In a year that was dominated by science-related headlines from vaccines to virus variations, the Australian Science Media Centre has released its own list of 10 weirdest (non-COVID related) science stories.
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Dr Joe Milton is responsible for compiling the list, which he says is generated throughout the year as he comes across weird and wonderful stories.
"Some of these stories are the ones that grabbed out attention through the year, some of them I find by trawling through a year's worth of science content," Dr Milton said.
"It's a smaugasbord of weird stuff from throughout the year."
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This year's weird science list was as follows:
- Self-decapitating slugs
- Unlucky in love sea snakes
- Ripper the fowl-mouthed duck
- Growing mushrooms in the blood stream
- The woman who cried tears of blood during her period
- Women revealed that 'rocking' helps to get their rocks off
- Psychic mediums proved worse at talking to the dead than the rest of us
- From coffee cups to typewriters: The human brain is conditioned to see faces everywhere
- 'Tic Tok teens': Social media mass hysteria leads to young people developing Tourettes symptoms
- 'Elementary, my dear Yunkaporta': Aboriginal memory trick worked better than Sherlock's mind palace
Mushrooms on the brain
Medical practitioners and doctors were dumbfounded to find that after an American man injected magic mushroom tea into his brain, he began to grow the fungies in his blood.
A couple of days later, his family witnessed him deteriorating into delirium, throwing up blood and experiencing enormous pain.
He presented to hospital with multiple organ failures and septic shock where scans revealled the developing growths.
"There has been some really interesting research in the last year or so suggesting that taking magic mushrooms in a guided psychological appointed can be really beneficial for depression," Dr Milton said.
"So there's lot of interest in these psychiadelic compounds in mental health at the moment, but this is certainly not the way to go about it."
Known only as Mr X, the patient's current status is now unknown. Although there has not been any reports of his death.
Headless slugs
Discovered in Japan and reported in March, two species of sea slugs have developed the amazing ability to decapitate themselves - and live on!
But no-one has any idea why or how they're able to do it.
As for their bodies, they breakdown and decay while the head continues on very much alive.
"We have no idea why they do it. It's one of those great mysteries," Dr Milton said.
"It just happens sort of naturally that their heads separate from their bodies."
Mistaken underwater identity
When Australian researchers looked into instances of attacks from venomous olive sea snakes they discovered the slithering underwater creatures were not looking for a fight. They were looking for love.
It's quite common for the snakes to attach themselves to scuba divers, often curling around their fins. Researchers found this was most common among the males of the species, especially after they had been jilted by a mate.
"They found that majority of these so called attacks were by sex up males," Dr Milton said.
"They can appear quite aggressive but it's probably mating behaviour."
So what should you do if you're approached by an olive sea snake? Well, "the safest thing to do is lie back and think of England", said Dr Milton.
"Stay still and let the snakes explore with their tongues and they'll likely realise they're a bit off target."
'You bloody Ripper'
Much like parrots, the Australian musk duck is able to recite and repeat often spoken phrases.
While swimming around Canberra, Ripper the Duck was recorded saying "a very Australian phrase", Dr Milton said.
"They've got recordings of Ripper saying 'you bloody fool'," Dr Milton said.
"He would use these bits of mimickery during mating displays with females. Now, we don't know if he won over any of them with these little party tricks.
"We don't really think of ducks as being particularly chatty."
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He was also able to make himself sound like a slamming door.
"We knew that these ducks could mimick sounds. What's happened here, obviously Ripper has been exposed to someone calling him a bloody fool a lot, which might have been an inpatient keeper," Dr Milton said.
"The keeper presumably has called him a bloody fool and then walked out and slammed the door because he's also picked that up too."
For now, Ripper has found his home confusing passersby in Canberra's Tidbinbilla National Park.
Tick-Tok Teens
Researchers reported a spike in young people developing the same Tourette syndrome ticks, apparently developed from watching Tik-Tok videos.
In what was called a social media mass hysteria, it was the first time this kind of widespread phenomena had been charted.
Psychologists hypothesised that the high levels of stress at the moment combined with an increase in watching content by creators with ticks led to the teens developing similiar symptoms.
"What we do know is that people with Tourettes catch the ticks of other people with Tourettes, but we didn't really know that such a wide group of people could catch ticks just by seeing them or hearing them," Dr Milton said.