Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Chuck and I'm Josh and we're the host
Speaker 1: of Stuff. You should know the podcast that's right, And
Speaker 1: if you're into understanding cool and unusual and seemingly ordinary
Speaker 1: and even boring things that are made interesting, you should
Speaker 1: check us out. Please and thank you. We're on iTunes, Spotify,
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Speaker 1: Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, I'm Christian Saga and
Speaker 1: this is brain Stuff. Dinosaurs are super old and they
Speaker 1: are also super popular. We see them in movies, museums,
Speaker 1: children's toys, cartoons, and more. But how do we know
Speaker 1: what they actually looked like? It all comes down to fossils.
Speaker 1: Think of reconstructing a dinosaur's appearance like putting together a
Speaker 1: jigsaw puzzle. The fossils are the pieces on the edge
Speaker 1: of the puzzle, but most of the other pieces are missing.
Speaker 1: So while they don't tell us everything, fossils are the
Speaker 1: best starting point for figuring out a dinosaurs appearance. The
Speaker 1: way the bones fit together can give us a basic
Speaker 1: understanding of a dinosaur's shape and posture. We can learn
Speaker 1: a lot from the teeth to flat leaf shaped teeth
Speaker 1: indicate herbivores, while sharp pointed teeth suggests a carnivore. Cavities
Speaker 1: in the skull can help us figure out how well
Speaker 1: a dinosaur could see or hear. We also use CT
Speaker 1: scans to build three D images of the skeletons. From there,
Speaker 1: we can add virtual layers of tissue, muscle and skin.
Speaker 1: Under very rare conditions, a dinosaurs soft tissue can fossilize too.
Speaker 1: In paleontologist Tyler License found in Edmonton Soaurus in North Dakota,
Speaker 1: the skin and muscle tissue of its fossil remained intact.
Speaker 1: CT scans of the body have revealed a treasure trove
Speaker 1: of new information about dinosaurs. And here's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 1: Dinosaurs weren't all scaly creatures like crocodiles or Godzilla. Some
Speaker 1: had weird filaments all over their bodies, which dinosaur expert
Speaker 1: Brian Switte calls dino fuzz. And some dinosaurs even had feathers.
Speaker 1: We can tell by quill barbed marks little bumps where
Speaker 1: feathers connect to bone. These marks aren't just one or
Speaker 1: two obscure species either. We're talking about famous dinos like velociraptors.
Speaker 1: It turns out quite a few dinosaurs had these feathers,
Speaker 1: or technically something like feathers. Not every paleontologist is comfortable
Speaker 1: with the name, preferring to describe these markings as into
Speaker 1: gumentary structures or proto feathers instead, but these feathers and
Speaker 1: feather like structures may have been pretty colorful too. In
Speaker 1: scientists analyzed a micro raptor fossil with a scanning electron
Speaker 1: microscope and found evidence of melanosomes. These are the organelles
Speaker 1: inside a cell that store melanin or pigment. Different types
Speaker 1: of melanosomes store different colors. This is the same stuff
Speaker 1: that determines your hair color. The researchers found that this
Speaker 1: microraptor had an irridescent glossy coat. As scientists look for
Speaker 1: more fossilized melanosomes, they're reconstructing the appearance of Earth's ancient
Speaker 1: dinosaurs with increasing and impressive accuracy. Not a bad job
Speaker 1: considering they're literally working with a pile of bones. Check
Speaker 1: out the Brainstuff channel on YouTube, and for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com.