Getting a cold or a sore throat is never fun, especially these days, and it may have been this way even before there were humans to catch colds and to get sore throats!
A research project has found another creature that got sniffles: dinosaurs.
This comes from a study published last month in Scientific Reports.
A team studied the remains of a sauropod that was found in Montana and nicknamed Dolly, after Dolly Parton.
It lived 150 million years ago, so it’s not like paleontologists could shine a scope into Dolly’s nose, or ask her how congested she felt.
They only had the bones to study.
But in this case, the bones told the story on their own.
They looked at bone that would have been connected to tissue from the respiratory system.
Normally it’s smooth, but the scientists found lumpy, rough patches.
The research team started looking for any diseases that caused similar effects in modern day creatures.
While they didn’t find a perfect match, the ailment that was the closest was called aspergillosis.
Birds can get it when they breathe in fungal spores, but the symptoms are a lot like viral illnesses like colds.
They have coughs and sniffles and it can turn into pneumonia.
There’s no way to know for sure if that’s what Dolly the dinosaur had, or if it’s what did her in, but it is evidence that the list of challenges dinosaurs had to face included respiratory diseases.
And they didn’t even have facial tissues.
This month marks 200 years since the birth of Harriet Tubman.
There’s a lot happening this month to celebrate her life and her legacy.
Philadelphia is hosting a nine foot tall sculpture called “Harriet Tubman – The Journey to Freedom.”
And Maryland is highlighting its Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway, which takes travelers through some of the areas enslaved people used to escape north on the Underground Railroad.
Even dinosaurs couldn’t escape the sniffles (Popular Science)
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway (Visit Maryland)
How Philadelphia Is Honoring Harriet Tubman’s Birthday in 2022 (Visit Philly)
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