
Holes in T. rex's skull now thought to have regulated body temperature - curtis
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190904125337.htm
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rland
They studied alligators to arrive at their conclusion. It's pretty insane how
long that group of animals have been on earth: the same basic design has been
in play for 200 million years.

Compare that to your typical piece of software ;)

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zphds
oooh, as a software engineer, too low... too low...

In our defense we do not have hundreds of millions of years of test driven
development. :P

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doovd
More like "let's just test in Prod"

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tehlike
That is life's way of doing it. Evolve, let natural selection take its course,
rinse and repeat.

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alexis_fr
After a million years of testing software in prod, after collapsing banks,
exploding spacecrafts, huge bugs and other software collapse, the systems that
will have naturally survived might be those designed in TDD.

Which begs the question: If that’s true, why didn’t nature use TDD? If it
doesn’t, maybe it is not the right design?

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human20190310
If TDD fails quickly enough against real-world challenges, it would leave
little evidence in the fossil record.

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kaushikt
> "An alligator's body heat depends on its environment," said Kent Vliet,
> coordinator of laboratories at the University of Florida's Department of
> Biology. "Therefore, we noticed when it was cooler and the alligators are
> trying to warm up, our thermal imaging showed big hot spots in these holes
> in the roof of their skull, indicating a rise in temperature. Yet, later in
> the day when it's warmer, the holes appear dark, like they were turned off
> to keep cool.

T.Rex seem to have similar holes filled with blood vessels.

Fascinating.

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jessaustin
I think I understand what's being said, but taken literally it seems
backwards? Body temperature probably was _not_ regulated by dumping heat when
the ambient temperature was cold. In those conditions heat should be
conserved. Rather, heat is dumped (as much as possible) when the ambient
temperature is warm.

Also, alligators are not usually considered homeothermic.

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im3w1l
If I understand correctly, the alligator can choose to either pump blood to
quickly equalize with the surrounding temperature, or not pump blood to get
more isolation.

In the morning when it wanted to heat up after the night it pumped blood. In
the afternoon when it was already warm enough and the ambient temperature was
too warm, it stopped pumping blood.

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jessaustin
Thanks, your way of stating it makes more sense to me. This sort of faculty
would be used whenever the ambient temperature is closer to "optimal activity
temperature" than the body is. Like you say, typically mid-morning when the
environment has warmed up but the body hasn't. I suppose it could also work in
the evening after a really hot day when it would be good to cool the body...

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algaeontoast
I love science and history, but there are times when I have to wonder why
knowing what holes in a T Rex skull were for really benefits or forwards
society?

I'm posting this because I'd like to be proven wrong.

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blacksmith_tb
Obviously lots of science doesn't have practical applications (astrophysics
anyone?) but I am skeptical "does X benefit society?" applies any better to
much (maybe most) of what people actually do. I might turn it around and say
that (nearly) all of what humans do doesn't benefit our societies, so much as
it doesn't destroy them.

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algaeontoast
I agree, however, with so many pressing issues today I'd be a bit uneasy if
tax payer dollars were being used for this kind of research. Private funding,
do what you like, however federal grants should be used for research that
benefits taxpayers in some way, even if it's indirect or decades away.

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angry_cactus
Seemingly random studies in biology can have unexpected benefits. Studying
gecko toes led to the invention of a super-adhesive.
[https://geckskin.umass.edu/](https://geckskin.umass.edu/)

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ChristianGeek
I wish I had an air conditioner in my head right now.

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throwaway_law
You do, 7-10% of your body heat escapes through your head (although most claim
its 50%), but your ears, nose and cheeks also contain special blood vessels to
assist with cooling the body.

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ubertakter
The 50% claim probably comes from the fact that heat loss through your head
has a greater affect on core body temperature than other exposed areas. In
[1], they did some submersion tests with head in or out for both insulated and
exposed bodies (test subjects). Head-in accounted for a fairly large increase
in core body temperature loss (39-45% depending on the configuration). While
this study was in water, it seems reasonable to expect the same thing in air,
in particular since you tend to spend longer in the cold outside than you
might in water.

Edited to add this effect is likely due to the amount of blood flow to the
brain and the short path (relatively) between the brain and the heart.

[1]
[https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.012...](https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.01241.2005?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed&)

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ncmncm
"Air conditioner". Reading, it's blood vessels. So, really, a radiator.
Nothing to do with cooling air, and everything to do with transferring heat
from blood to air, resulting in warmer air and cooler blood.

Bad, journalism. No biscuit.

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vectorEQ
global warming caused newly discovered by T-rex cranial radiators

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majestik
Gotta keep a cool head, T.

