Nature

A strange, undulating blob found in the waters of Ørstafjorden in Norway has turned out to be a rare sight: a giant mass of squid eggs. The otherworldly ball, floating mysteriously in the darkness of the fjord, was discovered by captain Nils Baadnes and diver Ronald Raasch with the research vessel REV Ocean. It wasn’t

There’s a fish that can live on land. Georgia officials want you to kill it immediately. A northern snakehead fish was caught earlier this month in a Gwinnett County pond, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division, and it’s the first time the species has been reported in Georgia waters, the

A seemingly strange demise has befallen five cattle on the Silvies Valley Ranch in remote eastern Oregon. Reports from NPR and the Associated Press paint a bewildering scene, free from tracks, predator activity, poison, shot wounds and even blood. But it might just be the latest instalment in a long line of ‘mysterious cattle death’ stories

Humans have been mining diamonds for a long time, but a new stone hauled from the belly of the Earth could very well be a first. The diamond itself is hollow – and inside is another diamond, freely moving around. It was discovered in a Russian mine in Siberia, and has been named the Matryoshka

Over millions of years, humans have developed a talent for transforming bits of nature into objects that make daily tasks easier. We got so good at it, we started to think tool-use among animals was a rather exclusive club – as it turns out, we were wrong. Adding to the long list of animals that

When the last of Earth’s woolly mammoths expired, they were isolated on Wrangel Island in the frigid Arctic Ocean, north of Russia. We’ve known of the species’ last resting place for years; now, we finally know more about their survival and ultimate death. Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) died out 4,000 years ago over a remarkably short

Six elephants died while trying to save each other after a baby elephant fell from a waterfall in a Thai national park, officials said. Staff at Khao Yai National Park, about 85 miles northeast of Bangkok, found the roughly 3-year-old baby elephant drowned on Saturday. Five more dead elephants also were discovered at the bottom

Not unlike the movie “Okja,” where a company breeds massive pigs to maximize profits, some Chinese farmers are growing larger and larger hogs to keep up with pork shortages. In Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi province, one farm owner is breeding pigs that weigh over 1,100 pounds – making them the size of polar

Like most people, something called a theory of mind allows me to mentally step into another’s shoes and imagine their thoughts. But whether we share this talent with other primates is still a matter of debate. A new study adds even more evidence to the view that apes are able to anticipate the others’ actions

Scientists have been able to teach birds simple songs they’ve never heard before by selectively activating specific neurons in their brains – effectively implanting false memories. Using the process of optogenetics, where light is used to control living tissue, the team was able to activate certain neuron circuits in the birds and get them to

A rare and deadly fungus, the only one that can poison a human from mere touch, has just showed up where nobody expected – in suburban Queensland, in the far north of Australia. Originally discovered in China in 1895, the reddish-orange poison fire coral (Podostroma cornu-damae) is predominantly encountered in Asia, including Korea, Japan, and

The most significant pterosaur fossil ever discovered in Australia has been unearthed in the Winton area of central western Queensland. The newly discovered species, which my colleagues and I have named Ferrodraco lentoni, had a wingspan of about 4 metres (13 feet). It lived around 96 million years ago, and was surprisingly similar to other

They may not have the muscles and reflexes of the animal kingdom, but that doesn’t mean plants just passively sit around when something starts chewing them up. We know damage triggers a signal that spreads through the plant, mounting its defensive response. And we know part of that response is the release of smelly volatile

Weird and wonderful, the microscopic tardigrades are sometimes colloquially known as ‘water bears’ and ‘moss piglets’. In all fairness, though, no bear or piglet ever dreamt of doing the amazing things these uniquely gifted creatures are capable of. Tardigrades are know for their incredible resilience, as they’re able to survive all manner of extreme conditions. When the going gets tough,

Half a billion years ago, when trilobites ruled and dry land was a barren wasteland, Earth was having a terrible time making a decision. North and south had switched places nearly 80 times in just a few million years, making it one of the most geomagnetically turbulent moments in history. Geologists from the Russian Academy

Back when you were just a fingernail-sized blob in your mother’s uterus, your tiny baby flippers had far more in common with the paws of ancient reptiles than you might be comfortable with. Special immunostaining techniques carried out by scientists from Washington’s Howard University and Sorbonne University in Paris have revealed new human atavisms –

The Tyrannosaurus rex had the strongest bite of any known land animal – extinct or otherwise. The king of the dinosaurs was capable of biting through solid bone, but paleontologists had long been baffled as to how it accomplished this feat without breaking its own skull. In a new study published in the journal The

The crypt-keeper wasp is hardly a fussy eater. Given the chance, this creepy parasitic insect will chew through the heads of at least seven different species to survive, a new study has found.  Discovered just a few years ago, this gruesome predator (Euderus set) is known as a ‘hyper-manipulator’ – a parasite that manipulates a parasite

As Tropical Storm Karen withers away, Hurricane Lorenzo has become “one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the tropical central Atlantic,” according to the National Hurricane Center. Now packing 140 mph winds, Lorenzo became a Category 4 storm Thursday farther east than any other previous storm on record, save for Julia

Some people can’t sleep if they know there’s a spider in their house. Imagine being in Beaumont, Tex., and thinking that the largest alligator ever caught in the United States was on the loose there. Fortunately, after a nerve-racking few days, that gator has been found. It was a tense week for neighbors of Gator

Like the deserts of the Antarctic, or the deepest parts of the sea, Mono Lake in California is an inhospitable place for most life forms. Apart from bacteria and algae, it appears only brine shrimp and diving flies can put up with its super-salty waters. But there’s more to this body of water than meets

You ever watch your pets sleeping? When they twitch their paws and whiskers, and yip and mewl? Well, cats and dogs experience REM sleep, which means they’re probably dreaming. And, while evidence of REM sleep has so far not been seen in octopuses, they do have a kind of sleep twitch of their own. Sleeping

In the search for the earliest life on Earth, it can be hard to tell whether you’re looking at an actual fossil, or crinkles in the rock itself. Such doubts have long shadowed the 1980s discovery of 3.5 billion-year-old fossils in the Australian desert. Now, scientists think they have finally put the matter to bed.

There could be another force, even stronger than a hydrogen bond, holding our DNA together, new research suggests. First discovered back in the 1950s, the double helix structure of our genetic material has since become iconic, although we’re still figuring out how all its pieces fit together. Appearing like a twisted ladder, the rungs are

The map of the world looked very different 240 million years ago. Earth’s modern-day continents were joined together in one Pac-Man-shaped supercontinent known as Pangea, which eventually split into two fragments: Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south. The former became Europe, Asia, and North America. The latter dispersed to form modern-day Africa,

Diamonds are hardly ever perfect. Like us, they carry blemishes and flaws: tiny ‘inclusions’ of ancient chemistry trapped inside their lustrous frames. To the jeweller, these minuscule marks may diminish a gemstone’s value. To a scientist, the imperfection itself can actually be the true glittering prize. In a startling new discovery, researchers in Canada have

In a kind of odd man-versus-nature moment, a Russian navy boat was attacked and sunk by a walrus during an expedition in the Arctic, the Barents Observer reported Monday. The Altai, a tugboat of the Russian navy’s Northern Fleet, sailed to the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic carrying researchers from the Russian Geographical

Antibiotic-resistant superbugs are a growing threat to human health, and without urgent and widespread action, experts warn we might one day slip into a ‘post-antibiotic era‘. As the world heads down this dangerous road, it looks more and more like we’re dragging marine creatures along with us. A long-term study has now found a surge

Sometimes even the largest natural wonders can remain hidden from human view for centuries. The Amazon is a dense place, full of life with new species of flora and fauna being discovered every other day. Now, using the same technology that takes driverless cars from A to B, we – led by Eric Gorgens and

Antarctica is known for its tempestuous weather, and the surface winds surrounding this icy southern continent are some of the strongest and most persistent on Earth. Throughout most of the year, and especially in winter, these powerful gusts of coastal air drive what is described as the “mightiest current” in all the oceans: the Antarctic

If you had to name a creature in the ocean with sharp teeth, you’d probably say “shark”, right? I’d be thinking shark. Obviously, the answer is shark. But what about the humble sea urchin? These strange, prickly orbs dwell on the bottom of the seabed and don’t even look like they have mouths, let alone

Something mysterious happened nearly half a billion years ago that triggered one of the most important changes in the history of life on Earth. Suddenly, there was an explosion of species, with the biodiversity of invertebrate animals increasing from a very low level to something similar to what we see today. The most popular explanation