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Caltech Scientists Measure Dinosaur Body Temp

Posted by Soulskill on from the clever-girl dept.

damn_registrars writes "Using rare isotope ratios, a geology team at CalTech has determined body temperatures of sauropod dinosaurs. Their work finds temperatures that are roughly in line with modern mammals for body temperature. However, as the authors point out, this does not on its own confirm dinosaurs to be entirely warm-blooded, as they may have kept these temperatures by sheer mass. The peer-reviewed paper is available online in PNAS. You can also get the article free through pubmed."

3 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. It's Caltech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    That is all.

  2. FTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Were dinosaurs slow and lumbering, or quick and agile? It depends largely on whether they were cold or warm blooded. When dinosaurs were first discovered in the mid-19th century, paleontologists thought they were plodding beasts that had to rely on their environments to keep warm, like modern-day reptiles.

    The writer is a moron.

    No those paleontologists didn't fucking think that. The only damn reason the T. Rex in the American Museum of Natural History was mounted upright like that was because it was too damn heavy to mount with the backbone horizontal using the technology of the day.

    Why the hell is there this general belief that people today are SOOO much smarter than people in the past?

    1. Re:FTFA by hawguy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Were dinosaurs slow and lumbering, or quick and agile? It depends largely on whether they were cold or warm blooded. When dinosaurs were first discovered in the mid-19th century, paleontologists thought they were plodding beasts that had to rely on their environments to keep warm, like modern-day reptiles.

      The writer is a moron.

      No those paleontologists didn't fucking think that. The only damn reason the T. Rex in the American Museum of Natural History was mounted upright like that was because it was too damn heavy to mount with the backbone horizontal using the technology of the day.

      Why the hell is there this general belief that people today are SOOO much smarter than people in the past?

      I don't see the connection between the mounting position of a T.Rex and the speed or agileness of dinosaurs in general? The erect T-Rex doesn't look any more lumbering than a prone T-Rex to my untrained eye.

      And is it really true that it takes modern structural materials to mount a t-rex horizontally? It seems like even in the early 1900's, they could have used a steel beam and cables to hang it if they really wanted to show it in a more horizontal position.

      This reference says that scientists didn't discover until the 1970's that the upright position was not accurate, but it was because of biomechanics, not speed or agility.

      http://landbeforetime.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrannosaurus

      Henry Fairfield Osborn, former president of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, who believed the creature stood upright, further reinforced the notion after unveiling the first complete T. rex skeleton in 1915. It stood in this upright pose for nearly a century, until it was dismantled in 1992.[48] By 1970, scientists realized this pose was incorrect and could not have been maintained by a living animal, as it would have resulted in the dislocation or weakening of several joints, including the hips and the articulation between the head and the spinal column.[49]