Interdisciplinarity
Thursday, 14. June 2007, 12:50:26
Interdisciplinarity is the act of drawing from two or more academic disciplines and integrating their insights to work together in pursuit of a common goal - and I am all for it.
A recent example of extraordinary interdisciplinary results is from the dinosaur world. Dinosaur news seem to be popular for the time being.
Fossilised dinosaurs often have wide-open mouths, heads thrown back and tails that curve toward the head. Palaeontologists have long assumed the dinosaurs died in water and the currents drifted the bones into that position, or that rigor mortis or drying muscles, tendons and ligaments contorted the limbs. (See my picture of a 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx, the first-known example of a feathered dinosaur and the proposed link between dinosaurs and present-day birds.) But does this make any sense to a veterinarian? Apparently not!
According to a couple of veterinarians brain damage and suffocation are more likely.
Currents cannot explain all the characteristics of the pose. The idea that drying causes muscles or tendons to contract asymmetrically also doesn't make sense. No, the dinosaurs died in this posture as a result of damage to the central nervous system. The posture is well known to neurologists and is due to damage to the brain. In humans and animals such damage can result from suffocation, meningitis, tetanus or poisoning, and typically accompanies a long, slow death.
Some animals found in this posture may have suffocated in an ash fall during a volcanic eruption, consistent with the fact that many fossils are found in ash deposits. But many other possibilities exist, including disease, brain trauma, severe bleeding, thiamine deficiency or poisoning.
Because the posture has been seen only in dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammals, which are known or suspected to have had high metabolic rates, it appears to be a good indicator that the animal was warm blooded. Animals with lower metabolic rates, such as crocodiles and lizards, use less oxygen and so might have been less traumatically affected by hypoxia during death throes.
Re-evaluation may be in order for an untold number of paleoenvironments whose story has been at least partly explained on the basis of the death positions.
A recent example of extraordinary interdisciplinary results is from the dinosaur world. Dinosaur news seem to be popular for the time being.
Fossilised dinosaurs often have wide-open mouths, heads thrown back and tails that curve toward the head. Palaeontologists have long assumed the dinosaurs died in water and the currents drifted the bones into that position, or that rigor mortis or drying muscles, tendons and ligaments contorted the limbs. (See my picture of a 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx, the first-known example of a feathered dinosaur and the proposed link between dinosaurs and present-day birds.) But does this make any sense to a veterinarian? Apparently not!
According to a couple of veterinarians brain damage and suffocation are more likely. Currents cannot explain all the characteristics of the pose. The idea that drying causes muscles or tendons to contract asymmetrically also doesn't make sense. No, the dinosaurs died in this posture as a result of damage to the central nervous system. The posture is well known to neurologists and is due to damage to the brain. In humans and animals such damage can result from suffocation, meningitis, tetanus or poisoning, and typically accompanies a long, slow death.
Some animals found in this posture may have suffocated in an ash fall during a volcanic eruption, consistent with the fact that many fossils are found in ash deposits. But many other possibilities exist, including disease, brain trauma, severe bleeding, thiamine deficiency or poisoning.
Because the posture has been seen only in dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammals, which are known or suspected to have had high metabolic rates, it appears to be a good indicator that the animal was warm blooded. Animals with lower metabolic rates, such as crocodiles and lizards, use less oxygen and so might have been less traumatically affected by hypoxia during death throes.
Re-evaluation may be in order for an untold number of paleoenvironments whose story has been at least partly explained on the basis of the death positions.
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http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/06/06_deaththroes.shtml
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http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1947725.htm
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http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Agonized_Death_Throes_Probable_Cause_Of_Pose_Of_Many_Dino_Fossils_999.html
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19174698/
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