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2012-06-29 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Study: Dinosaurs May Have Been Warm-Blooded

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Posted by Fred 2012-06-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 They have found in oxygen trapped in amber of that time to be around 38%. So I have always thought that increased size would be the result. Ram charged so to speak. I also never believed we were using fossil fuels. That idea is getting more attention these days. Fred, I enjoyed your meanderings.

Posted by Dale 2012-06-29 07:04|| 2012-06-29 07:04|| Front Page Top

#2 No more speaking ill of my departed Brachiosaur kinfolk.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-06-29 07:09|| 2012-06-29 07:09|| Front Page Top

#3 The bones of warm-blooded animals such as birds and mammals had never been properly assessed to see if they, too, exhibit the lines.

Yeah right, nobody studied the bones of mamals. Not even those of homo sapiens. BTW, Institut Català de Paleontologia: for dcades cataaln independentist hacve tried to gain recognition for Catalonia through any means. That is a asecond reason for believing the study is a fraud.

Also: the warm-blooded hypothesis has been around for at least half a century with differnt arguments than those of the study.

Posted by JFM 2012-06-29 07:28|| 2012-06-29 07:28|| Front Page Top

#4 The climate back in those days must have been pretty lush to support bison-sized herds of the critters.

Ah, yes, but 'the science is settled'. What is apparently settled is that at one time the Earth was in an optimal state and that everything else before or since then has been an anomaly.

As Dale pointed out in the first post, no one really knows the composition of the atmosphere at times beyond our own existence. It's both 'assumed' or speculated.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-06-29 08:27|| 2012-06-29 08:27|| Front Page Top

#5 I think the determining datum is predator/prey ratio. Slow, cold-blooded metabolisms require eating maybe every couple of weeks, or a month. See crocodiles, for example. So you can have a high predator number to prey animals.
With warm-blooded, there are many, many fewer predators because they have to eat so often that a given prey population will support fewer predators.
So I guess we could--or somebody could--count.

Posted by Richard Aubrey 2012-06-29 08:38|| 2012-06-29 08:38|| Front Page Top

#6 I thought the consensus in the scientific community shifted to warm blooded dinosaurs sometime around Jurassic Park. Then the feather idea came around by Jurassic Park III.

Perhaps they are planning a reboot of the series.

Posted by rjschwarz 2012-06-29 09:51|| 2012-06-29 09:51|| Front Page Top

#7 P2k, the paleo-chemistry field is pretty interesting (at least to a nerdy geek [or is it geeky nerd?] like me). The composition of rock formations are checked for content and it's known that certain compounds only form under certain conditions. So, if something is found in a formation of a certain age, then the conditions, such as wetness or amount of oxygen or ... you get the picture, can be determined. So, not everything is as assumed as it used to be.
Clear as mud?

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839 2012-06-29 09:52|| 2012-06-29 09:52|| Front Page Top

#8 I thought the big debate was about if T-Rex was a hunter or if he just strolled up and scared the hunters away from a fresh kill that looked tasty. In that scenerio little-bitty arms wouldn' be a handicap while in hunting they could be a problem.

I thought the other big debate was who put the wrong skull on top of apatasaurus and caused generations of kids to misname him brontasaurus and made archialogists look a bit wonkers in the process.

Posted by rjschwarz 2012-06-29 09:53|| 2012-06-29 09:53|| Front Page Top

#9 Has anyone studied the hip structure of Homo-Politicus?

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-06-29 09:57|| 2012-06-29 09:57|| Front Page Top

#10 I think 'Jimmy the Greek' commented on that one BP, but it went badly for him afterward.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-06-29 09:58|| 2012-06-29 09:58|| Front Page Top

#11 My brilliant reply to this comment got eaten by a tyrannosaur. Short version:

This has been speculated since the 1970s, and in 1986 Robert Bakker wrote the popular Dinosaur Heresies discussing it.

There were, indeed, many dinosaurs with lizards' hips, the Saurischians. These include your upright meat-eating types.

Then there were the Ornithischians, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, which included some upright plant-eating types (like Donald Duckbill), plus (among others) the ankylosaurs.

Actual birds did not evolve from the Ornithischians, but from the Saurischians, which is very perverse of them.

All spellings approximate at this hour.

Posted by Angie Schultz 2012-06-29 10:14|| 2012-06-29 10:14|| Front Page Top

#12 Dinosaurs May Have Been Warm-Blooded

Why doesn't someone just ask Pelosi if they were or not?

Posted by gorb 2012-06-29 10:48|| 2012-06-29 10:48|| Front Page Top

#13 The goofy guy with the beard and the straw hat from Green Acres, the palentologist peer of Bakker, did some research on dinosaur bones and they found structures in the bones which are only present if the animal is warm blooded.

He, the goofy guy in the hat, says he had done some biometric calculations on a T-Rex (pretty impressive for a goofy guy with a funny straw hat, that a T-Rex could run at about 25-35 mph, ergo to him at least that sort of contradicted the cold blooded torpid model of dinosaurs. So he researched further. To him at least, there is enough "anecdotal and second hand evidence" that dinosaurs should have been warm blooded.

BTW as for settled science, the intellectual fascists that are the Clovis First crowd spent fifty years and zillions of dollars of research to preserve their paradigm, not to mention all the careers they ruined. Funny thing for the Clovis First crowd, DNA proved the Siberian land bridge migration was only one of three separate migrations to the new world, the others being the mid pacific migration and the south pacific migration. Plus, the Clovis spear head, that beautiful piece of artistry, has no comparisons in Siberia. Seems the only place in the world that had that type of spear head making technique was in Central France. Now DNA suggests the Clovis culture is later and came from Europe migrating by boat along the Second Ice Age polar cap extending south into the Mid Atlantic.
Too bad academics when they ostracize and demonize people that don't march to the paradigm, don't apologize when an avalanche of evidence suggests the paradigm is full of crap. Scientists tut tut over how the Church treated Galileo and they act the same way now.

BTW, I think Brachiosaurs are neat creatures and would never say anything bad about one.

Posted by Bill Clinton 2012-06-29 10:48|| 2012-06-29 10:48|| Front Page Top

#14 Ah... but early dino-era birds found the huge bugs tasty and that why we don't have giant bugs today... except in government.

Posted by Water Modem 2012-06-29 10:53|| 2012-06-29 10:53|| Front Page Top

#15 ...or Microborg operating systems.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-06-29 12:02|| 2012-06-29 12:02|| Front Page Top

#16 old news.

Posted by Thrunter Claviper5498 2012-06-29 12:11|| 2012-06-29 12:11|| Front Page Top

#17 Anyone have an opinion on Bakkers guess the Brachiosaurus might have had a trunk (nostral holes on top of the skull similar to elephants). I like how he thinks out of the box but this combined with feathers on some of the meat eaters are crushing my childhood.

Posted by Rjschwarz 2012-06-29 13:03|| 2012-06-29 13:03|| Front Page Top

#18 Yeah,

The idea that a T-Rex ran around looking like some kind of crazed parakeet is disturbing.

I spent most of my childhood reading everything I could find about dinosaurs. I find a lot of the new research refreshing and welcome, however brachiosaurs with trunks and Allosaurs with feathers does give me pause.

Posted by Bill Clinton 2012-06-29 15:40|| 2012-06-29 15:40|| Front Page Top

#19 does a dinosaur have lips?

Posted by Frank G 2012-06-29 16:35|| 2012-06-29 16:35|| Front Page Top

#20 Scientists tut tut over how the Church treated Galileo and they act the same way now.

Sad, but so true.

Posted by Glenmore 2012-06-29 17:52|| 2012-06-29 17:52|| Front Page Top

#21 An extra brain might be useful.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-06-29 18:11|| 2012-06-29 18:11|| Front Page Top

#22 My Lost Reply included this link to the might Cluckosaur. Imagine this fearsome beast, fully 15 feet tall! Imagine the ungodly noise!

Posted by Angie Schultz 2012-06-29 19:15|| 2012-06-29 19:15|| Front Page Top

#23 Jurrasic news: Dinosaurs taste like chicken

Posted by Frank G 2012-06-29 21:02|| 2012-06-29 21:02|| Front Page Top

#24 Dinosaurs taste like chicken

That's the plot of the Asimov story "A Statue for Father".

Posted by Angie Schultz 2012-06-29 21:21|| 2012-06-29 21:21|| Front Page Top

#25 mmm...Kritosaur au vin.

Posted by swksvolFF 2012-06-29 21:55|| 2012-06-29 21:55|| Front Page Top

23:26 Water Modem
22:28 Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division
21:55 swksvolFF
21:21 Angie Schultz
21:09 Besoeker
21:02 Frank G
21:00 Frank G
20:17 JohnQC
19:55 Wholuter Flinenter2181
19:33 Besoeker
19:15 Angie Schultz
18:29 Glenmore
18:11 Ebbang Uluque6305
18:10 swksvolFF
18:04 Dale
17:57 JohnQC
17:57 SteveS
17:53 crosspatch
17:53 American Delight
17:52 Glenmore
17:50 Thaise the Younger8704
17:49 Alaska Paul
17:43 Bobby
17:34 JohnQC