Scientists announced that prehistoric insects sealed in amber are “little windows into the past,” confirming what everyone suspected: the past was sticky, judgmental, and very into resin-based real estate. It’s like Windows 95 for biology, except the screen saver is a wasp on pause and Clippy is a mosquito asking if you’re writing a blood letter.

The research team, demonstrating that romance isn’t dead, stared lovingly into 99-million-year-old bug eyes until the concept of time filed a restraining order. As a precaution, they included a control group: modern fruit flies encased in maple syrup, which they call brunch but the reviewers call unethical.

Inside one amber nugget, a fly appears mid-gossip, which scientists labeled “behavioral snapshot” and the fly labeled “I was about to drag a centipede.” Another specimen captures an ant inventing the gig economy by working for the tree without benefits while negotiating the world’s slowest commute.

Because science is about caveats, researchers emphasize they cannot conclusively say whether a wing pattern means courtship, camouflage, or the prehistoric equivalent of a novelty shirt. Our p-values looked at the effect size, looked back at us, and quietly ordered a rideshare.

To ensure transparency, the team alternated imaging techniques until the amber started posting thirst traps for photons. At key moments, a grad student raised a handheld field microscope, nodded solemnly, and whispered, “Enhance,” because faith is free but magnification is billable.

The fossils reveal that ancient forests were lively neighborhoods where sap was a landlord with no sense of humor. One beetle is trapped mid-bite, proving the Cretaceous diet was paleo by obligation and not by influencer.

Also discovered: the amber’s optical clarity is so good it functioned as a 99-million-year-old social media platform where everyone was frozen mid-hot-take. Trees were basically content moderators who resolved disputes by slowly engulfing them.

To prevent contamination, specimens were sealed, logged, and shipped in an archival specimen storage box, which is the scientific term for “don’t you dare sneeze near this mortgage payment.” They were also bubble-wrapped with gentle metaphors and the kind of silence that costs $300 per hour in a museum.

A mosquito seemed to be holding a tiny droplet like a martini, suggesting happy hour was at noon and the dress code was “sudden amber.” Interviewed for this article via prolonged staring, an ancient termite blinked zero times and said, “Housing market’s been tight.” Same.

When asked about resurrecting dinosaurs from mosquito DNA, the lab’s Ethics Committee stared into the middle distance until the idea fell down a flight of Institutional Review Board forms. The only thing we resurrected was a grant application from 2012 that still bites.

What the data can’t tell us: whether these insects had dreams beyond “don’t step in tree tears.” What the data can tell us: if you are extremely unlucky, the universe will immortalize your bad hair day and charge admission. Our p-values tried to phone a friend but rolled into voicemail like a trilobite into an awkward conversation.

In conclusion, these amber chunks are indeed little windows into the past—tiny, crystalline pop-ups reminding us that history runs on auto-save. We tried to click the X, but a Cretaceous mosquito asked if we wanted to “Exit Without Preserving Changes,” and we spilled our sap.