1 00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:06,160 Speaker 1: On this episode of news World, we're going to talk 2 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:10,640 Speaker 1: about reimagining Dinosaurs. I think it's really important, both because 3 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:14,080 Speaker 1: I love dinosaurs, but also because it reminds us that 4 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:19,240 Speaker 1: science has constantly evolving, constantly learning new things, and constantly 5 00:00:19,239 --> 00:00:23,079 Speaker 1: having to challenge itself. We're really fortunate in that we 6 00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:27,280 Speaker 1: have a terrific guest, Michael Greshco, who's the author of 7 00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:32,400 Speaker 1: the National Geographic Magazine October cover story Reimagining Dinosaurs, which 8 00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:35,760 Speaker 1: I recommend very very highly. I think if you want 9 00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:40,400 Speaker 1: to see it, visit mattgo dot com slash diagnos is terrific. 10 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:58,560 Speaker 1: Now this is your first National Geographic Magazine cover story. Michael, 11 00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:00,840 Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about your background on how 12 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:03,400 Speaker 1: this came about. Well, first off, thank you so much 13 00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:07,400 Speaker 1: for having me. This piece is in the culmination of 14 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:12,880 Speaker 1: several years of covering advances in dinosaur paleontology as a 15 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:17,560 Speaker 1: beat reporter. My background is I started in the sciences 16 00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:22,600 Speaker 1: while an undergraduate studying paleoecology. So if you give me 17 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:25,280 Speaker 1: the tooth of an ancient mammal and the right equipment, 18 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:27,760 Speaker 1: I can tell you something about what it ate and 19 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:31,240 Speaker 1: the climate it lived in while it was alive. I 20 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:34,600 Speaker 1: then went from that path and kind of turned into 21 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:38,760 Speaker 1: journalism and eventually found myself in the fortunate position of 22 00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:42,160 Speaker 1: joining National Geographic Science Desk, where I was able to 23 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:46,800 Speaker 1: draw on my paleontological training to write about all the 24 00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:51,080 Speaker 1: great advances in paleontology, including dinosaurs for those who follow 25 00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:55,640 Speaker 1: this news, such as yourself, the pace of discovery in 26 00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:59,280 Speaker 1: the field, and the pace of innovation in the field 27 00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:03,000 Speaker 1: in terms of drawing on new and different scientific techniques. 28 00:02:03,440 --> 00:02:05,480 Speaker 1: I mean, it's so much to keep up with in 29 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:08,040 Speaker 1: the most exciting of ways. And it got to a 30 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:10,920 Speaker 1: point where my editor and I kind of turned to 31 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,240 Speaker 1: each other and realized that now was the time to 32 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:19,680 Speaker 1: provide kind of the overview, the framework, the synthesis for 33 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:22,280 Speaker 1: our readers and for the public as a whole. And 34 00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 1: so that's where we kind of hit on this idea 35 00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:29,600 Speaker 1: for this cover story, and it was such a pleasure 36 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:32,840 Speaker 1: to report out and to be able to give that 37 00:02:32,919 --> 00:02:35,799 Speaker 1: to our readers as you put this cover story together, 38 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:38,400 Speaker 1: which is a very good story, by the way, Thank you. 39 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:41,560 Speaker 1: What were the really big surprises to you since you've 40 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:44,040 Speaker 1: been sort of following the field, but what hits you 41 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:46,239 Speaker 1: that when you had a chance to step back, I 42 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:49,680 Speaker 1: have step and think about it. One of the things 43 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:54,200 Speaker 1: that was clear going into it was that this taste 44 00:02:54,280 --> 00:02:56,480 Speaker 1: of discovery of new fossil materire was going to be 45 00:02:56,520 --> 00:02:58,920 Speaker 1: an important part of the story. I mean, much of 46 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:05,160 Speaker 1: the weekly average is, oh, this new type of tyrannosaur 47 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:07,480 Speaker 1: was found. Day to day, it's a lot of this 48 00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:11,359 Speaker 1: new genus was discovered. But to take a step back 49 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:14,760 Speaker 1: and actually look at the sweep and scale of the 50 00:03:14,840 --> 00:03:17,640 Speaker 1: discovery of new material was like really shocking. It's like, 51 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:22,120 Speaker 1: on average, paleontologists are describing something like forty to fifty 52 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:26,480 Speaker 1: new genera of fossil dinosaur a year, and that's been 53 00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:29,200 Speaker 1: sustained as a pace for like more than a decade. 54 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:34,000 Speaker 1: If I can simplify, seems to me you have more 55 00:03:34,040 --> 00:03:41,120 Speaker 1: people studying paleotology in more places, with dramatically better technology. 56 00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:46,360 Speaker 1: The combination of those three that has led to our 57 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:50,400 Speaker 1: mapping of dinosaurs in our sense of how really dramatically 58 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,600 Speaker 1: diverse they were. Plus there are relatives that sort of 59 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:57,200 Speaker 1: non dinosaur things that we're hanging out at the same time. 60 00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:02,080 Speaker 1: For Oh, absolutely, it's more people looking in more places, 61 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:08,280 Speaker 1: and the widespread adoption of all these different technologies that 62 00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:13,320 Speaker 1: aren't necessarily developed for paleontology, but the paleontology can take 63 00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:17,799 Speaker 1: advantage of. I mean, one key example here is CT 64 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:22,279 Speaker 1: scanning right development a medical context. But as the price 65 00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:26,039 Speaker 1: of those machines has fallen, as they've become more globally 66 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:31,000 Speaker 1: accessible and widespread, what was once a novelty thirty years 67 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:34,560 Speaker 1: ago is now a common practice. I mean, paleontology PhD 68 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:37,000 Speaker 1: students are being trained on this as a matter of course, 69 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:41,599 Speaker 1: and that widespread adoption has really transformed the way that 70 00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:45,400 Speaker 1: researchers can share data with each other, can do outreach, 71 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:50,000 Speaker 1: can look inside fossils and see features that they wouldn't 72 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:53,960 Speaker 1: have a chance of studying in detail thirty forty fifty 73 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:59,080 Speaker 1: years ago. That combination is such a powerful like flywheel 74 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:02,839 Speaker 1: that's really driven the field forward. I got into this, 75 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,640 Speaker 1: I guess as a kid. I was babysitting at Fort 76 00:05:06,760 --> 00:05:10,200 Speaker 1: Riley and the family I baby sat for had the 77 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:15,360 Speaker 1: Time Life series on dinosaurs. Their children went to Betterly 78 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:19,080 Speaker 1: and I spent the evening and I was just totally absorbed. 79 00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:21,840 Speaker 1: It was the first time I'd really encountered them, and 80 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:25,640 Speaker 1: you know, the range, the uniqueness, the degree to which 81 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:29,279 Speaker 1: they're different from us and from our world. And I 82 00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:32,919 Speaker 1: guess I've never gotten over that love of paleontology in 83 00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:36,839 Speaker 1: the broadest sense, and just fascination with the evolution of life. 84 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:39,919 Speaker 1: So when you then get to the modern era, I 85 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: went off and got a PhD in history, but then 86 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:45,240 Speaker 1: I got re engaged. I think it was Baker who 87 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:49,719 Speaker 1: wrote a book on the dinosaur heresies and point that. 88 00:05:50,839 --> 00:05:55,520 Speaker 1: Prior to Oustrom at Yale making the argument that dinosaurs 89 00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,960 Speaker 1: and birds were absolutely related, it was considered heresy and 90 00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:02,320 Speaker 1: the people who was said that wasn't possible. But suddenly 91 00:06:02,760 --> 00:06:07,560 Speaker 1: there was enough evidence that it revolutionized both are thinking 92 00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:11,600 Speaker 1: about birds but also in many ways are thinking about dinosaurs. 93 00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:13,800 Speaker 1: And that got me intrigued with this whole notion of 94 00:06:14,520 --> 00:06:18,320 Speaker 1: how much we are evolving. And then of course when 95 00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:21,280 Speaker 1: you get to the Chinese feather dinosaurs, you know we've 96 00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:25,560 Speaker 1: had Opio sort of a semi bird, semi ripped up, 97 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:29,080 Speaker 1: but all of a sudden you now have clear evidence 98 00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:34,000 Speaker 1: of dinosaurs had feathers, and that further kind of revolutionized 99 00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:37,440 Speaker 1: how we had thought of them. Does it ever strike 100 00:06:37,480 --> 00:06:40,360 Speaker 1: you that's almost every day you turn around, there's something 101 00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:46,600 Speaker 1: new showing up. It's such a fun surprize always, I mean, 102 00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:50,359 Speaker 1: it's interesting. This just reminds me of a conversation I 103 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:53,800 Speaker 1: had actually just yesterday with one of the sources in 104 00:06:53,839 --> 00:06:57,640 Speaker 1: the story, Yale professor on Jan Buller. At risk of 105 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:01,160 Speaker 1: poorly paraphrasing him, because he's very poetic speaker, you know, 106 00:07:01,839 --> 00:07:06,560 Speaker 1: he sees the study of paleontology is really kind of 107 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:09,920 Speaker 1: telling this sort of epic narrative of the history of 108 00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:14,200 Speaker 1: life on Earth. In that great narrative of who we 109 00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:18,200 Speaker 1: are and how we got here, Dinosaurs are among the 110 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:21,640 Speaker 1: most important players on land. I mean, they were ecologically 111 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:26,000 Speaker 1: dominant for one hundred and forty plus million years. Today 112 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:29,960 Speaker 1: there's still the most diverse group of terrestrial vertebrates in 113 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:35,360 Speaker 1: the form of birds. And what's fascinating about paleontology is 114 00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:38,520 Speaker 1: that we can only see these sort of glimmers, these 115 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:40,680 Speaker 1: fragments of the story, and we have to try to 116 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:43,560 Speaker 1: stitch together and make sense of it as best we can. 117 00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:47,760 Speaker 1: And so every time we look into the past, every 118 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:49,760 Speaker 1: time we find a new fossil or come up with 119 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:52,360 Speaker 1: a new way to learn something new from an old fossil, 120 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:57,000 Speaker 1: that narrative deepens it becomes more complex. I mean, in 121 00:07:57,040 --> 00:08:00,680 Speaker 1: the context of feathered dinosaurs. At this point, it's very 122 00:08:00,680 --> 00:08:07,520 Speaker 1: clear that flight evolved multiple times independently within dinosaurs, not 123 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:11,440 Speaker 1: just within the line that eventually yielded birds, which raises 124 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:13,720 Speaker 1: all sorts of interesting questions about the kind of the 125 00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:18,800 Speaker 1: evolutionary drivers to flight, the precursors to flight, the environmental 126 00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:22,880 Speaker 1: conditions that kind of, so the seeds for that. It's 127 00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:26,360 Speaker 1: such a fascinating thing. So yeah, I completely agree. Isn't 128 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:28,360 Speaker 1: there a belief now that part of the dinosaur family 129 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:33,160 Speaker 1: learned how to fly four different times? There wasn't this 130 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:37,760 Speaker 1: magic moment and then flight became universal, but rather at 131 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:42,240 Speaker 1: different times different animals tried it out, ranging from gliding 132 00:08:42,280 --> 00:08:46,840 Speaker 1: like the modern squirrel my good to gradually learning how 133 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:49,720 Speaker 1: to actually get in the air or how to climb 134 00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:51,920 Speaker 1: up on top of the tree and then glide your 135 00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:57,120 Speaker 1: way to the next tree. The range of evolution is extraordinary. 136 00:08:57,360 --> 00:08:59,800 Speaker 1: I mentioned either. I went over to the National Geographic 137 00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:05,800 Speaker 1: Museum's fascinating, small but brilliantly done collection covering a wide 138 00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:08,880 Speaker 1: range of things. At one point they had a spinosaurus there, 139 00:09:09,360 --> 00:09:12,520 Speaker 1: and spinosaurus is in some ways I think one of 140 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:15,880 Speaker 1: the most intriguing of the dinosaurs because it is, on 141 00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:18,560 Speaker 1: the one hand, it's very big, but it's very strange 142 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:21,640 Speaker 1: with the huge spine on the back and the very 143 00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:25,400 Speaker 1: long snout, almost like a gabia or fishing in crocodile. 144 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:29,880 Speaker 1: And apparently in the last three or four years has 145 00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:33,600 Speaker 1: been a real revolution and how we think about how 146 00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:37,800 Speaker 1: Spinosaurus has survived. Can you sort of describe the dramatic 147 00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:42,559 Speaker 1: change and how we now think about Spinosaurus. Absolutely, Spinosaurus, 148 00:09:43,160 --> 00:09:48,600 Speaker 1: it's really enigmatic, mysterious, large predatory dinosaur that lived in 149 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:52,160 Speaker 1: North Africa about ninety five to one hundred million years ago. 150 00:09:52,679 --> 00:09:56,679 Speaker 1: The original fossils that were used to define spinosaurs were 151 00:09:56,720 --> 00:09:59,360 Speaker 1: destroyed in World War Two, so that's been a big 152 00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:03,280 Speaker 1: kind of question mark ever since. The big debate has 153 00:10:03,360 --> 00:10:11,000 Speaker 1: hinged on howsaurs lived in regards to the water. Different 154 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:13,600 Speaker 1: parts of its anatomy, as you pointed out, this very 155 00:10:13,679 --> 00:10:17,400 Speaker 1: sort of garryl like snout, other aspects of its anatomy 156 00:10:17,800 --> 00:10:20,200 Speaker 1: led many researchers to be comfortable that this is an 157 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:22,440 Speaker 1: animal that was eating fish at least part of the time, 158 00:10:22,559 --> 00:10:24,600 Speaker 1: and that it was part of a group of dinosaurs. 159 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:30,160 Speaker 1: The spinosaurids that ate fish, among other things, perhaps waiting 160 00:10:30,160 --> 00:10:32,160 Speaker 1: in the shallows like a heron or a stork or 161 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:35,800 Speaker 1: something like that. But there's a gallatin that's coming out 162 00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:40,360 Speaker 1: of southeastern Morocco excavated by a team led by National 163 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:45,400 Speaker 1: Geographic Explorer Nizar Ibraheim, where Ibraheim and his colleagues are 164 00:10:45,400 --> 00:10:49,280 Speaker 1: making the case that this was far from just a 165 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:51,560 Speaker 1: heron or a stork on the shallows. This was an 166 00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:54,520 Speaker 1: animal that was swimming in the water that was about 167 00:10:54,559 --> 00:10:57,960 Speaker 1: as close to a river monster as a dinosaur could get. 168 00:10:58,520 --> 00:11:02,280 Speaker 1: This remains contentious and there is ongoing back and forth 169 00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:07,199 Speaker 1: among paleontologists. But the new fossil coming out of Morocco 170 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:11,920 Speaker 1: are adding fuel to this debate in a way that 171 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:14,680 Speaker 1: we haven't really seen in decades, which has been tremendously 172 00:11:14,679 --> 00:11:36,760 Speaker 1: exciting for the field. I was surprised to learn the 173 00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:40,640 Speaker 1: possibly the largest fossil market in the world is actually 174 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:44,439 Speaker 1: in Morocco. That the people collect all across the Sahara 175 00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:48,000 Speaker 1: and show up with this one town. And it's a 176 00:11:48,080 --> 00:11:51,440 Speaker 1: routine kind of thing to go there and find various fossils, 177 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:54,480 Speaker 1: not just dinosaurs across the board. You know, when you 178 00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:58,120 Speaker 1: look at spiniosaurs and you start to think about the 179 00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:03,600 Speaker 1: whole way life evolves. There have been consistent going back 180 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:07,079 Speaker 1: to the water to find fish and other prey, I 181 00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:11,079 Speaker 1: mean the phytosaurs early on, and the crocodiles actually stabilize 182 00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:14,640 Speaker 1: and they're right there next to the dinosaurs. They survived 183 00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:18,120 Speaker 1: the asteroid and they're still here and they haven't changed 184 00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:21,080 Speaker 1: much in a couple hundred million years because it turned 185 00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:24,080 Speaker 1: out to be a really successful kind of design, so 186 00:12:24,160 --> 00:12:28,360 Speaker 1: they just drift along being crocodilian. It's intriguing to me 187 00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:32,240 Speaker 1: how you get these different kind of patterns of what survives, 188 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:35,679 Speaker 1: what doesn't survive, what flourishes. And it goes all the 189 00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:39,440 Speaker 1: way back to the beginning with the dinosaurs, where in 190 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:42,599 Speaker 1: the early Triassic, the fact is that the mammal like 191 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:47,560 Speaker 1: reptiles were much more dominant and the dinosaurs were very tiny, 192 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,120 Speaker 1: scattered and not very important. And then suddenly there's an explosion. 193 00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:55,360 Speaker 1: Do you have any idea why? Paleontolisment have they begun 194 00:12:55,400 --> 00:12:57,960 Speaker 1: to figure out why did this explosion occur? Why do 195 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:00,680 Speaker 1: you suddenly in the mid delayed I actually get this 196 00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:04,360 Speaker 1: dominance of the dinosaurs, which prior to that has been 197 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:07,719 Speaker 1: a relatively small niche in life. There's a couple of 198 00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:10,080 Speaker 1: things going on here. I mean, there's been a lot 199 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:14,080 Speaker 1: of work recently at field sites all over the world 200 00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:17,560 Speaker 1: to try to still in as much of that early 201 00:13:17,640 --> 00:13:22,400 Speaker 1: diversity as possible. As you point out, the ecosystems in 202 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,880 Speaker 1: the early Triassic, so for reference, this is about two 203 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:30,559 Speaker 1: hundred and thirty million years ago, looked very different from 204 00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:34,000 Speaker 1: the ones in the early Jurassic, or let's call it 205 00:13:34,120 --> 00:13:38,240 Speaker 1: two hundred million years ago. There's some major turnover there. 206 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:42,080 Speaker 1: In part this is going to draw back to kind 207 00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:47,520 Speaker 1: of what's going on biogeographically. That is to say, you 208 00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:51,479 Speaker 1: have Pangaea and then kind of the breakup of Pangaea 209 00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:54,920 Speaker 1: beginning in the Jurassic and later that's playing a role 210 00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:59,480 Speaker 1: Pangia as all the continents coming together as one continent. Right, Yes, 211 00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:04,120 Speaker 1: it's one supercontinent. All the landmasses that we have today 212 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:07,520 Speaker 1: all jumbled back together in a big old mess. It's 213 00:14:07,559 --> 00:14:11,720 Speaker 1: also worth highlighting that there's a mass extinction event about 214 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:14,719 Speaker 1: two hundred and five million years ago at the end 215 00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:18,760 Speaker 1: of the Triappic, where a lot of the diversity that 216 00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:23,320 Speaker 1: you alluded to earlier, with these crocodilians. These crocodilian relatives 217 00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:27,240 Speaker 1: were quite diverse throughout the Triappic, and many go extinct 218 00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:30,360 Speaker 1: by the end of the Triassic early Jurassic. But part 219 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:33,760 Speaker 1: of what's interesting too is pale apologists are finding more 220 00:14:33,960 --> 00:14:39,880 Speaker 1: of these early dinosaur cousins. Like if one scampered by 221 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:42,600 Speaker 1: us on the trail, we'd be like, that's a dinosaur, 222 00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:46,760 Speaker 1: But in the finer anatomical details, isn't why the dinosaur 223 00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:50,280 Speaker 1: more of a quote unquote dinosaur a morph And so 224 00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:55,200 Speaker 1: researchers are finding more of these creatures and further back, 225 00:14:55,280 --> 00:15:00,280 Speaker 1: and so it's possible that that sort of short, sharp 226 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:04,520 Speaker 1: like profusion of dinosaurs in the late Triassic, when you 227 00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:07,120 Speaker 1: actually get the full fossil record, that might not be 228 00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:13,080 Speaker 1: as like dramatic an explosion as it currently looks. Certainly though, 229 00:15:13,160 --> 00:15:16,200 Speaker 1: I mean by the late Triaffic there's a big extinction 230 00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:19,320 Speaker 1: event that kind of sets the scene for dinosaurs to 231 00:15:19,360 --> 00:15:24,520 Speaker 1: really diversify going into the early Juraffic. So they're feeling 232 00:15:24,560 --> 00:15:28,760 Speaker 1: up all the spaces that have been vacated by species 233 00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:32,320 Speaker 1: that have gone extinct during I think it was a 234 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:38,359 Speaker 1: volcanic series. It was, indeed, Yeah, the end Triassic mass extinction. 235 00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:43,320 Speaker 1: The current thinking is that this was due to abrupt 236 00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:49,520 Speaker 1: warming from what was called the Central Atlantic Magmatic province, 237 00:15:49,680 --> 00:15:54,960 Speaker 1: which was this big volcanic complex in kind of Central 238 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:59,480 Speaker 1: Pangaea more or less kind of split now between like 239 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:03,600 Speaker 1: West Africa and South America and parts of North America 240 00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:06,520 Speaker 1: kind of when all that was together, there was sort 241 00:16:06,560 --> 00:16:11,840 Speaker 1: of this profound injection of greenhouse gases, and that that 242 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:16,960 Speaker 1: was enough to put pressure on global ecosystems and caused 243 00:16:16,960 --> 00:16:19,720 Speaker 1: the sort of faunal turnover. When you go into the 244 00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:24,480 Speaker 1: early Juraffic it's a fascinating narrative. When I was young, 245 00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:28,240 Speaker 1: we were in a cycle where dinosaurs were thought to 246 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:30,600 Speaker 1: be reptile like and so they would have had limited 247 00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:36,160 Speaker 1: ability to use oxygen, and they were shown much like lizards. Ironically, 248 00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:40,040 Speaker 1: in the original nineteenth century portraits, they were actually shown 249 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:42,800 Speaker 1: to be very aggressive and very much closer to mammal luck. 250 00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:45,200 Speaker 1: And then we went into the cycle of being like 251 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:51,000 Speaker 1: reptiles who can't really sustain activity very well. For example, 252 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:55,560 Speaker 1: the famous paintings of t Rex with its tail on 253 00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:58,920 Speaker 1: the ground. Now, for some reason, and I'm not sure 254 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:01,400 Speaker 1: whether this was ostrom or who had the breakthrough, but 255 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:05,119 Speaker 1: suddenly people thought, you know, that wouldn't work. But I 256 00:17:05,160 --> 00:17:07,879 Speaker 1: remember being with Jack Horner, He's even the Rockies, and 257 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:11,520 Speaker 1: he was showing me the growth rings of an ostrich 258 00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:16,200 Speaker 1: and triceratops and they were clearly growing at a rate 259 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:20,440 Speaker 1: which could not be sustained if they were reptiles. And 260 00:17:20,640 --> 00:17:23,880 Speaker 1: we now believe that they grow unbelievably fast from birth 261 00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,199 Speaker 1: to relatively full size. And then I was out at 262 00:17:27,200 --> 00:17:32,239 Speaker 1: the Monterey Aquarium. They tune a research facility and are 263 00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:35,840 Speaker 1: the one fish who have the functional equivalent of being 264 00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:39,639 Speaker 1: warm blooded, their muscular structure as such that they can 265 00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:42,920 Speaker 1: generate their own heat. And so I often to think 266 00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:48,120 Speaker 1: about this whole transition, and I don't know what insight 267 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:50,879 Speaker 1: it was that led people to move from sort of 268 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:54,960 Speaker 1: dinosaur as reptile to dinosaur as warm blooded or the 269 00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:58,880 Speaker 1: equivalent of warm blooded in their ability to use oxygen 270 00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:01,120 Speaker 1: and move. And I think we now believe that they 271 00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:04,840 Speaker 1: also may have had multiple place as much like birds do, 272 00:18:05,359 --> 00:18:08,600 Speaker 1: to store oxygen or to store air, so that they 273 00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:12,040 Speaker 1: could actually generate much much more energy than you would 274 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:14,600 Speaker 1: have thought as they were, say a lizard. Do you 275 00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:17,479 Speaker 1: know how that breakthrough occurred because I got well. I 276 00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,520 Speaker 1: think one of the things that's really exciting about where 277 00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:23,720 Speaker 1: we're at now is that researchers are really getting a 278 00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:28,760 Speaker 1: firmer grasp on the full diversity of metabolism that dinosaurs had, 279 00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:31,399 Speaker 1: and the ways that they're doing that are really cool. 280 00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:36,719 Speaker 1: So it's certainly true that like birdline, dinosaurs and modern 281 00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:42,520 Speaker 1: birds had really high metabolism and that there was this 282 00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:49,720 Speaker 1: synergistic relationship between smaller body size and metabolic efficiency and 283 00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:53,080 Speaker 1: metabolic rate. I think part of what's interesting here too 284 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:58,720 Speaker 1: is large dinoaurs, just by dint of their volume to 285 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:02,239 Speaker 1: their surface area, the bigger you are, the effective you 286 00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:05,359 Speaker 1: are at losing your body heat. In fact, on the 287 00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:11,119 Speaker 1: largest of dinosaurs, there was evolutionary pressure to basically have 288 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:15,679 Speaker 1: acci systems built into their skulls that they could just 289 00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:18,359 Speaker 1: dump heat out of their blood before it got to 290 00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:22,280 Speaker 1: the brain and caused problems there. So that's probably one 291 00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:26,080 Speaker 1: of the many factors that's driving gigantism in some lines 292 00:19:26,119 --> 00:19:30,199 Speaker 1: of dinosaurs. Had the opportunity to be a drake in 293 00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:35,280 Speaker 1: Philadelphia and see that the type specimen, which was on 294 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:38,600 Speaker 1: loan from Argentina of what I think is the largest 295 00:19:38,640 --> 00:19:41,880 Speaker 1: dons eily found so far. Part of what fascinates people 296 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:45,560 Speaker 1: are dinosaurs are You're talking about animals that could weigh 297 00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:48,960 Speaker 1: more than one hundred and ten thousand pounds six or 298 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:54,000 Speaker 1: seven elephants in one Why do you think they got 299 00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:58,040 Speaker 1: that big. There's been a lot of recent research kind 300 00:19:58,080 --> 00:20:01,400 Speaker 1: of flesh out the details here, but one of the factors, 301 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:06,960 Speaker 1: particularly among herbivores is the efficiency of fermentation. I mean, 302 00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:12,760 Speaker 1: I've talked to some researchers that analogize the large sauropods, 303 00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,680 Speaker 1: these large long necked dinosaurs you're referring to as basically 304 00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:23,400 Speaker 1: vacuum cleaners. Unstilled fermentation is how these animals were unlocking 305 00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:27,400 Speaker 1: nutrients from the plant matter they were eating, and that 306 00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:31,520 Speaker 1: fermentation becomes more efficient, they said, at the bigger the 307 00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:35,399 Speaker 1: tank you have, and this might be one of the 308 00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:42,159 Speaker 1: reasons why there is selective pressure for gigantism and some 309 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:47,400 Speaker 1: of these lines of plant eating dinosaurs. I've previously covered 310 00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:52,000 Speaker 1: an armored dinosaur that's found in Northern Alberta called boreal 311 00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:56,200 Speaker 1: Apelta Mark Mitchellians at the Royal Tyrol Museum of Paleontology. 312 00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:59,199 Speaker 1: It's basically the front half of an armored dinosaur like 313 00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:02,760 Speaker 1: preserved in three D. It's amazing. But one of the 314 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,119 Speaker 1: things that's really striking is when you walk up to 315 00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:10,560 Speaker 1: borealit felta, it's just how wide these dinosaurs were. I mean, 316 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:13,280 Speaker 1: they could have fit a lot of the plant matter 317 00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:17,480 Speaker 1: in their guts. These things were basically fermentation tanks on 318 00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:22,000 Speaker 1: still walking around. One of the many contributing factors to 319 00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:25,960 Speaker 1: like gigantism in dinostaur herbivores appears to be this sort 320 00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:30,560 Speaker 1: of fermentation efficiency angle. One of the things that enables 321 00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:36,199 Speaker 1: that gigantism too is just general growth patterns. And the 322 00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:40,960 Speaker 1: more we find of these late Triassic relatives of sauropods, 323 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:44,080 Speaker 1: these close cousins, there was more than one way that 324 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,160 Speaker 1: these animals could get big, in terms of the timing 325 00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:51,040 Speaker 1: of their growth spurts, terms of the overall trajectory of 326 00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:54,320 Speaker 1: their growth, in terms of the way that their limbs 327 00:21:54,760 --> 00:21:58,720 Speaker 1: sat beneath them. There was a lot of evolutionary experimentation, 328 00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:01,240 Speaker 1: but clearly there was a lot of pressure to get 329 00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:04,320 Speaker 1: big and to get big quick. Do you think that 330 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:06,520 Speaker 1: was in reaction to what was happening with plants at 331 00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:09,159 Speaker 1: that time, where there were there was an explosion of 332 00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:13,240 Speaker 1: plant that made it more desirable to be able to 333 00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:18,840 Speaker 1: absorb huge volume and prevented. It's a good question. I'm 334 00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:23,720 Speaker 1: not sure, to be honest with you. Certainly, to sustain 335 00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:30,600 Speaker 1: animals that large efficiently you need incredible amounts of plant material, 336 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:33,760 Speaker 1: kind of at the base of the food chain. I 337 00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,320 Speaker 1: don't know enough off the top of my head about 338 00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:41,280 Speaker 1: sort of plant evolution in the early Mesozoic. What's really 339 00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:48,440 Speaker 1: interesting though, on this topic is looking at patterns of 340 00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:53,640 Speaker 1: life more broadly in the Cretaceous periods of starting about 341 00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,399 Speaker 1: one hundred and forty five million years ago, and what 342 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,440 Speaker 1: starts to happen to ecosystems once flower plant come online. 343 00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:08,000 Speaker 1: There's some fabulous work on this looking at the fossil 344 00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:11,720 Speaker 1: record and the fossil insect record, which is an amazing 345 00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:16,800 Speaker 1: look into how ecosystems in the Cretaceous period are transforming 346 00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:22,000 Speaker 1: alongside dinosaurs as flowering plants come to the fore. So 347 00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:27,440 Speaker 1: I mean essentially this symbiotic relationship where as the plants change, 348 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,440 Speaker 1: the animals that live off the plants change, and then 349 00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:32,560 Speaker 1: the animals that live off the animals that live off 350 00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:37,520 Speaker 1: the plants change. So gigantism and herbivores leads in a 351 00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:42,760 Speaker 1: sense the gigantism and predators. Yeah, absolutely, in that sense 352 00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:47,680 Speaker 1: our understanding. Of example, for t Rex and other top predators, 353 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:52,359 Speaker 1: they were much faster than we used to think. They 354 00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:58,720 Speaker 1: had much greater ability to ambush predators, to move against 355 00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,640 Speaker 1: larger I'm not sure that even Rex took on the 356 00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:07,879 Speaker 1: very largest of the sauropods, just because their ability to 357 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,320 Speaker 1: whip their tail at basically supersonic speeds with so dangerous. 358 00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:16,960 Speaker 1: I've talked to paleontologists in past about how did the 359 00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:20,320 Speaker 1: largest of the sauropods, how did they fit into the 360 00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,320 Speaker 1: food web. Some of them have pointed out that like 361 00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:26,600 Speaker 1: when an old large sauropod died, it would have been 362 00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:30,399 Speaker 1: the equivalent to whalefall at the bottom of the ocean. 363 00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:35,120 Speaker 1: You know, when that happens in oceans today, the ocean 364 00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:39,479 Speaker 1: floor ecosystem, it's a great feast, it's a big party, 365 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:42,960 Speaker 1: and scavengers of all types of all sizes come out. 366 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:45,760 Speaker 1: So you probably would have had some of that with 367 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:49,800 Speaker 1: the largest of the sauropods. In terms of overall kind 368 00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:55,720 Speaker 1: of predator speed and agility. It's really interesting to see 369 00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,600 Speaker 1: this perspective refined among the tyrannosaurs. So I think at 370 00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:03,800 Speaker 1: this point the scholarly consensus on t Rex is that 371 00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:06,720 Speaker 1: a gifted human sprinter would have been able to outrun 372 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:09,960 Speaker 1: a t rex. But you also don't necessarily need to 373 00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:17,200 Speaker 1: move super fast to pursue prey for long periods. One 374 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,240 Speaker 1: of the things that's very clear though from the tyrannosaur 375 00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,240 Speaker 1: fossil record and the broader group of tyrannosaurs and their 376 00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:29,440 Speaker 1: immediate cousins is that they were very agile. They were 377 00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:35,640 Speaker 1: very efficient walkers, They could move very easily, and that 378 00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:40,320 Speaker 1: kind of the ability to move efficiently they could pursue 379 00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:47,080 Speaker 1: prey for long periods of time. So seeing how this research, 380 00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:50,879 Speaker 1: we're likely going to see an even more fine grained 381 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:54,720 Speaker 1: reconstruction of how t Rex and other predators moved, how 382 00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,800 Speaker 1: herbivores could move along the lines of exactly what you 383 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:17,320 Speaker 1: were saying with sauropods. At the very same time that 384 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,680 Speaker 1: one group of dinosaurs are getting bigger, another group is 385 00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:24,320 Speaker 1: getting smaller as they moved towards the abilitate slot. So 386 00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,840 Speaker 1: you sort of have dinosaurs filling every possible niche like 387 00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,520 Speaker 1: feathered flight, which leads to the notion that in fact, 388 00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:36,840 Speaker 1: dinosaur has never disappeared because they're flying around outside my window. 389 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,360 Speaker 1: Which was a real revolution. As a good example of 390 00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:44,280 Speaker 1: how science works. How did the revolution that came back 391 00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:49,040 Speaker 1: to believing that dinosaurs and birds were relatives? How did 392 00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:53,399 Speaker 1: that occur very early in the evolutionary discussions back in 393 00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,439 Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds. Some of this came up then, but 394 00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:01,080 Speaker 1: it fell out of favor. And this really kind of 395 00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,639 Speaker 1: kicks off, and you alluded to him. John Ostrom, this 396 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:10,360 Speaker 1: Gale paleontologist, found a dinosaur in western North America called Dynoicus. 397 00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:17,480 Speaker 1: You have these birdlike features Indicus. The overall build of 398 00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,800 Speaker 1: the animal is that of sort of this agile predator, 399 00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,480 Speaker 1: and it's got a lot of these key avian or 400 00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:28,399 Speaker 1: birdlike features. So Dynonicus really kind of sets the stage 401 00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,919 Speaker 1: for this. And as you alluded to, Ostrom and his 402 00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:37,159 Speaker 1: protege Bob Baker really advanced this case that dinosaurs were agile, 403 00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,080 Speaker 1: that they had higher metabolisms, they weren't just sort of 404 00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:45,000 Speaker 1: these slow dope, lumbering giants that kind of shuffle off 405 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,200 Speaker 1: at the end of them as a zoic. The thing 406 00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,800 Speaker 1: that really kind of blows this wide open is all 407 00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,120 Speaker 1: of the work coming out of China, these really important 408 00:27:54,119 --> 00:28:02,240 Speaker 1: fossil sites that preserve planist day feathered dinosaurs. That's been transformative, 409 00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,760 Speaker 1: and what's really cool is that that has filled in 410 00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,360 Speaker 1: a really compelling picture of the evolution of flight. I mean, 411 00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,840 Speaker 1: feathers didn't evolve initially for the purpose of flight. They 412 00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:20,080 Speaker 1: were an existing kind of trait that evolution then acted 413 00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,760 Speaker 1: on in a way that then conferred flight. So they 414 00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:28,840 Speaker 1: originally evolved maybe as like signaling, maybe as thermal structure 415 00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,480 Speaker 1: to help with installation. And you see that in the 416 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:35,760 Speaker 1: fossil record, some of these early critters with the sort 417 00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:40,920 Speaker 1: of very kind of filamentee almost kind of hair like feathers. 418 00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:44,240 Speaker 1: But then as evolution acts on that, and as there's 419 00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:48,239 Speaker 1: this push toward flight, you eventually see the kinds of 420 00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:52,760 Speaker 1: asymmetric VAM feathers that we would recognize today on the 421 00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,200 Speaker 1: wings of birds. Only you see them, you know, in 422 00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,160 Speaker 1: the AFLA record, well more than one hundred million years ago. 423 00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:04,120 Speaker 1: That progression, based on the discovery of new fossil material 424 00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:08,760 Speaker 1: over a period of decades really solidifies this view that 425 00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:14,120 Speaker 1: birds aren't just descendants of dinosaurs now they are sapod dinosaurs. 426 00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:20,480 Speaker 1: They're as much a dinosaur as t Rex, Triceratops, Rackysaurus. 427 00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:24,040 Speaker 1: They're still with us today. Kind of breakthroughs you're discovering, though, 428 00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,840 Speaker 1: the ability to look at individual feathers. How much of 429 00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:33,280 Speaker 1: that of the new technologies and our ability to go 430 00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,080 Speaker 1: back and look at fossils we already have but suddenly 431 00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:41,000 Speaker 1: see them in totally different ways. Certainly, new technologies have 432 00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:47,640 Speaker 1: enabled researchers to go back and look at past fossils 433 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,240 Speaker 1: in a new light. You know, I think about, for instance, 434 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:56,040 Speaker 1: you mentioned archaeopters earlier discovered in Germany in the early 435 00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:00,160 Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. There's the body fossils of archaeopterics, but the 436 00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:04,440 Speaker 1: original fossil of archaeopters is actually an isolated feather, the 437 00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:10,560 Speaker 1: original fossil named archaeopterics lithographica. So there's been modern work 438 00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,400 Speaker 1: to be able to go back to that feather and 439 00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:17,720 Speaker 1: look at the pigmentation in that feather and to actually 440 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,920 Speaker 1: say something about what color it was, which is just 441 00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,280 Speaker 1: sort of a wild advance that's really blossomed in the 442 00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:27,720 Speaker 1: last couple of decades. It was matt black, by the way, 443 00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,040 Speaker 1: that's the current thinking for some of these fossils too. 444 00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,760 Speaker 1: In all likelihood. There were feathered dinosaurs that were found 445 00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:39,240 Speaker 1: decades ago, not necessarily just in China but elsewhere, but 446 00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,680 Speaker 1: paleontologists blacked what's called the search image. They didn't know 447 00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:47,160 Speaker 1: what they were looking for, and something could be you know, oh, 448 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,520 Speaker 1: well it's just an organic ring. Maybe it's just plant material. 449 00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:56,040 Speaker 1: And there's interest in getting down to the bones because 450 00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,200 Speaker 1: that's where there's so much of that important anatomical information. 451 00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,240 Speaker 1: And so without really knowing, you just kind of blow 452 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:07,320 Speaker 1: right through these feathers. Now paleontologists know that they're there 453 00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,440 Speaker 1: and are a lot more careful in making sure that 454 00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,440 Speaker 1: they don't just prepare straight through them, and they can 455 00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:19,920 Speaker 1: preserve them for future chemical and imaging study. When you 456 00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,920 Speaker 1: look ahead, do you see the field just continuing to accelerate. 457 00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:28,480 Speaker 1: Do you expect to have even more breakthroughs and greater 458 00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:33,560 Speaker 1: advances in our understanding of life in the MISSISSOI yeah, absolutely. 459 00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:37,320 Speaker 1: When I talk to researchers, today is sort of a 460 00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:41,600 Speaker 1: golden age of paleontology, but they're also so excited for 461 00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,440 Speaker 1: what's to come. For one, there's going to be new 462 00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,280 Speaker 1: fossil material that's going to be found. Who knows what 463 00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:52,320 Speaker 1: that's going to be I love a good surprise paleontologists, 464 00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:56,000 Speaker 1: so that's always going to be exciting. And then there 465 00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:59,520 Speaker 1: are these new and interesting techniques that are coming online 466 00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,960 Speaker 1: to analyze old fossils in new ways. I mean, I 467 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:07,200 Speaker 1: think on the chemistry front, this is going to be incredible. 468 00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,960 Speaker 1: There's work in the last couple of decades looking into 469 00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:18,720 Speaker 1: whether things like proteins can fossilize. If so, how altered 470 00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,040 Speaker 1: did they become. And when you've got this sort of 471 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:27,360 Speaker 1: altered protein dinoschmutz in your fossil, what can you learn 472 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,440 Speaker 1: from it. Early signs are that in some cases this 473 00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,680 Speaker 1: might preserve things like egg color, it might preserve things 474 00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,880 Speaker 1: like metabolism. You could use this as a signal to 475 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,520 Speaker 1: build evolutionary family trees and figure out how different groups 476 00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,440 Speaker 1: are related to each other. Who knows what the future 477 00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:47,160 Speaker 1: holds there, but I think that's really profoundly exciting to 478 00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,160 Speaker 1: be able to look at the bone of an animal 479 00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,160 Speaker 1: that lived and died more than one hundred million years 480 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:57,680 Speaker 1: ago and say something meaningful about how it lived day 481 00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,800 Speaker 1: to day, what it's metabolism look like. I mean, that's 482 00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,720 Speaker 1: such a profound kind of collision of past in present 483 00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:08,520 Speaker 1: So the Spielberg who are doing Jurassic Park today, how 484 00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:12,880 Speaker 1: would given all the discoveries of the last twenty five years. 485 00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:17,240 Speaker 1: Great question, Well, I think you'd see a lot more feathers. 486 00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:21,640 Speaker 1: I love the Jurassic Park in Jurassic World movies. That 487 00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,960 Speaker 1: is a consistent sticking away from me. Though, if you're 488 00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,760 Speaker 1: going to do the Jurassic Park reboot, I think you 489 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,160 Speaker 1: could come up with a different kind of origin story, 490 00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,440 Speaker 1: for like how you get the dinosaurs. In all likelihood, 491 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,920 Speaker 1: DNA doesn't fossilize well, kind of passed a couple million 492 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,440 Speaker 1: years or so, so I think it's unlikely we're going 493 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:44,080 Speaker 1: to get sort of the drill into a mosquito scenario 494 00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:47,400 Speaker 1: that we saw beautifully in the film. But there is 495 00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:53,560 Speaker 1: a ton of incredible work to understand kind of the 496 00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:58,720 Speaker 1: developmental biology that underpins modern living things and fossil ones. 497 00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:01,560 Speaker 1: For instance, on j and Buller, the Yale professor I 498 00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:05,760 Speaker 1: alluded to earlier is doing research on like quails and 499 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,880 Speaker 1: chickens and turtles and geckos to try to figure out 500 00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:13,319 Speaker 1: kind of the basic processes that govern how the space 501 00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:18,160 Speaker 1: is formed, and a couple of years ago figured out 502 00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:22,719 Speaker 1: kind of the key genetic processes by which you get 503 00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:25,200 Speaker 1: either a beak or kind of a snout that looks 504 00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,600 Speaker 1: a lot like a dinosaur snout. If Spielberg we're doing 505 00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,239 Speaker 1: Jurassic Park from scratch today, I would say, you know, 506 00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:39,040 Speaker 1: you get dinosaurs by studying the fundamental developmental biology of 507 00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:45,840 Speaker 1: all of these dinosaur relatives, right, birds, crocodilians, reptiles more generally, 508 00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,880 Speaker 1: combining that with the fossil record, and then sort of 509 00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:52,640 Speaker 1: reverse engineering the genetics of what it takes to build 510 00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:56,960 Speaker 1: something that looks like a dinosaur. We're on that trajectory 511 00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,960 Speaker 1: at least to learn those things, not necessarily to build 512 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,960 Speaker 1: a chicken. Thus that's a separate conversation entirely. That's wild, 513 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,040 Speaker 1: that's amazing. I just want to say that I think 514 00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:13,080 Speaker 1: the work you did in this particular edition of National 515 00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,479 Speaker 1: Geographer is terrific, and I have a hunch you're gonna 516 00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:18,200 Speaker 1: have a lot more to report on over the next 517 00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:22,400 Speaker 1: ten or twenty years, as we have more paleontologists in 518 00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:27,200 Speaker 1: more places with better technologies. And I'm very grateful that 519 00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,600 Speaker 1: you take this kind of time, how that you're busy 520 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,200 Speaker 1: schedule to share with a different kind of audience all 521 00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,640 Speaker 1: the different things that are happening with dinosaurs, and also 522 00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,279 Speaker 1: to hopefully convince a good number of them to visit 523 00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:43,440 Speaker 1: Mattgeo dot com slash dinos and see what you actually 524 00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:46,720 Speaker 1: have done on reporting on dinosaurs. I really appreciate Michael 525 00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,480 Speaker 1: you're taking this time to view this absolutely. Thank you 526 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:54,879 Speaker 1: so much for having me. Thank you to my guest 527 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:59,080 Speaker 1: Michael Greshco. You can read more about new dinosaur discoveries 528 00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,040 Speaker 1: and get a link to Michael's cover story on our 529 00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,640 Speaker 1: show page at newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by 530 00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:11,680 Speaker 1: Gingwish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Debbie Myers, 531 00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:16,200 Speaker 1: our producer is Garnsey Sloan, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. 532 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,920 Speaker 1: The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penny 533 00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,440 Speaker 1: special thanks to the team at Gingwich three sixty. If 534 00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:25,880 Speaker 1: you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you will go to 535 00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:29,319 Speaker 1: Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and 536 00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,319 Speaker 1: give us a review so others can learn what it's 537 00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:36,600 Speaker 1: all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up 538 00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:40,240 Speaker 1: for my three free weekly columns at Gingwish three sixty 539 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:45,200 Speaker 1: dot com slash newsletter. I'm newt gingwish. This is Newtsworld,