Weird news stories

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.

Stephen Hawking’s black hole radiation paradox could finally be solved — if black holes aren’t what they seem
20th September 2024 | livescience.com | Ancient, Space, Weird

New research suggests that black holes may actually be “frozen stars,” bizarre quantum objects that lack a singularity and an event horizon, potentially solving some of the biggest paradoxes in black hole physics.

‘Third state’ between life and death changes what we know about human existence
19th September 2024 metro.co.uk | Humans, Misc., Weird

Scientists have discovered what they call a ‘third state’ between life and death, where some cells of an organism survive even after the organism dies. They don’t just survive – they develop new capabilities they didn’t have in the organism’s life, according to a study published in the Physiology journal.

Engineers Gave a Mushroom a Robot Body And Let It Run Wild
4th September 2024 | sciencealert.com | Earth, Humans, Tech, Weird

“By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment,” says senior researcher Rob Shepherd, a materials scientist at Cornell. This research was published in Science Robotics.

Doughnut-shaped region found inside Earth’s core deepens understanding of planet’s magnetic field
2nd September 2024 phys.org | Earth, Humans, Weird

A doughnut-shaped region thousands of kilometers beneath our feet within Earth’s liquid core has been discovered by scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), providing new clues about the dynamics of our planet’s magnetic field. The research is published in Science Advances.

Weird mystery waves that baffle scientists may be ‘everywhere’ inside Earth’s mantle
23rd August 2024 | livescience.com | Ancient, Earth, Weird

Mysterious zones in the deep mantle where earthquake waves slow to a crawl may actually be everywhere, new research finds.

New technology offers a better look at tardigrade fossils embedded in amber
15th August 2024 phys.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Weird

A trio of evolutionary biologists at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology has learned more about the evolutionary history of tardigrades by studying two fossils embedded in amber. Their study is published in Communications Biology.

Group of ancient stars spotted near the sun could rewrite the Milky Way’s history
4th August 2024 | livescience.com | Ancient, Space, Weird

Researchers using the Gaia space telescope studied some ancient stars near the sun, revealing that our corner of the Milky Way may be billions of years older than once thought. See their findings in the pre-print arXiv server earlier this year.

Mysterious ‘Dark Oxygen’ Discovered at Bottom of Ocean Stuns Scientists
23rd July 2024 | sciencealert.com | Animal Life, Earth, Humans, Weird

Chugging quietly away in the dark depths of Earth’s ocean floors, a spontaneous chemical reaction is unobtrusively creating oxygen, all without the involvement of life. This unexpected discovery upends the long-standing consensus that it takes photosynthesizing organisms to produce the oxygen we need to breathe. This research was published in Nature Geoscience.

‘We can’t answer these questions’: Neuroscientist Kenneth Kosik on whether lab-grown brains will achieve consciousness
22nd July 2024 | livescience.com | Humans, Tech, Weird

So much is still unknown about consciousness, nevermind whether brain organoids will achieve it, explains a leading neuroscientist.

Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows
3rd July 2024 | theguardian.com | Animal Life, Weird

It sounds like a scene from a Spielberg film: an injured worker undergoes an emergency amputation, performed by one of her colleagues, allowing her to live another day. But this is not a human story – it is behaviour seen in ants.

Out-of-Body Experiences Have a Surprising Effect on Some People
24th June 2024 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Misc., Weird

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) can leave a significant and lasting impression on those who go through them, and can also boost feelings of empathy towards others, according to a new survey.

Earth’s upper atmosphere could hold a missing piece of the universe, new study hints
11th June 2024 | livescience.com | Earth, Humans, Space, Weird

Mysterious dark matter could slosh over our planet like a wave. If it does, it may produce telltale radio waves in Earth’s atmosphere, new theoretical research suggests.

“Highly unusual” neutron star signals detected in Western Australia
5th June 2024 cosmosmagazine.com | Humans, Space, Weird

Details of the “highly unusual” neutron star’s discovery is published in Nature Astronomy. There have been more than 3,000 radio-emitting neutron stars discovered.  The newly found star’s spin is well outside what astrophysicists predict of neutron star behaviour.

Is The ‘Dead Internet Theory’ True? Shrimp Jesus Phenomenon Explained
22nd May 2024 | sciencealert.com | Humans, Tech, Weird

If you search “shrimp Jesus” on Facebook, you might encounter dozens of images of artificial intelligence (AI) generated crustaceans meshed in various forms with a stereotypical image of Jesus Christ. Some of these hyper-realistic images have garnered more than 20,000 likes and comments. So what exactly is going on here?

Giant Structure Lurking in Deep Space Challenges Our Understanding of The Universe
12th May 2024 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Space, Weird

A colossal structure in the distant Universe is defying our understanding of how the Universe evolved. In light that has traveled for 6.9 billion years to reach us, astronomers have found a giant, almost perfect ring of galaxies, some 1.3 billion light-years in diameter. It doesn’t match any known structure or formation mechanism.

News stories the paranormal, supernatural, and bizarre, including cryptozoology, UFOs, and other unexplained phenomenon.