Big Picture Science for July 10, 2023 - Dinosaurs’ Last Gasp

Big Picture Science - Dinosaurs’ Last Gasp

(REPEAT) 

Do we have physical evidence of the last day of the dinosaurs? We consider fossilized fish in South Dakota that may chronicle the dramatic events that took place when, 66 million years ago, a large asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico and caused three-quarters of all species to disappear.

Also, what new discoveries have paleontologists made about these charismatic animals, and the director of Jurassic World: Dominion talks about how his film hews to the latest science. Hint: feathers!

It’s deep history, as we look at what happened as terrestrial life experienced its worst day ever.

Guests:

• Colin Trevorrow – Director of Jurassic World: Dominion
• Riley Black – Science writer and author of “The Last Days of the Dinosaurs”
• Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan – Paleontologist at the University of Cape Town, South Africa

This repeat podcast originally aired on June 13th, 2022

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/dinosaurs-last-gasp

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

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Big Picture Science for 11/04/13 - Life Back Then

Big Picture Science - Life Back Then

ENCORE: Time keeps on ticking, ticking … and as it does, evolution operates to produce remarkable changes in species. Wings may appear, tails disappear. Sea creatures drag themselves onto the shore and become landlubbers. But it’s not easy to grasp the expansive time scales involved in these transformative feats.
Travel through millennia, back through mega and giga years, for a sense of what can occur over deep time, from the Cambrian Explosion to the age of the dinosaurs to the rise of Homo sapiens.
Guests:

• Lorna O’Brien – Evolutionary biologist, University of Toronto
• Ivan Schwab – Professor of ophthalmology, University of California, Davis. His blog
• Don Henderson – Curator of dinosaurs, Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Canada
• Gregory Cochran – Physicist, anthropologist, University of Utah
• Todd Schlenke – Biologist, Emory University

This encore podcast was first released on: April 2, 2012

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Life_Back_Then

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Big Picture Science for 04/02/12 - Life Back Then

Big Picture Science - Life Back Then

Time keeps on ticking, ticking … and as it does, evolution operates to produce remarkable changes in species. Wings may appear, tails disappear. Sea creatures drag themselves onto the shore and become landlubbers. But it’s not easy to grasp the expansive time scales involved in these transformative feats.

Travel through millennia, back through mega and giga years, for a sense of what can occur over deep time, from the Cambrian Explosion to the age of the dinosaurs to the rise of Homo sapiens.

Guests:

• Lorna O’Brien – Evolutionary biologist, University of Toronto
• Ivan Schwab – Professor of ophthalmology, University of California, Davis. His blog
• Don Henderson – Curator of dinosaurs, Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Canada
• Gregory Cochran – Physicist, anthropologist, University of Utah
• Todd Schlenke – Biologist, Emory University

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Life_Back_Then

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Are We Alone for 12/27/10 - Seth's Storage Locker

Are We Alone - Seth's Storage Locker

ENCORE It’s always an adventure to go digging in Seth’s storage locker – who knows what we’ll find …

In this imposing pile of paraphernalia, tucked between boxes of socket wrenches and old 45s, we stumble upon the hunt for extrasolar planets, the evidence for water on moons of the solar system, theories of language, a controversial hypothesis for the peopling of the Americas, and a new dinosaur fossil.

Guests:

• Steve Brusatte – Vertebrate paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York
• Steven Pinker – Psychologist, Harvard University
• Geoff Marcy – Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley
• Adam Showman – Planetary scientist at the University of Arizona
• Mike Collins – Associate Director, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Seth_s_Storage_Locker

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Are We A Blog?, the companion blog to the radio show.

Are We Alone for 04/20/09 - Reading Life's Tea Leaves

Are We Alone - Reading Life's Tea Leaves
For nearly four billion years, life has been swimming and shuffling across our planet. But how can we deduce what it was like? You don’t need Sherlock Holmes to track the clues of life that came before – call on an anthropologist or biologist. From fossils to alien radio signals, find out how to interpret the clues that living organisms leave behind, and hear adventure stories in the evolution of life on Earth.

Also, the discovery of a dino-eating crocodile and the tale of scientist/explorer/polymath Idaho Brown.

Guests:

• Sean Carroll - Molecular biologist and geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species
• Paul Sereno - Paleontologist at the University of Chicago, and National Geographic Explorer in Residence
• Seth Shostak - Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute and author of Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Are We A Blog?, the companion blog to the radio show.