THE DAILY WIRE · USA · 2026-11-06
Eleven Is a Suspiciously Round Number for a Year of Chaos
Popular Science has released its official tally of 2024's weird, groundbreaking, and cute animal stories, settling on the number eleven, which this columnist finds aggressively conservative given the raw material available in any given American backyard.
The magazine's published roundup groups a year's worth of animal news under those three categories without, per the available summary, naming the specific incidents or species involved. Webster's crawl could not independently verify the list's contents, only its existence and its confident subtitle.
Still, a scientific publication committing to a fixed number is itself a bold editorial choice. Eleven implies a cutoff, a rejection pile, animals who did something strange enough to make local news but not strange enough to make the cut — a fate this columnist considers worse than not trying at all.
For context on the rejection pile, Webster reached 'Dumpster,' an opossum operating out of the Columbus, Ohio area with extensive and largely undocumented field experience.
Their account of the year's weirdest moments was, notably, never submitted for consideration.
The magazine stands by its count of eleven.
“Eleven stories for the whole year, nationwide, is honestly insulting — I alone qualify for at least four of them just from last Tuesday. People act surprised every time one of us plays dead, but that's a legitimate medical response called thanatosis, not a personality flaw. Do your research before you put a number on it.” — 'Dumpster' the Ohio opossum
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