[extropy-chat] T-Rex with Bird Lungs- Ouch!

[The Avantguardian]

Hey all,

Came across this and it is really cool. Essentially
there is growing evidence that many therapod dinosaurs
(including T-Rex amongst others) already had the
pulmonary system of birds. The reason this is so cool
is because bird lungs and the associated air sacs
throughout the body form the most efficent respiratory
design of any vertabrate. They are a flow through
system which means that unlike mammalian lungs which
are essentially like sacks, i.e. the air comes in and
goes out by the same route. Bird (and dinosaur) lungs
are more like a loop of several links of hollow
sausages. Therefore the air a bird inhales goes around
in a circuit getting passed from airsac to airsac,
maximizing the oxygen/CO2 exchange. Thus while we
exhale the breath we inhaled immediately before hand,
birds exhale the breath they took two or three breaths
ago. What this means is that it is now highly unlikely
that T-Rex was a slow lumbering scavenger as is one
theory. Instead, T-Rex should have been able to
sustain speeds in excess of 40-50 mph, possibly for
hours at a time like modern day ostriches. I need a
set of lungs like that. :)

Layperson link:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/07/13/dino.respiratory.systems.reut/index.html

Geek link:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7048/full/nature03716.html


The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson

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