Wild Feed

Detailed by Scientific American, a team led by biologist Raffaela Lesch collected nearly 20,000 raccoon photos from users of iNaturalist, a social network/science project that allows its users to log and share scientific observations. Lesch and the team found that across the U.S., raccoons living in cities consistently had snouts about 3.5 percent shorter than those in rural areas. That might not sound like much, but it’s significant in evolutionary terms. It’s a sign of something called “domestication syndrome,” and it isn’t a random occurrence.

The safe return of the Shenzhou-20 crew this past Friday brought an end to the longest single stay in orbit for any Chinese crew. The crew landed at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, ending their 204-day mission. Yet, that successful homecoming immediately ushered in a new, albeit temporary, crisis.

While the three taikonauts touched down safely on Friday, they left their replacements — the Shenzhou-21 crew — marooned aboard the Tiangong Space Station, with no ride home in the event of an emergency.

Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the study found that people who smoked high-potency cannabis drank 27 percent less alcohol, while those on a weaker strain drank 19 percent less, compared to a placebo joint. Participants also waited longer to take their first drink, suggesting cannabis might slow-roll the urge to chase a buzz with another buzz.

According to information sent to media by the Farmers Protest Convoy organizers ahead of the convoy, the protest was organized so ordinary folks could “stand up with us against the abuse of power by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and (the) use of the stamping-out policy to manage avian flu.”

At the heart of the issue is the recent killing of more than 300 ostriches on the Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood, B.C., a cull that was ordered by the CFIA last New Year’s Eve.

According to numerous news reports, the CFIA ordered the cull of the birds after avian flu was detected in the flock last December and killed 70 of the birds.

What might start as a casual conversation with bots like ChatGPT can turn into a full-blown dependency on a robot. When framed like this, it’s unlikely anyone would agree that this is healthy. However, 19% of adults reported that they have chatted with an AI system meant to simulate a romantic partner. Keep in mind, this data was released earlier this year, when AI chatbots were still a relatively new and taboo topic.

X confirmed the rollout of country labels for all profiles in November 2025, while also allowing users to opt out of the system. In late November, memes in which X users accuse each other of secretly being based in developing countries began making the rounds online, with "Account based in India" becoming a notable point of mockery online, as seen in campaigns against X users like @ysmammri and @VividProwess.

Side note: Weirdly, as this story is spreading, Knowyourmeme.com is one of the most credible sources I can find on it. Rawstory and Hindustan Times and a few others copied the same exaggerated claims. None had great track records for credibility.

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to believe they will be taken up in the biblical Rapture, according to a new YouGov poll.

The September 23 poll of 4,041 U.S. adults found that 63 percent of Republicans said they would be more likely to be taken up, compared with 40 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of independents.

Overall, 46 percent of Americans said they believed they would ascend, while 18 percent thought they would be left behind.

...A non-speaking autistic person is assumed to lack comprehension, agency, and sophisticated thought. They're denied education, autonomy, and presumption of competence because one apparent marker of disability is mistaken for a limitation in every domain of functioning.

The other extreme is the denial of difficulty: For example, eloquent communicators might be told they "don't seem autistic" or can't possibly need support. Or, someone's success in one area becomes “evidence” that their ADHD is not real; they're exaggerating, seeking attention, not trying hard enough. The non-apparent and context-specific nature of struggles is used to dismiss the very real sensory overwhelm, social exhaustion, or executive function challenges.

Medication abortions account for more than 60 percent of all abortions in the United States, up from just a quarter a decade ago. But in the aftermath of Roe’s reversal, abortion pills are now banned in at least 14 states. Special correspondent Sarah Varney reports on the resulting rise of underground networks operating outside the legal system to help people access abortion medication.

Have you ever driven home and arrived at your destination without remembering how you got there? No, you weren't abducted by aliens or taken over by your alternate persona. You simply experienced highway hypnosis. Highway hypnosis or white line fever is a trance-like state under which a person drives a motor vehicle in a normal, safe manner yet has no recollection of having done so. Drivers experiencing highway hypnosis may zone out for short distances or hundreds of miles.

The Heiltsuk Nation has been waging an eternal war against an invasive European green crab menace. They set traps to ensnare these little invaders in an effort to help save eelgrass and protect salmon and clams from the wave of crabs. But they noticed that something was destroying their traps.

For decades, amateur astronomers have railed against light pollution — the single greatest negative impact of humans on the night sky. Initially, the argument was, “We can’t see the stars anymore!” More studies revealed how Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) is detrimental to sleep patterns and causes fatigue and stress in both humans and animals. Could things actually get worse? Indeed, the answer is “yes.”

On November 3, Condé Nast announced that the Vogue brand would absorb Teen Vogue, resulting in the layoffs of at least six staffers, “most of whom are BIPOC women or trans” according to a statement released by the Condé Union.

Both in 2016 and now, the changes at Teen Vogue reflect a larger political and cultural moment taking place throughout the country. Eleven years ago, conversations about race, gender and systemic inequity began to take a more prominent place in media and politics, leading to an expansion of diversity in hiring and messaging across industries. But the journalists brought in to help build trust and strengthen credibility on anti-trans legislation, grassroots activism and more, are being pushed back toward the margins.

“When you read content on X, you should be able to verify its authenticity. This is critical to getting a pulse on important issues happening in the world,” posted Nikita Bier, Head of Product at X, back on October 14, 2025.

“As part of that, we’re experimenting with displaying new information on profiles, including which country an account is based, among other details. Starting next week, we will surface this on a handful of profiles of X team members to get feedback.”

The concept dates back to 1956, when American sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl came up with the term “para-social” to describe the relationships some viewers formed with TV personalities. Decades later, viewers are still forming parasocial relationships with TV personalities, but they’re also forming them with influencers, content creators, actors, musicians and other individuals in the public eye.

A parasocial relationship involves an “illusion of friendship,” Elizabeth Perse, a former communications scholar at the University of Delaware, told USA Today’s Elise Brisco in 2021. Sometimes, these relationships can become “unhealthy and intense,” says Simone Schnall, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge, in the statement.

Eversion is widespread across the animal kingdom. Snails evert chemo-sensing tentacles from their heads. To ward off predators, the angled sunbeam caterpillar everts toxic appendages shaped like nunchucks. And on occasion, sharks and frogs literally spill their guts, everting their stomachs through their mouths if they eat something noxious.

Protests are one of the most popular ways to express disapproval and effect change, and people continue to take to the streets today. In this list—adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube—we cover world-altering protests from across history, from the Battle of Cable Street to the more recent Jasmine Revolution to the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt.

At Queen Mary University of London, behavioral scientist Alex Davidson and his team designed a test using flashes of light—short and long pulses that signaled different outcomes. A long flash meant yummy sugar water. A short one meant a bitter shot of quinine, which they hate. After a series of trials, the bees began choosing the light associated with sweetness every time, even when the sugar was removed entirely.

Nine in 10 Americans gather around a table to share food on Thanksgiving. At this polarizing moment, anything that promises to bring Americans together warrants our attention.

But as a historian of religion, I feel obliged to recount how popular interpretations of Thanksgiving also have pulled us apart.

Communal rituals of giving thanks have a longer history in North America, and it was only around the turn of the 20th century that most people in the U.S. came to associate Thanksgiving with Plymouth “Pilgrims” and generic “Indians” sharing a historic meal.

The emphasis on the Pilgrims’ 1620 landing and 1621 feast erased a great deal of religious history and narrowed conceptions of who belongs in America – at times excluding groups such as Native Americans, Catholics and Jews.

What inspires a master of the macabre and the fantastical? In Guillermo del Toro’s case, it was a combination of a fascination with monstrosity and many all-too-real experiences with the monstrous nature of humanity, some of which happened within his own family.

DHAKA, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Bangladesh's ousted prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, was sentenced to death in her absence on Monday at the end of a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.

People in the packed courtroom - including families of victims - cheered and clapped, and some in the crowds outside sank to their knees and offered up prayers after the verdict, the harshest against a leader in the country's history.

You see, earlier generations never had machines that offered instant compliance and endless affirmations on tap, while today a single prompt delivers validation with the ease of a vending machine. A half-formed idea receives not a pause for thought or a stern correction, but instead gets a warm nod and a cascade of supportive reasoning from our AI assistants. And just like that, in the span of a few keystrokes, the quiet echo chambers we used to create in our own heads have been upgraded into something far more industrial—and far more dangerous.

Gathering snot is one of many ways that drones are being used to study whales. In the past 10 to 15 years, drone technology has made great strides, becoming affordable and easy to use. This has been a boon for researchers. Scientists “are finding applications for drones in virtually every aspect of marine mammal research,” says Joshua Stewart, an ecologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute.

An underwater volcano off the coast of Oregon could now blow its top by mid-to late-2026, scientists say.

In December last year, scientists said the Axial Seamount was nearing the threshold seen before an eruption a decade earlier and could erupt within a year. Now, they predict the eruption will likely come later than previously expected, by mid-to-late 2026.