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Odd Creatures News

July 9, 2025

Top Headlines

 

As glaciers melt around the world, long-dormant volcanoes may be waking up beneath the ice. New research reveals that massive ice sheets have suppressed eruptions for thousands of years, building up underground pressure. But as that icy weight ...
High heat and heavy metals dampen a bumblebee’s trademark buzz, threatening pollen release and colony chatter. Tiny sensors captured up-to-400-hertz tremors that falter under environmental stress, raising alarms for ecosystems and sparking ideas ...
Feral water buffalo now roam Hong Kong s South Lantau marshes, and a 657-person survey shows they ignite nostalgia, wonder, and worry in equal measure. Many residents embrace them as living links to a fading rural past and potential conservation ...
Danish and Welsh botanists sifted through 400 studies, field-tested seed mixes, and uncovered a lineup of native and exotic blooms that both thrill human eyes and lure bees and hoverflies in droves, ...
Kenyan fig trees can literally turn parts of themselves to stone, using microbes to convert internal crystals into limestone-like deposits that lock away carbon, sweeten surrounding soils, and still yield fruit—hinting at a delicious new weapon in ...
Immersing stressed volunteers in a 360° virtual Douglas-fir forest complete with sights, sounds and scents boosted their mood, sharpened short-term memory and deepened their feeling of nature-connectedness—especially when all three senses were ...
Preserving strips of native vegetation beside avocado orchards gives insects a buffet of wild pollen when blossoms are scarce, doubling their plant menu and boosting their resilience. Using cutting-edge eDNA metabarcoding, Curtin scientists revealed ...
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 ...
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. ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:29am EDT

Earlier Headlines

 

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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