Study:
T. Rex No Speedster

研究发现：霸王龙绝非速度型动物

Tyrannosaurus
rex, the mighty predator that lived about 85 million years ago, was
probably just a plodder and not the quick-footed killer depicted in
Hollywood blockbusters, scientists said on Wednesday.

本周三，有科学家说，生活在8500万年前强大的食肉动物霸王龙属的雷克斯龙很可能步履艰难，不可能象好莱坞影片描述的那样，是以速度著称的杀手。

Far from
chasing its prey at speeds of up to 45 mph, as some studies have
suggested, the fearsome creatures may not have been able to run at all.

正如有些研究所示，由于远远低于追捕猎物的45英里/小时的速度，这个令人生畏的庞然大物可能根本不会跑。

"These
animals were no speed demons," John Hutchinson, of Stanford
University in California, said in an interview.

加尼福利亚斯坦福大学的John
Hutchinson在一次采访中说："这些动物绝不是以速度著称的恶魔。"

The
biologist who specializes in the evolution of movement said the science of
how animals move shows that big creatures do not go fast. At about 40 feet
long, up to 20 feet tall and weighing about 13,000 pounds, Tyrannosaurus
rex was very big.

专门研究动物运动进化的生物学家说，有关动物如何运动的研究已表明，大动物行动不便，而霸王龙身长大约40英尺，高20英尺，体重大约13000磅，真可谓庞然大物。

Hutchinson
and Mariano Garcia, of Borg-Warner Automotive in Ithaca, New York, created
a computer program to analyze animal motion and determine how fast large
dinosaurs could move. Writing in the science journal Nature, they
calculated that two-legged T. rex would have needed impossibly massive leg
muscles to generate enough force to support its huge body at a very fast
running pace.

纽约州Ithace市
的Borg-Warner自动化公司的 Hutchinson 和Mariano
Garcia研制出一种能分析动物运动的计算机程序，以此测定大型恐龙的动作能多快。
他们在科学杂志《自然》上发表的文章说，如果霸王龙雷克斯要承受快速奔跑时庞大的身体重量，就需要有难以想象的巨大的腿部肌肉以产生足够大的力量作支撑。

"It
has been known for a long time that as things get bigger, they don't move
as fast relative to their size and in fact as they get really, really big,
they can't run at all," said Garcia. "But until now, no one that
I know of has tried to predict the cutoffs, which is what we are
doing."

"人们很久以前就已知道，动物体型越大，它们相对于自己体型的运动速度越慢，事实上，当它们真正成为庞然大物时，它们几乎跑不动了。"Garcia说。"但是直到现在，据我所知，没有人试图预测界限在哪里（即到底恐龙的身体大到多大时，它才没法跑动）。这也是我们正在做的一件事。"

Because
dinosaurs are extinct the scientists had very little to go on. Fossils of
smaller dinosaurs indicate that they moved fast but there is no similar
evidence for their bigger cousins. Hutchinson and Garcia incorporated the
impact of posture, center of mass, leg weight, total weight and torque,
the twisting force that muscles need to apply about the joints, into their
program. They tested its accuracy by using data from living animals.

因为恐龙已经灭绝，科学家几乎无法研究。小恐龙的化石表明他们行动速度，但在它们大块头远亲中没有发现类似的证据。Hutchinson和Garcia将动物姿势、重心、腿的重量、总体重和扭转，再加上力支撑关节所需肌肉的旋转力的共同影响一起输入他们的程序。他们还用活动物的数据检测了该程序的准确性。

When they
tested the model on a T. rex running about 45 mph their calculations
showed it would have needed 43 percent of its body weight in each leg as
supportive muscle.

当检测到雷克斯龙模型以45英里/小时速度奔跑时，他们的计算显示它每条腿上的支撑性肌肉占整个体重的43%。

"Our
model shows that these really fast speeds of 50 mph and probably down to
even 25 mph just don't hold up when you really scrutinize them and look at
the physics," Hutchinson explained. "It doesn't make a lot of
sense that these animals could go that fast. There's really no good
evidence that they could."

Hutchinson说："当你仔细审视它们和观察这个物理过程时，我们的模型表明50英里/小时甚至可能低到25英里/小时的速度太快了，不能保持下去"。Hutchinson解释说，"认为这些动物能够行走这么快毫无道理，的确没有足够证据证实他们有此能力"。

To prove
their point they scaled up a chicken to the size of T. rex and found the
giant chicken probably would not have been able to stand.

为了证明他们的观点，他们按比例把一只鸡放大到像霸王龙一样大，结果发现这只巨鸡可能站都站不住。