Darwin's Unexpected Final Obsession
After having solved the small matter of evolution by natural selection - becoming one of the most famous scientists in the world in the process - Charles Darwin turned his focus to a different personal obsession…
Episodes
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Darwin's Unexpected Final Obsession
S7 E21 - 12m 12s
After having solved the small matter of evolution by natural selection - becoming one of the most famous scientists in the world in the process - Charles Darwin turned his focus to a different personal obsession…
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Are All Oceans Basically Reincarnated?
S7 E20 - 12m 29s
This is the hundred-year tale of how an unlikely bunch of bottom-dwelling marine critters helped reveal that ocean basins are basically reincarnated every few hundred million years.
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Could This Sperm Whale Eat The Meg?
S7 E19 - 8m 36s
Unlike in fiction, giant whales do not emerge fully-formed from the ocean deep. So, where did Livyatan melvillei come from? How did such a large predator live? And what caused the titan to die out? The answer may lie in an appetite so large, it may have eaten itself to extinction...So, where did Livyatan melvillei come from?
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When Red Pandas Roamed North America
S7 E18 - 9m 41s
How did a relative of the red panda end up in North America? What can this tell us about how long ago – and how many times – North America was connected to Europe and Asia?
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Webs vs wings: The arms race of the air
S7 E17 - 8m 10s
Spiders and their ancestors have been driving an arms race that began before either stepped foot onto land and resulted in the first powered flight on Earth. But how did this competition of webs versus wings drive such a massive evolutionary adaptation into an entirely new realm?
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The Graveyard at the Center of the Earth
S7 E16 - 12m 38s
Scientists have been trying to solve the mystery of why plate tectonics works the way it does for over a hundred years. And they might have just uncovered a key to cracking it.
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Why Wasn't There A Second Age of Reptiles?
S7 E15 - 9m 59s
An asteroid impact triggered the K-Pg mass extinction, wiping out the non-avian dinosaurs, ending the Age of Reptiles, and ushering in the Age of Mammals. But why was it the mammals who triumphed?
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How Mountains Make Evolution Weird
S7 E14 - 10m 9s
Mountains have a unique effect on diversity, messing with our understanding of animals through time, and pretty much just making evolution weird. And they would eventually reveal something even stranger about a group of mammals even closer to home: primates.
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The Mystery of the Cretaceous Pompeii
S7 E13 - 10m 39s
Since the 1990s, paleontologists have been pulling 125-million-year-old complete dinosaur skeletons from the rocks of the Lujiatun in Northeastern China, most seemingly posed in perfect rest. This has prompted comparisons to a famous archeological site where behavior is similarly well preserved: the site of Pompeii, a town crystallized by volcanic eruption almost 2000 years ago.
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How Asteroids Set the Stage for Life on Earth
S7 E12 - 10m 38s
We may have planet-shattering asteroids to thank for the origin of life on Earth.
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https://pbs.app.box.com/folder/305023509307
S7 E12 - 10m 38s
We may have planet-shattering asteroids to thank for the origin of life on Earth.
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When Neandertals Became Apex Predators
S7 E11 - 11m 50s
Climbing to the summit of the Eurasian food chain was one of the Neandertals’ most impressive evolutionary feats, but in the end, it may have actually been what doomed them.
Extras + Features
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A Quick Introduction to Eons
S1 - 1m 28s
Join hosts Hank Green, Kallie Moore, and Blake de Pastino as they take you on a journey through the history of life on Earth. From the dawn of life in the Archaean Eon through the Mesozoic Era — the so-called “Age of Dinosaurs” -- right up to the end of the most recent Ice Age. The evolutionary history of mammals including humans and other modern species is explored with these amazing paleontology
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