Dinosaurs May Have Been Warm-Blooded

PxT writes: "According to this AP story, the remains of a 66 million-year-old dinosaur suggest that the extinct creatures were warmblooded - not coldblooded as once believed - and capable of the swift and sustained motion typical of modern birds and mammals. A whole site dedicated to the discovery of this specimen is here."

Comments

Media Is Stupid

[waldoj]

I've been amazed that the reaction that most of the media has taken to this story. My local news station presented the story as if the very concept of warm-blooded dinosaurs was a previously unconsidered option.

(Yes, I'm fully aware that this doesn't settle the question and, yes, I know that there was the warm-blooded backlash a few years ago, and a new push for the cold-blooded theory.)

Still, you'd think that they'd mention that this isn't any huge surprise, as exiciting as this discovery is.

-Waldo

Re:This is new?

[Witchblade]

Um, yes. the news here is not that dinosaurs were warmblodded (the accepted view of paleontologists for at least a decade now) but the detail of the specimen itself.

As an aside rant this is what I hate about the "science" submissions on Slashdot. The Community knows far more about obscure networking cable adapters than junior high level scientific knowledge. As an astronomer I long ago got tired of even trying to contribute to the almost weekly astronomy story posted here. Think of all the stories you tell each other about AOLer's and newbie support calls. To a scientist y'all sound that bad sometimes. I'm sorry, but it's true. On the other hand most science discussions tend to quickly shift focus to the research hardware, or whether the analysts use PERL or Python, so the quality of the post go up, but it's no longer about scientific discoveries. Oh well. Guess this is just a single-interest audience. :)