Why Rex was in such a hurry ...
Discover Magazine used to have fun with its April issues. Dropped in among the real science articles, two that tickled me no end. The first, concerned the discovery of a new atomic particle, the bigon, which came about because the equipment used to detect it kept getting destroyed -- the particle was the size of a bowling ball.
Second one was about why T. Rex faded from the scene, and had to do with the way it ran, and sometimes tripped and fell, breaking its neck ...
The Hot-Headed Naked Ice Borer, from the year before, rates an honorable mention.
What made these so much fun is that they were presented absolutely dead-pan, and with the same kind of language as the other articles. Well, there were some clues, some of the scientists's names, but pretty much it was just bald-faced.
The 'zine had to give up doing these because too many people actually believed the stories and cited them as truth. And then got really pissed off when they looked stupid.
P.T. Barnum must have been laughing his dead ass off ...
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