I won't deny any of this, and I will concede that chimps are strong enough you shouldn't piss them off.
Could dinosaurs have done the same thing? Sure, why not. But you yourself hinted at it. There is a tradeoff. If they use this increased strength, they're worse at endurance. Using extreme strength just to walk around wouldn't last long, would it? It wouldn't allow for any running, any walking for extended periods of time, and I would assume would be hard on the msucles themselves.
And that would be enough, if the limbs were like concrete pylons, and the animal just stood in place the rest of it's life. As you approach the limits of this curve, the animal will become less active. Sure, it's strong enough maybe to be alive and move around some. But there is less oomph left other. A less active animal that needs even more food... I just don't see how it's going to be viable. (Though to be fair, the biggest were always herbivores, not like they need to chase down tree leaves.)
And as another poster pointed out, raw strength isn't the only factor. There are heat exchange problems, that would add to this. I won't even go into the currently accepted dogma, of how they were all warm-blooded.
Good point. So exactly what made big animals a bad idea, long ago? (though the megafauna never did get as big as the dinos) I personally don't think it's exotic muscle, I was saying that couldn't be the explanation. I don't think gravity has changed either, or the size of the planet. So just what gives?
There are problems with that too. And even if that's the explanation, it only works for the apatosaurus-like dinosaurs. There are still the predators that left footprints suggesting they moved too damn fast for their 3-5 ton weights.
On a small animal, super muscle would allow for simply extraordinary athletic feats. Think superman leaping over buildings in a single bound kind of stuff. Predator, prey... everyone benefits from this. It has significant advantages no matter who you are. And as for an asteroid wiping them out, even that I'm not so sure. There's gotta be more to this story.
Biological classification doesn't map exactly to evolutionary trees. Up until the 1950's, many biologists were more concerned with gross physical traits.
If mammals didn't evolve from dinosaurs, maybe it's more proper to say they had a common ancestor. That ancestor wasn't the most primitive of the reptiles, of that I'm sure. Anyone care to dig up the details?
I'm no biologist either, and this is a decade + memory, but I seem to remember less than 10% variance among all land animals (and in fact, most water dwelling ones, as well).
Even if we insist that their muscles were far stronger (not like we have any tissue to test), there are problems. If a big animal could take advantage of super muscle, so then could the smaller dinosaurs, even more so than the large ones. So, it would be reasonable to conclude that most had this super muscle. But birds and mammals both evolved from these things... why give up such a big advantage? Evolutionarily speaking, it just wouldn't happen. You don't select for weak muscle, especially to such a degree that absolutely zero examples exist today.
Not to say they're not strong (an elephant moves *TONS* around at a gallop, so you can't dismiss it). But a cubic inch of chimp muscle is more or less as strong as our own.
And think about this too, the chimp is smaller, isn't it? As we get bigger, we get heavier far quicker than we get stronger. We're using more of our muscles to move our own weight, less left over to swing from vines. At some point, it doesn't matter if you get bigger, it just won't add enough strength to make up for the added weight.
I seem to remember something about a chicken, scaled up to T Rex size needing 98% of its weight to be leg muscle, just so it could run (this is evidence that they in fact couldn't run).
I know it seems like that. And I don't doubt that the iguana is hell to deal with, when it's in a bad mood.
And while you won't want to do this test, if you were to dissect it, apply eletric current to the muscle, it would generate as much force as any similarly sized muscle, with only slight variation. Whether the iguana is practically stronger (using the muscle to closer to its theoretical max), or it just seems it because of its different shape, I can't say.
Is how they ever managed to live in the first place. The strength of muscles is a function of the area of their cross-section. It increases only roughly at a rate of the square of its size. Weight goes up as a cube of its size. Things get heavier much faster than they get stronger.
And just how much stronger could dino muscles have been than modern mammalian muscle? 140% stronger, 170%? That's really stretching it, and it still isn't nearly enough.
Land animals probably can't be much bigger than an elephant.
And no, I'm not a christian scientist. I don't think it's a conspiract, the bones are there, and they show how big the things must have been. I'd just like answers (prefereably those that don't have anything to do with superstitious bible crap).
I also must admit I've never once disliked the ads in those magazines, I could even truthfully say I buy them as much for the ads as anything else. But the truth is, no one gets rich in marketing letting people know about products they would already want. So this stuff about "if they only had more data, they'd target us" is bullshit. They'll still be trying to sell you a subscription to GQ, the latest fashion deoderant, and GM sports car.
I know that many of you do check it out, even seem interested. Contact me if you're not in the USA, for an immediate invitation, and be prepared to install openvpn.
Re:Poker Allows Escape from Geekdom
on
Geeks and Poker?
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· Score: 1
I play cards to, but I've never heard of the "Nerdy Wizard". If that in the new Fifth Dawn expansion?
Actually, I've been studying up on whether a savant, or even a talented person could beat the odds at roulette. With the odds you get, even being able to guess which sector the ball lands in would be enough to make a profit. And since they don't take bets until after the ball is already thrown...
Evolve how ever much it takes, for your tiny little monkey brain to accept that you can't "take" what for lack of a better term, I'll call "intellectual property". Only the RIAA tries to deprive others of it, and look how well they are suceeding.
You see, evolution proves that there is indeed a nich for parasites, but when those parasites are lawyers and/or RIAA executives, they start to get uppity. Most parasites have the deceny to hide out in slime, in dirt, or your bowels. And that's for a good reason. Nobody's likes them, needs them, or whats to see them. We even try to exterminate most such parasites. Now, I know that Rosen isn't totally at fault, she obviousl has tried to crawl into someone's bowels, because I heard someone here mention that she has her head stuck up someone's ass.
Another thing about our universe. It's composed of patterns. A few hundred fundamental particles isn't anything... its all the different patterns that can be made of them. And, for whatever reason, the universe seems to copy successful patterns. Music, movies, software, these can all be seen as extensions of this effect. Now, here's the root of our problem. The parasites are so big, so disgusting, that they're no longer satisfied to simply suck the nutrients out of our blood or tissue. They've decided that if they can "own" this effect of successful patterns being copied, which happens everywhere in the universe, they can be as rich as God.
Why should we care? Because what little intellectual property I create, I want the entire world to enjoy. You should want this, too. If I can't gouge a few thousand dollars, what's the point? Because, if the only scarcity is artificial, and if we eliminate that artificial scarcity, we can all be richer for it. All except the talentless parasites, of course.
And zookeeper, put the parent poster back in his cage. I realize you feel clever for teaching it to type, but you have *no idea* where its fingers have been.
Have to do better than putting him in orbit. Eventually he'd come back down. I wonder what the price is to drop him into the sun... though I suppose it'd be a bargain no matter what.
Would have to be really thin, so that it doesn't weigh more than the boyancy of the vacuum. And superstrong, since containing a near-vacuum a normal material would implode instantaneously. I would think some mono-molegular structure. Which means it would have to have "loops" built into the exterior, as anchor points. Can't exactly nail it to your blimp gondola.
Now, if it's monomolecular, it's going to have to be "grown" in a vacuum itself. But that could be a conventional near-vacuum structure, since it isn't intended to fly.
Wow. Here I was, ready to put a 1 ton satellite into orbit for $1. Instead, I find out it costs nearly $200. You've dashed my hopes of becoming a private space power. Damn you.
I thought that a cable/ribbon break in the space elevator causes no catastrophe. If near the ground, it just hangs there in the air (waiting to be repaired), and if higher up, it flies off into space.
Not to mention that the "cable" it also basically a microfabric that in worst case also flutters to the ground.
I'm still a bit fuzzy on the physics that forces 2 versions of a person to merge into a blob of evaporating protoplasm.
I mean, the "you can't touch yourself" thing, besides the innuendo value of it, is just plain stupid. Over a period of years, how many of the same atoms are likely to be in a person? 3, maybe 4%? Hell, an atom that was part of you 10 years ago might be in the doorknob. All van damme would have to do is ring the doorbell...
Anyone want to guess how much of the Bradburyism will survive in this new movie?
PS Someone please tell me van damme hasn't been cast....
Yes, I am owed a home (not necessarily a house) and a job. I can't trek off to the wilderness, and build myself a log cabin. But hey, that's cool too... because if I did that, how could I be a consumer, and support the "free market" ?
Slashdot Mirror
I won't deny any of this, and I will concede that chimps are strong enough you shouldn't piss them off.
Could dinosaurs have done the same thing? Sure, why not. But you yourself hinted at it. There is a tradeoff. If they use this increased strength, they're worse at endurance. Using extreme strength just to walk around wouldn't last long, would it? It wouldn't allow for any running, any walking for extended periods of time, and I would assume would be hard on the msucles themselves.
And that would be enough, if the limbs were like concrete pylons, and the animal just stood in place the rest of it's life. As you approach the limits of this curve, the animal will become less active. Sure, it's strong enough maybe to be alive and move around some. But there is less oomph left other. A less active animal that needs even more food... I just don't see how it's going to be viable. (Though to be fair, the biggest were always herbivores, not like they need to chase down tree leaves.)
And as another poster pointed out, raw strength isn't the only factor. There are heat exchange problems, that would add to this. I won't even go into the currently accepted dogma, of how they were all warm-blooded.
I guess I'm glad there are some mysteries left.
Good point. So exactly what made big animals a bad idea, long ago? (though the megafauna never did get as big as the dinos) I personally don't think it's exotic muscle, I was saying that couldn't be the explanation. I don't think gravity has changed either, or the size of the planet. So just what gives?
If nutcases are ranting against me, I must be doing something right. Thanks Mr. Nutcase, but can you work in a Roswell/space alien angle too?
I myself am in the USA, a direct connection to me would allow for warrant hopping. Read about it.
There are problems with that too. And even if that's the explanation, it only works for the apatosaurus-like dinosaurs. There are still the predators that left footprints suggesting they moved too damn fast for their 3-5 ton weights.
On a small animal, super muscle would allow for simply extraordinary athletic feats. Think superman leaping over buildings in a single bound kind of stuff. Predator, prey... everyone benefits from this. It has significant advantages no matter who you are. And as for an asteroid wiping them out, even that I'm not so sure. There's gotta be more to this story.
Biological classification doesn't map exactly to evolutionary trees. Up until the 1950's, many biologists were more concerned with gross physical traits.
If mammals didn't evolve from dinosaurs, maybe it's more proper to say they had a common ancestor. That ancestor wasn't the most primitive of the reptiles, of that I'm sure. Anyone care to dig up the details?
My quick googling says the heaviest dinosaur might have weighed about from 30 to 50 tons, where the elephant can weigh at most 7 tons.
Not an order of magnitude or anything, but this can hardly be dismissed.
I'm no biologist either, and this is a decade + memory, but I seem to remember less than 10% variance among all land animals (and in fact, most water dwelling ones, as well).
Even if we insist that their muscles were far stronger (not like we have any tissue to test), there are problems. If a big animal could take advantage of super muscle, so then could the smaller dinosaurs, even more so than the large ones. So, it would be reasonable to conclude that most had this super muscle. But birds and mammals both evolved from these things... why give up such a big advantage? Evolutionarily speaking, it just wouldn't happen. You don't select for weak muscle, especially to such a degree that absolutely zero examples exist today.
Not disputing they existed, I'll leave that to the bible thumpers and faked moonlanding nuts.
But the fact is, something is far stranger than most scientists are willing to let on about.
Not to say they're not strong (an elephant moves *TONS* around at a gallop, so you can't dismiss it). But a cubic inch of chimp muscle is more or less as strong as our own.
And think about this too, the chimp is smaller, isn't it? As we get bigger, we get heavier far quicker than we get stronger. We're using more of our muscles to move our own weight, less left over to swing from vines. At some point, it doesn't matter if you get bigger, it just won't add enough strength to make up for the added weight.
I seem to remember something about a chicken, scaled up to T Rex size needing 98% of its weight to be leg muscle, just so it could run (this is evidence that they in fact couldn't run).
I know it seems like that. And I don't doubt that the iguana is hell to deal with, when it's in a bad mood.
And while you won't want to do this test, if you were to dissect it, apply eletric current to the muscle, it would generate as much force as any similarly sized muscle, with only slight variation. Whether the iguana is practically stronger (using the muscle to closer to its theoretical max), or it just seems it because of its different shape, I can't say.
Is how they ever managed to live in the first place. The strength of muscles is a function of the area of their cross-section. It increases only roughly at a rate of the square of its size. Weight goes up as a cube of its size. Things get heavier much faster than they get stronger.
And just how much stronger could dino muscles have been than modern mammalian muscle? 140% stronger, 170%? That's really stretching it, and it still isn't nearly enough.
Land animals probably can't be much bigger than an elephant.
And no, I'm not a christian scientist. I don't think it's a conspiract, the bones are there, and they show how big the things must have been. I'd just like answers (prefereably those that don't have anything to do with superstitious bible crap).
Lamer. Real geeks read Nuts & Volts. ;-)
I also must admit I've never once disliked the ads in those magazines, I could even truthfully say I buy them as much for the ads as anything else. But the truth is, no one gets rich in marketing letting people know about products they would already want. So this stuff about "if they only had more data, they'd target us" is bullshit. They'll still be trying to sell you a subscription to GQ, the latest fashion deoderant, and GM sports car.
Look here. Metanet
I know that many of you do check it out, even seem interested. Contact me if you're not in the USA, for an immediate invitation, and be prepared to install openvpn.
I play cards to, but I've never heard of the "Nerdy Wizard". If that in the new Fifth Dawn expansion?
Actually, I've been studying up on whether a savant, or even a talented person could beat the odds at roulette. With the odds you get, even being able to guess which sector the ball lands in would be enough to make a profit. And since they don't take bets until after the ball is already thrown...
If we're in a good mood, we'll even evacuate the Utahians first.
Hell, I can't even say the "X" word, because the owners of Slashdot will pull my post if the COS says "boo!"
XENU XENU XENU!
Xenu.
OT3. Operating thetans. E-Meter.
Xenu!
Evolve how ever much it takes, for your tiny little monkey brain to accept that you can't "take" what for lack of a better term, I'll call "intellectual property". Only the RIAA tries to deprive others of it, and look how well they are suceeding.
You see, evolution proves that there is indeed a nich for parasites, but when those parasites are lawyers and/or RIAA executives, they start to get uppity. Most parasites have the deceny to hide out in slime, in dirt, or your bowels. And that's for a good reason. Nobody's likes them, needs them, or whats to see them. We even try to exterminate most such parasites. Now, I know that Rosen isn't totally at fault, she obviousl has tried to crawl into someone's bowels, because I heard someone here mention that she has her head stuck up someone's ass.
Another thing about our universe. It's composed of patterns. A few hundred fundamental particles isn't anything... its all the different patterns that can be made of them. And, for whatever reason, the universe seems to copy successful patterns. Music, movies, software, these can all be seen as extensions of this effect. Now, here's the root of our problem. The parasites are so big, so disgusting, that they're no longer satisfied to simply suck the nutrients out of our blood or tissue. They've decided that if they can "own" this effect of successful patterns being copied, which happens everywhere in the universe, they can be as rich as God.
Why should we care? Because what little intellectual property I create, I want the entire world to enjoy. You should want this, too. If I can't gouge a few thousand dollars, what's the point? Because, if the only scarcity is artificial, and if we eliminate that artificial scarcity, we can all be richer for it. All except the talentless parasites, of course.
And zookeeper, put the parent poster back in his cage. I realize you feel clever for teaching it to type, but you have *no idea* where its fingers have been.
Have to do better than putting him in orbit. Eventually he'd come back down. I wonder what the price is to drop him into the sun... though I suppose it'd be a bargain no matter what.
Would have to be really thin, so that it doesn't weigh more than the boyancy of the vacuum. And superstrong, since containing a near-vacuum a normal material would implode instantaneously. I would think some mono-molegular structure. Which means it would have to have "loops" built into the exterior, as anchor points. Can't exactly nail it to your blimp gondola.
Now, if it's monomolecular, it's going to have to be "grown" in a vacuum itself. But that could be a conventional near-vacuum structure, since it isn't intended to fly.
Wow. Here I was, ready to put a 1 ton satellite into orbit for $1. Instead, I find out it costs nearly $200. You've dashed my hopes of becoming a private space power. Damn you.
I thought that a cable/ribbon break in the space elevator causes no catastrophe. If near the ground, it just hangs there in the air (waiting to be repaired), and if higher up, it flies off into space.
Not to mention that the "cable" it also basically a microfabric that in worst case also flutters to the ground.
I'm still a bit fuzzy on the physics that forces 2 versions of a person to merge into a blob of evaporating protoplasm.
I mean, the "you can't touch yourself" thing, besides the innuendo value of it, is just plain stupid. Over a period of years, how many of the same atoms are likely to be in a person? 3, maybe 4%? Hell, an atom that was part of you 10 years ago might be in the doorknob. All van damme would have to do is ring the doorbell...
Anyone want to guess how much of the Bradburyism will survive in this new movie?
PS Someone please tell me van damme hasn't been cast....
Yes, I am owed a home (not necessarily a house) and a job. I can't trek off to the wilderness, and build myself a log cabin. But hey, that's cool too... because if I did that, how could I be a consumer, and support the "free market" ?
Sorry, didn't mean to insult your religion.