It’s difficult to know how dinosaurs slept because most dinosaurs didn’t die that way.Finding a dinosaur in a sleeping position is uncommon because most fossils we’ve found show dinosaurs in a classic death pose with their bodies contorted, fearing their imminent demise.The only way we can know how a dinosaur slept would be if they fossilized in a sleeping position, and while this has happened, it’s rare. According to Scott Persons, a paleontologist at the College of Charleston in Char ...read more

From the tiniest microbes that populated Earth billions of years ago to the various new species scientists are still discovering, today’s organisms have survived by braving nature’s trials and tribulations. Skirting death requires evolutionary creativity. Here are eight animals who employ unique and strange strategies to survive in the wild.Read more: 5 Unique Ways Animals Avoid Getting Eaten 1. Bombardier Beetles: Chemical Warfare(Credit: KASIRA SUDA/Shutterstock)The bombardier beetle earns ...read more

One archaeologist’s backwater is another archaeologist’s bustling waterway. Well, that’s what a new paper published about Interamna Lirenas, an ancient town in Italy, seems to suggest, anyways. The paper, which is included in Oxbow Books’ Roman Urbanism in Italy: Recent Discoveries and New Directions reveals that the riverside town was a popular port, and a surprisingly resilient settlement, surviving what was traditionally seen as a period of Roman stagnation.“We started with a site s ...read more

Forecasters have predicted the coming winter will be under the influence of El Niño. This climate pattern is expected to make the weather a bit milder and dryer for many parts of the country.But that doesn’t mean special weather events like blizzards or polar vortexes are out of the forecast — those can still happen.For some people, cold snaps are uncomfortable. But for people with cold-weather-triggering illnesses, cold weather can bring debilitating or even deadly diseases. Can Cold Weat ...read more

The holidays can be a heavy time of year. They can remind us of sadness when we’re grieving the loss of a loved one. They can remind us of what we don’t have if money is tight or we’ve lost a job. And for those who don’t have people to celebrate with, the holidays can highlight the loneliness we may already be feeling. Psychologist and grief expert Jill A. Harrington says that calling our emotions negative isn’t always accurate because our feelings can be a reaction to a difficult t ...read more

The Dead Sea Scrolls are more than just ancient manuscripts discovered in the Qumran Caves; they represent a unique narrative that extends beyond their discovery in the mid-20th century. Their journey is not just a physical one, but also an intellectual and cultural voyage marked by scholarly research and debates over ownership. Uncover the layers of history, knowledge, and controversy the Dead Sea Scrolls have accumulated over the decades.What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?The Dead Sea Scrolls are ...read more

From eruptions in Iceland to Krakatau in Indonesia, there have been many volcanic eruptions making headlines in 2023. And we saw plenty of eruptions in 2022. From the Lascar volcano in Chile, Mount Semeru in Indonesia and Hunga Tonga in the South Pacific to the quiet eruptions of Mauna Loa, 2022 was quite the year for volcanoes.But, how can scientists predict volcanic eruptions before they erupt?While volcanic eruptions like Mauna Loa are relatively calm and cause minimal damage, eruptions like ...read more

If you’re going to take a vitamin every day, it might as well be tasty and fun, right? That’s why a lot of people prefer gummy vitamins over pills. But are gummies as safe and effective as pills?The answer is … maybe. For the most part, taking a basic multivitamin/mineral supplement is unlikely to harm your health and, for some people, might even do some good, says Stefan Pasiakos, Director of the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS). But there are a few things ...read more

Back in 1970, the mathematician John Conway created a game with no players that evolves entirely from its initial state. The game is set in a kind of computational universe called a cellular automaton. This universe consists of an infinite grid of squares that can be alive or dead and that, at each time step, can flip from one state to the other according to the states of the squares around it. This cellular automaton has since become known as Conway’s Game of Life and famous for the extraordi ...read more

Stone came first. Then there was bronze. Then there was iron. Since the 1800s, scholars have split early human history into three separate “ages,” according to the main materials that hominins turned into tools and weapons. But what about wood? Was there ever such an age as the “Wood Age?”The answer is far from simple. Though there is no set period in human history that archaeologists have specifically identified as the “Wood Age,” scholars stress the sustained importance of the mate ...read more