Episodes
Episode 1
How our deadliest parasite turned to the dark side
January 11, 202210m0.0
Around 10,000 years ago, somewhere in Africa, a microscopic parasite made a huge leap. With a little help from a mosquito, it left its animal host - probably a gorilla - and found its way to a new host: us.
Episode 2
Primates vs Snakes (An Evolutionary Arms Race)
January 19, 202210m0.0
The Snake Detection Hypothesis proposes that the ability to quickly spot and avoid snakes is deeply embedded in primates, including us - an evolutionary consequence of the danger snakes have posed to us over millions of years.
Episode 3
How the Rise of Social Insects Shrunk These Dinosaurs
January 27, 202210m0.0
We often think of dinosaurs as either preying on other dinos or mammals, or as plant-eaters -- but in ecosystems today, those aren’t the only two options. So why would we expect dinosaurs to have only been carnivores or herbivores, with the occasional omnivore thrown in the mix?
Episode 4
How Vertebrates Got Teeth... And Lost Them Again
February 8, 202210m0.0
As revolutionary as teeth were, they would go on to disappear in some groups of vertebrates. But why?
Episode 5
How Horses Went From Food To Friends
February 16, 202210m0.0
Do our modern horses descend from just one domesticated population, or did it happen many times, in many places? Answering these questions has been tricky, as we’ve needed to bring together evidence from art, archaeology, and ancient DNA…Because, as it turns out, the history of humans and horses has been a pretty wild ride.
Episode 6
Why We Only Have Ten Toes (It's a Long Story)
February 23, 202210m0.0
Today, all mammals from humans to bats have five fingers or fewer. Yes, even whales, whose finger bones are hidden in their fins. Birds have four or fewer and amphibians get the best of both worlds, often having four digits on their “hands” and five on their “feet.” But no species of vertebrates have more than five digits, let alone eight!
Episode 7
Sharks nearly went extinct 19 million years ago #shorts
March 2, 20221m0.0
There used to be SO MANY sharks...where did they go?
Episode 8
Dire wolves aren’t wolves at all #shorts
March 3, 20221m0.0
Dire wolves aren’t actually wolves but what they are might be even cooler.
Episode 9
Could humans survive if they traveled back in time 3 billion years? #shorts
March 4, 20221m0.0
Could humans survive during the Precambrian?
Episode 10
Some trees are more closely related to broccoli than to other trees #shorts
March 7, 20221m0.0
Don’t be fooled by convergent evolution.
Episode 11
Human knees are the worst and we have evolution to thank for that #shorts
March 8, 20221m0.0
Why do human knees suck?
Episode 12
A crater in Turkmenistan has been on fire for about 50 years #shorts
March 10, 20221m0.0
And it’s been reported that one of the geologists started it on purpose?
Episode 13
When a Giant Pterosaur Ruled the European Islands
March 15, 202210m0.0
The ecological niche of apex predators was empty on Hateg Island, waiting to be occupied by something large, mobile, and powerful enough to fill it.
Episode 14
Only one human has been excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits #shorts
March 17, 20221m0.0
Episode 15
Could humans survive a giant space rock colliding with Earth 66 million years ago? #shorts
March 18, 20221m0.0
Would you have survived the K-Pg Impact?
Episode 16
The Sudden Rise of the First Colossal Animal
March 22, 202210m0.0
A truly enormous ichthyosaur around the size of a modern sperm whale, reached its size within just a few million years of taking to the water - a blink of an eye in evolutionary time.
Episode 17
The Tasmanian tiger is definitely extinct. So why do people keep report sightings of them? #shorts
March 25, 20221m0.0
Thylacines are definitely extinct!
Episode 18
The Extreme Hyenas That Didn't Last
March 29, 202210m0.0
Hyenas weren’t always able to eat bones. In fact, only a few million years ago, they lived very different lives.
Episode 19
Who forged one of the most famous fake fossils of all time? #shorts
March 31, 20221m0.0
Episode 20
After this bird went extinct the first time, evolution just hit replay #shorts
April 4, 20221m0.0
The bird that evolved twice!
Episode 21
Someone lost the only fossil from what might’ve been the biggest dinosaur ever #shorts
April 5, 20221m0.0
Episode 22
Would you have survived the biggest mass extinction of all time? #shorts
April 6, 20221m0.0
Episode 23
An ancient insect trapped in amber has a parasitic mushroom erupting out of it? #shorts
April 8, 20221m0.0
I will pass on the parasitic mind-controlling mushroom, thanks
Episode 24
How the Smallest Animal Got So Simple
April 13, 20228m0.0
We tend to think that evolution only goes in one direction— toward getting bigger and more advanced. But that’s not always the case. This tiny, simple animal, the Myxozoans, (yes, animal!) evolved from something bigger and more complex.
Episode 25
We know a lot about dinosaurs but...what was the first dinosaur? #shorts
April 14, 20221m0.0
Episode 26
Why Sour May Be The Oldest Taste
April 20, 20228m0.0
While sour taste's original purpose was to warn vertebrates of danger, in a few animal groups, including us, its role has reversed. The taste of danger became something it was dangerous for us to avoid.
Episode 27
The Ancient Human Species With A Missing Body
April 27, 202210m0.0
Only a handful of Denisovan fossils have been identified. In the absence of actual body fossils, it’s impossible for us to reconstruct their morphology, right?
Episode 28
Are there dinosaur fossils in space? #shorts
May 2, 20221m0.0
Episode 29
Why don’t rabbits get really, really big? #shorts
May 3, 20221m0.0
Episode 30
An extinct human species was discovered deep within a cave system #shorts
May 4, 20221m0.0
Episode 31
When Ants Domesticated Fungi
May 10, 202210m0.0
While we’ve been farming for around 10,000 to 12,000 years, the ancestors of ants have been doing it for around 60 million years. So when, and how, and why did ants start … farming?
Episode 32
The Curious Case of the Cave Lion
May 17, 20229m0.0
A mysterious, large feline roamed Eurasia during the last ice age. Its fossils have been found across the continent, and it’s been the subject of ancient artwork. So what exactly were these big cats?
Episode 33
Is This The Oldest Dad In The Fossil Record?
May 26, 20228m0.0
Fossil evidence suggests Diictodon used burrows to breed, and that a parent stayed behind to feed and protect their young. And the parent that stayed behind? It might’ve been the male.
Episode 34
Why did so many predators die at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry? #shorts
May 27, 20221m0.0
There’s something weird going on at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in what’s now Utah.
Episode 35
What is the most successful human species? #shorts
May 31, 20221m0.0
Does Homo erectus beat out Homo sapiens?
Episode 36
Sharks have antibacterial skin. Can we use that to save lives? #shorts
June 1, 20221m0.0
Sometimes modern problems require ancient, evolutionary solutions.
Episode 37
This Ice Age pup's last meal was a woolly rhino #shorts
June 2, 20221m0.0
What was this ancient pup’s last meal?
Episode 38
What came first, the sabertooth or the cat? #shorts
June 3, 20221m0.0
The newest oldest saber-toothed mammal
Episode 39
How To Build A Woolly Mammoth (But Should We?)
June 8, 20228m0.0
In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.
Episode 40
Something Has Been Making This Mark For 500 Million Years
June 15, 202211m0.0
Paleodictyon, a hexagonal-patterned fossil, is a bit of a mystery. We don’t even know if it’s a trace fossil, or the organism itself. So… what could it be?
Episode 41
Giant Viruses Blur The Line Between Alive and Not
June 29, 202210m0.0
In 2003, microbiologists made a huge discovery. One that would force us to reconsider a lot of what we thought we knew about the evolution of microbial life: giant viruses.
Episode 42
This new giant bacterium is visible to the naked eye #shorts
July 6, 20221m0.0
Microbiology goes macro with a new giant bacterium!
Episode 43
Another Spinosaurus study, another opportunity to debate if Spinosaurus was aquatic #shorts
July 7, 20221m0.0
Spinosaurus had dense bones!
Episode 44
There were dinosaurs with basically no arms at all, just hands! #shorts
July 8, 20221m0.0
Guemesia: a new no-arm dino
Episode 45
When Giant Millipedes Reigned
July 13, 20228m0.0
This giant millipede was the largest known invertebrate to ever live on land. So how did it get so big??
Episode 46
How Plate Tectonics Transformed Los Angeles
July 21, 202214m0.0
Despite the profound changes we’ve made here in recent history, the epic saga of Los Angeles' natural history is still visible - and even striking - if you know where and how to look for it.
Episode 47
Why Does Caffeine Exist?
July 28, 202211m0.0
Today, billions of people around the world start their day with caffeine. But how and why did the ability to produce this molecule independently evolve in multiple, distantly-related lineages of flowering plants, again and again?
Episode 48
This was the biggest earthquake humans ever experienced #shorts
August 3, 20221m0.0
One of the biggest earthquakes humans ever experienced happened around 3800 years ago in what's now northern Chile.
Episode 49
Someone stole two of the most important documents in the history of science #shorts
August 3, 20221m0.0
We have no idea where they were all this time, or who stole and returned them and why.
Episode 50
You can thank evolution for flesh-eating bees #shorts
August 5, 20221m0.0
Flesh-eating bees exist!
Episode 51
This is one of the oldest art workshops ever discovered! #shorts
August 5, 20221m0.0
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient art workshop
Episode 52
Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?
August 11, 20229m0.0
There is one - and only one - group of mammals that doesn’t have alpha-gal: the catarrhine primates, which are the monkeys of Africa and Asia, the apes, and us.
Episode 53
How Whale Evolution Kind Of Sucked
August 18, 202211m0.0
Mystacodon is the earliest known mysticete, the group that, today, we call the baleen whales. But if this was a baleen whale, where was its baleen? Where did baleen come from? And how did it live without it?
Episode 54
The Fungi That Turned Ants Into Zombies
August 23, 20229m0.0
This fungus was actually manipulating ants’ movements, forcing them to do something they’d never ordinarily do, something strange, yet specific…
Episode 55
Did you know that fossils can get sick? #shorts
August 31, 20221m0.0
Did you know that fossils can get sick? – Specifically with Pyrite Disease
Episode 56
A supervolcano in Idaho once caused a disaster 900 miles away. #shorts
September 8, 20221m0.0
Disaster in the great plains!
Episode 57
A bunch of very important fossils disappeared during WWII. #shorts
September 9, 20221m0.0
80 years ago, a bunch of fossils of ancient humans disappeared.
Episode 58
Did this animal poop cubes? Giant cubes? #shorts
September 13, 20221m0.0
Congrats! You just found a wombat burrow. And the cubes are its poop.
Episode 59
Are wisdom teeth a problem for us because of evolution? Or because of our development? #shorts
September 14, 20221m0.0
Wisdom teeth can be such a pain
Episode 60
Our extinct relative was an ancient leopard’s lunch. #shorts
September 16, 20221m0.0
Paranthropus got chomped by a leopard
Episode 61
When did we start wearing clothes? #shorts
September 17, 20221m0.0
We didn’t always wear clothes!
Episode 62
Did Megalodon go after whale faces specifically? #shorts
September 22, 20221m0.0
Ancient sperm whale heads belonged on every shark-cuterie board
Episode 63
Where Did Water Come From?
September 27, 202212m0.0
Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all super low on water – so where did ours come from and why do we have so much of it? We think our water came from a few unlikely sources: meteorites, space dust, and even the sun.
Episode 64
Our Ancient Relative That Said 'No Thanks' To Life On Land
October 4, 202210m0.0
Around the time that some of our fishapod relatives were crawling out of the water, others were turning around and diving right back in.
Episode 65
Imagine a cat's mouth fully covering up their saber teeth. #shorts
October 5, 20221m0.0
We might’ve been wrong about how this saber-toothed cat looked
Episode 66
Darwin correctly predicted an animal existed without ever seeing it. #shorts
October 7, 20221m0.0
Sometimes evolution is completely predictable.
Episode 67
Neandertals weren’t dumb cavemen. In lots of ways, they were just like us. #shorts
October 10, 20221m0.0
Shanidar 1 got by with a little help from his friends
Episode 68
Here are two ways to get a fossil species named after you. #shorts
October 14, 20221m0.0
Here are two ways to get a fossil species named after you.