Why the dinosaurs died

I am pretty sure this is also why the utility company wants you to call before you dig. You could get stuck down there! Watch out!

From Dirty Pretty Things, via Adam Fields

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: Funny • Science

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Anonymous

Can anybody else appreciate how this mirrors the human story?

Replace ‘dinosaurs’ w/ humans, think about our reliance on fossil fuels and re-read this pic. Extra irony considering most oil was formed when dinosaurs were around.
- Anonymous
  
  Humanity will live forever because we’ve found a way to bring oil to the surface?
Cowicide

Obama killed the dinosaurs.
Palefire

I knew it!! All this extinction due to climate change and meteorites striking the Earth stuff is all just mumbo jumbo.
chriscombs

This might be the original source: http://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/469286297/how-did-the-dinosaurs-die
- Anonymous
  
  Thanks for the link — just went over the whole site and some of the more recent pics are hilarious!
Anonymous

Nah, the dinosaurs died for your sins.
tomrigid

Says the Dinosaur,
Short and thickly limbed:
Easier by far
To dig than to climb.
Anonymous

This reminds me of the 1985 still-wonderful “Science Made Stupid, How to Discomprehend the World Around Us” by Tom Weller.
Love, love, love that satirical gem.
Felton / Moderator

Wait, I thought this is what killed the dinosaurs.
Anonymous

Reminds me of the Calvin & Hobbes strip about bridge load limits.

http://www.aplaceofsense.com/uploaded_images/ch861126-722141.gif
- Anonymous
  
  It reminded me of this XKCD. I do miss Calvin & Hobbes, though.
KNHaw

Maggie, you’re wrong. The *real* reason the utilities don’t want you digging is they’re worried you’ll release those buried, pissed off dinosaurs.
DeeZed

limed?

clim?
voiceinthedistance

My fundamentalist ex-neighbors had many books with illustrations of dinosaurs being ridden by cave men (as well as textbooks for the kids labeled “Math For Christians”, I kid you not). This is far more plausible than anything that might have happened in their bogus Christian mythology. I always wondered what the cavemen used for saddles. Since jodhpers hadn’t been invented yet, I assume they rode with western vs. english saddles.

The whole short arm design for T-Rex makes much more sense when you see them with a shovel in hand. Who knew?
bcsizemo

I’m guessing T-Rex went early on then. Those short weak arms aren’t gonna be good for digging.
Anonymous

Why did all the dinosaurs die out?

Because you touch yourself at night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23LKD9Z1hw
hapa

does this mean the ‘shovel-faced wheelbarrow fish’ fossil was some kind of misunderstanding?
kibbee

This reminds me of something our science teacher passed around in highschool about how lightbulbs suck dark.
crispyfrog

So Michelle Bachman is writing science textbooks now?
Anonymous

You guys have it all wrong. This is what killed the dinos: http://www.kaneva.com/mykaneva/PictureDetail.aspx?assetId=6196704

:P
Anonymous

The creationist version shows a caveman pushing the dinosaur into the hole.
bartoncasey

It seems pretty clear that Fake Science is the original source of this. Dirty Pretty Things is reposting it with no attribution or credit. Stop linking to them!