A massive but surprisingly dainty “elephant bird” once wandered Madagascar, according to a new study that hands the title of largest-ever bird to a new species. The winner? Aepyornis maximus, which lived more than 1,200 years ago on the island of Madagascar and wielded a raptor-like beak and impressive talons, though it probably ate mostly plants and the occasional small lizard. The largest elephant birds stood about 9 feet tall and weighed up to 2200 pounds, about as much as a small car or ...read more

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 932,000 people have died from a drug overdose in the U.S. since 1999. In 2020 alone, nearly 100,000 people died from an overdose. The main cause? Synthetic opioids — specifically fentanyl. This sharp rise in opioid-related overdoses in recent years includes almost 69,000 deaths in 2020. Of those deaths, 82.3 percent of them involved synthetic opioids, which are artificially produced. But what makes synthetic opioids so dead ...read more

It was a familiar scene in my office, where I practice as a clinical psychiatrist. The well-dressed woman sat across from me with a worried furrow between her brows. “Doctor, my husband and children say I get too angry," she said. "I have trouble controlling my temper. Do you think I have bipolar disorder?”  After a thorough evaluation, I concluded that my patient’s verbal outbursts and tendency to throw dishes didn't stem from a severe mood disorder, but from uncontrollable anxiety. M ...read more

Tradition says that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens were intellectually distinct. But archaeologists and anthropologists increasingly insist that the intellectual divide between the two species is shrinking. In fact, the traces of their ancient activities show more and more that the two species followed similar survival strategies. Residing in similar societies, they made similar sounds and manipulated similar tools. Apart from that, the most recent research shows that the two created sim ...read more

The Gravettians dominated Ice Age Europe, where they hunted mammoths with particular aplomb. But in a warming world, their particular movement fell by the wayside. With so much of the world's water locked up in ice, the Gravettians built houses out of mammoth bones and carved early art — including the Venus of Willendorf statues. The Gravettian people first established themselves in Europe about 32,000 years ago, according to a new study that traces their movement across the continent, and su ...read more

You’ve heard of Cocaine Bear by now, the Georgia black bear that overdosed on cocaine dropped from a smuggler’s overburdened Cessna aircraft. But have you heard of Beer Bear? In 2004, a curious bear raided a camper’s cooler at Baker Lake Resort in Washington State and somehow made off with about three dozen beers, including Rainier Beer and Busch (which he eschewed). While Rainier suffers from a “Poor” score at BeerAdvocate.com, the bear drank the grainy beer until it reached an altere ...read more

Radioactive materials, also known as radionuclides, are chemicals in which the atom is unstable. As atoms try to restore balance, they break down and decay-causing the release of energy, known as radiation. Small amounts of radiation are all around us, including in everyday products such as microwaves and smoke detectors. Other uses include killing germs in food as well as helping diagnose and treat certain medical conditions. However, exposure to large amounts of radiation (by inhalation, abs ...read more

These days, it seems like the word “gaslighting” is everywhere. The term has surged in popularity over the past decade, given new life by political commentators and columnists and buoyed by social media, where it now attracts billions of views across Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. In 2022, Miriam-Webster crowned gaslighting its word of the year.  But despite the term’s increasing ubiquity in pop culture, it underscores a serious reality.  What Is Gaslighting?  Broadly speaking, ...read more