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heresy shmeresy i wanna be a dinosaur (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by nicknonya@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] Technus@lemmy.zip 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Natural History Docent: “A guy asked us ‘If I had a time machine, and managed to kill and cook a T-Rex, what would it have tasted like?’ and every paleontologist on staff deciced to take him seriously. They did research to learn about fat distribution, and read up on culinary science to learn what flavors meat, even did chemical analysis on the bones. They concluded that it’d be Tough (no evidence of juicy fat pockets), bitter (carnivores tend to taste foul) and would probably kill him, because heavy metals travel up the food chain and T-Rex accumulated a lot of the cadmium that was in the dirt in the late cretaceous. Wrote him a letter with our findings and he sent us back a drawing of him and his buddies cooking a T-Rex over a fire and all of them throwing up and dying, and it’s my favorite drawing in the whole world.”

http://web.archive.org/web/20220823234045/https://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/611813717676589056/weird-questions

For some reason, my memory was really confident that this was a question on Randall Munroe's what if? blog, but I couldn't find it. I even checked the copy I have of the first what if? book to be sure it wasn't in there lol

[-] skulblaka@startrek.website 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's an extremely Randall sort of question and answer, to be fair.

But holy shit, some of these other ones are amazing. The T-Rex question isn't the only one in there worth reading.

Professor: “A student asked me “So how do I use this in a conversation when my aunt is wine-drunk at thanksgiving and being a jerk again?” Which honestly is a fair question about philosophy and really changed how I teach rhetoric.”

[-] Technus@lemmy.zip 7 points 6 months ago

I love that post. As with many things, I originally came across it as a screenshot on /r/tumblr. I figured it'd be better received if I went for an archive link of the actual post rather than reposting the screenshot.

A couple more of my favorites:

Park Ranger: “I’m so glad the Japanese couple asked me “Is bear spray like mosquito spray and it goes on the jacket, or on the bear?” instead of just trying it.”

...

Zookeeper: “People call us becuase they think they’ve found an escaped animal all the time, or they think they’re neighbor’s husky is a wolf. One guy asked me if his dog was part hyena because it had spots. But that one guy really did have a Tiger in his toolshed that one time so we try to take them seriously.”