Dinosaurs Died Within Hours of Asteroid Impact, says New Study

colonist writes "SPACE.com reports that most dinosaurs were incinerated within hours by the 'heat pulse' of an asteroid impact 65 million years ago. The study 'Survival in the first hours of the Cenozoic' presents a scenario where the only survivors were underground or were underwater in swamps or oceans. All unprotected creatures were 'baked by the equivalent of a global oven set on broil.'"

Comments

Interstellar catastrophic source no longer needed

[Anubis333]

I find this funny. I always love hearing about catastrpophic asteroids and things. But the US has 10,000 nuculear warheads, enough to 'overkill' the worlds pupulation 12x. For those of you not in the military, this means that if the bodies of the dead were to get up again, we could kill them all 12 more times. We humans are capable of creating a much larger catastrophe than our often theoretical cousins in space; and it's saddening.

Obligatory Jurassic Park Quote

[Lorenzo de Medici]

Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum):Don't you see the danger, John, in what you're doing here? Genetic force is the most awesome power the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that found his dad's gun. I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here. It didn't acquire any discipline to attain it. You read what others have done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourself so therefore you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew it you had it. You patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now your selling it! You wanna sell it! Well, your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn't stop if they should. No, hold on John, this is not an animal wiped out by deforestation or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction.

Pretty scary if nature selected them in a matter of seconds. Too bad the vastly hyper-intelligent dinosaur civilization's NASA counterpart didn't have a Near-Earth Object Program.

Looks like the Thunderlizards failed again

[motown]

"Yes, Squat. I think it would be safe to say that failing to destroy that asteroid in time would fit NICELY INTO THE BAD THINGS CATEGORY!"

Re:Broil?

[ericspinder]

I get your point now, I associated the grandparent as talking about a type of oven, when in realility he (or she, but almost certainly a he) was talking about the type of heat rather than the type of oven.

Sometimes it helps to re-read the post one is replying to before hitting submit

((shouting to the heavens)) O, burn me, great masters of Karma, I have sinned and must repent !!

((poster retacts and slinks slowly under the bridge))

whats this?

[xmorg]

I can't believe people still believe in an unproovable evolution theory. I guess they just make it up as they go along. Dino's are reptiles one day, mammals the next, then back to reptiles.