A doctor cracked one hand’s knuckles for 50 years. Neither hand got arthritis. ift.tt/K2vgsDY

Tiny snakes escape danger by rolling like a wheel at up to 8.3 mph, about four times faster than they can slither ift.tt/eHnt2Az

Sewer crews in French colonial Hanoi killed 20,114 rats on 12 June 1902 alone, so the city paid a bounty per tail, and an official later found villagers breeding rats outside town to cash in ift.tt/NIJOoh0

The 1960s and 70s accidentally produced one of the most emotionally durable generations in modern history — not through better parenting but through benign neglect that forced children to self-regulate, problem-solve, and develop emotional calluses that … scienceblog.com/the-1960s-an…

Wild orangutan mothers arrange play dates, spending time and energy travelling to patches of forest so their infants can meet others their age, a PNAS 2026 study by Jacobson and colleagues suggests. ift.tt/30LyPCK

Sharks were thought unable to pick up sound from far off, but wild blacktip sharks off Palm Beach County, Florida, turned away from an underwater speaker from at least 62 metres away in drone video, while a 10-kilohertz tone above their hearing range dre… ift.tt/GzwsgJ4

Time spent close to a cat tracked positive mood, not the years of ownership, in a one month Kyoto University study of 29 cats and 19 owners that used Bluetooth beacons on collars, published in iScience. ift.tt/Yg17QtZ

When Florida released eight Burmese pythons in 1992 for a university tracking study, the snakes were meant to stay in a fenced area, but Hurricane Andrew hit weeks later and destroyed the enclosure, and today tens of thousands of their descendants occupy… ift.tt/WEYJgkS

Wild elephants gesture on purpose, checking whether another elephant is watching and gesturing again or switching gestures if the goal is not met, across more than 90 hours of University of Vienna-led observation in two South African parks ift.tt/b0HCpEy

A honey bee stinger removed from the bee keeps pumping venom on its own as a double-piston pump, high-speed video of stingers in a clear skin-like gel shows ift.tt/ZL762Jp

Singapore fought dengue by releasing more mosquitoes, Wolbachia-carrying males whose mates lay eggs that never hatch, and a trial across eight clusters averted an estimated 2,351 cases ift.tt/k2Hw4yr

Soil organic matter ran 3.61 percent on north Texas multi-paddock ranches against about 2.4 percent under heavy continuous grazing, but a 2026 review found no carbon gain in its 10 best studies. ift.tt/nOs5qK7

Sleeping mice cleared amyloid twice as fast as awake ones in a 2013 Rochester study, while a 2024 Imperial College London team found brain dye clearance about a quarter lower in sleeping mice ift.tt/xwTOaHZ

Six hundred backyard traps laced with larvicide and fungus cut mosquito eggs by 70% in Melbourne suburbs, and the treated zones later logged 1 case of flesh-eating Buruli ulcer to 6 in control zones among infections traced to the trial’s final day ift.tt/3vrBIHT

The Tidal Thames was declared biologically dead in 1957 with zero fish species, and over 115 have been recorded since, ZSL’s 2026 report says, though species per sample have slipped since 1992. ift.tt/CVRHdyu

David Sabatini led a Whitehead Institute lab in Cambridge for 24 years until he was forced out in 2021. A Boston jury has now found that Kristin Knouse defamed him and awarded $6 million plus interest. Her lawyer says she will appeal. ift.tt/jDaBLZ8

From 1923 to 1945 California moved 338 beavers into 29 of 58 counties, for fur as well as water storage and erosion control. In October 2023 it released seven in Plumas County. ift.tt/mwzbF8r

Does regenerative farming pay a grower who never goes organic? Giving up the plow raised net returns by $34 to $93 an acre for corn and $30 to $86 for soybean across three decades of randomized trials in Ohio and Michigan. ift.tt/8BzVREm

In Boca Raton, Florida, 15-year-old Hannah Herbst built a roughly $12 ocean-current energy probe with a 3D-printed propeller, lit LEDs in Intracoastal tests, and won $25,000 as America’s Top Young Scientist in 2015 ift.tt/pELqZHD

Larger dogs lose the DNA marks that keep ‘jumping genes’ quiet about a third faster than smaller dogs, a study of 894 Dog Aging Project dogs finds, which may help explain why big dogs age sooner ift.tt/uzwH9Kc