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Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 5:06 pm
by Nightshade
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
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 5:48 pm
by Sergeant Thorne
Sounds like a brain-fart to me.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 5:53 pm
by Ferno
I think i'll wait for the peer-review on this one.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 5:56 pm
by CUDA
I believe it!
I've almost killed my wife several times that way
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 5:59 pm
by Top Gun
Odds on this study winning an Ig Nobel next year?
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 10:16 pm
by Skyalmian
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 11:03 pm
by Ferno
fox news gets it wrong again.
lol.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 5:09 am
by woodchip
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
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 5:37 am
by CUDA
shhhhhh don't ruin the fantasy
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 2:47 pm
by Nightshade
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 3:26 pm
by Top Gun
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?
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 4:05 pm
by dissent
I dunno ........ something just doesn't smell right about this story .........
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 4:57 pm
by Tunnelcat
Death by Dutch Oven. If it's true, we're next.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 6:55 pm
by Ferno
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 7:12 pm
by flip
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 9:43 pm
by CUDA
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 9:48 pm
by CUDA
proof the study is true
[youtube]9erlZnMekZ0[/youtube]
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:19 am
by Pandora
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:44 am
by CUDA
personally..... who really give a ★■◆● (
) about who reported it, its a funny interesting story
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:52 am
by Foil
Discussion about the value of the study or the article belongs here. But if this thread is just humor, it belongs in the Café.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 3:16 pm
by Tunnelcat
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:46 pm
by Ferno
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 9:10 pm
by flip
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 10:29 pm
by Ferno
if all the other contributing factors are finishing nails, and the asteroid impact a ten inch railway spike.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 8:08 am
by flip
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
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 4:18 am
by Burlyman
What a stupid hypothesis
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 12:50 pm
by Duper
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 2:57 am
by flip
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 4:32 am
by Pandora
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 5:12 am
by flip
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 9:41 am
by Pandora
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?
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 12:08 pm
by flip
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 12:20 pm
by Krom
Natural selection is somewhat the wrong word for it, since it is a process of elimination.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 4:04 pm
by dissent
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 6:43 pm
by flip
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 9:29 pm
by Burlyman
I think people just make up stuff because they're mad at spiritual people.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 10:06 pm
by dissent
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.
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 8:38 am
by flip
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
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 8:58 am
by flip
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
Re: Dinosaurs didn't die because of an asteroid...
Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 4:23 am
by Pandora
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.