天美传媒

In a highly publicized study, Michael D’Emic, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at 天美传媒, offered evidence that dinosaurs were warm-blooded.

Were dinosaurs cold-blooded or warm-blooded? The question has fueled a decades-long debate among scientists. Could the controversy be over? Research by Michael D鈥橢mic, Ph.D., assistant professor of at 天美传媒, suggests it may be. In a widely publicized paper that appeared in the journal Science on May 29, 2015, (when he was at Stony Brook University), Dr. D鈥橢mic argues that evidence indicates that dinosaurs were warm-blooded.

Dr. D鈥橢mic re-analyzed a study published in Science in 2014, which had concluded that dinosaurs were neither cold blooded or warm blooded. Using new techniques to analyze the same data, Dr. D鈥橢mic found some discrepancies. First, by reassessing dinosaur growth rates on an annual basis, he found that dinosaurs grew as quickly as mammals.

鈥淯pon re-analysis, it was apparent that dinosaurs weren鈥檛 just somewhat like living mammals in their physiology鈥攖hey fit right within our understanding of what it means to be a 鈥榳arm-blooded鈥� mammal,鈥� D鈥橢mic said in an interview with a reporter at Stony Brook University.

Second, Dr. D鈥橢mic observed that the 2014 study omitted birds, which are warm-blooded and most likely evolved from theropods鈥攖he two-legged meat-eaters, such as Tyrannosaurus rex.

“Separating what we commonly think of as ‘dinosaurs’ from birds in a statistical analysis is generally inappropriate, because birds are dinosaurs鈥攖hey’re just the dinosaurs that haven’t gone extinct,” D’Emic听said in a press statement.

Dr. D鈥橢mic鈥檚 paper has attracted considerable attention, including coverage by 280 media outlets worldwide and 1,700 social media shares. Stony Brook University even listed it as one of the 鈥淭op 15 Stories of 2015.鈥�

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