Re: Fw: Dinosaurs and birds

[jrc <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 

> No, I don't. As the car accelerates (w/in reason), I give a little jump, 
> and make some progress, effectively increasing stride length.

Have you actually tried it, Don?  :-)  I have, and though I had an athletic 
scholarship in college, I found I'm not athletic enough to do that without 
busting my fanny.....  I've not tried it recently, as I've found that as a 
consquence of advancing age, I no longer bounce when I hit the ground.

> BTW-- did you notice that Mike H. actually admitted I was (at least in 
> theory) right in that inclines are not essential to wing-assisted 
> evo-scenario's? It was buried pretty deep, but it was there. Ha!

Ummh, near as I can tell, Mike has never thought that inclines are essential 
to wing evolution.  He seems to be well aware that there's more than one way 
to skin a cat and to be quite familiar with the different skinning 
techniques.  My perception was that he was discussing  the implications of 
direction of force production in incline running scenarios.  But, I don't 
want to put words in his mouth........

Personally, I think that increases in mobility and extraction of energy from 
gust transients were two of the prime movers in early wing evolution.
The commonality between these and incline running is that they all act to 
manipulate the acceleration-gravity vector operating on the animal.  More 
generally, ANY activity that does that will drive wing evolution toward an 
eventual flight-worthy wing.
JimC