May 7, 2012

Dinosaurs may have farted their way to extinction.

I was just reading this excellent BBC article that starts like this:

Giant dinosaurs could have warmed the planet with their flatulence, say researchers.
You've got to love it! The piece goes on to say that dinosaur gas may have warmed up the Earth 150 million years ago. Makes sense; giant animals, giant bombs! 

Of course, methane is the "greenhouse gas" in a fart that warms up the atmosphere, and that's created by microbes in the guts of humans and dinosaurs. So the giant animals had rooms for millions (or billions!) of microbes in their huge intestines, and this led to LOTS of methane being released, which may have altered the planet's climate, thus killing the dinosaurs. (You know what they say: He who smelt it . . . died.)

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