by liberal japonicus
Though I may be assuming that my foibles are shared by everyone my age, I think that American kids of a certain age, had a fascination with dinosaurs. So if that's the case, this, from the Guardian, discusses recent evidence for dinosaur migrations. What is the evidence?
Fricke's team attempted to reconstruct camarasaur migrations by measuring oxygen isotopes (variants of particular elements that have different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus) in their teeth. The work relied on the fact that ratios of two oxygen isotopes differ markedly in the waters of streams and lakes, depending on local environmental conditions, such as how high and arid the landscape was at the time.
The dinosaurs kept an unwitting record of these oxygen isotopes as they roamed the land, because the oxygen in the water they drank became incorporated into successive layers of enamel as their teeth developed.
Most of the teeth, from remains collected at Thermopolis in Wyoming and Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, were worn and retained only a month or two of enamel growth, but others were in far better condition with up to four or five months of enamel still intact.
The scientists analysed oxygen isotopes in the dinosaurs' teeth and compared them with ancient soil samples from their lowland habitats and bordering uplands. From this, they pieced together the dinosaurs' movements over several months of their lives, concluding that the beasts made seasonal migrations to the uplands. Studies of one tooth suggest the dinosaur left its lowland habitat to find food and water in the highlands and returned home within five to six months.
I don't know about any of you, but that is twenty kinds of cool to me. But this is an open thread, so anything that strikes your fancy, go for it.
Now, THAT is cool. Very interesting. Also cool .....
..... but hold on here. I want to know how these findings were transmitted between these .... what did you call them .... scientists (well, ladyfrickenda, let me put on some spectacles so I look smart too, college boy!)?
I hope to holy jurassic jesus that they didn't meet face to face while using government grant money to stay in a cushy lodge in either Wyoming or Utah while examining the dinosaurs' tooth enamel over drinks.
Tell me they Skyped or used a pay phone or wrote letters to each other in long hand, because, people, I'm telling you, the optics of this are not looking too good.
I spose they flew to the sites -- using carbon-based jet fuel -- which, as you know, if you've visited creationist theme parks in Kentucky, led to not the first and not the last incidence of global warming which pretty well wiped out the dinosaurs, though here we are, safe and sound, so I'm not sure what harm was done.
I have my thinking cap on (my very own; everyone has one -- use it) and it seems to me that one alternative theory, which is as good as any other theory and therefore should be taught to my kids alongside all of the other theories so there is no confusion, is that prehistoric American cowboys rode those beasts to the highlands and back.
How else would the dinosaurs know which way to go?
Isotopes? Sheesh! What I want to know is did they find remnants of saddles or riding crops. What about stegosaurus jerky, which I figure these cowpokes must have carried in pouches for the journey?
How bout just a tire from Nelly Bell, the Jeep Pete used to go the long way around to meet Roy and Dale at the mining claim?
I think what we need to do here is take a big step back and examine the scientists themselves. I'm not sure I like the cut of their jibs.
Let's see THEIR dental records. I mean, my dentist tells me my tooth enamel is just about shot, so don't try to tell me that dinosaurs' enamel is going to last roughly 6000 years and then be found, just like that, plain as the third nipple on Rick Perry's chest, lying right there in a stream bed which just happens to be where some fancy pants perfessor stops for a caviar and chardonnay picnic.
Right.
And, what about a peek at their driving records as well? Granite counter tops in their kitchens -- an inquiring citizen trying to get to the bottom of this might well arsk?
In Genesis, Eve, our original mother, warned us that everything that happens will go on our permanent records.
As long as we aren't permitted to see these scientists' permanent records (privacy, schmivacy; HIPPA? snort!), then I'm not about to take their word about some 4700-year-old reptile's grazing habits.
Posted by: Countme-In | October 28, 2011 at 09:52 AM
This kind of migration measurement from isotopes in tooth enamel has been done with humans for a few years now. I remember it was determined that an occupant of a 4,000-yr-old grave near Stonehenge apparently had come from the Alps.
Posted by: Marcellina | October 28, 2011 at 10:07 AM
I think we need a panel of laymen to examine what's going on here.
I nominate this individual as my proxy:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/10/27/virginia-gop-candidate-admits-to-lesbian-affair-with-minor-blames-liberals-and-weed/#more-84408
She hasn't submitted to one of them librul heuristectomys so beloved by the evil ones bringing this country to its knees.
Posted by: Countme-In | October 28, 2011 at 10:10 AM
Isotopes? Sheesh!
No kidding. I mean, just read this:
isotopes (variants of particular elements that have different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus)
Variants? They're just one step away from deviants. Elements? There are certain elements among us, and you know they can't be trusted. And why do they have to be different? Can't they just have the same number of neutrons as the rest of us?
These scientists sure do consort with some types, don't they? For shame.
(My 8-year-old son knows more about dinosaurs than I ever did, and I liked them well enough when I was an American kid.)
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | October 28, 2011 at 10:11 AM
Way cool. (I wonder if the fascination with dinosaurs is an American kid thing. Or does it happen elsewhere? Hartmut, any insights?)
Posted by: wj | October 28, 2011 at 02:06 PM
Countme, man, I'm in awe.
Posted by: Rob in CT | October 28, 2011 at 03:06 PM
I see Countme-In is spreading more of his vile heurisy. Good for him.
Posted by: bobbyp | October 28, 2011 at 03:58 PM
Why so complicated? There is http://www.amazon.co.uk/March-of-the-Dinosaurs-DVD/dp/B004P9MUJQ/ref=pd_sim_d_h__5>photographic proof of even longer migrations. Just the cavemen riding or driving them have been cut out by some antichristian liberals (the gay narrator gives the game away).
Enamel, oxygen isotopes? What elistist digestive final product. ;-)
Posted by: Hartmut | October 28, 2011 at 04:21 PM
wj, dinosaurs were all the rage over here too when I grew up in the 70ies. I was slightly ahead of the curve then but I have fallen far behind by now.
Posted by: Hartmut | October 28, 2011 at 04:24 PM
This is interesting, especially since one hears nothing about this in the US press (or at least I haven't).
the-fight-is-on-to-stop-bibi-and-barak-from-bombing-iran
Posted by: Donald Johnson | October 28, 2011 at 05:57 PM
I thought the fascination with dinosaurs was a universal characteristic of children of a certain age. I certainly was fascinated for a time (and that's evidence enough, surely).
Posted by: byomtov | October 28, 2011 at 06:16 PM
I certainly was fascinated for a time (and that's evidence enough, surely).
Words to live by ;^)
I assumed that my fascination with dinosaurs came from those Sunoco and Sinclair gas stations that we used to drive by as a kid (and often stop at when my parents were getting fed up with my brother and I fighting over back seat space and drawing spit lines do not cross lines) I also make the idle observation that the changes in basic ideas about dinosaurs (they are like lizards! No, they are like birds! T Rex was a scavenger! No, he wasn't!) has probably led to some of my generation embracing conservatism (well, I learned that Brontosaurus was the biggest dinosaur, so don't you tell me it">http://www.unmuseum.org/dinobront.htm">it doesn't exist!) because new-fangled learning attacks the sureties of youth.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 28, 2011 at 09:13 PM
Go Isotopes!
(Recently relocated to Albuquerque)
Posted by: bob_is_boring | October 29, 2011 at 02:58 AM
All one has to know about the brontosaurus one can learn from Miss Anne Elk.
Posted by: Hartmut | October 29, 2011 at 05:03 AM
It's apatosaurus; it's not brontosaurus.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | October 30, 2011 at 08:57 PM
Why did brontosaurus get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | October 30, 2011 at 08:59 PM
Slarti: Nice refrain - I thought I was the only one around who remembers when "Istanbul" first came out, and can sing the whole song!
Posted by: dr ngo | October 31, 2011 at 12:57 AM