There's a funny Monty Python sketch in a which a deranged-looking looney sits down on a park bench next to a proper English gentleman and says, apropos of nothing, "Did you know the whale is an insect?" I was reminded of that gag when researchers announced, a few days ago, that T. Rex's closest living relative is the modern chicken.

Amazingly, these scientists managed to get hold of a chunk of actual, 68-million-year old T. Rex protein (proteins, unlike more delicate molecules like DNA, can occasionally be preserved over tens of millions of years under the right conditions). They found that sequence of amino acids in the protein most closely matches that of contemporary birds, which may not be much of a surprise to professionals in the field--who have speculated for decades about the descent of birds from dinosaurs--but probably struck the average layperson like a pillow stuffed with feathers.