Science Daily has an interesting article about the metabolism of dinosaurs.  It’s an old controversy, were they cold-blooded (ectothermic) or warm-blooded (endothermic)?  The study was a re-analysis of a paper that appeared back in 2014 in the journal Science.  This paper, which was published in Science on May 29th, by Stony Brook University paleontologist Michael D’Emic, PhD, concludes that dinosaurs were indeed warm-blooded.

“The study that I re-analyzed was remarkable for its breadth — the authors compiled an unprecedented dataset on growth and metabolism from studies of hundreds of living animals,” said Dr. D’Emic, a Research Instructor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences as Stony Brook, when referring to “Evidence for mesothermy in dinosaurs.”

“Upon re-analysis, it was apparent that dinosaurs weren’t just somewhat like living mammals in their physiology — they fit right within our understanding of what it means to be a ‘warm-blooded’ mammal,” he said.

Dr. D’Emic specializes in bone microanatomy, or the study of the structure of bone on scales that are just a fraction of the width of a human hair. Based on his knowledge of how dinosaurs grew, Dr. D’Emic re-analyzed that study, which led him to the strikingly different conclusion that dinosaurs were more like mammals than reptiles in their growth and metabolism.