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Ever Smell T-Rex's Breath?

Posted by simoniker on from the sniff-sniff-boom dept.

Jim Hawkins writes "Well, in case you never have the chance of getting up close and personal with a T.Rex, Dale Air, a company who 'nose' its smells, has recreated Tyrannosaurus Rex's breath for London's Natural History Museum. Seems people made a stink about the rotting flesh smell that would exist on T-Rex's breath - guess someone forgot to tell him to brush his teeth."

10 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. and this is useful because? by bunburyist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Still waiting for that cure for cancer.

    1. Re:and this is useful because? by Lurker+McLurker · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, (to take a bit of a tangent) I read somewhere that it may one day be possible to detect cancer by smelling someone's breath with an electronic nose.

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      Mod parent up!
  2. T-Rex breath by birdwax2k · · Score: 5, Funny

    Supposedly it smells a lot like T-Rex ass.

  3. This is not news! by tehcyder · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's been there since 2001.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  4. Obvious joke. by ideatrack · · Score: 5, Funny

    guess someone forgot to tell him to brush his teeth

    Well it is in England...

    And I'm English before anyone gets upset ;)

  5. Just to answer the pressing question by GillBates0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, they do have the fart smell. It's listed as "Flatulence #9668" in their catalog.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  6. Opportunist Cleaners? by Mazem · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if small opportunist creatures cleaned the T-Rex, like Egyptian Plovers clean crocodile teeth and various fish eat the parasites on sharks.

  7. Considering it's diet ... by dledeaux · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recently saw a very interesting program on Discovery that hinted at T-Rex actually being a scavenger, not a hunter.

    They had several interesting theories to back this up. For example, T-Rex had a very bad center of gravity for one thing. This coupled with the fact that it's arms were so small meant that it would not pick itself back up if it fell. This meant that T-Rex probably didn't run because it didn't want to fall. It probably walked everywhere and in walking, the only food it would be able to catch would be already dead food.

    Other reasons that pointed out it's "scavengaristic" diet where things like it's olfactory senses. Porportionally it is the same size as a vulture.

    So, the theory that it ate already rotting flesh would greatly contribute to it's problems with halitosis!

  8. Calming down by Anonymous+Writer · · Score: 5, Funny

    The firm is testing an aroma dispenser which plugs into a computer and is controlled from the keyboard.

    "Say you've got help desk staff who are getting tense and frustrated -- they can press a button to get an aroma to help calm them down," Knight said.

    A case mod with a built-in bong would work much better.

  9. Accurate? Isn't that a stretch? by StateOfTheUnion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the article:

    T-Rex breath turned out so accurate and so revolting, the curators instead opted for a milder swamp smell to evoke the creature's natural habitat.

    Revolting is beleivable, but accurate? Do we really know enough about T-Rex's to say that the synthetic breath that was created was accurate? What bacteria lived in the mouth? Did the saliva have antibodies to protect open wounds around the mouth from bacteria and infection? What was the pH of the saliva? These all affect breath . . .

    There are lots of unknowns that make me think that the journalist's use of the word accurate is more than a little presumptuous. . .