Illicit drug use is more common in older people than ever before - but that's because they did it the most when they were younger and they are more likely than ever to survive into old age.

New research published in Age and Ageing found that the lifetime use of cannabis, amphetamine, cocaine and LSD in 50-64 year olds has significantly increased since 1993 and is much higher than lifetime use in adults aged over 65. The study also found that drug use in inner London was higher than the overall UK average.

The study analyzed data on illicit drug use from two household surveys*. The most recent national survey included 2,009 people aged 65 and 1,827 people aged 55-65. The inner London survey included 284 and 176 people in these respective age groups

Palaeontologists have found that not all Easter eggs come from the same “parent” species -  some could be from dinosaurs, including a new species from the Pyrenees. An international group of researchers has helped to determine that dinosaurs have shaped the Easter eggs we buy.

Scientists were investigating whether 70 million-year-old fossil eggs found in the Pyrenees were laid by birds, or their dinosaur ancestors - researchers from the University of Leicester extended the study further by comparing Easter egg shapes to those of birds’ and dino eggs.

Researchers have gotten some clues to primitive consciousness - thanks to anesthesia.

People are often groggy when waking from anesthesia, and sometimes struggle. A group of  scientists believe they now know why this may occur: primitive consciousness emerges first.

 Using brain imaging techniques in healthy volunteers, a team of scientists have now imaged the process of returning consciousness after general anesthesia. The emergence of consciousness was found to be associated with activations of deep, primitive brain structures rather than the evolutionary younger neocortex. They hope these results may represent an important step forward in the scientific explanation of human consciousness. 

It's the team-up no one ever expected to see; video game characters and...fashion. 

But it has. The latest issue of Arena Homme+, a men's fashion magazine, has a CGI photo shoot of Final Fantasy video game characters showing off the Prada 2012 Men's Spring/Summer Collection. So much for continuity.  What's next, medieval knights driving tanks? Cylons fighting Jedi?

Whatever.  If you want to see Lightning, Noel, Snow, Sazh and Hope styled for action in Prada, your wish has come true.  If you ever thought models looked unrealistically unattainable before, it's only getting worse.

Most of the characters look something like this in the game:

A previously unknown species of giant, feathered tyrannosaur has been discovered in China, making it the largest-known feathered animal, living or extinct.

Tyrannosaurus rex and its cousins lived until around 65 million years ago and earlier relatives are thought to have been much smaller than the T-Rex we have come to know, but this notion has been challenged by the discovery of three specimens of a new species of tyrannosauroid from the Lower Cretaceous, 125 million years ago. The dinosaur, Yutyrannus huali, whose name translates from Latin and Mandarin as ‘beautiful feathered tyrant’, shares some features with derived tyrannosaurs, but has three-fingered forelimbs and a typical theropod foot, like other early tyrannosaur relatives.

A recent discovery regarding injuries to baseball pitchers’ elbows can be described, in round terms, thus : the faster the pitch, the more likely the injury.

Brandon (Brad) Bushnell M.D. (pictured) and colleagues at the Harbin Clinic Orthop(a)edics and Sports Medicine, Rome, GA. explain the background:

Neutrinos come in three "flavors", electron, muon and tau, but they are able to 'morph' between the different types, a change called neutrino oscillation.  

Most people don't know this, but there is a secret war going on in the animal kingdom; since before recorded history began, squirrels and rattlesnakes have been going at it.  Over time, some squirrels have even developed the ability to use rattlesnake scent as a means of concealing their own odor.

The "plumbing systems" that lie under volcanoes,  the location and behavior of magma chambers on the Earth's mid-ocean ridge system, a vast chain of volcanoes along which the Earth forms new crust, could bring scientists closer to predicting large eruptions. 

Researchers worked in Afar (Ethiopia) and Iceland, the only places where mid-ocean ridges appear above sea level. Volcanic ridges (or "spreading centers") occur when tectonic plates rift or pull apart. Magma injects itself into weaknesses in the brittle upper crust, erupting as lava and forming new crust upon cooling. 

Magma chambers work like plumbing systems, channeling pressurized magma through networks of underground "pipes".