Dinosaurs actually slimmer than we thought, say boffins American researchers say they have uncovered a mathematical mistake made by the dinosaur boffinry community, meaning that the weight of live dinos has long been massively overestimated. In a development with devastating consequences for various much-fancied works of fiction, it now appears that in fact the dinosaurs were …
This research appears to be a good deal more, er, robust than that nonsense about dinosaurs holding their heads a bit higher "because geese do it."
Regarding Jurassic Park, there's no need for Spielberg et al. to feel bad about this. The dinosaurs on Isla Nublar were not the genuine article, having been fashioned from fragmentary dino DNA liberally seasoned with the genes of other animals.
The novel is explicit about this: Dr Henry Wu felt free to mess with the saurian genome to create animals which met the expectations of park visitors, even assigning version numbers to successive iterations just like software (and there's your IT angle). Early versions of the velociraptors were too fast, for example, so he slowed them down a bit, the better to take their pictures.
In the film, somewhat inexplicably, the palette of animals from which Wu painted the Jurassic Park exhibits was reduced to a single species: a frog. This allowed the film-makers to retain the plot device in which the dinosaurs spontaneously changed sex.
@Lewis Page,
I for one would not imply a slenderer, and therefore faster - much, much faster! - razor-toothed killing machine as being gay (ref. your comment on being light on their feet).
In fact, may I be the first to welcome our new slenderer, faster - much, much faster! - razor-toothed and very clearly heterosexual killing machine overlords...
Sorry about that. Mine's the one with the Men's Health magazine in the pocket...
Jason
After all, the article states they were doing these statistical number games with an elephant; a mammal; not a lizard or reptile in sight.. Two entirely different body types and metabolisms. Let's see...I'm gonna make up a new set up numbers that makes them fatter than all get out...
Skull and crossbones 'cuz that's all that would be left once t-rex got it's lardy body on you anyway.
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"Americans ..... they are the ones who think the Earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs and humans co-existed at the same time, aren't they?
Why should we believe a word they say about dinosaurs?"
It may, though it shouldn't, come as a surprise to find that in a country with over 300 million people, there is a considerable diversity of opinion. While I know that the Young Earth Creationists are definitely noisy and make good subjects for articles or other forms of journalism, there are plenty of Americans who are as appalled at their blanket rejection of scientific fact as anyone overseas. For every Ben Stein, Kent Hovind, or Casey Luskin that you can blame on America there is a P. Z. Meyers, Steven J. Gould, or Ken Miller that we can claim to our credit. (Big Hint- Americans publishing articles like "Allometric equations for predicting body mass of dinosaurs" in places like Journal of Zoology belong in the second category).
While I will agree that, to our shame, the percentage of Americans who subscribe to "Flintstones Paleontology" is way too high, still, blanket condemnation of the entire country is not called for.
I am an American who can attest to the ignorance of fundamentalism as my father and two uncles are preachers. Dinosaurs are always a difficult subject for them to explained. Maybe now that their thinner they could cram many more on Noah's imaginary boat.
It depresses me but I must agree with the BBC. Half of American's do believe the earth was created in 6 days 6,000 years ago. Logic eludes them.
"While I will agree that, to our shame, the percentage of Americans who subscribe to "Flintstones Paleontology" is way too high, still, blanket condemnation of the entire country is not called for."
I consider myself to be a fairly religious, or spiritual, person (especially when compared to our heathenistic European and British friends) but I don't see any incompatibility with Biblical teachings and science. The Bible isn't a book of science, it's a book of religion / philosophy / life lessons, whatever, and I see the Biblical story of the creation as more metaphor than literal truth. To try to make it a book of science does a disservice to both spiritual matters as well as to science.
The Upshot is that everybody can be bamboozeled by "Science" if enough fellow scientists will climb on board with what you are saying. Global Climate Change is a current example. CO2 MAY actually play a minor role in temps. With Sunspotrs being the most likely cause of temp fluctuation. Who's ever thought to question the dino bone formula? Very few it seems.
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