Chicken Soup for Dinosaurs

In an experiment reminiscent of efforts in the 1950's to simulate the origins of life--by mixing together a bunch of organic and inorganic chemicals and zapping the primordial "soup" with electricity--researchers in Germany have attempted to replicate the contents of primitive sauropods' stomachs. The goal is to answer the question: How did dinosaurs get so big?

Biologists today are baffled by the huge sizes attained by plant-eaters like Seismosaurus, since evolution tends to select against gigantism, rather than for it. By mixing together primitive plants (like gingkos), digestive juices from the rumen of a sheep, a few chemicals and minerals, and water, scientists at the University of Bonn are trying to figure out which plants huge herbivores feasted on, and how they managed to extract the maximum amount of nutrition.