Of the 700 or so dinosaur species paleontologists have discovered to date, some are terrifying, some are magnificent and others are downright bizarre. Those in the last category won’t haunt your nightmares like Spinosaurus or lend grandeur to a Jurassic Park scene like Brachiosaurus; mostly, they’ll just leave you wondering what Mother Nature was smoking in the Mesozoic Era (and where you can get some). The Weirdest DinosaursHere are a few of the preeminent weirdos:1. Mononykus[embedd ...read more

Don’t deny it: Sometimes, swearing just feels good. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that dropping the occasionally profanity bomb is actually good for us, too — at least, according to science.Research has shown that swearing can boost pain tolerance, foster emotional resilience and signal positive traits like verbal fluency and honesty. What’s more, spewing obscenities has the potential to impact our bodies as well as our minds, providing stress relief and even a slight boost in phy ...read more

Alongside sodium, potassium, calcium and phosphorus, magnesium is a key micronutrient in supporting our bodies. It helps to regulate blood pressure, aids muscle and nerve function, keeps bones healthy, and could help to reduce leg cramps and bone fractures, according to research.As such, a recent social media fad has prompted many people to turn to magnesium for just about any ailment. Generally, though, experts caution that immediately jumping to supplements is not the best approach for persona ...read more

Fascia, the fibrous connective tissue that literally holds the body together, is one of the unsung heroes of human anatomy. The stringy, white substance – which is basically sheets of connective tissue held together with collagen – cinches together your muscles and organs so they can act as a unified whole.On the palms of your hands, fascia has an important job, which is to create a rugged surface suitable for gripping. Without it, skin would slide around over bones, muscles and blood vessel ...read more

Archaeologists never know what they’ll discover in the dirt. And that’s especially true for the archaeologists studying the ancient site of Eynan-Mallaha in Israel. In fact, according to an article in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers recently identified seven woodwind instruments within the rubble from the region, which were made to mimic the sounds of a raptor.The instruments are among the oldest in the world and, according to the researchers, represent the first to be found in the Le ...read more

The Campi Flegrei is dangerous. I'm not saying this to scare anyone or fear monger, but any time you have a large, restless caldera volcano with over 3,000,000 people living within ~19 miles (30 kilometers), you should be nervous. It would kind of be like moving Yellowstone to the outskirts of Tampa, Denver or San Diego. You'd want to know as much as you can about what is going on deep below your feet ... and what signs means an eruption might be coming soon.That is exactly what we have near Nap ...read more

A new paper proposes that the record-setting gamma ray burst that reached Earth on Oct. 9, 2022, was so bright and so long-lasting because it originated in a star as it collapsed into a black hole.The once-in-a-millennium blast of energy — later dubbed the Brightest of All Time (BOAT) — has continued to puzzle scientists, who say it was 70 times brighter than the second most powerful burst on record. An explanation would help to demystify the tremendous outpourings of energy, which are detec ...read more

Sitting on the shoulder of the constellation of Orion with a distinctly reddish hue, Betelgeuse is one of the more recognizable stars in the night sky. But it is also one of the fastest changing. While Ptolemy described it orange-tawny, Chinese observers three centuries earlier say it was yellow. More recently, astronomers classified Betelgeuse as a red giant, a star that is near the end of its life. That meant Betelgeuse is due to explode as a supernova sometime in the next few hundred thousand ...read more

Clodomiro Picado, one of Costa Rica’s foremost scientists, conducted research on venomous snakes in Central America in the early-20th century and advocated for better products tailored to the types of snakes that lived in the area. The institute now named after him — the University of Costa Rica’s Clodomiro Picado Institute — is one of few in the world helping people bitten by snakes in Latin America and Africa. Before the institute was created, people in Costa Rica and surrounding coun ...read more

If social media is anything to go by, dog and cat vision are certainly having a moment, especially on TikTok, where it seems like practically every pet-owning user has accessed the platform’s wildly popular dog- and cat-vision filters.Sooner or later, anyone with a dog or cat is bound to wonder how their pet sees the world. But are apps and filters really a good representation? Let’s take a look at what our furry friends can and can’t see compared to us. The Basics of Dog and Cat Vision(C ...read more