If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that it’s been a weird year. And while that doesn’t really set 2025 apart from the last – well – decade, this year that trend spilt over into science too.
And it wasn’t just Katy Perry shooting into space, the deep-sea anglerfish that made Gen Zs cry, and whatever you last saw on TikTok.
Across the natural world and in labs hoping to discover the next health hack or biochemistry breakthrough, scientists solved puzzles about the world around us or carved new paths for the future. Sometimes, they turned the things we thought we knew on their heads.
Here’s our roundup of the weirdest and most wonderful discoveries of the year.
1. There’s a caterpillar that wears the bones of its prey
A newly discovered species of caterpillar was seen wearing the leftover body parts of the prey it had devoured as camouflage. Dubbed the ‘Bone Collector’, this bizarre caterpillar is a rare exception in the insect world: just 0.1 per cent of moth and butterfly species are carnivorous.
2. Earth may be trapped inside a void
It’s the best possible explanation for the ‘echoes’ left by the Big Bang, according to some astronomers. If
the Milky Way is trapped in a vast, empty void within the Universe, it would solve the Hubble Tension (the fact that the speed at which the Universe is expanding changes depending on how you measure it).
3. Humans did some really strange things to corpses
A mummy preserved with a bizarre rectal embalming method was discovered by archaeologists. They worked out that the 280-year-old Austrian corpse had been stuffed with wood chips, twigs, fabric and zinc chloride… via his rectum. It’s the first example archaeologists have found of this unusual – and apparently successful – mummification method.
4. Extinction isn’t forever
It began in January with news of the development of an artificial womb to implant in a marsupial as a means to bring back Australia’s extinct thylacine. In March, Colossal Biosciences, the company behind this de-extinction wave, genetically engineered the DNA of mice to resemble woolly mammoths. Then, in April, Colossal successfully brought back the American dire wolf, which had been extinct for over 10,000 years.
5. World’s oldest baby born
In July 2025, a baby who was conceived in May 1994 to one set of parents was born to another set of parents. The embryo was donated, frozen and stored after its creators successfully had an IVF baby – at which point the new, adopted parents were only toddlers themselves.
6. Hair-based toothpaste could fix your teeth
Yes, you read that right. A study by King’s College London found that toothpaste made from human hair could offer an effective and sustainable way to protect and repair tooth enamel. The pioneering keratin-based treatment forms a dense, crystal-like layer that seals off exposed nerve channels.
7. Orcas got even odder
As well as devouring dolphins, sinking ships and tearing out the livers of great white sharks, orcas also demonstrated that they can use tools made from kelp to massage each other. They were also caught on camera ‘tongue kissing’. Cute.
8. Fungi can play music
Okay, not really. But bio-electrical signals from oyster mushrooms (and other fungi) were channelled through a bionic robot arm that allowed them to not only ‘play’ musical instruments, but also handle paintbrushes. In 2025, fungi artists generated spoken-word poetry and painted self-portraits.
9. Your cat could be behind your bad decisions
A parasite spread by cats was found to make people more impulsive, take sexual risks and behave more aggressively. Toxoplasma gondii, which can spread when humans handle contaminated cat litter, is found in 30–60 per cent of human brains around the world.
10. Meat is poop to vegetarians
A trial that involved showing participants pictures of different things you could eat (but may not want to), found that vegetarians feel the same way about eating meat as they do about eating human flesh or faeces.
11. There’s a new colour in town
The new colour ‘olo’ sits somewhere between blue and green at a level of saturation beyond the human visual range (the closest visible colour to olo is produced by the hex code #00ffcc).
The catch? According to the scientists who discovered it, seeing olo requires a precise laser setup to specifically stimulate the M cone cells in your eyes.
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