ALL THE SLOP

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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A vitamin-derived molecule reached its target in mitochondrial disease patients.

A Cambridge-led study gave nicotinamide riboside to eight people with mitochondrial DNA disease. It was well tolerated and showed early signs of working.

SOURCEGenome Medicine / University of Cambridge

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THE RIVER DIDN'T GET TO KEEP IT.

The river took a baby elephant. Five fishermen brought it back.

A days-old elephant calf drifted roughly four kilometers down the Teesta. Five fishermen reached it by boat; forest officials reunited it with its mother.

SOURCEThe Indian Express / West Bengal Forest Department

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An experimental drug gave mice with MS-like disease their movement back.

In a mouse model of multiple sclerosis, the experimental drug K-9 restored function after paralysis and vision loss had already set in. It has not been tested in people with MS.

SOURCENational Institutes of Health / UVA Health

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Los Angeles emptied the dog kennels for a day. 37 dogs never went back.

Los Angeles got 395 shelter dogs out for a day. Twenty-three were adopted and 14 entered foster homes instead of returning to kennels.

SOURCEBest Friends Animal Society

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Chagas treatment just got cut from 60 days to 30.

In the TESEO trial, 450 adults received different benznidazole regimens. The 30-day, once-daily option matched the standard 60-day course in the trial and caused fewer side effects.

SOURCEUTEP

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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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SHE PICKED CALIFORNIA.

A sea turtle just nested on the West Coast for the first time on record.

Lifeguards were called to an injured turtle near Seal Beach on 16 September. She was not injured. She was digging a nest — and three days later it happened again near the Huntington Beach Pier. NOAA Fisheries says it is the first recorded natural nesting of any sea turtle species on the U.S. West Coast. Both nests are now fenced, signed and monitored.

SOURCELos Angeles Times / NOAA Fisheries

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HUMANS

THE LINE HELD.

HUMANS

A high school football team pulled a pontoon out of a flash flood.

When flash flooding hit New Richland, Minnesota, players from the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva football team helped with a pontoon rescue instead of watching from the bank.

SOURCEKEYC News

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NINETY-NINE, IN SQUASH.

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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THE SCAN CAME BACK EMPTY.

Two doses of a new immunotherapy cleared a child's liver cancer.

Researchers at Texas Children's, Baylor College of Medicine and Seattle Children's reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that a child with hepatoblastoma had complete regression of disease after a novel immunotherapy given as part of the CARE study.

SOURCETexas Children's Hospital

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THE HAND FELT BACK.

He lost his arm at 16. Now he can feel his wife's hand.

Seventeen years after an amputation, Alexander “Avi” Davidson became the first participant to take Utah's thought-controlled bionic arm home — with a nerve interface that gives it a sense of touch.

SOURCEUniversity of Utah Health

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THE CLEANING CREW HAS SHELLS.

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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FIVE LEFT. STILL HERE.

The bird that once had five left just won Bird of the Year.

Karure black robins fell to five birds in 1980. Decades of conservation brought them back to around 350 adults — and on September 21 the species won New Zealand’s 2026 Bird of the Year.

SOURCEForest & Bird

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THE PATIENT KNOCKED.

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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TWO ORIGINS. ONE BRAIN.

The human brain may have been built from two ancient systems.

Stanford researchers found the forebrain/midbrain and hindbrain arise from distinct progenitor cell populations — and used that insight to grow functional human hindbrain motor neurons in the lab.

SOURCEStanford Medicine

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184 CHICKS. NEW RECORD.