Re: disease theory of dinosaur extinction

[Scott <HORTON@BCRSSU.AGR.CA>]

I don't remember if someone has already pointed this out, but regarding the use
of the spread of disease into the americas by Columbus as an example of how a
land bridge could have spread disease to wipe out the dinosaurs: I just read in
National Geographic (an old issue at the dentist's office) that analysis of a
Peruvian mummy proved that Tuberculosis was already present in the americas
before the arrival of Columbus.
 I'm not sure what the ramifications of this are on Bakker's theory of dinosaur
extinction, but this idea cannot explain the simultaneous extinction of
plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, etc. to which a land bridge would be a
barrier, if anything, to the spread of disease.

Scott Horton
Geophysicist/Computer Programmer