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One of the frustrating aspects that paleontologists face when studying dinosaur fossils is the odd lack of sexual dimorphism in the ancient creatures — being able to tell the difference between male and female individuals based on their physical features. However, one method of telling whether an individual specimen is a female or not has been uncovered, with the confirmation of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that came from a pregnant female.

"This analysis allows us to determine the gender of this fossil, and gives us a window into the evolution of egg laying in modern birds," says the study’s lead researcher, North Carolina State University evolutionary biologist Mary Schweitzer.
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Last fall, a team of Egyptologists discovered signs that there may be a series of hidden chambers connected to King Tutankhamun’s tomb — hints that were revealed in minute irregularities revealed in high-resolution 3D reproductions of the famous vault. Since then, deeper scans of the wall and the volume behind it have been made, revealing the previously undiscovered chambers there.

Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty made the announcement at a press conference on Mar 17, including a presentation of the radar scans. However, he declined to speculate on what they might find there, although he admitted that the rooms could hold metal or organic objects.
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Seeing the need to balance the ethics of using animals as a food source and a burgeoning planetary population, researchers have been studying ways to grow animal tissue in the lab, to produce a food source that doesn’t rely on animals for production. This endeavor has seen major advances in recent years, and what might have seemed like science-fiction just a few years ago might very well be grocery store reality within a decade.
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Some of our smallest astronomical neighbors just keep getting odder and odder: recent observations of the bright spots found on dwarf planet Ceres have shown them to be brightening and dimming over the course of it’s 9-hour day.

The spots, made of a briny mixture containing magnesium sulfate hexahydrite, appears to be upwelling in certain spots from below the former asteroid’s surface. The spots have been found to emit a haze, indicating that the water in the material is evaporating into space, leaving the pale minerals deposited on Ceres’ dark surface.
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