Once we thought they were the ruthless rulers of the ancient world, chasing down cars and eating lawyers.

Then we realized they might not be so terrorizing after all because of their short small forearms. If a T. Rex trips, those stubby arms are unlikely to be able to help it break its fall; and once a T. Rex falls, it is unthinkable that it will be able to do a push up -- more than likely it will just roll around and starve to death.

And then mathematical computer models show that they can hardly run at all. They calculated for T. Rex to run after the jeep in Jurassic Park at 45 miles per hour in its crouched posture, it would need 86 percent of its mass as muscle in the legs. (Along the lines, interestingly, they also demonstrated that if a chicken were to grow to the size of a dinosaur, it would need twice its body weight in the legs to run, thus demonstrated conclusively that chickens that size won't be able to run at all.) A reasonable top speed for a T. Rex seems to be about 18 miles per hour: leisurely given its gigantic stature, but still faster than most of us humans can run (current world record for the mile run is about 3:43, just about 16 miles per hour).

And John Horner has the guts to write about how those large beasts are not predators at all, but rather scavengers.

And now, we think that dinosaurs might have "lovely plumage", and in particular, "Tyrannosaurs might have resembled giant chicks." So finally, we've reduced the tyrant of terrible lizards down to this jolly ol' pal who lives down the street.

Oh, the wonders of modern science.