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Feathered tyrannosaurs? No, thank you. These dinosaurs didn’t need no stinkin’ feathers, and a new study backs me up on that. (Credit David Monniaux/Wikimedia Commons) It’s a good day here at Dead Things: A new study provides a nice big nail in the coffin of the notion that T. rex and its kin ran around all kitted out in feathers. Lovers of old-school, scaly dinosaur renderings, rejoice! Maybe I’m showing my age, but when I was learning about dinosaurs they were ta ...read more

Cook Pines line a walkway in Sri Lanka (Credit: eFesenko/Shutterstock) In a world of upright trees, one species dares to be different. Cook pines, a type of tall, slim evergreen native to a remote island in the South Pacific, at first glance appear to be falling over. Many tilt precariously to the side as if caught in a heavy wind, though no breeze ruffles their foliage. Though it may seem the result of chance, observe a stand of Cook pines, especially in locations far from their native habita ...read more

(Credit: durantelallera/Shutterstock) When you hear someone laugh behind you, you probably picture them on the phone or with a friend – smiling and experiencing a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Chances are just the sound of the laughter could make you smile or even laugh along. But imagine that the person laughing is just walking around alone in the street, or sitting behind you at a funeral. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so inviting. The truth is that laughter isn’t always positive ...read more

(Credit: Seregam/Shutterstock) What’s a more healthful option for a sandwich: industrially processed white bread, or artisanal whole-grain bread? To those who seek clear-cut, black-and-white answers to burning questions like this one, we apologize preemptively. The answer is both; it simply depends on who’s eating it. The Better Bread? That conclusion is from researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science who recently compared the short-term health effects of switching ...read more

Photo Credit: Tastyart Ltd Rob White/Getty Images We all know that feeling: the burning sensation as we slice into a fresh onion, eyes watering and wincing to relieve the stinging. There are claims that home remedies can solve this problem, including burning a candle, putting the onion in the freezer before chopping, or cutting the onion underwater. In this article we will investigate the culprit behind our onion tears and a possible scientific resolution that has emerged in the 21st centu ...read more

A mother and baby from the village of Pomerini, Tanzania. It’s estimated that the disease kills 60,000 to 80,000 people there annually. (Credit: Franco Valpato/Shutterstock) You have a bit of your mother in you, literally. When scientists performed biopsies of young adults’ organs, they’ve found maternal cells embedded in hearts, kidneys, and liver. This phenomenon, called microchimerism, is caused by a small number of cells passing through the placenta during pregnancy. The ...read more

Kelt-9b and its parent star, which heats its surface to temperatures nearly as hot as the sun. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)) Astronomers recently announced the discovery of the hottest known giant exoplanet. Sitting 650 light years away in the constellation Cygnus, Kelt-9b is a scorching ball of gas roughly three times the size of Jupiter. Temperatures there are estimated to reach 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough that the planet’s atmosphere may be evaporating away i ...read more

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Ten years ago, ketamine was a drug best known for its popularity on the rave scene. Yet it has since enjoyed a remarkable rebirth – as an antidepressant. Starting out with a handful of small clinical trials, there are now numerous reports that ketamine produces rapid antidepressant effects. In the US, various clinics have sprung up offering ketamine treatment to depressed patients – at least the ones able to pay the bill, because insurance doesn’t tend to cover it. Now, a grou ...read more