I am hungry; T. rex is too

(PHOTO: BARRY KIDD)
M’kay. So I am really hungry, waiting to go out for a farewell dinner at my favorite local burger joint with my parents (am going to the UK for a month). It’s called the Red Onion and MAN is it good. The fries and dip are killer, the burgers solid, the hot chicken salad dreamy and the chocolate mousse pie to die for - did I mention that I was hungry?

Okay, off topic. So er, sometimes I like to do a news search of random words...like banana or help! or gaping hole...just to see what comes up. Today I did a search of the BBC news website for “hungry”. The first hit (other than two sporty ones) was a story about how T. rex was actually this humongous beast that couldn’t possibly have run fast at all. The hit probably came from this subhead: “Agile prey would have had no trouble keeping clear of a hungry Tyrannosaurus rex, a study confirms.”

Anyways, the main author is John Hutchinson, a biomechanic at the Royal Veterinary School in Hatfield, who works on computer models of motion, body size and body posture of animals, mostly dinos. He wrote a big deal Nature paper in 2002, modeling T. rex like a giant chicken, showing that it probably couldn’t run, only walk, and at just 5 m/sec.

I actually went up to visit him in the fall of 2004 to write a story about the ostrich biomechanics program they have there. Yes, ostriches on treadmills. I couldn’t resist. They pecked on my tape recorder, herded around me with an alarming curiosity, stared at me with those enormous, black shiny eyes. But they were nice. Even the one named Satan.

So there you go. Search something weird, find something fun.

Can you tell I’m hungry?