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BOB HIRSHON (host):
Did dinosaur gas change the world? I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
Originally called “Thunder Lizards,” those giant, long-necked, plant eating dinosaurs apparently earned that title in more ways than one. New research suggests that these beasts and their kin belched and, well, otherwise emitted so much methane gas that they may have warmed the entire planet! This according to British researchers in a report in the journal Current Biology. In fact, the scientists estimate that the dinosaurs produced more of the greenhouse gas than modern natural and human sources combined!
In other dinosaur news, Chinese paleontologists working in Mongolia have uncovered a prehistoric, jumbo flea that lived during the time of the dinosaurs. Over ten times the size of modern fleas, the bloodsuckers may have burrowed under dinosaurs’ scales. And as fierce as T. rex was, those little forearms probably weren’t much help against a swarm of these little monsters. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
