Car-Sized Creature Whacked with Tail's Sweet Spot (until 10,000 years ago)

Natural History Magazine ^ | Nov 15, 2009 | Harvey Leifert

[decimon]

When Alex Rodriguez swings for the fences or Venus Williams tries to ace her serve, they do well to connect at the "sweet spot" of their bat or racket. That aim was apparently shared by some unlikely contenders: glyptodonts, armored mammals with clublike tails that roamed the Americas until about 10,000 years ago.

The sweet spot, or center of percussion, is the point on a tool where powerful blows should be landed to maximize impact and minimize the risk of injury to the user.

[decimon]

American swing ping.

[stormer]

Many don't know it, but his was also the origin of rock-paper-scissors.

[decimon]

Many don't know it, but his was also the origin of rock-paper-scissors.

Or the origin of, "Holy S---!"

[DuncanWaring]

[Salgak]

Re: Rock, Paper, Scissors:

[Little Pig]

In deference to Larson, scientists have now officially started calling that portion of the Stegosaurus’ anatomy the “Thagomizer”. Really.

[SunkenCiv]

true story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thagomizer_comic.jpg

[decimon]

That’s it? That’s all we get from you? What a slacker. ;-)

[FreedomPoster]

LOLOL! Nicely done.

[mware]

Rock, Water, Wave.

The moment a giant wave swamps the 60ft sea wall at Porthleven in west Cornwall. An onlooker said it was the biggest wave he'd seen in Cornwall in more than 40 years

check out the water in back of the break.

[SunkenCiv]

---

The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith

---

• What killed the mammoths and other behemoths?
• Ancient Atomic Warfare - Religious texts and geological evidence
• Supernova debris found on Earth
• Deep freeze dealt death knell to bison (Ice Age)
• Supernova Storm Wiped Out Mammoths?
• Supernova Storm Wiped Out Mammoths?
• Scientist: Comets Blasted Early Americans
• Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times
• Did comet start deadly cold snap?
• Diamonds tell tale of comet that killed off the cavemen
• Catastrophic Comet Chilled and Killed Ice Age Beasts (and Clovis people)
• Oregon Researchers Involved In New Clovis-Age Impact Theory (More)
• Comet May Have Doomed Mammoths
• Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did A Comet Blow Up Over Eastern Canada? (More) (Carolina Bays)
• Climate alarmists lose another piece of evidence
• Comet Theory Collides With Clovis Research, May Explain Disappearance of Ancient People
• NSF Press Release: Comet May Have Exploded Over North America 13,000 Years Ago
• Research Team Says Extraterrestrial Impact To Blame For Ice Age Extinctions (More)
• Cosmic blast may have killed off megafauna: Scientists say early humans doomed, too
• Cosmic blast may have killed off megafauna: Scientists say early humans doomed, too
• Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago
• Site Provides Evidence For Ancient Comet Explosion (Topper - SC)
• The End of Eden: The Comet That Changed Civilization
• Great beasts peppered from space
• Did Comets Cause Ancient American Extinctions?
• Al Goodyear And The Secrets Of Ancient Americans
• The mysterious forest rings of northern Ontario
• Life Survived Catastrophic Space Rock Impact [Chesapeake Bay area]
• Research Casts New Light On History Of North America
• Exploding Asteroid Theory Strengthened By New Evidence Located In Ohio, Indiana
• First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia....
• Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age
• Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age ($$$)
• First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait -
• Tracking down abrupt climate changes (Rapid natural climate change 12,700 years ago)
• Mammoth Mystery: The Beasts' Final Years
• Scientists find signs of 13,000-year-old extinction event
• Scientists say comet killed off mammoths, saber-toothed tigers
• Diamonds Linked to Quick Cooling Eons Ago
• Six North American sites hold 12,900-year-old nanodiamond-rich soil
• Did a Comet Hit Earth 12,000 Years Ago?
• Mammoths wiped out by 'perfect storm?'
• Laser mapping may help solve the mystery of the Mima Mounds
• Humans to Blame for Extinction? - Not Necessarily So ...
• Did a Comet Cause a North American Die-Off around 13,000 Years Ago?
• Carolina bays gouged into the ground at a magnetic reversal
• North America comet theory questioned
• Mini ice age took hold of Europe in months

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon.

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[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks decimon. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[colorado tanker]

Thanks! "Thagomizer" LOL!

BTW, Larson is my all time fav cartoonist.

[Peanut Gallery]

It looks like a large armadillo.

[bigheadfred]

check out the water in back of the break.

It's a little hard to fathom...

thagomizer. Huh. Thumbhow it theems kinda (sissy). Thee you later.

[Pelham]

I just knew Abner Doubleday didn’t really invent baseball.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[wendy1946]

Aside from the question of megafauna extinctions around 12000 years ago by standard dating schemes, there is the vastly more problematic question of the gigantic muck deposits which you find a mile deep or so over much of Canada and Siberia. Not only would I view a comet as an insufficient cause of such a thing, I'd also view a global flood as an insufficient cause. Those layers represent an entire living world with all of its trees, soil, and animals which was simply picked up into the air, pulverized, and slammed down again.

Of the theories I've heard to explain such a thing if I had to pick one, it would be that of Dwardu Cardona and the thing which he sees as the agency of that vast upheaval is the one thing in nature which really can suck up and agglomerate material on that sort of scale i.e. the same kind of electrical Birkeland currents which are probably responsible for the creations of stars and galaxies and you'd be talking about an interplanetary electrical arc which picked up all that material and then when the spark stopped, the material was all slammed down again. Sorry if that's too catastrophic for anybody or anything like that but again, as I understand it, that's the best theory so far.