When a giant sauropod broke gas, it was probably amazing, as were the size of its “cow pies”. And of course the gas, actually gases, were CO2 and methane. These are some pretty interesting calculations, and similar ones have been done for nutritional values of plants, but enough dinosaur farting to change the climate and lead to their demise? Ah, no, is the Phactor’s first skeptical reaction. A great deal would hinge upon the size of dinosaur populations, i.e., the amount of animal biomass, and those numbers must be a huge extrapolation based upon quite a bit of intelligent guess work. Such studies are fun, and they make you think, but so many factors are so hard to nail down that you guess this news article is a bit of hype to draw attention to the research. And why would PHLOX news publish a news article on this study? Well, probably because they like anything, anything at all, that suggests that climate change is not due to humans but cattle, and the like. HT to Zingularity.
Taxonomy class field trip
5 hours ago in The Phytophactor