WEIRD JOY
Peanut butter failed. Burnt coconut found a new species.
Two mice, one mountain valley, and twenty-two years of patient taxonomy.
SOURCEZooKeys / PubMed Central
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ALL THE SLOP
Every serving. No expiration date. Page 2 of 3.
NATURE
New York City planted 18,261 trees. It started with the hottest blocks.
New York City planted its most trees in a decade and prioritized neighborhoods where extreme heat hits hardest.
SOURCENew York City Mayor’s Office
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WEIRD JOY
Two new sea spiders turned up in the Salish Sea. One has hairy feet.
UBC divers found the first new sea spider species described in the Salish Sea in almost a century. One has red eyes and fuzzy-looking legs.
SOURCEUniversity of British Columbia
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NATURE
THE MEADOW GREW BACK.
NATURE
They stopped dragging chains. The seagrass erased 94% of the scars.
Ten traditional chain moorings were replaced with eco-moorings that move with the tide instead of scraping circles through the seabed. Five years later, the damaged patches had shrunk by an average 93.6%.
SOURCENational Trust / Studland Bay Marine Partnership
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WEIRD JOY
This one-gram robot can hop over a stair.
DirectHop uses a tiny motor and three folding legs to make controlled, repeated jumps. The prototype can clear a standard stair and twitch itself upright after a fall.
SOURCEUniversity of Washington / Newswise
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WEIRD JOY
NINETY-NINE, IN SQUASH.
WEIRD JOY
A farm built a world-record Attenborough portrait out of pumpkins.
Sunnyfields Farm unveiled a giant mosaic portrait of Sir David Attenborough assembled from pumpkins, breaking its own world record for the largest pumpkin mosaic.
SOURCEBBC News
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WEIRD JOY
THE CLEANING CREW HAS SHELLS.
WEIRD JOY
Alabama put 1,500 mussels to work cleaning a river.
About 1,500 rare native freshwater mussels — including two endangered species — were released into the Paint Rock River on August 25 after years of streambank repair.
SOURCEOutdoor Alabama
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NATURE
NOBODY REINTRODUCED IT.
NATURE
They stopped interfering. Forty years later, an anteater walked back in.
Mongabay reports a giant anteater turned up in an Argentine reserve on its own, decades after the species vanished locally — a case for letting recovering habitat do the work.
SOURCEMongabay
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WEIRD JOY
THE PATIENT KNOCKED.
WEIRD JOY
An injured pelican knocked on a NOAA lab door for help.
A brown pelican tangled in fishing line, with a treble hook in its wing and cactus spines in its foot, repeatedly tapped on NOAA’s Panama City Laboratory door. Biologists freed it in about 10 minutes, and it flew away.
SOURCENOAA Fisheries
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WEIRD JOY
THE LETTUCE LIVES UPSTAIRS.
WEIRD JOY
Alaska found the place vertical farming actually makes sense.
The brewery put a lettuce farm upstairs. In Skagway, that actually works.
SOURCEReasons to Be Cheerful
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WEIRD JOY
THE DINOSAUR LEFT RECEIPTS.
WEIRD JOY
A T. rex took four steps. 66.5 million years later, a teacher found them.
Four footprints. Twenty-three feet. One 66.5-million-year-old walk.
SOURCEJournal of Vertebrate Paleontology
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NATURE
THE SPACE UNDER THE PANELS GOT BUSY.
NATURE
The solar farm planted wildflowers. The bees noticed.
Panels up. Wildflowers in. Insects followed.
SOURCEEnvironmental Research Letters
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NATURE
DONE BY HAND.
NATURE
The diggers couldn't get there. So they fixed the bog by hand.
Ten days, wooden dams, no machinery. Pools are already forming.
SOURCENatureScot
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NATURE
DAMS OUT. SALMON IN.
NATURE
The dams came down. More than 20,000 salmon came back.
Four dams gone. 21,052 adult Chinook counted upstream across two seasons. Eighty-eight percent of their documented historic range reoccupied — early, and encouraging.
SOURCEScientific Reports
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WEIRD JOY
EIGHT LESSONS. NEARLY 2,000 SCHOOLS.
WEIRD JOY
Kindergarten PE now includes learning to ride a bike.
An eight-lesson learn-to-ride curriculum is now in nearly 2,000 US elementary schools. Balance bikes first, pedals when you are ready, gym class credit either way.
SOURCEAssociated Press
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NATURE
208 TURTLES, HAND-DELIVERED.
NATURE
Seven “turtle women” sent 208 hatchlings back to the Amazon.
235 eggs in. 208 tiny turtles out.
SOURCEMongabay
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NATURE
THE LAND CHANGED HANDS.
NATURE
7,500 acres just switched sides.
An English grouse-and-sheep estate is being reworked around peat, wildlife and long-term restoration instead.
SOURCEThe Guardian
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NATURE
ONE BIRD BOUGHT THE LAND.
NATURE
One weird bird helped build 19 nature reserves.
A bird nobody had scientifically recorded helped trigger a conservation network protecting habitat across Ecuador.
SOURCEThe Guardian
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WEIRD JOY
A SHED FULL OF GLOW.
WEIRD JOY
The glowworms came back. A garden shed was involved.
After a century away, tiny green lights are blinking again in North Yorkshire.
SOURCEThe Guardian
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WEIRD JOY
HE BOUGHT THE MARQUEE.
WEIRD JOY
Rick Steves bought his hometown movie theater so it wouldn’t die.
A century-old neighborhood movie house just got a very determined new owner.
SOURCEKNKX Public Radio
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WEIRD JOY
SNAKES, APPARENTLY, HAVE FRIENDS.
WEIRD JOY
The baby rattlesnakes are cuddling. Please adjust your worldview.
Livestream cameras in California, Colorado and Pennsylvania captured live rattlesnake births, dozens of newborns and baby snakes cuddling adults for protection. Apparently even rattlesnakes have a snuggle phase.
SOURCECal Poly / Project RattleCam
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NATURE
THE WATER IS COMING BACK.
NATURE
We drained the swamp. Now we’re un-draining it.
A 23-square-mile tract of drained North Carolina peatland is being rewetted, replanted and restored to hold water, reduce fire risk, rebuild habitat and stop releasing so much stored carbon. Sometimes progress is admitting the ditch was a bad idea.
SOURCEAssociated Press
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WEIRD JOY
TINY TRACKERS, BIG MIGRATION.
WEIRD JOY
The warblers have backpacks now.
Researchers are fitting tiny songbirds with Tic Tac-sized geolocator backpacks that record light and atmospheric pressure across entire migrations. Serious science has once again required an extremely small backpack.
SOURCESmithsonian Migratory Bird Center / The Conversation
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WEIRD JOY
AN EMOTIONAL SUPPORT LOG.
WEIRD JOY
The internet gave the baby porcupine an emotional support log.
Point Defiance Zoo welcomed its first prehensile-tailed porcupine baby in 121 years. Then the internet spotted the tiny porcupette clutching a log and named it an “emotional support log.” For once, the comments improved the story.
SOURCEPoint Defiance Zoo & Aquarium / Good Good Good
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