Came across this on Yahoo News today…

Dinosaurs Died Agonizing Deaths

LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.comSat Jun 9, 10:15 AM ET

Fossilized dinosaurs often have wide-open mouths, heads thrown back and tails that curve toward the head. Paleontologists have long assumed the dinosaurs died in water and the currents drifted the bones into that position, or that rigor mortis or drying muscles, tendons and ligaments contorted the limbs.

“I’m reading this in the literature and thinking, ‘This doesn’t make any sense to me as a veterinarian,’” said Cynthia Marshall Faux, a veterinarian-turned-paleontologist at the Museum of the Rockies.

Faux and a colleague say brain damage and asphyxiation are the more likely culprits.

A classic example of the posture, which has puzzled paleontologists for ages, is the 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx, the first-known example of a feathered dinosaur and the proposed link between dinosaurs and present-day birds.

“Virtually all articulated specimens of Archaeopteryx are in this posture, exhibiting a classic pose of head thrown back, jaws open, back and tail reflexed backward and limbs contracted,” said Kevin Padian, professor of integrative biology and curator in the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley. He Faux (pronounced “Fox”) published their findings this week in the journal Paleobiology.

Some animals found in this posture may have suffocated in ash during a volcanic eruption, consistent with the fact that many fossils are found in ash deposits, Faux and Padian said. But many other possibilities exist, including disease, brain trauma, severe bleeding, thiamine deficiency or poisoning.

“This puts a whole new light on the mode of death of these animals, and interpretation of the places they died in,” Padian said. “This explanation gives us clues to interpreting a great many fossil horizons we didn’t understand before and tells us something dinosaurs experienced while dying, not after dying.”

Also, because the posture has been seen only in dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammals, which are known or suspected to have had high metabolic rates, it appears to be a good indicator that the animal was warm blooded, as other research has suggested. Animals with lower metabolic rates, such as crocodiles and lizards, use less oxygen and so might have been less traumatically affected by hypoxia during death throes, Padian said.

Padian acknowledged that many dinosaur fossils show signs that the animal died in water and the current tugged the body into an arched position, but currents cannot explain all the characteristics of an opisthotonic pose.

This is a VERY old idea that was pretty much discounted ages ago. Even their own reasoning doesn’t make sense. “Virtually all articulated specimens of Archaeopteryx are in this posture” - yeah, I wonder why? It couldn’t be at all similar to how dead birds today look much the same after sitting out in the sun for a few hours/days. It must be the case that all these fossils are from brain damaged critters than died in agony! Way to set us back in the 1700s, guys.

And while we’re at it, let’s just ignore the fact that most fossils aren’t found in areas of volcanic ash, but in sedimentary deposits consistent with stream, lake, or oceanic environments!

Idiots.

Squealing tires: never something you want to hear as you’re about to step into an intersection. Luckily, in this case, I was still about ten strides away when the white low rider pickup raced around the corner from Sheridan onto 80th Street. “Jerk,” I muttered to myself before I looked down again at the sidewalk to watch for obstacles. My head snapped back up as I heard yet another set of tires taking the corner at speed - a squad car. “Oh hell yes,” I thought, watching the car speed after the pickup.

The driver of an SUV waiting at the light yelled, “Hell yeah! Get that crack dealer!” As I passed them in the crosswalk, I could hear 2 or 3 other guys in the truck cheering. One yelled “GO TREMPER” which totally puzzled me at first. Tremper is the high school for this part of town, and my shirt happened to be the same blue as the Trojan mascot. I couldn’t stop myself from yelling back, “Sorry, Bradford!” Bradford being the north side rival high school that Joy and I went to. “Whatever, it’s all good, whoo!” was the response.

Then I had a total mind flip as a realized that these guys had mistaken me for a high school student. My ten year reunion is this June, and I still can’t pass muster for an alomst-30-year-old in the general public. I thought about this as I ran on; how does 27-year-old me compare to 17-year-old me? Most of the overly philosophical ideas slipped out of my head faster than the sidewalk slipped under my feet, and that was what I focused on.

I ran track and cross country in high school. I wasn’t particularly exceptional at either, but I thought of myself as pretty athletic. For the last year and a half I’ve been training for the eventual BIG RACE and all this time I’ve been comparing myself to what I could do in 1996. Back then I could run a 5K in 19:03. Last fall, I felt a small sense of accomplishment when I ran it in 19:31. But tonight I realized something. There would be no competition between the two Eds. Sure, high school Ed might finish a short race a minute faster, but today Ed would dominate in anything more than three and a half miles.

I was so undisciplined then. If the weather was rainy, or cold, or hot, or no one was watching, my friends and I would run just out of view and then go to someone’s house, or go goof off in the woods. These days, it has to be colder than 15 degrees Farenheit (regardless of wind chill), or raining *and* more than a five mile run. I’m upset when I have to miss a run (though occasionally I relish the small injuries that force a recovery day).

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I hate you, Jack Horner, because you are a shitty scientist.

PLEASE STOP.

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