What's shakin'?

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: Wholesale price index falls unexpectedly; How extreme heat makes alcohol hit harder; Gus the T-Rex just set a record; and a fascinating use for whale poop…

Let’s get into it!

When the two combine, extreme heat and alcohol can be quite a dangerous combination, with the former exacerbating the effects of the latter as the body’s cooling system slows down.

“Heat speeds dehydration, and alcohol intensifies it,” said Juliana Vocca, a registered dietician for New Jersey-based group Prime Women Nutrition. “Alcohol is a diuretic, and hot weather already pulls fluid from your body through sweat. Together, they create a kind of double dehydration, which makes drinks hit harder and hangovers feel sharper.”

In other words, it’s even more important to drink more water than normal if you plan on drinking during a heatwave. If it’s also humid, perhaps consider holding off on alcohol altogether.

“Heat and alcohol both interfere with your body’s cooling system by causing vasodilation, or widening of the blood vessels. But high humidity changes the equation entirely,” said Vocca. 

“Sweat can’t evaporate in extreme humid conditions, so your body can’t cool itself efficiently,” she said. “You stay hotter, longer. Add alcohol and heat on top of this, and your cardiovascular system works harder to keep up. This combination raises the risk of rapid overheating, heat exhaustion, and heatstroke, even if you’re not drinking heavily.”

It’s hard to imagine having $50 million lying around for fun, but at least one of the seven bidders at a Sotheby’s auction made use of his last week when he purchased a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton for $50.1 million.

Called “Gus,” the T-rex specimen was originally found in South Dakota, and was determined to be about 67 million years old. It’s comprised of 183 fossilized bones or bone elements. It’s one of the most complete specimens of any dinosaur ever found, despite only actually containing about 61% of what would have been the big fella’s entire frame.

“Gus is not only an exceptional find, but a specimen that’s been excavated, documented, prepared and cared for with real excellence,” said Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s vice chairman and worldwide head of science and natural history.

He was initially expected to go for between $20 million and $30 million, but soared past that to a record $50.1 million in what was only about a ten-minute bidding war between seven really big fans of dinosaurs.

A T-rex named “Stan” sold for $31.8 million at a Christie’s auction in 2020, but the previous record for a dinosaur specimen was set in 2024, when a Stegosaurus named “Apex” went for $44.6 million.

A study of tohorā whale feces collected by an amateur whale watcher in South Australia revealed a striking characteristic of the species’ dietary and migration flexibility that led it from an endangered population of just 400 to a resurgence of more than 15,000.

Rod Keough, owner of the Fowlers Bay whale watching business EP Cruises, has been finding whale feces on the beach during his morning runs. He collected it and put it in his freezer (this is weird but not as weird as it sounds; whale dung is actually quite valuable to some areas of science).

Analyses of Keough’s collection—along with samples discovered at two spots in South Africa and New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic Maungahuka (Auckland) Islands—revealed just how impressively adaptable tohorā whales can be.

“Tohorā appear to be flexible in what they eat, which may help them adapt as climate change alters the availability of their preferred prey in the Southern Ocean,” said Associate professor Emma Carroll of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland.

“Further research will help us understand whether these alternative food sources are able to support the health and reproductive success of tohorā in the long term.”

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You’ll know all the songs, but the question is how well do you know the lyrics 😏 Find out, with today’s complete the lyric trivia! 🎵