So last night i dreamed that i gave birth to a pterodactyl. It was not super happy/good regarding breastfeeding. i mean, that makes sense, milk is a mammal sort of thing, and pterodactyls were not mammals. i was joking around with my friend Allison this morning regarding how about 60% of my coupled friends are having kids, thus a large influx of babyshowers. She commented, if i was indeed pregnant with a pterodactyl, what she should bring to my babyshower; i figure a leash? Probably more like raptor jesses. (Also, this is not a serious concern, as far as i can tell.)

Expounding, i'm pretty sure the dream came about due to things i'd read directly before going to bed; googling the top speeds of dinosaurs, and an article on the recent royal birth.

Regarding the top speeds of dinosaurs, my dear friend Kelly AT recently posted a motivational poster on my FB wall, in which what appears to be a T. Rex is chasing some running humans. Of course, my first response was, 'hmm, i'd only need to be faster than the other human in the picture', but the second response was, 'How fast DID a T. rex run?' While no one was necessarily around to clock dinosaurs, there are apparently a couple of ways to estimate this. People have tried looking at the petrified tracks of dinosaurs, and based on foot angle and stride length, attempted to determine the speed at which that reptile was traveling. The caveat here is that while there is highly correlative data, it's impossible to match exactly up dino tracks with the exact species (plus allow for constraints like metabolism and structure). Other ways of estimating dino velocity, and this is super cool, are using structure to model running dinosaurs in silico based on musculoskeletal data. (And take a look at these running patterns! Geeking out!) The scientists doing this compared known animals like emus and ostriches (and humans), and it looks like Tyrannosauri would have had an average running speed of around 8 m/s, or 17.9 mph. Velociraptors, and lets be honest, those things are terrifying, cruised around at an estimated 11 m/s, or 24.6 mph. Humans (with the exception of particular Olympic level track stars), run around 8.1 m/s, barely beating the T. rex. The fastest dinosaur modeled was a turkey-sized dino called Compsognathus, which was estimated to run at nearly 18 m/s, or around 40 mph. Now i bid you to imagine them all as chickens of varying size.

(Another thing i came across while googling pterodactyls this morning was this nsfw music video from the Oatmeal. Also bearing mention here is the mockumentary film Carnosaur, in which a mad scientist somehow generates a virus that makes female humans birth things which are chicken/dinosaur smash-ups. It was mock-gory and pretty hilarious.)

And yeah, Kate Middleton gave birth to a healthy baby boy on Monday, 8lbs and change. They've only just named him, apparently George Alexander Louis. (And... Joffery was probably never an option.)