Weird news stories

Venus May Be More Earth-Like Than We Thought – And It’s Still Moving
16th May 2025 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Space, Weird

A new study of Venus suggests that the deeply inhospitable world may be more like Earth than we thought. The research has been published in Science Advances.

We Emit a Visible Light That Vanishes When We Die, Says Surprising New Study
13th May 2025 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Weird

Life truly is radiant, according to an experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada. This research was published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

Cuttlefish Wave at Each Other, And It Could Be a Mysterious Form of Sign Language
7th May 2025 | sciencealert.com | Animal Life, Weird

Cuttlefish are strange animals with some strange means of communication. Now, these cephalopods have been recorded using their arms in a way that looks like they are gesturing to each other – adding a potentially previously unknown form of communication to their toolkit. The research has not yet been peer-reviewed, and is available on bioRxiv.

Scientists Don’t Know Why Consciousness Exists, And a New Study Proves It
6th May 2025 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Weird

“Theories are like toothbrushes,” it’s sometimes said. “Everybody has their own and nobody wants to use anybody else’s.”

Ancient echidnas leave palaeontologists scratching their heads
30th April 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Weird

Platypus and echidnas are the only surviving members of the monotreme family. This includes the only mammals to lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young. For this reason, they are considered relics of early mammal evolution. The new study was published in the Proccedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Curiosity Finds First In Situ Evidence of Carbon Cycle on Ancient Mars
18th April 2025 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Space, Weird

A surprise discovery in Gale Crater is the component that was missing in the puzzle of Mars’s climate history. The findings have been published in Science Advances.

Dark energy survey opens access to largest 3D map of universe
20th March 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Space, Tech, Weird

A team using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and a supercomputer to try to better understand the mysterious phenomenon known as dark energy, created the largest 3D map of the universe as part of this endeavour. And it has just made this map publicly available.

Dwarf galaxies swarming Andromeda act ‘weird’
4th March 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Space, Weird

The Andromeda Galaxy…is surrounded by a swarm of nearly 3 dozen dwarf galaxies, which circle it like bees around a hive. These “satellite galaxies” have been studied in unprecedented detail in a new paper published in the Astrophysical Journal.

‘Nailed-head ritual’ in Iron Age Spain was more ‘complex than initially thought,’ severed skulls reveal
24th February 2025 | livescience.com | Ancient, Humans, Weird

Prehistoric people in Spain severed the heads of dead people and drove giant nails through their skulls for very different reasons: to celebrate the community’s ancestors and to intimidate their enemies, a new analysis of Iron Age skulls suggests.

Octopus Arms Are Controlled by a Nervous System That’s Like No Other
15th January 2025 | sciencealert.com | Animal Life, Weird

Octopuses tend to keep secrets, but we’ve just learnt how they achieve their extraordinary dexterity. The research has been published in Nature Communications.

This Strange Comet-Asteroid Hybrid Is Like Nothing Else in The Solar System
6th January 2025 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Space, Weird

In the distant space out beyond the orbit of Jupiter lurks a strange object. Its name is Chiron, a type of outer Solar System body known as a centaur. But even among its fellow centaurs, Chiron is special – and new observations from JWST reveal how truly Chiron is like nothing else we’ve ever seen.

Dark Energy May Not Exist: Something Stranger Might Explain The Universe
3rd January 2025 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Space, Weird

There might not be a mysterious ‘dark’ force accelerating the expansion of the Universe after all. The truth could be much stranger – bubbles of space where time passes at drastically different rates.

A Giant Structure in Space Challenges Our Understanding of The Universe
31st October 2024 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Space, Weird

The discovery, led by astronomer Alexia Lopez of the University of Central Lancashire, was presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January, and has been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

Fungal ‘Brains’ Can Think Like Human Minds, Scientists Say
27th October 2024 | popularmechanics.com | Earth, Humans, Misc., Weird

According to a new study published in the journal Fungal Ecology, fungi may have their own unique measure of intelligence, making them capable of basic shape recognition and decision-making throughout the networks they build.

This Fungus Appears to Be Able to Recognize Shapes, Study Shows
21st October 2024 | sciencealert.com | Earth, Weird

An ability to sense and respond to the world is vital for the survival of most organisms, but methods of perception can vary significantly. We tend to think of animals as the most gifted in that regard… but a species of fungus is offering a challenge to what we think we know about intelligence. The research has been published in Fungal Ecology.

Octopus-fish hunting clubs: no despots, some punching
24th September 2024 cosmosmagazine.com | Animal Life, Weird

Despite being a solitary creature, the day octopus (Octopus cyanea) has sometimes been spotted hunting with inter-species groups of fish. Scientists assumed that the octopus is in charge of the hunting pack, but a new study finds that influence is actually shared around, depending on the situation.

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