Strange. True. Today.
The unusual, unexpected, bizarre, funny, fascinating, and occasionally inexplicable stories happening around the world.
Worth a Look
Stories getting attention now
A new gravity-based analysis suggests that Mars’s southern interior may be 200 to 400 degrees Celsius hotter than the region beneath its northern hemisphere. Researchers say the heat imbalance could help explain the planet’s unusual seismic signals, magnetic remnants and ancient surface divide.
2 sources reporting
NASA’s Super Guppy cargo plane took its first test flight on Aug. 31, 1965. With a cavernous cargo bay and a nose that swings open, the unusual aircraft was built to move oversized spacecraft components that ordinary aircraft—and sometimes even barges—could not handle.
A study of Atlantic herring has found exceptionally high diversity in MHC class II immune genes, exceeding levels reported in other studied vertebrates, including humans. Researchers say the variation may reflect long-term adaptation to pathogens that spread readily through the fish’s enormous schools.
Fresh From the Feed
Tennessee hiker Dale Sanders has completed the Appalachian Trail at age 91, regaining the record for the oldest person to finish the route. He said he fell 71 times during the journey, including one fall that led to a brief hospital stay.
A North Carolina teenager has died after developing primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a rare infection caused by Naegleria fowleri. State health officials said the amoeba is typically found in warm freshwater and can become dangerous if contaminated water enters the nose.
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Scientists believe a landslide carrying glacial ice and debris caused the August 26 floods near Nepal’s border with Tibet. The event killed more than 900 people and left nearly 5,000 missing, while researchers warn that climate change may increase the risk of similar disasters.
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A skeleton known as “Conquest Man” has received a digitally reconstructed face nearly five decades after archaeologists found his oak coffin in northern England. Researchers say his burial, physical remains and chemical evidence offer clues to a life shaped by local, Norman and Scandinavian influences—but his identity remains unknown.
Capybaras have been repeatedly turning up inside the state legislature in Cuiabá, Brazil, after the building was constructed beside a wildlife park. A recent visit was filmed as the famously calm animals wandered through the halls before being guided outside.
A study using temporary whale tags, satellite observations and ocean data suggests blue whales systematically follow narrow temperature boundaries to locate dense krill swarms. The findings offer new insight into how the world’s largest predators forage in an enormous and constantly changing habitat.
A Space.com photographer abandoned a front-row view at Kennedy Space Center and drove to a Hobby Lobby parking lot in Titusville to capture an unusually precise image of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope launch. The Falcon Heavy passed directly across the sun just seconds after liftoff.
MIT researchers found that several short peptides remained intact for weeks and formed defined three-dimensional omega-loop structures in nearly pure sulfuric acid. The result suggests that complex molecules might persist—and potentially function—in Venus’s acidic cloud layer, though it does not demonstrate life there.
Kalshi has permanently banned George Santos after flagging trades tied to a prediction market about whether he would attend Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. The case was referred to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Santos later settled with the agency for $35,000 without admitting wrongdoing.
A class ring lost during a day at New York’s Great Sacandaga Lake nearly three decades ago has been returned to its owner. Hobbyists Michael Siegle and Dylan LaPort found the ring beneath a rock and traced it to a former Red Creek High School student.
A Baltimore woman says her father’s caregiver transferred his South Carolina home to herself before his death, then failed to tell the family for days. The daughter discovered the transfer after driving to check on him and finding the house renovated, repainted orange and occupied by the caregiver’s belongings.
Sea ice near Norway’s Jan Mayen island expanded sharply in 2023 and early 2024, briefly reviving a formation that had become uncommon after the early 2000s. Researchers say the change likely reflects several interacting Arctic conditions rather than a single cause.
