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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: more on 250 lb. birds
Message-ID: <690@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 10:27:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.690
Posted: Tue Aug 20 10:27:20 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 06:14:42 EDT
References: <375@imsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 19

Without checking articles on Pteratorns, there are still a great number
of reasons for rejecting the low-gravity hypothesis.

First, the physical limits referred to for mass of flying birds were
calculated for SUSTAINED POWERED FLIGHT.  As human glider and hang-glider
pilots can tell you, they don't say much about limits of unpowered
flight using thermals and updrafts (which, by the way, is how most large
predatory birds sustain their extended flight.)

Second, if lower gravity had existed, it would have had MANY more
effects than just two or three unusually large animals.  Sedimentation,
waves, vegetation, and a host of other fossil evidence would have been
quite different.  Instead, we find fossilized trees with normal amounts of
support tissues, and no bigger than today's redwoods (which would probably
also be cited as evidence of low gravity and lack of disease or aging
if they were known only from fossils.  :-)
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh