Theories about T-Rex being slow aren't anything new.  They've been around for awhile.  But at Stanford University in California new models of the leg muscles of T-Rex suggest that a real specimen may not have been able to run at all.  Contrary to what Hollywood wants to hear, this could change everyone's view of the ferocious, agile creature we've all come to know.

"There is no way you could fit enough muscle into its body for that kind of locomotion," says John Hutchinson, co-author of an article appearing in the British-produced journal Nature. "You wouldn't have enough room left over for all the other body parts."

While some paleontologists compare the dinosaur's long, slender legs with those of an ostrich or horse, Stanford researchers, as well as others, say that a 45mph sprinting T-Rex is hodge-podge considering the animals enormous size.  Using biomechanics, they created a computer model to analyze how much leg muscle mass is necessary for running.

"It is a simple model, although realistic enough to capture the principles of locomotion," said Hutchinson. "First, you have a stick figure model, with a bunch of segments joined by joints. Then you assign weights to those segments and compute the physics of the posture. When the foot is joined to the ground, you can compute the forces."

The computer model showed that in order for T-Rex to run 45 miles per hour, as much as 86 percent of its weight might have had to be leg muscle mass. That, according to Hutchinson, is ridiculous.

Can history shed any light on the subject?  Accounts of dragons, some of their descriptions remarkably similar to a Tyrannosaurus, say that the animals were slow, yet deadly.  For more information, see Dinosaurs In History.

Earth's Climate Used To Be Warmer
by Jonathan Drake
TrueAuthority.com

A new study released recently has determined that carbon dioxide concentrations in the Mesozoic atmosphere would have led to warmer climates and temperatures.

At the University of Oregon, Professor Gregory Retallack has been able to recreate the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide for a, and we quote, "300 million-year period, which includes the Mesozoic Era."  He accomplished this by studying fossil plants and their leaves.

Dr. Retallack discovered certain growing characteristics that allowed him to calculate the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. He found that for most of the Mesozoic, levels of carbon dioxide were high. This would have created a greenhouse effect lasting many "tens of millions of years," resulting in higher global temperatures.

An important study no doubt, as it provides empirical evidence supporting the theories of other researchers who believe that the Mesozoic was a very warm period in the Earth's history.

Then are those, like us, who believe that the earth used to, indeed, be much different, but only a few thousand years ago.  For more information, see Death of the Dinosaurs.

Carbon Dating Rethink
by Jonathan Robison
TrueAuthority.com

British and American scientists have recently demonstrated that past carbon dating reports could be wrong by thousands of years.  Go figure.

Originally, carbon dating results were based on the ludicrous assumption that the ratio of carbon-14 and carbon-12 in the atmosphere stays constant.  But now, comparison of carbon dating against a newer uranium dating technique shows that there must haven been "extremely large" variations in atmospheric carbon-14 in the past.

As True Authority has endeavored to reveal since the beginning, all man-made dating techniques are fallible and dependent upon assumptions about the past.  From carbon to uranium to any other substance used to date objects, all methods do not and cannot give a trustworthy reading.

For more information, see Radiometric Dating Methods.

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