Racing T-Rex? You'll Need a Head Start

If a professional soccer player raced a T-Rex, chances are the athlete would wind up a dino snack, according to a new computer model projection. The simulation, which is the first to rely mainly on data from fossils rather than modern descendants of prehistoric beasts, showed the 6-ton carnivore steaming to a top speed of 18mph, the BBC reports.

The winner of the computer scientists' 200-meter dash was Compsognathus, a bipedal carnivore not much bigger than a chicken. It managed 40mph, close to the speed of the ostrich, today's fastest animal on two legs. The next step is to move into 3D projections, which could reveal much more about how dinosaurs moved. (More science stories.)