While these stories may have not made Science's 'Top 10 science stories of the year' list touting the biggest discoveries of the year, many interesting findings made headline in 2013.
Last year held plenty of off-beat and off-the-beaten-track findings and news: Humans ate the first test-tube hamburger, a plan to capture an asteroid was launched, and a mind-controlled prosthetic leg was made.
These are the kinds of findings that make science fun, so we decided to ditch the over-hyped stories and make a list of the most remarkable things you might have missed last year. Here are the incredible stories.
A hydrogen bond was photographed for the first time.
In September, scientists captured the first images of one of the most important physical interactions in the world — the hydrogen bond — which holds DNA together and gives water its unique properties.
These never-before-seen photos are an encouraging advancement in atomic force microscopy, a method of scanning that can see details at the fraction of a nanometer level.
See the world's first images of an actual hydrogen bond »
A skull from Georgia suggests that all early humans were a single species.
The analysis of a 1.8-million-year-old skull found in a region of Georgia suggests that the earliest members of the Homo genus actually belonged to the same species. The skull was discovered alongside the remains of four other early human ancestors, but had different physical features despite being from the same time period and location.
Researchers have traditionally used variation among Homo fossils to define separate species, but now think that early, diverse Homo fossils from Africa actually represent members of a single, evolving lineage — they just looked different from one another.
Read more about the discovery of "skull 5"»
For the first time in 35 years, a new carnivorous mammal was discovered in the Americas.
A relative of the raccoon, the olinguito, has been described as looking like a "cross between a house cat and a teddy bear."
The animal's discovery in the forests of Ecuador, confirmed in August, shows that the world is not yet completely explored. It's the first new species of mammal discovered in 35 years.
Read more about this adorable new carnivore »
See the rest of the story at Business Insider