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back to article DINOSAUR BLOOD: JUST RIGHT, as Goldilocks might say, if drinking it

It's one of the mysteries of the ages: what temperature was dinosaur blood? Some studies seemed to show the physiology of warm blood, others cold. Now, research led by the University of New Mexico suggests they fell neatly in the middle. Led by PhD student and lead author John Grady, the researchers decided to take a fresh …

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  1. Faux Science Slayer

    Jurassic period had FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

    One of the four parameters for flight is "lift" a function of wingspan and wing area. Pterodactyal flying reptiles had 11 meter wingspan and todays Peruvian Condor has a 5 meter wingspan. Doubling the wingspan would double the area, and only be possible by having four times the air density. This far denser air mass would also reduce the lung to body mass ratio and reduce overnight heat loss by the planet, and by the larger massed dinosaurs.

    Extrapolating past life proxy data has no way of accounting for massive variations like this. We know that our atmosphere is constantly stripped by solar wind and eroded by radiation decay, like N14 to C14. If there was four times the atmospheric 65 million years ago, then previous eons would logically have had multiples of this value. There are very few constants in the Universe, and no point of perfect reference. We live in a false paradigm reality bounded by faux science, fake history, filtered news and financed by a fiat currency. Prepare yourself for a vastly different, expanded conscious reality that is dawning.

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    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
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      Re: Jurassic period had FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

      That may as well be one of the reasons.

      Great White/Bluefin Tuna style methabolism may be another. Both are perfectly capable of spurts of activity to "warmblooded level" even in a relatively cold environment while consuming a fraction of the food needed by a warmblooded animal. I actually like this hypothesis - it makes sense. It also explains why dinosaurs managed to spread all the way to the poles. While there were no perfmanent ice sheets at that time it was still quite cold there.

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    2. Anonymous Coward 101
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      Re: Jurassic period had FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

      "Prepare yourself for a vastly different, expanded conscious reality that is dawning."

      Should I take a brolly before I go out?

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Jurassic period had FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

      Damn, you really do come up with some complete bollocks, don't you!?

      Faux Science Slayer. More like Faux Science Purveyor. Very much in the Graham HandCock mould.

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    4. Vic
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      Re: Jurassic period didn't have FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

      Pterodactyal flying reptiles had 11 meter wingspan and todays Peruvian Condor has a 5 meter wingspan. Doubling the wingspan would double the area, and only be possible by having four times the air density.

      The aircraft I usually fly has a wingspan of 9.2m. A Boeing 747 has a wingspan of 59.6m.

      By your "logic" above, that would prove that the air density at Heathrow is more than 40 times the density at Thruxton. I'm surprised we can breathe...

      Vic.

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      1. James Micallef Silver badge
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        Re: Jurassic period didn't have FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

        Not to mention that wing area is 2D, and as far as I know Pterodactyls did not have extremely narrow wings... more likely the wing breadth is roughly proportional to span, so doubling the wingspan would approximately quadruple the wing area.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Jurassic period didn't have FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

        Thruxton, eh? I once ran out of petrol near there, on my bike (on the way to London). I coasted down the hill and on a mixture of momentum and vapour got almost to the top of the other side. Pushed the bike about the last 30ft. They sold me a tankful of Avgas. Luckily the Bonneville was designed to run on 5 Star.

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        1. Vic
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          Re: Jurassic period didn't have FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

          Thruxton, eh? ... They sold me a tankful of Avgas.

          How many kidneys do you have left?

          Vic.

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          1. Anonymous Coward
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            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Jurassic period didn't have FOUR TIMES the atmospheric density !

            'How many kidneys do you have left?'

            Okay, you've got me there! Two, last time I looked.

            (btw I was 'supposed' to submit the receipt they gave me in 'company accounts'. I even seem to recall they weren't supposed to sell it for use in a road vehicle whether I paid the tax or not, so I was supposed to pretend I'd bought it for an aircraft?)

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    5. Pascal Monett Silver badge
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      Re: Pterodactyal flying reptiles had 11 meter wingspan

      It really is very dangerous, in these days where the Internet can be used to instantly verify any claim, to state things like that.

      Indeed, only one kind of pterodactyl had an 11-meter wingspan : the Quetzalcoatlus. The other kinds of pterodactyls all had wingspans that were smaller, some of them much smaller.

      But of course, when one spouts bullshit at the rate you do, it is not surprising that you neither provide links to back up your "claims", nor take into account anything as mundane as "facts" when they get in your way.

      A word of caution : when you take a moniker like yours, Faux Science Slayer, you would do well to not post things that can be so easily proven false.

      Because at the moment, you are not worthy of the name you login with.

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  2. Mark 85
    Trollface

    Say what???

    Quote: One of the four parameters for flight is "lift" a function of wingspan and wing area. Pterodactyal flying reptiles had 11 meter wingspan and todays Peruvian Condor has a 5 meter wingspan. Doubling the wingspan would double the area, and only be possible by having four times the air density.

    Can you show the proof that doubling the wingspan and area would require 4 times the air density???? I would think it would be the other way around. More wing area would be needed for less air density.

    Quote: We live in a false paradigm reality bounded by faux science, fake history, filtered news and financed by a fiat currency. Prepare yourself for a vastly different, expanded conscious reality that is dawning.

    Oh... I see where you're coming from.. or maybe it's headed towards.

    Nevermind.

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    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge
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      Re: Say what???

      Gotta go with Mark there, otherwise we have to change all of the laws of aerodynamics.

      As aircraft *do* fly under those laws, I'll discard the nonsense about the atmosphere being super dense and requiring more lifting surface in that denser medium.

      Or as a hint, fish "fly" in a far, far, far denser medium than the claimed four times denser atmosphere. Note how their fins are tiny, compared to wings on a bird.

      Now, speaking of birds...

      Remember them? The surviving dinosaurs? That rather knocks the global notion of all dinosaurs being of a tepid temperature blood.

      Other theories suggest a mixture of exothermic and endothermic dinosaurs, which, considering the wide variety of dinosaurs, one could conceive of a wide variety of body temperature.

      Mother nature seems to have been experimenting quite with abandon, throwing all manner of thing against the wall to see what stuck.

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      1. Nigel 11
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        Re: Say what???

        Aren't dinosaurs the link between reptiles and birds? From the completely cold-blooded, to the creatures with (probably) the highest metabolic rate on the planet?

        Dinosaurs were around for a long time. Plenty of time for evolution to get from cold blood, through cool, to hot. Pretty straightforward, compared to evolving feathers (a true miracle of biology, and perhaps the only radically new bio-structure since plants evolved wood? )

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        1. Tom 38
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          Re: Say what???

          No - birds are dinosaurs, theropods to be precise. We just call them birds because we don't dig them up out of the ground.

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  3. Fink-Nottle
    Black Helicopters

    > We live in a false paradigm reality bounded by faux science, fake history, filtered news and financed by a fiat currency.

    Seems like everything I've ever read, seen or heard until now has been false.

    I am so fortunate that some random guy on the internet has told me the truth.

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  4. Scroticus Canis

    Temperature control

    Great whites can only raise their body temperature 10C above the ambient (Komodos do this as well) which isn't real homoeothermic where the beastie maintains a near constant body temp whatever the ambient (normally lower than the optimal 37-40C range for mammals). It does make both better predators than being poikilothermic (so called cold blooded). It also gives the great white an extended temperature/location range where it can survive and hunt.

    Dinos were a very diverse range of critters with very different habits. In all likelihood the sauropods (big four legged) were mesothermic and relied on their bulk and heat of digestion to maintain higher than ambient temperatures. The theropods (two legged) on the other hand do appear to be real homoeotherms as indicated by their pursuit-hunter life styles, prey to predator ratios, bone canalisation (high blood calcium demand = active muscle use), feathers for insulation and that their descendants (birds) are all warm blooded.

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    1. Nigel 11
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      Re: Temperature control

      Perhaps worth commenting that some insects can also raise their body temperature above ambient. Bumble bees are furry for the same reason that mammals are furry: to avoid excessive loss of body heat to a colder atmosphere.

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      1. Kubla Cant
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        Re: Bumble bees

        What's more, bumble bees have an 11-metre wingspan!

        That proves everything!

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        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
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          Re: Bumble bees

          What's more, bumble bees have an 11-metre wingspan!

          I'll need to see empirical evidence, as that contradicts my model.

          Of course, my model assumes a perfectly spherical bumblebee.

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  5. launcap Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Dinosaurs? Sharks?

    >it would place dinosaurs in a small category: among living creatures

    >the best-known animal with a similar metabolic profile is the Great White Shark

    Aha! Dinosaurs died out because the lasers attached to their heads kept mis-firing! None of that asteroid strike nonsense - it's those Frikken Lasers(TM)!

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    1. Tom 7
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      Re: Dinosaurs? Sharks?

      Na - the dinosaurs died out running flat out into bumblebees with 11m wingspans.

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  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    " ... four times the air density"

    But how would the cavemen who walked the plains below these mighty beasts of the air breathe if that were the case?

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    OK, now that we know about dinosaur blood...

    When do we start cloning some velociraptors?

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    1. Tom 7
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      Re: OK, now that we know about dinosaur blood...

      What? Putting on face paint baggy trousers and oversized shoes?

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