WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Fossils Work 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:03.440 Hey, ever you wanted, it's me Josh, And for this 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:06.920 week's s Y s K Selecta, I've chosen How Fossils Work, 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:12.959 which actually is one of the most scientifically interesting, amazing, 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:18.040 mind bending episodes that we've ever done. And I just 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.520 listened to it and it still holds up. So I 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.640 hope that you enjoy it. And as they say on 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:28.760 with the show, welcome to Stuff you should Know from 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:37.440 house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.440 I'm Josh Clark with me as always as the intrepid 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:48.760 paleontologist Charles W. Chuck Bryant. It's terrible' no I like it. Okay, 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.600 I wish I was a paleontologist. Let your new nickname 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.639 or intrepid at least, let's just go with paleontologists. That'd 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.600 be great. Okay, we're talking fossils today, Dude, this isn't 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.319 really interesting stuff. It really is. And um, you can 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:07.760 tell that Tracy Wilson are esteemed head of the writing editor. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:12.200 I think she's site director director, right. Um you can 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.800 tell that she was very, very excited. She took her 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:19.759 time and really doled this one out. I think um 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.959 savor is the right word. You can feel it her 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.080 smiling through the keyboard. Yeah, she's very happy to write 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.679 how fossils work. And um, we're happy to do it 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.280 because it's one of those very comprehensive articles on the 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:37.479 site that you just has everything you need. Sedimentary rock, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:43.840 flat bones versus round bones, leaf impressions, has it all. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.600 Unless you're an intrepid paleontologist. Then we'll get an email 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.520 saying it actually wasn't very comprehensive. You guys royally screwed 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.520 this up. We just wait until we get into punctuated 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:59.160 versus gradual evolution. Chuck. Um, you've heard of Lucy right, 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.480 the Australia Kiss. Yeah, okay, Well, um, she was I 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.400 think three point two million years old. That's one old lady. 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:10.000 It really is the earliest hominid we've found as far 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.360 as I know. Um. But there is a part of 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.919 her foot missing. It's always been missing that we've never 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.639 found before. So this thing, this bone, was so essential 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.239 and we couldn't tell how she walked until recently. Why 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.040 because the missing bone, we couldn't tell how she walked exactly. 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.240 We we we can tell so much from bones that 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.800 when we don't have the right bones we can't tell anything. 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.280 So she may have been in a knuckle dragger, she 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.680 may have hopped. We didn't know. Well. Recently, UM, some 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.400 people from the University of Missouri or Missouri, depending on 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.160 whether or not you live in the state. UM found 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:54.239 the Uh, the group of foot bones needed to show 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:59.440 what kind of walker Lucy was. And she walked up right? 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.760 How was her gate? Upright? Upright? Just like a human. 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.240 She had a hitch and her get along, she had 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:09.120 a pepper and her step. Possibly she knew she'd be 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:12.960 famous one day. She was loved with duc But but 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:17.880 consider this, right, Okay, three point two million year old 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.200 footbones were found, and we could tell from them how 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.840 she walked. This is the state of the field that 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.440 you remember paleontology. Pretty cool. This is how advanced it is. 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.800 And yet it's really just kind of using common sense 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.600 to figure out what old bones mean. Common sense and science. 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:43.000 Fossils go, let's talk about it, Chuck, what are some 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.120 of the different kinds of fossils. Uh, well, one of 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.280 my favorite kinds of trace fossil. Yeah, that's actually one 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:54.200 of my favorites too. It's like, um, that Jesus footprint thing. 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.720 Footprints in the sand. Yeah, sort of is josh um. 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.320 That is when it's actually not part of the organism 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:08.560 at all, but it's um like tooth marks in a 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.400 chunk of wood from a saber tooth tiger. Or footprints 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.400 or footprints or track ways as Tracy calls them. Yes, 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.719 footprints tracks. It's just unnecessary, but it has a pleasant tone, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.279 you know science. Yeah, like they're not footprints, they're track ways. 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.000 I'm bored in Ethiopia, let's call him track ways. So 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.360 trace fossils is one. Of course, there's bone fossils, right, 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.960 the most famous fossils. Yeah, those are great too. They 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.159 got nothing on trace fossils. So actually, bone fossils, that's 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.560 that's what you really want. If you're going to reconstruct 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.440 the dinosaur for your museum. You can't deal it with footprints, No, 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.520 you can't. You need the bones, you do. And the 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:49.840 bones are of course the most famous ones in the dinosaur. 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.080 Bones are the most famous of all the bone types. Right. 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:57.279 So there's something that I think um is often missed 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.800 by lay people such as myself, um and in that 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.960 when you find a bone, right, so you find like 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:10.280 a big old dinosaur bone, it's really geologically speaking, it's 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.440 not a bone any longer. It's not like you find 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.200 a bone buried in your yard that was an animal 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.680 from like, you know, thirty five years ago, But that's 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.359 not a fossil. We'll not still bone. A fossil is 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.760 a bone or a piece of um once living organic 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:30.880 material that's undergone a transition from uh, an organic state 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.880 to an inorganic state. That's what a fossil is. It's 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.200 gone through the process of fossilization. And most of these fossils, 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.159 the vast majority of fossils, are found in sedimentary rock. 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:44.600 Before we're go any further, we should probably do a 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.800 little brief primerun sedimentary rock, right, which is awesome. Yeah, 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.400 it's pretty easy to Uh. We've talked about the Earth's 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.400 core um and layers. When I think we talked about 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.159 earthquakes and maybe some other stuff. We all know that 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.599 there's the intercore, outer core. We got the crust. Crust 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.000 is the thinnest layer, and that's where the fossils are. 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.560 That's where the goods are. And uh, most of the 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:11.919 rocks in the crust are sedimentary rocks that you've been 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.080 talking about off and on for the past eight minutes, right, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.880 and that's like silty sandy stuff that hardened over the years, right, 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:25.240 I mean, but the the Earth. Remember we talked about, oh, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:29.919 what was it, clouds. I can't remember what podcast it was, 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.919 but we talked about how much sand is transferred from 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.880 Africa to South America annually. Yeah, it wouldn't clouds, but yeah, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.320 if you you remember the one I'm talking about. Okay, So, 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:44.760 the Earth's geo biogeochemical processes equal a lot of movement 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.159 of particulate matter. Right. The Earth is dynamic, baby, it is. 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.920 It's also very fluid. To write, a lot of that 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:57.279 matter is at at one point as suspended particles in 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.960 water that's moving around, right. Yeah. So um, as this 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.680 as the water leaves and the sediment is deposited, it 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.920 builds up and up and up. Over time, it hardens 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.960 into rock and eventually we have sedimentary rock, yeah, which 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.680 is below our feet. We don't normally see it unless say, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.000 the Colorado River um winds over it for you know, 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.760 millions and millions and millions of years, revealing the sedimentary 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.240 rock that's in the Earth's crust. Grand Canyon exactly. So 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.440 you're talking about, Yeah, I forgot the Grand Canyon Park 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.679 So you know how I said the Earth was dynamic, baby, Yeah, Uh, 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.640 that's important. I didn't just throw that in there as 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.000 a factoid. It's important because when these plates shift around, 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.360 that's how fossils are. On Earth. Things can be moved 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.800 great distances and pushed to the surface eventually or close 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.120 enough to where a dig can unearth it. And it's like, 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.280 just because it's fossilized doesn't mean it's stuck in that 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.440 one spot forever, because Earth is always moving. So the 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:01.520 point of all this is is sedimentary rock um is, 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.560 like you said, dynamic. It moves around. Sometimes fossils pop 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.840 up or it becomes exposed all of the Colorado River um, 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.400 and that is where fossils are, right Chuck. Yes, So 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:14.960 let's say that at some point in time there was 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:20.680 a dinosaur or a sabertooth tiger or a cyanobacteria woly 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.480 mammoth wooly mammoth, sure um, and it's um hanging out 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.800 around a riverbed and it has a massive heart attack 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:33.400 and falls over in the river bed and very quickly 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.680 it becomes covered with sediment and silt, right Yeah, And 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.320 that's important because once it starts getting covered up with stuff, 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.880 it's sort of being protected from like all of fossil. 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.320 Let's just break the news. All of fossil means is 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.719 that something has been protected from the natural decomposition process. 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.680 Otherwise we just decompose like everything else, and you wouldn't 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.320 see it anymore. You've just totally betrayed Tracy in the 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.920 tone she lent to this, that the whole drama drawing 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.080 out suspense. But that's true. So what you said was right. 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.360 So you'd fall over in a riverbed, you start getting 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.160 covered up with the sediment and silt, and it's it's 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.800 immediately starting to protect you in a way. Um, not you, 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.920 but whatever, the wooly mammoth, the wooly mammoth. Um. The 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.640 thing is the in this sediment, in this silt, you 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:27.360 can't really hide from macrobacteria, uh and other forms of 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.120 life that are basically dedicated to breaking down organic matter, 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:37.600 soft tissue, hair, eyeballs, um, genitalia, all that kind of stuff. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.360 It eventually becomes broken down and what's left is the 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.800 hard stuff the bone, right, But the bone also has 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.520 organic material within it as well. Yeah, and that'll break down. 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.520 We're talking blood cells, collagen, fat, that's going to break 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.680 down to the key here is the inorganic parts of 0:09:55.679 --> 0:10:00.000 the bone remain intact. And it's the other keyword here's porous. Yeah. 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:06.800 You take calcium, I imagine for your hips. Yeah, sure, glucosamine, calcium. Sure. 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.960 So what you're doing is, um, you're fortifying the calcium 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.000 that's already in your hips, supposedly, um, because the bone 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.280 is made in large part of calcium, which is a mineral, 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.520 which is inorganic. So it's all the organic stuff dies out. 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:25.880 What's left is, like you said, the inorganic like calcium, whatever, minerals, 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.000 and that holds the shape, right, Yeah, the initial structure 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.439 is kept intact. Right, But like you said, this bone 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.920 is also porous. That's the key. And over time, um, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:42.120 other mineral sediment kind of um, it enters into these 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:47.199 these microscopic pores iron right, carbonate yea and fortifies this, 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.600 ultimately turning this but what was once an organic bone 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.479 into an inorganic rock in the shape of the bone. 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:57.599 But for all intensive purposes, it's still the bone. It 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.319 still has that original calcium. It's still the same thing. 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.760 It's not like a replica of it. It's just become fossilized. Yeah, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.280 and Tracy in the article uses a pretty good example. 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.480 I thought, it's like filling a sponge with glue. The 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:13.800 sponge is gonna keep the shape, but the glue is 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.080 gonna ooze through all the spots that it can ouze harden, 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.440 and there you go. You've got a hard sponge, hard sponge, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.720 which is basically what a fossil is. And this takes 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.360 place Josh over the course of millions of years, the 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:30.240 sediment reinforcing the bones eventually becoming rock. It's not the 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.600 kind of thing that happens willy nilly over thousands of years. 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:35.880 It's a long time, and it's just this isn't just 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.079 um happening by itself. All of the surrounding area UM 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.720 is being deposited with sediment as well. It's also turning 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.400 into rock um. And then the ultimate test of time 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.640 for a fossil is that it can withstand the pressure 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.240 of the that's mounted by the hardening rock sedimentary rock 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.959 that's growing around it, so it can be crushed. Is 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:00.440 that how A lot of fossils are definitely crushed, crushed 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:05.200 the death poor guys um. But if it survives and 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.200 you can find this, you will eventually be able to 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.559 get to it. And then you remove the rock from 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:13.920 around the fossil, and there's your bone that you can 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.560 take to the Natural History Museum and get at least 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:38.719 five dollars for when you were a kid, Josh, let 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:40.960 me ask you this. Did you ever go into the 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:45.040 woods on a little nature course from like a science center, 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:49.280 let's say, and do a cast plaster cast of a 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:54.000 animal footprint? Did you ever do that? No? Really, really, 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.600 I did that. We went and found like deer hoof prints, 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:58.760 you fill it with plaster, and there was some way 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.240 of doing it where you an inverse plaster cast of 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.000 a deer hoof print. That can happen actually in a 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.920 way that with trace fossils, so you can you know, 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.120 sediment can act the same way. And one of these, 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.080 let's say, uh, the wooly mammoth makes a footprint in 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.080 some loose but sturdy soil that fills up with sediment 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.840 and creates basically a mold, just like I did as 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:21.760 a kid with the plaster cast. Yeah, as long as 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.920 the sediment that fills it in is lighter or thinner, yeah, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.360 than the soil that the impression is made in, then yeah, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.240 it would it would, it would preserve that track. Yeah, 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:33.920 and plants can do the same thing. It's not just 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.559 bones we're talking about. Um. It can also fill in 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:39.880 in a different way, I guess the opposite way to 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.280 where it makes a basically a cast of the foot 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.040 that made the track. Oh yeah. And then so it's 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.600 like a kind of like a fossil of a ghost 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.640 foot that's not really there, but it makes the foot. 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.040 It's like an inverse cast. Okay, yeah, of not the track, 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.680 but the foot that made the track. Yeah. Yeah, got cool. 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.240 You know what other another my favorite trace fossil is 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.480 it's not a track way, it's copper light. I changed 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.440 my mind. That is a good one. That's dunge. It's poop, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.480 fossilized poop. That's right. I can tell you a lot 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.440 about an animal. It can tell you about its fiber intake. 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:23.600 It can tell you about what size it's poop was, um, chuck. 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.520 You know. In the eighties, the CIA found out much 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.920 about Gorbachof and his health. They found out he had 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:35.520 like cancer or some sort of chronic illness um by 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.960 stealing his poop when he was when he came on 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.080 a state visit to the US. They took his poop 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.920 and analyzed it, and when they he was in the US, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.400 they des grabbed it from the toilet. Did he not flush? 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.320 I just want more specifics. You probably don't have. As 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.880 far as I understand, they probably it's hotel room or 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.080 wherever he was staying. They were prepared to do this. 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:02.440 This was like toilet rigged. Probably, yes, But wherever Reagan went, 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.240 they had a portable toilet that he used. It was 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.400 the only one he was allowed to use. I'm not kidding, 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:13.400 so no one could steal his poop. Talk about paranoid. Yeah, seriously, 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.760 when you point one finger, there's three pointing back at you. 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.320 You know what I mean? Yeah? Yeah? Uh so, Josh, 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:22.640 that is sedimentary rock and that's to me one of 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.360 the cooler ways you can get a fossil. Uh petrified 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.280 would too? Don't leave that one out. Oh yes, it's 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.560 basically the same thing that we just described for bone, 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.640 but for wood. Yeah, hard as a rock because it 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.200 is a rock. Here you go, alright, So, like I 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.120 just said, um, that was sedimentary rock and that's kind 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.040 of fun. But you can also uh get a fossil. 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.560 Has that funny because one dies in a cave that's 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:52.160 really dry. Yeah, desiccation. Yeah, desiccation is basically, uh, sort 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.880 of a mummification, but it's not like we think of 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.680 with mummification with the Egyptian tombs or anything like that. Well, 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.280 that's because there's no reservation techniques that have been undertaken. 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.440 It's natural. Basically, it dries out. It's like throwing an 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.480 orange in a dehydrator. So when it's really dry, there's 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.160 not gonna be any place for bacteria to thrive. That's 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.680 the reason beef jerky is not um refrigerated. If you 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.200 refrigerate your beef jerky, you're you're doing something wrong. Yeah, 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.640 that's true. Well, if you have beef jerky long enough 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.760 to need refrigeration, then you're doing something wrong or something 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:29.600 really really right. Uh. So desiccation actually works so well 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.520 sometimes that it can preserve the skin and soft tissues 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.080 as well, which is something that sedimentary rock cannot do. 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.800 Have you been to the Smithsonian I have they have 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:43.040 um a very cool I guess a prehistoric cow or 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.920 a musk ox I can't remember, but it's the thing's head, um, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.120 much of its back, I guess, the cape, two of 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.560 its legs, and the skin is still there. It's just 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.320 right there. Probably it's tens of thousands of years old 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.800 and it's just sitting right there. Did they could they 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:01.720 read build it or just put the parts up? It's 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.320 just the parts, but it's laid out so that like 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:06.520 it gives you the impression of what you're looking at, 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.639 but its face is still there. It's very cool. Uh. 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.160 My favorite kind of fossil, though, Josh, is I'm gonna 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.480 say that, like every five minutes is a frozen fossil, 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.800 because if you get trapped, let's say your wooly mammoth 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.560 trapped in ice, not only is that going to keep 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.119 other like vultures and things from picking up your bones 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.680 and skin, but it's also going to keep it from 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:33.280 breaking down and you can get hair fully preserved sometimes 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:35.800 if you're in skin and like a big mammoth. Have 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.399 you seen pictures of Liuba? Now? Liuba is a baby 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.159 wooly mammoth that was found um by a reindeer herder 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:47.720 in Siberia and um it was pounds or something like that, 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:49.639 but it would have gotten up to several tons. It 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:54.880 is adorable because it is a fully preserved wooly mammoth 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.680 baby with the wrinkles in the skin and everything. Yet 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.920 it spent forty five years in the permafros, but it's 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.760 like completely intact. It's very cute. That's why it's my favorite. 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:06.840 It's one of the cutest dead things you'll ever see. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.920 Another couple of ways you can get a fossil josh, 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:16.720 which are not my favorite aur tar librea tar pits, 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.040 although that is one of my favorites, which librea tar 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.959 pit is actually redundant because Librea means the tar, so 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.200 it's calling it the tar tar pit and not the tartar. 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:27.520 Did I ever tell you about when I shot a 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.199 commercial there? Have you? Did you go by there in 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:32.600 l A? No? I want to. I forgot about it 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.919 when we're there last Well, for those of you haven't been, 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.960 it's right in the middle of Los Angeles, like south 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.720 of Hollywood on Wilson Boulevard, and it's um. The main 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:46.040 tar pit is uh. Tar pits are fenced off, obviously, 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:48.919 and they have little recreations. It's it's actually the saddest 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.000 thing you'll ever see. The recreation they have in there 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.680 is of a like I guess it's a mother wooly 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.280 mammoth trapped in the tar trying to get out and 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.800 the father and the baby on shore like howling at her. 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.280 It's awful, but it's still active, like all the tars 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.400 bubbling up and everything. And shot a commercial there once 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.000 and I was on the other side of the property, 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.560 far away from the main pit, and I looked down 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.399 and there was a little mini tar pit, a little 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:20.080 tar puddle about a foot wide, bubbling right beneath my feet. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:22.760 I could have scooped it up with my finger if 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.800 I had been so inclined. Yeah, instead, you're like, that stinks. Well, 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.560 it's just crazy to think that that's still like it's happening. Apparently, 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.680 Um I looked it up. There's um there's like you said, 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.480 main pits that are chained off and that are still 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.479 being excavated. But they have them like in neighborhoods all 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.880 around the area and parks. They're just kind of all 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.200 over the place around there. That's like parts of stone 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:47.760 Mountain popping up all over the place. We used to 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.560 have We had a big chunk of stone mountain in 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.760 our backyard growing up, all right. For those of you 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.359 don't know, Stone Mountain is the world's largest exposed piece 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.760 of granite, and it is right here in our home state, 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.359 and it takes like thirty minutes to hike, but you 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:02.800 still get to get to the top and be like 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.320 I just hiked a mountain, which I have, Josh. You 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:10.720 can also get a pete mossy pete can preserve life forms, 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.320 including human beings like Tolin Man was. It was that 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:16.639 Toland Man. I don't know about him. How do you 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:21.000 know all these people people? The first the first um 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:25.040 multi syllable word I could spell was archaeology. Really, I've 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.840 always been interested in that. I could see that, Yeah, 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.439 Tolin Man. Also, it doesn't you can hate archaeology like 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.119 some people hate art, and you'll still be interested in 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.720 Totland man Um he was. He's found in Denmark. He 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:43.000 lived years ago and he was murdered, uh sacrificially, they think, 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:45.840 and cast into the peat bog, which pete is just 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.680 decomposing moss and lots of it, but it has a tendency. 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.159 I think it's anaerobic, so um tissue is preserved really well. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:55.600 But it's this guy that they dug up, and he's 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:57.280 so well preserved that when they found him in the 0:20:57.359 --> 0:20:59.760 nineteen fifties, they called the cops because they thought they'd 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.720 found a murder victim really like a recent one. He 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.400 looks kind of funny, but he's got his whiskers are preserved. 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.200 He's wearing a cap. He still has this the garrett 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.480 around his neck. Um, it's really awesome. So what is 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.359 he dated at? Like three four hundred BC? Is the 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.760 one who was killed and he's wearing a hat yeah, sheepskin, 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:23.600 leather cap. Yeah, no last chance garage for him? No? 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.399 Well uh? And then my favorite way, Josh, that you 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:30.239 can get a fossil is uh, you're joking? Did you 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.160 say it again? I did? Is amber? They just keep 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:35.880 getting better and better, like the movie Jurassic Park. Yeah, 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.760 that's how we get dinosaurs again. Yeah, dino d n A. 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.760 So you found something on on whether or not that's feasible, right, yeah, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.200 because I always wondered. You know, when you see Jurassic Park, 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.879 you see the little video they made it clearly to 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.040 explain to the movie going audience how this is done. 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:55.720 It's better than Ellen Page running around. What was that 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:00.680 movie inception? Um, so the mosquito flies in tree residentry 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.639 resident eventually becomes hard as copal, than it eventually becomes 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.560 inert as amber. You get the little mosquito in there. 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:10.400 They extracted the dino DNA from the blood of the mosquito, 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:14.879 filled in the gaps with I think frog DNA, and 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:16.600 that was all there was to it. And at the 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.280 time I thought boom. But being bon Jovi, yeah, at 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.080 the time, I thought that seems plausible, and it sort 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:24.040 of is. But I did look up today and there 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.520 was a researcher that was interviewed at the or closer 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:30.160 to that time. I think that basically debunked it and said, 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:33.920 we could potentially maybe get some DNA, even though it's 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:38.400 really fragile and loses his signature really quickly. Even if 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.479 you could get the DNA, he said that you couldn't 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:44.919 construct a dinosaurs just you can't fill in the blanks 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:46.879 like that. There's way too many blanks. You have a 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:52.240 giant frog, yeah, with little tiny arms forearms that Steven 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.720 Spielberg made us belief when you saw those dinosaurs walk 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:57.320 across that field. That guy can make me believe in anything. 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.639 That aliens came to the American Southwest, that there was 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:06.440 a World War two, that um each phone home. Yeah, 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:33.800 good stuff. Though, where are we here, chuck it. We're 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:35.800 kind of painting this picture where if like you just 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.159 stick a shovel anywhere on the Earth, you're gonna yield 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:41.160 like all sorts of bones and fossils. Note no, it's 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:46.320 not um First of all, a mere fraction that I 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.200 don't think could possibly be calculated, because we rely on 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:53.080 the fossil record to show us what existed back when, 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.720 and it's incomplete. Therefore we've entered to catch twenty two. 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.159 But there's just a mere fraction of all of the 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:06.480 species and organisms that's ever lived that become fossilized um Like. Basically, 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:09.800 a perfect storm of chance has to occur for a 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:12.800 fossil to be created. As we've seen, even when it 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:16.679 is created, it can still be crushed into oblivion. Um. 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:21.280