Dino-Sore Redux

Dear Science:

Please stop ruining dinosaurs.

signed,

The World

When I was a kid, I loved, loved, loved dinosaurs. I couldn't get enough of them. I had a Big Book Of Dinosaurs that I read until it fell apart. I had dinosaur toys, and I would eagerly watch any movie that starred a stop-motion dinosaur. Did I mention I loved dinosaurs?

And why shouldn't I have loved them? The dinosaurs of my childhood were enormous, extremely powerful and amazingly impressive. What kid wouldn't be enraptured by the idea that literal monsters once roamed the Earth?

But that was then. In the past decade or two, things have changed drastically, and not for the better. Science has apparently decided that the dinosaurs of my youth were a little too exciting, and have done their best to water them down, lest the pasty-skinned, asthmatic children of today become overstimulated and curl up into a ball.

First Science decided that many of them were covered in feathers, like gigantic, garish chickens. Who the hell wants to see a dinosaur that looks like it's wearing a feather boa? Then they told us that the Brontosaurus, the most recognized dinosaur of all, never existed. Then they changed their minds and said it did. They even declared that the most fearsome dino that ever existed— the T-Rex— was probably a vegetarian rather than a meat eater.

Case in point— scientists recently discovered a spectacularly preserved fossil of Psittacosaurus in China. In addition to the usual bones, this fossil included actual soft tissue remains, allowing scientists to accurately determine the dinosaur's skin texture and even its coloration!

Armed with this knowledge, Science then rolled up its collective sleeves and went to work to bring us the most precise recreation of a dinosaur in modern history.

And here it is— the world's first  completely accurate model of a Psittacosaurus.

(sound of chirping crickets)

Jesus Christ, are you frakin' kidding me? The awesome and ferocious dinosaurs I loved as a kid have now been replaced by a bald, four legged parrot the size of the average dog, complete with a plume of foot-long ass hair.

Just look at that sorry thing! That's gotta be the most pathetic looking excuse for a dinosaur I've ever seen. That's not a "terrible lizard!" It's downright cuddly. That's a face that's built to say, "Let's be friends!" or "The most important thing is always being yourself!"

This is a creature that belongs on Barney & Friends! Hell, this thing makes Barney look like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park!

What kid in their right mind would possibly be excited by a dinosaur that looks for all the world like Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell?

For the record, this is what Psittacosaurus used to look like, before Science decided to ruin it for everyone. It used to have a cool, spiky, dangerous face. Yeah, it still had the overgrown forest of ass hair, but you could excuse that due to the awesome face. Now, thanks to Science, it's become a Muppet.

Thanks a lot, Science. Why don't you go ruin astronomy or meteorology or something, and leave dinosaurs alone.

The Black What Now?

This week scientists– OK, one scientist– dropped a quite the bombshell. Laura Mersini-Houghton, who's too good for just one name, has decreed that Black Holes Do Not Exist!

That's right! Black holes, those terrifying whirlpools of the galaxy and destroyer of many a sci-fi spaceship, are not real!

Big deal, I hear you saying. How's that news gonna help me pay the rent? Ah, but it is big news. If black holes don't exist, it not only forces scientists to reevaluate how the fabric of space-time works, but to also rethink the origin of the universe! That's right, the entire universe may not work the way we thought it did. Up might be down! In could be out! Orange is the new black! Nothing makes sense anymore!

And worst of all, this movie's gonna look even stupider than it did back in 1979!

Lies, All Lies!

This week Comet Pan-STARRS is winging its way through our solar system and scientists the world over promise an awesome sky show. Just look at the handy chart above, courtesy of Science, showing you how to find it. Doesn't this mysterious visitor from space look amazing with its spectacular wispy tail? Too bad it's all a pack of filthy lies.

I stood out in my back yard in the freezing cold tonight for twenty minutes trying to spot the farkakte thing and saw bupkiss. Well, that and the fact that the next door neighbors apparently don't bother to close the blinds on the back side of their house. But the point is, I didn't see a majestic comet with a long flowing tail as promised. You a dirty, filthy liar, Science!

This happens every single time a comet trespasses in our solar system. Science starts trumpeting its arrival, saying it'll be visible in daylight, brighter than the full moon, so bright it'll keep everyone up at night and on and on. And every time it ends up being a monumental fizzle.

It happened in 1973 with Comet Kohoutek. Brightest comet ever, said Science! It'll be so bright it'll cast shadows on the ground! You'll have to close your bedroom curtains it'll be so bright! God forbid you should look directly at it, they warned, or you'll go blind and the Triffids will attack! 

I remember shivering in the cold (do comets ever have the common decency to appear in warm weather?) eagerly scanning the heavens with my gullible science-believing eyes and was rewarded with heaping helping of absolutely nothing.

Even with my little telescope all I could find was an extremely dim, gray blob in the sky that I talked myself into believing was the comet, but in reality was probably just a smudge on the lens.

Then in 1986 Halley's Comet came around as it does every 75 years. Once again Science got the population all riled up, saying it would be extremely bright and visible. And once again it was a gargantuan and utterly disappointing no-show, apparently having shot its wad around the time Mark Twain died.

To add insult to injury, Science also told us that everyone had been pronouncing Halley wrong for the past hundred years. It's apprently HALL-ee, not HAIL-ee as we'd all been taught in school. As if we weren't feeling stupid enough already.

And now this ridiculously named Comet Pawn Stars or whatever it's called is following the same damn pattern. Is it so much to ask I should see one goddamned decent comet in my lifetime?

What the hell, Science? Why do you keep doing this to us? Why do you keep promising us cool bright comets when you know they're going to be duds? Do you get some kind of sick satisfaction from it?

You're such a big liar, Science! Next you'll try to tell me that Adam and Eve didn't really share the Garden of Eden with dinosaurs!

Uh-oh...

Today in the news: Japanese scientists say "abnormalities" detected in the country's butterflies may be a result of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. 

In a study published in Scientific Reports, an online journal, researchers say "artificial radionuclides" from the power plant caused "physiological and genetic damage" to pale grass blue butterflies. In another group of butterflies collected six months after the disaster, scientists found 28% had "abnormal" traits. 

Uh-oh. You know what that means... Giant moths can't be far behind!

Residents should be on the lookout for any tiny, one foot tall harmonizing female twins, and report them immediately to the Global Defense Force.

And for god's sake stay out of the Tokyo Tower! That thing gets knocked down every time!

Dino-Sore

Dear Science:

Please stop ruining dinosaurs.

signed,
The World

Man, Science, you just can't seem to leave dinosaurs alone, can you? Every year you come up with some new discovery that makes them more boring and less cool to millions of bright-eyed, enthusiastic kids world-wide.

First you told us the world's most famous dinosaur, the lovable, bumbling Brontosaurus, never actually existed. What we all thought for years was a Brontosaurus was really the much less appleaing Apatosaurus. You told us that an overzealous archeologist made up the Brontosaurus by sticking a skull from a different species on the neck of a nearly complete Apatosaurus skeleton. Way to go, Science.

Then you told us that Raptors (which you didn't even know existed until about twenty years ago) really had feathers. I don't know about anyone else, but I like my dinosaurs to be scaly and bald. I don't want to know that they were really just giant chickens. Once again, well done, Science.

Now you're telling us that my all time favorite dinosaur, the Triceratops, technically never existed. The Triceratops, according to you, is merely the juvenile form of the vastly less interesting and nowhere nearly as cool Torosaurs, which no one has ever heard of. Apparently as a Triceratops aged it morphed into the Torosaurus, which had longer horns that pointed in a different direction and a smooth, non-frilled head crest.

Sure, they look a lot alike, but Triceratops has a coolness that Torosaurus just lacks. So thanks. Thanks a lot, Buzzkill, I mean Science. You just HAD to wipe out my favorite dinosaur, didn't you?

What I don't understand is why couldn't they have switched it around and said that the Torosaurus never existed, and was the adult version of the Triceratops. Didn't think of that one, did you, Science?

Hey Science, maybe you should lay off the dinosaurs for a while, or at the very least keep your discoveries to yourself. You do realize that childhood interest in dinosaurs accounts for about 98% of museum attendance, right? By constantly de-coolinizing dinosaurs the way you're doing, you're going to discover yourself right out of a job. Go build some more supercoliders or something and leave the dinos alone.