared on Earth Up to 40 Million Years Earlier
- Australia's Oldest Prehistoric Tree Frog Hops 22 Million Years Back in Time
- An Ink That Boosts Coral Reef Settlement by 20 Times
- UV Light and CT Scans Helped Scientists Unlock Hidden Details in a Beautifully-Preserved Fossil Archaeopteryx
- Light-Driven Cockroach Cyborgs Navigate Without Wires or Surgery
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
- CT Scanning Helps Reveal Path from Rotten Fish to Fossil
- Palaeontologists Discover 506-Million-Year-Old Predator
- Researchers Develop Living Material from Fungi
Monday, May 12, 2025
- Echidna Microbiome Changes While Mums Nurse Puggle
- Flamingos Create Water Tornados to Trap Their Prey
- From Prehistoric Resident to Runaway Pet: First Tegu Fossil Found in the U.S.
- Submarine Robot Catches an Underwater Wave
Friday, May 9, 2025
- Chimpanzee Groups Drum With Distinct Rhythms
- Urine, Not Water for Efficient Production of Green Hydrogen
Thursday, May 8, 2025
- Waxing and Waning Prairie: New Study Unravels Causes of Ancient Climate Changes
- Robotic Dog Mimics Mammals for Superior Mobility on Land and in Water
- Scottish Shrimp Study Illuminates New Potential for Bait-Less Fishing
- All of the Biggest U.S. Cities Are Sinking
- Eco-Friendly Aquatic Robot Is Made from Fish Food
- AI-Designed DNA Controls Genes in Healthy Mammalian Cells for First Time
- Satellites Observe Glacier Committing 'ice Piracy'
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
- Feat of 'dung-Gineering' Turns Cow Manure Into One of World's Most Used Materials
- Is Virtual-Only Couture the New Clothing Craze?
- Triassic Fossil Reveals Nature's Best Jaw for Hunting Fast Fish
- Comb Jellies Reveal Ancient Origins of Animal Genome Regulation
- Cracking the Code: Deciphering How Concrete Can Heal Itself