HUGE SHARK as big as a WWII SUBMARINE died out, allowing whales to exist It was the largest shark ever seen on Planet Earth - the size of some World War II combat submarines - but until now no-one really knew whether a stray Megalodon was still lurking somewhere out there in the ocean. But finally swimmers can rest easy today - on this score at least, there are still plenty of regular sharks about …
"Hell the volcano is probably going to need some up sizing."
Just drain off the molten core and use the hole that leaves.
(And killing two birds with one stone, the molten core you drain off will handily serve as your doomsday weapon, because you'll be draining it to somewhere!)
If we are talking about Megaladon-sized sharks, screw the lasers and go with a frickin' rail gun or torpedo launcher on it's head!!
Unfortunately, Discovery Channel sold out and did a sci-fi "Megaladon is Alive" show in the U.S., masquerading as a documentary. (I guess that creates a new genre, which I will call the "crockumentary"?) Apparently a lot of people watched it and believed that the search for a living megaladon was real, and the show turned out to be quite successful. I guess that goes back to P.T. Barnum's famous axiom about suckers being born every minute. :/
I think you'll find it's already been done. Several times in fact.
Even Nigel Marven had a go in a time-travelling yacht.
The suggestion there was that it was in fact the whales' increasing size that led to the Megalodon's extinction; it allowed them to migrate to the poles, where it was too cold for the shark to follow.
As big as a WWII combat submarine?
Pfft!
Now if you'd said it was as big as a WWII fuel oil tender and resupply submarine, I'd have been impressed.
Though I suppose we should be thankful that neither version can turn up in one of the terrifying Sharknadoes that are lashing the American coastlines these days.
"Now if you'd said it was as big as a WWII fuel oil tender and resupply submarine, I'd have been impressed."
Boats like Surcouf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Surcouf) were bigger... And the idea of a 3000+ ton shark is a bit scary. Now all you need is a way to install the twin 8-inch guns on the shark. That'll beat your poncy lasers any day.
In did but "as big as the smallest submarines (excluding one-man ones) during WWII" wouldn't make much of a tagline
Surcouf is a bit of an outlier - but comparing to other more mainstream designs at the large end of the displacements. (bit of rounding on values)
Thames (or River class) British "fleet" design mid-1930s 2,700 tons 345 ft
Type C3 Japanese, cargo type 3,600 tons, 360 ft
Type XIV German resupply type 1,900 tons 220 ft
'Gato' class US "fleet" 2,400 tons, 310 ft
I believe the sub reference is to a picture of a sub and what appears to be a dorsal and tail fin of something around the same size.
For extinctness, see "coelacanth."
Averaging guesses doesn't improve accuracy. When science is merely consensus, it becomes merely folklaw.
With teeth like that who needs lasers?
I saw a TV documentary about this, it was a huge shark that ate a battleship, a jet plane, and the Panama Canal. Then it ate a nuclear sub whole, and became nuclear powered, but then exploded.
They might have made a few of these things up, but it was narrated by the guy who played the Doctor on "Voyager", and as you know he played a doctor on TV once so he's a trustworthy source.
Their simulation (that's what it is) has the shark dying out at roughly the same time the whales evolved.
They assume the reason the whales evolved is because the shark died out, but there is no evidence supporting this except that it happened at about the same time.
Guess what else happened about 3 million years ago? The Earth climate took a nosedive. Up to that point the entire planet had been subtropical to tropical for 200 million years straight. There was no ice at the poles, there were coral reefs off the coast of britain, there were oak forests growing in what today is the northern Siberian tundra. That all changed 3 million years ago, as the first ice age (of the 20 or so there's been) encased the polar regions in ice, and changed the currents in the sea.
I'd happily bet that the shark died and the whales arose because of this very major worsening of climate, not because they ate each other.
Frankly, it's hard to decide whether I prefer a hot planet (corals reefs up north) or a cool planet (dry regions, glittering ice on the horizon and big sea cows). Both have their charms.
Maybe I should buy both, with one a bit closer to the galactic core, should I need a pied-à-terre for these stupid bicentennial meetings....
I'd be inclined to argue that the whales outcompeted the megaladons for medium to large size fisheries, which would've formed a larger proportion of the shark's diet than seems to be acknowledged here. And the warmbloodedness versus the coldbloodness thing does enter in, once the polar oceans cooled as they did. That would've been a major pair of sanctuaries for breeding. Just my 0.02c worth, which is probably inflation, anyways ...
I just did an admittedly quick read on "Optimal Linear Estimation" and came away with the faint odor of Snake Oil. Phrases such as "equivalence and duality concepts for the solution of several related problems in adaptive filtering, estimation, and control." and "These features are generally absent in most prior treatments, ostensibly on the grounds that they are too abstract and complicated. It is the authors' hope that these misconceptions will be dispell..."
Another thing I find a tad amazing is that there are, apparently, at least 10,000 guesses as to Megladon's extinction.
This would make a great film (in the Sharknado sense rather than the Raging Bull sense of the term). A sort of trashy Jaws — Hai Fisch! or something along those lines.
Would the Nazis in the submarine be the good guys or the baddies, or maybe just the less bad-ass guys? Allowing for some historical revisionism, we could have the real reason why Megaladon went extinct, why the Third Reich really collapsed and how the American really won the Battle of Midway. In fact, this film should be able to let pupils gain such an altered version of the past that they'll be failing history, biology and politics exams for years to come.
So they are saying they died out BEFORE big whales, which could then become big ?
Or that they died out at the same time as whales were already big (and could then propogate over the world).
I mean... what are the theories for why they died out ?
1. climate ?
2. lack of food (but surely even medium sized defensless whales would be pretty easy eating).
3. dislike of whale meat ?
4. only eat fish, and all the fish eaten by the whales ?
5. left earth before first vogon fleet ?
6. shark-ebola ?
The motivation is not always money. Sometimes it's fame. Sometimes it's simply the satisfaction of the feeling that they did something big. For example:
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