{"id":146,"date":"2005-12-21T23:19:07","date_gmt":"2005-12-22T04:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/63.247.138.3\/~drweevil\/?p=146"},"modified":"2007-09-03T17:30:38","modified_gmt":"2007-09-03T21:30:38","slug":"scientific-puzzle-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/?p=146","title":{"rendered":"Scientific Puzzle I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hamiltonspectator.com\/NASApp\/cs\/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton\/Layout\/Article_Type1&#038;c=Article&#038;cid=1135032612990&#038;call_pageid=1020420665036&#038;col=1014656511815\">Hamilton Spector<\/a> reports that 1200-pound gorillas nearly 10 feet tall once roamed southwest China (&thorn; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.steveverdon.com\/archives\/oddsandends\/002412.html\">Deinonychus antirrhopus<\/a>). The picture is impressive, though a human figure would have helped show the size of the beast, and I wonder about the oddly Chinese facial features. One passage in the story struck me as implausible:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It was a herbivore, feasting mainly on bamboo. It is theorized it became extinct because it came into conflict with man or other animals, such as giant pandas, that lived on bamboo.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>What kind of ridiculous theory is that? How could something as (relatively) small and flabby as a panda bear possibly compete with a ten-foot gorilla? Do pandas have a hitherto unsuspected proficiency in martial arts? Or did they run out and gobble up all the bamboo when Kong was asleep? I really don&#8217;t see any other way they could have been &#8216;fit&#8217; enough to survive the theorized competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hamilton Spector reports that 1200-pound gorillas nearly 10 feet tall once roamed southwest China (&thorn; Deinonychus antirrhopus). The picture is impressive, though a human figure would have helped show the size of the beast, and I wonder about the oddly Chinese facial features. One passage in the story struck me as implausible: It was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.drweevil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}