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Despite what the documentary found footage in Jurassic Park may have taught you, dinosaurs probably couldn’t run (see the dream-crushing studies here, here, and here). Since 1976 (starting with zoologist R. McNeill Alexander), we’ve estimated the speed of dinosaurs by looking at the length of their strides in fossilized dinosaur tracks. In modern animals, long strides correlate with faster movement. So far, dinosaur tracks haven’t shown signs of fast-moving dinos under the current modelling methods.

However, a new theory was presented recently by Heinrich Mallison, a palaeontologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. Mallison points out, “Most dinosaurs had hind limbs that differed significantly from living mammals and birds.”

So Mallison conducted a detailed assessment of the size, shape and muscle mass of dinosaur limbs, then used engineering software to build striding models, taking gravity, mass distribution and inertia into account. For most dinosaur species, he found that stride length was extremely limited by the conformation of the skeleton. But he also saw that in comparison with mammals, dinosaurs had relatively large muscles in their buttocks, which would have changed their gait, so that the Alexander formula would not apply. [Nature]

Mallison’s striding models suggested that, although dinosaurs almost certainly didn’t run, they could have been awesome power walkers using their big, muscular butts to take short (but rapid) strides. Mallison adds, “Race-walkers get big butts and little muscle associated with their ankles, and this is exactly what we see in dinosaurs.” You hear that, dinosaurs? Pretty sure the doctor just called you fat. YA BURNT.

I’m still a bit skeptical about the whole thing. If having a big butt makes you faster, why am I not the speediest bastard alive? Answer me that, “scientists”.

The original Star Trek television series didn’t have a huge amount of money to spend on things like make-up, costumes and sets, but the producers never let that stop them from squeezing out that week’s episode. Their frequent solution was to just dress the crew up in stock costumes, then set them loose on some Hollywood backlot for a couple days. The result was a series of episodes in which the Enterprise crew faced off against “aliens” that exactly (and improbably) resembled mobsters, Greek gods and yes, even Nazis.

“Patterns of Force” was the Nazi episode in question, and up until now the episode has been banned from the airwaves in Germany. Turns out they’re still a little touchy about, you know, that thing they did. I want to handle this delicately in case any Germans are reading, but it rhymes with “shmolocaust”. Anyways, all this recently changed when the episode finally premiered on German TV — and boy, what an episode it is. Hit the jump for a clip.

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Jörg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel is back with another slingshot, a pump action crossbow. It shoots 20mm steel balls and can hold twenty balls at the same time (like your mom). It can grab a new ball with one very quick move of the hand (like your mom). The video below shows Sprave smashing glass bottles with this ultra-convenient slingshot. He’s also got a new intro and outro for his clips, which includes the scene pictured above for some reason.

Sprave says this repeating slingshot crossbow is the fastest shooter he’s built yet. It can fire the next shot faster than his machete slingshot, Gatling gun slingshot, 6-shot slingshot, circular saw blade launcher, musket ball crossbow, zombie decapitator, and slingshot cannon. That was merely an excuse to link to a bunch of our posts. We’re just simple folk trying to make a buck (like your mom).

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Take that, stupid trees, with your production of oxygen and providing of shade. GRRR!

Jörg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel has built a slingshot larger than his machete slingshot, Gatling gun slingshot, 6-shot slingshot, circular saw blade launcher, musket ball crossbow, and zombie decapitator combined. Its a ten-fold larger version of his desktop slingshot cannon. It fires 80 mm (3.15″) steel balls using six full Thera Band Gold stripes on each side; Sprave says this setup is 72 times stronger than a conventional slingshot, which makes him 72 times dreamier than other slingshot makers if you ask me.

This ten-foot-long cannon can fire the steel balls up to 200 meters (220 yards), but, more importantly, he shoots it at a car at close range in the video below because that’s exactly what you do with a homemade cannon. Even if you don’t have permission.

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Jörg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel has built another awesome weapon to add to his collection next to the machete slingshot, the Gatling gun slingshot, the 6-shot slingshot, the slingshot that launches circular saw blades, and the musket ball crossbow.  We’ve been saying for awhile we’re team Sprave when the zombiepocalypse happens, and now he’s given us another reason to hide behind him during a zombie attack.  He’s built a slingshot designed specifically for decapitating zombies and halving watermelons.  THIS IS IMPORTANT.

He calls it the “world’s first handheld guillotine” and adds, “This video is not entirely meant serious, and please, don’t do this at home.”  Yeah, definitely don’t do this at home, especially not the part where he put his own head in it and I almost crapped my pants till I noticed it wasn’t cocked and loaded at the time.  He built this decapitation machine after receiving an “indirect challenge” from zombiehunters.org. If this is how he responds to an indirect challenge I’d like to see what he does about a direct one.  Many watermelons will perish that fateful day.

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We’ve been following Jörg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel‘s work for quite some time.  You may remember him as the smiley German behind the machete slingshot, the Gatling gun slingshot, the 6-shot slingshot, and a slingshot which launches circular saw blades.  We’re totally team Sprave when the zombiepocalypse happens.  The video below shows off his newest build, which shoots 0.75″ wide lead musket balls with 38 foot pounds of energy, achieving speeds of 177 feet per second.  With big, weighty musket balls.  Dayum.

He calls it the “Medieval Style Musket Ball Shooting Slingshot Crossbow”.  I know what you’re thinking: they didn’t have muskets in Medieval Times.  Clearly you didn’t hear about the time the Uproxx Musket Club had dinner at Medieval Times.  And I’m going to tell you what I told the judge: the Black Knight never said we couldn’t take a musket to a joust fight.

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