New Evidence Clears Up How Dinosaurs Died

[EHKOS]

I still think civilization grew to be advanced, we created the dinosaurs, and they escaped from a lab. They got out of control and the last resort was to create and set off some kind of bomb. Thus wiping out not only the dinosaurs we created, but us as well. Although somehow we survived and are rebuilding up to the technological point we were once at.

 

[Zydrate]

New discovery! More of the same happened!

Meh. This isn't a discovery. Just a "Yep, that happened."

 

[llafnwod]

Not exactly. Dinosaurs weren't the only species on the planet. They were just the species that died off because they can't control their body heat, hence they freeze to death in cold climates. The meteor impact didn't wipe off all traces of life on the planet, it just modified the planet's climate to be cold enough so dinosaurs couldn't survive. But mammals, including proto-humans, did.

Dinosaurs are a clade of the Chordate phylum, not a species. Proto-humans, and, in fact, great apes, did not exist in the Cretaceous period.

The asteroid theory is used to explain what caused the ice age. One big explosion on one side of the planet doesn't kill all the dinosaurs on the other side, that's silly.

The "ice age" most people (including Mr. Freeze) refer to is the one that has been going on for about two and a half million years, again, long, long after the Cretaceous. A meteor impact would not have caused an ice age; if anything, the greenhouse gases would have caused an increase in global temperature. There is some speculation that the impact could have caused a "nuclear winter" scenario, but even this would not have caused a geologically significant period of global cooling.

 

[BrassButtons]

Not exactly. Dinosaurs weren't the only species on the planet. They were just the species that died off because they can't control their body heat, hence they freeze to death in cold climates. The meteor impact didn't wipe off all traces of life on the planet, it just modified the planet's climate to be cold enough so dinosaurs couldn't survive. But mammals, including proto-humans, did.

To add to what llafnwod said, not all dinosaurs died as a result of the meteor. Birds are dinosaurs.

 

[Flatfrog]

To sum up: No, we are not making an ice age happen.

sure i can somewhat maybe buy into the idea that all the heat we generate can nudge the temp of the planet up possibly, but what is to say we are any worse than 200 foot long reptiles or w/e dinosaurs are this week, chewing down millions of tons of vegetation and farting all day. nevermind what a t rex doody must have been like.

Seriously, do you think that's what climate change is? 'All the heat we generate can nudge the temp of the planet up'?

You seriously need to do some more reading about this before you have any more opinions on the subject.

 

[DayDark]

One top of that methane releases from animals is a major contributor to the global warming we have now (it might be considered by scientist the largest contributor but don't quote me on that) methane is 17x more damaging to global warming than CO2.

Be that as it may, there should be about 200 times more CO2 in the air than methane, last I heard methane contributes about 28% to global warming, which still makes it the second largest contributor. There's a good discussion on it here: http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/methane-and-co2/

If you feel interested, you can read some about how scientist are trying to make cattle less methane producing, turns out that natural free range grass grazing cows are actually producing more methane than the corn eating cattle, but that free range cattle help a number of other environmental problems. As always the issue is never straight forward.
http://grist.org/article/2009-05-21-on-cow-burps-meat-and-methane/

 

[rayen020]

"These precursory phenomena made the global ecosystem much more sensitive to even relatively small triggers, so that what otherwise might have been a fairly minor effect shifted the ecosystem into a new state."

A perfect verdant valley filled with dinosaurs. and then a little prehistoric gopher wearing a troll mask came out of it's burrow and farted. And the entire valley caught fire and everything died. Go Mammals.

All i could think after i read that.

 

[floppylobster]

"within a gnat's eyebrow"

That's such a scientist way of phrasing something. My old electronics professor would use it all the time with his thick Scottish accent to describe everything.

 

[schmulki]

Somehow, I can't shake the feeling the whole CO2 drama is but a cult to press rather elaborate wealth transfer schemes into motion that will, inevitably, only speed up the process of things going to shit, as they are absolutely inefficient at solving the problems they claim to address proper.

I love this sentence. It sums up everything about you and cerebus (and his lack of capital letters or proper sentences) perfectly.

Who has the most to gain by there not being global warming? Companies who pollute and destroy our environment and want to get away with it since it's cheaper than not doing so. Who has the most to gain by there being global warming? Recycling centers? That's about the only one who really gains something at all, by being in business.

It comes down to this. If every shred of scientific evidence and the eyeball effect (just look outside and see how fucked up weather has gotten in the past 30 years, compared to hundreds of years before that) is correct, global warming is real. As individuals, it takes maybe an extra few seconds here and there to recycle, driving a more efficient car is good for your wallet as well, so there's a benefit there even without taking into account global warming, and the only downside is such a small bit of extra taxes for a town/city to handle recycling, that it's meaningless. And btw, those centers employ people, something sorely needed right now anyway.

On the flip side, if we're wrong, what's the damage for being safe and trying to prevent it right now? We....cost some companies extra money? Oh no, the horror! A few of the wealthiest people alive get a tiny drop less money (and no, that doesn't trickle down, as they still need the same workers to produce anything and in fact, inspectors are given jobs that wouldn't exist otherwise, so it actually helps the middle class, something else we need).

 

[xdiesp]

Dinosaur instrumentality project.

 

[DiamanteGeeza]

I really hope Sarah Palin hears about this and pays attention. She stated (publicly and on several occasions) that we were running around with Dinosaurs 6,000 years ago, which is when the world was 'created'. She seems to get her history 'facts' from the Flintstones.

And people still vote for her.

 

[Do4600]

-Snip-

So it wasn't just global warming caused by dinosaurs farting and breathing? Dear God, I have to tell Al Gore!

That makes no sense, at all, whatsoever.

If you want to rip at something it would be climate denialists, because that group and creationists have a big overlap in membership, and are about equally adept at denying any facts that don't fit their story.

One top of that methane releases from animals is a major contributor to the global warming we have now (it might be considered by scientist the largest contributor but don't quote me on that) methane is 17x more damaging to global warming than CO2.

It still doesn't make sense. It assumes that dinosaurs produced methane, which we have no evidence of(Methane is produced mostly by ruminant animals, which are all mammals, by bacteria in their digestive process, which we don't know even existed then, and even if they did we don't know if herbivore dinosaurs used this bacteria in their digestion.

 

[Something Amyss]

I thought we cleared this up almost two decades ago. weSaySo did it.

I really hope Sarah Palin hears about this and pays attention. She stated (publicly and on several occasions) that we were running around with Dinosaurs 6,000 years ago, which is when the world was 'created'. She seems to get her history 'facts' from the Flintstones.

And people still vote for her.

That's because in America, science isn't a serious thing.

 

[DeimosMasque]

I really hope Sarah Palin hears about this and pays attention. She stated (publicly and on several occasions) that we were running around with Dinosaurs 6,000 years ago, which is when the world was 'created'. She seems to get her history 'facts' from the Flintstones.

And people still vote for her.

I'm no fan of Sarah Palin but serious? http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/newsquotes.asp
And no one votes for her anymore, she hasn't ran for office since after her VP run five years ago.

 

[Beautiful End]

tl;dr

Fine, I'm kidding. But...is it weird that the first thing I thought about when I read this was of how Disneyworld was going to have to remodel Dinosaurland or whatever their call it inside Animal Kingdom? Yeah, I don't know why that was my first reaction either...

 

[Atmos Duality]

"These precursory phenomena made the global ecosystem much more sensitive to even relatively small triggers, so that what otherwise might have been a fairly minor effect shifted the ecosystem into a new state."

A total global blotting of INSOL is anything but a "Relatively small trigger".
Relative to an ecosystem whose very existence could qualify as an extreme statistical anomaly.