Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...

Nightshade · Post by **Nightshade** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:06 pm

They just FARTED too much:

LONDON – Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction, according to a new study from British scientists.

The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beasts pumped out more than 520 million tons (472 million tonnes) of methane a year -- enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/ ... p=features

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:48 pm

Sounds like a brain-fart to me.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:53 pm

I think i'll wait for the peer-review on this one.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:56 pm

I believe it!

I've almost killed my wife several times that way

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Mon May 07, 2012 5:59 pm

Odds on this study winning an Ig Nobel next year?

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Mon May 07, 2012 10:16 pm

The Cs Hit List 07: Sun Star Companion, Singing Stones and Smoking Visions wrote:Q: (L) What killed off the major dinosaurs?
A: Comet impact.
Q: (L) What was the source of this comet?
A: Cluster.
Q: (L) How long has this comet cluster been with us in our solar system?
A: 890 million years.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Mon May 07, 2012 11:03 pm

fox news gets it wrong again.

lol.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Tue May 08, 2012 5:09 am

Ferny, you do realize Fox news simply linked a article and didn't get anything wrong...the Brits are the ones that got it wrong

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Tue May 08, 2012 5:37 am

shhhhhh don't ruin the fantasy

Nightshade · Post by **Nightshade** » Tue May 08, 2012 2:47 pm

CUDA wrote:shhhhhh don't ruin the fantasy

Actually, you've discovered the way to destroy a leftist's mind. Get fox news to be the new msnbc and go left wing. So called progressives would be so confused, their heads would explode.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Tue May 08, 2012 3:26 pm

Can't we all just settle for journalists who report the news intelligently, instead of needing to put some shitty spin on it either way?

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Tue May 08, 2012 4:05 pm

I dunno ........ something just doesn't smell right about this story .........

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue May 08, 2012 4:57 pm

Death by Dutch Oven. If it's true, we're next.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Tue May 08, 2012 6:55 pm

woodchip wrote:Ferny, you do realize Fox news simply linked a article and didn't get anything wrong...the Brits are the ones that got it wrong

well since they're a news organization they're supposed to make sure the story is correct.. but they didn't. again.

flip · Post by **flip** » Tue May 08, 2012 7:12 pm

I think I got a chubby

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Tue May 08, 2012 9:43 pm

Ferno wrote:
woodchip wrote:Ferny, you do realize Fox news simply linked a article and didn't get anything wrong...the Brits are the ones that got it wrong

well since they're a news organization they're supposed to make sure the story is correct.. but they didn't. again.

UHM ferno. the story IS correct. Fox reported that British scientists made an announcement that Dino's farted themselves to death. they didn't do the study, they aren't scientists, thy just reported what the scientists said. as did at least a dozen other news Organizations. it was and is, not their job to verify the scientific data of the study.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Tue May 08, 2012 9:48 pm

proof the study is true

[youtube]9erlZnMekZ0[/youtube]

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Wed May 09, 2012 8:19 am

am I the only one who does not follow what is going on here? what is true/what is not? What did fox news/the british got right/now right? Feels to me as if there is a crucial post missing in the middle.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Wed May 09, 2012 8:44 am

personally..... who really give a ★■◆● (

) about who reported it, its a funny interesting story

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Wed May 09, 2012 8:52 am

Discussion about the value of the study or the article belongs here. But if this thread is just humor, it belongs in the Café.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Wed May 09, 2012 3:16 pm

Well, we're now blaming cows for global warming methane, why not all those multitudes of HUGE plant-eating dinosaurs? The plants were big, the animals were big and the digestive processes were big, so it seems plausible that the amount of waste products and methane output were astronomical. Even the decomposition of the waste products themselves produced methane. I'll buy it as a theory.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Wed May 09, 2012 8:46 pm

CUDA wrote:UHM ferno. the story IS correct. Fox reported that British scientists made an announcement that Dino's farted themselves to death. they didn't do the study, they aren't scientists, thy just reported what the scientists said. as did at least a dozen other news Organizations. it was and is, not their job to verify the scientific data of the study.

yes, their job isn't to verify findings. Their job is supposed to report the news. I know that. But in this case, they just went ahead and ran a story that hasn't been vetted yet.

Well, the British study doesn’t make that claim and Paul Myers, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota, dismissed the extinction extrapolation as nothing but sensationalism.

flip · Post by **flip** » Wed May 09, 2012 9:10 pm

From my studies, the most reasonable assumption I've read is that there were many contributing factors, all working together to change the atmosphere and location of land-masses. Most say an asteroid alone probably couldn't cause extinction of apex predators, it just put the final nail in the coffin overnight. Actually all that warming was probably needed considering the earth was just recovering from a mass extinction caused by Ice.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Wed May 09, 2012 10:29 pm

if all the other contributing factors are finishing nails, and the asteroid impact a ten inch railway spike.

flip · Post by **flip** » Thu May 10, 2012 8:08 am

I imagine world-wide volcanic eruptions and massive land shifts are no joke either. For one thing, just the tsunami's themselves would be catastrophic

Burlyman · Post by **Burlyman** » Wed May 16, 2012 4:18 am

What a stupid hypothesis

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed May 16, 2012 12:50 pm

lol Burly.

Actually, "catastrophic tectonics" is a growing idea and has been around a while. I don't know the particulars, but from what I've heard the thought is that major land masses moved over the course of months not millions/billlions of years.

p.s. not criticizing you Burly. I genuinely got a chuckle out of your response.

flip · Post by **flip** » Thu May 17, 2012 2:57 am

Another musing

, based on the Cambrian explosion.
So, there was an explosion of diversity of life. They say they can trace the beginnings of all life that exists back to that layer and that from that time on 98.6% has gone extinct. 6 major extinctions that all affected the environment and atmosphere across the whole earth. Each time there is a change in the atmosphere and a mass extinction, life came back more diverse and complex each time.

So, maybe it's not so much a case of natural selection(although it plays a part), but that all possibility of life existed at once, but the atmospheric conditions determine what could grow.

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Fri May 18, 2012 4:32 am

but that all possibility of life existed at once, but the atmospheric conditions determine what could grow

are you aware that you just described natural selection? just add other environmental influences (predators, food availability) and you have more or less the outcome of natural selection.

flip · Post by **flip** » Fri May 18, 2012 5:12 am

Nope, not really.I said natural selection could play a part, but atmospheric and environmental conditions would still be the biggest factor at what kind of life it could support. It's the 6 extinction events that are peculiar. Mass extinctions of life, and then the process repeats again, except each time it builds up with more and more complex combinations. But each extinction event basically kills all lifeforms existing and then things grow back again but under different conditions, so they form differently.

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Fri May 18, 2012 9:41 am

but isn't this exactly what natural selection is about? i.e. the environment (its dangers and opportunities) define what organisms/species will prosper and which will die out?

flip · Post by **flip** » Fri May 18, 2012 12:08 pm

No.

Natural selection is the gradual, non-random, process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

We are talking about species disappearing as quickly as they appear. 6 extinction events is anything but gradual and non-random.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri May 18, 2012 12:20 pm

Natural selection is somewhat the wrong word for it, since it is a process of elimination.

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Fri May 18, 2012 4:04 pm

flip wrote: But each extinction event basically kills all lifeforms existing and then things grow back again but under different conditions, so they form differently.

Except that it does not appear to be true that each mass extinction "basically kills all life forms". See teh wiki. At none of the the major extinction events in the last 550 million years was the slate wiped totally clean. Incidentally, the list is typically 5 for major extinctions, not six - what ones are on your list.

flip · Post by **flip** » Fri May 18, 2012 6:43 pm

Except that it does not appear to be true that each mass extinction "basically kills all life forms

Thus my use of the word basically. Easier to just say mass extinction then I guess. I got 6 from overhearing a science TV show. I'm sure anything you offer I will be able to agree with. It doesn't change anything I'm saying. The cause for evolution seems to be more from immediate and catastrophic change rather than gradual change with the advent of new creatures after each event.

Burlyman · Post by **Burlyman** » Fri May 18, 2012 9:29 pm

I think people just make up stuff because they're mad at spiritual people.

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Fri May 18, 2012 10:06 pm

flip wrote: The cause for evolution seems to be more from immediate and catastrophic change rather than gradual change with the advent of new creatures after each event.

Except I wouldn't say that "cause" is quite the right word to use there. The "cause" of evolution is random genetic variation and non-random selection. Changes in external conditions provide the opportunity for evolution (genetic variation and selection) to express itself. Lots of speciation is evident after extinction events because large numbers of ecological niches are deprived of their dominant inhabitants, so other contenders have a better chance of becoming the new "king of the hill"; this happens via the non-random selection of the existing genetic variation.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sat May 19, 2012 8:38 am

That is one way to look at it. The context I see it in is a little different though. I see it as "events". Sudden and catastrophic "events" that continually built up towards more and more complex life. We are the 2%'ers

flip · Post by **flip** » Sat May 19, 2012 8:58 am

I think people just make up stuff because they're mad at spiritual people.

Spiritual people make mystery's known

Just like this guy:

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources ... aitre.html

So the guy who was inspired about the Big Bang is almost entirely unknown. I imagine him being a priest, and the way he would have tried to explain it would have been inconvienient

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Mon May 21, 2012 4:23 am

dissent wrote:The "cause" of evolution is random genetic variation and non-random selection. Changes in external conditions provide the opportunity for evolution (genetic variation and selection) to express itself. Lots of speciation is evident after extinction events because large numbers of ecological niches are deprived of their dominant inhabitants, so other contenders have a better chance of becoming the new "king of the hill"; this happens via the non-random selection of the existing genetic variation.

very well said.

flip, in most basic terms, natural selection just means that the environmental conditions (food availability, predators, pollution, etc) determine which organism will survive to have offspring, and who will die before reaching that age. It is exactly the same as the artificial selection used in breeding, only that there it is us humans decide, for example, which type of banana will be allowed to procreate (i.e. the sweeter ones), and which strands we do not allow to procreate.