Broadcast date
2022-01-11 • 68 episodes
Episodes of this season
1. How our deadliest parasite turned to the dark side
event 2022-01-11 • schedule 10m
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.
2. Primates vs Snakes (An Evolutionary Arms Race)
event 2022-01-19 • schedule 10m
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.
3. How the Rise of Social Insects Shrunk These Dinosaurs
event 2022-01-27 • schedule 10m
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?
4. How Vertebrates Got Teeth... And Lost Them Again
event 2022-02-08 • schedule 10m
As revolutionary as teeth were, they would go on to disappear in some groups of vertebrates. But why?
5. How Horses Went From Food To Friends
event 2022-02-16 • schedule 10m
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.
6. Why We Only Have Ten Toes (It's a Long Story)
event 2022-02-23 • schedule 10m
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!
7. Sharks nearly went extinct 19 million years ago #shorts
event 2022-03-02 • schedule 1m
There used to be SO MANY sharks...where did they go?
8. Dire wolves aren’t wolves at all #shorts
event 2022-03-03 • schedule 1m
Dire wolves aren’t actually wolves but what they are might be even cooler.
9. Could humans survive if they traveled back in time 3 billion years? #shorts
event 2022-03-04 • schedule 1m
Could humans survive during the Precambrian?
10. Some trees are more closely related to broccoli than to other trees #shorts
event 2022-03-07 • schedule 1m
Don’t be fooled by convergent evolution.
11. Human knees are the worst and we have evolution to thank for that #shorts
event 2022-03-08 • schedule 1m
Why do human knees suck?
12. A crater in Turkmenistan has been on fire for about 50 years #shorts
event 2022-03-10 • schedule 1m
And it’s been reported that one of the geologists started it on purpose?
13. When a Giant Pterosaur Ruled the European Islands
event 2022-03-15 • schedule 10m
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.
14. Only one human has been excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits #shorts
event 2022-03-17 • schedule 1m
15. Could humans survive a giant space rock colliding with Earth 66 million years ago? #shorts
event 2022-03-18 • schedule 1m
Would you have survived the K-Pg Impact?
16. The Sudden Rise of the First Colossal Animal
event 2022-03-22 • schedule 10m
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.
17. The Tasmanian tiger is definitely extinct. So why do people keep report sightings of them? #shorts
event 2022-03-25 • schedule 1m
Thylacines are definitely extinct!
18. The Extreme Hyenas That Didn't Last
event 2022-03-29 • schedule 10m
Hyenas weren’t always able to eat bones. In fact, only a few million years ago, they lived very different lives.
19. Who forged one of the most famous fake fossils of all time? #shorts
event 2022-03-31 • schedule 1m
20. After this bird went extinct the first time, evolution just hit replay #shorts
event 2022-04-04 • schedule 1m
The bird that evolved twice!
21. Someone lost the only fossil from what might’ve been the biggest dinosaur ever #shorts
event 2022-04-05 • schedule 1m
22. Would you have survived the biggest mass extinction of all time? #shorts
event 2022-04-06 • schedule 1m
23. An ancient insect trapped in amber has a parasitic mushroom erupting out of it? #shorts
event 2022-04-08 • schedule 1m
I will pass on the parasitic mind-controlling mushroom, thanks
24. How the Smallest Animal Got So Simple
event 2022-04-13 • schedule 8m
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.
25. We know a lot about dinosaurs but...what was the first dinosaur? #shorts
event 2022-04-14 • schedule 1m
26. Why Sour May Be The Oldest Taste
event 2022-04-20 • schedule 8m
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.
27. The Ancient Human Species With A Missing Body
event 2022-04-27 • schedule 10m
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?
28. Are there dinosaur fossils in space? #shorts
event 2022-05-02 • schedule 1m
29. Why don’t rabbits get really, really big? #shorts
event 2022-05-03 • schedule 1m
30. An extinct human species was discovered deep within a cave system #shorts
event 2022-05-04 • schedule 1m
31. When Ants Domesticated Fungi
event 2022-05-10 • schedule 10m
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?
32. The Curious Case of the Cave Lion
event 2022-05-17 • schedule 9m
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?
33. Is This The Oldest Dad In The Fossil Record?
event 2022-05-26 • schedule 8m
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.
34. Why did so many predators die at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry? #shorts
event 2022-05-27 • schedule 1m
There’s something weird going on at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in what’s now Utah.
35. What is the most successful human species? #shorts
event 2022-05-31 • schedule 1m
Does Homo erectus beat out Homo sapiens?
36. Sharks have antibacterial skin. Can we use that to save lives? #shorts
event 2022-06-01 • schedule 1m
Sometimes modern problems require ancient, evolutionary solutions.
37. This Ice Age pup's last meal was a woolly rhino #shorts
event 2022-06-02 • schedule 1m
What was this ancient pup’s last meal?
38. What came first, the sabertooth or the cat? #shorts
event 2022-06-03 • schedule 1m
The newest oldest saber-toothed mammal
39. How To Build A Woolly Mammoth (But Should We?)
event 2022-06-08 • schedule 8m
In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.
40. Something Has Been Making This Mark For 500 Million Years
event 2022-06-15 • schedule 11m
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?
41. Giant Viruses Blur The Line Between Alive and Not
event 2022-06-29 • schedule 10m
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.
42. This new giant bacterium is visible to the naked eye #shorts
event 2022-07-06 • schedule 1m
Microbiology goes macro with a new giant bacterium!
43. Another Spinosaurus study, another opportunity to debate if Spinosaurus was aquatic #shorts
event 2022-07-07 • schedule 1m
Spinosaurus had dense bones!
44. There were dinosaurs with basically no arms at all, just hands! #shorts
event 2022-07-08 • schedule 1m
Guemesia: a new no-arm dino
45. When Giant Millipedes Reigned
event 2022-07-13 • schedule 8m
This giant millipede was the largest known invertebrate to ever live on land. So how did it get so big??
46. How Plate Tectonics Transformed Los Angeles
event 2022-07-21 • schedule 14m
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.
47. Why Does Caffeine Exist?
event 2022-07-28 • schedule 11m
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?
48. This was the biggest earthquake humans ever experienced #shorts
event 2022-08-03 • schedule 1m
One of the biggest earthquakes humans ever experienced happened around 3800 years ago in what's now northern Chile.
49. Someone stole two of the most important documents in the history of science #shorts
event 2022-08-03 • schedule 1m
We have no idea where they were all this time, or who stole and returned them and why.
50. You can thank evolution for flesh-eating bees #shorts
event 2022-08-05 • schedule 1m
Flesh-eating bees exist!
51. This is one of the oldest art workshops ever discovered! #shorts
event 2022-08-05 • schedule 1m
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient art workshop
52. Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?
event 2022-08-11 • schedule 9m
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.
53. How Whale Evolution Kind Of Sucked
event 2022-08-18 • schedule 11m
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?
54. The Fungi That Turned Ants Into Zombies
event 2022-08-23 • schedule 9m
This fungus was actually manipulating ants’ movements, forcing them to do something they’d never ordinarily do, something strange, yet specific…
55. Did you know that fossils can get sick? #shorts
event 2022-08-31 • schedule 1m
Did you know that fossils can get sick? – Specifically with Pyrite Disease
56. A supervolcano in Idaho once caused a disaster 900 miles away. #shorts
event 2022-09-08 • schedule 1m
Disaster in the great plains!
57. A bunch of very important fossils disappeared during WWII. #shorts
event 2022-09-09 • schedule 1m
80 years ago, a bunch of fossils of ancient humans disappeared.
58. Did this animal poop cubes? Giant cubes? #shorts
event 2022-09-13 • schedule 1m
Congrats! You just found a wombat burrow. And the cubes are its poop.
59. Are wisdom teeth a problem for us because of evolution? Or because of our development? #shorts
event 2022-09-14 • schedule 1m
Wisdom teeth can be such a pain
60. Our extinct relative was an ancient leopard’s lunch. #shorts
event 2022-09-16 • schedule 1m
Paranthropus got chomped by a leopard
61. When did we start wearing clothes? #shorts
event 2022-09-17 • schedule 1m
We didn’t always wear clothes!
62. Did Megalodon go after whale faces specifically? #shorts
event 2022-09-22 • schedule 1m
Ancient sperm whale heads belonged on every shark-cuterie board
63. Where Did Water Come From?
event 2022-09-27 • schedule 12m
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.
64. Our Ancient Relative That Said 'No Thanks' To Life On Land
event 2022-10-04 • schedule 10m
Around the time that some of our fishapod relatives were crawling out of the water, others were turning around and diving right back in.
65. Imagine a cat's mouth fully covering up their saber teeth. #shorts
event 2022-10-05 • schedule 1m
We might’ve been wrong about how this saber-toothed cat looked
66. Darwin correctly predicted an animal existed without ever seeing it. #shorts
event 2022-10-07 • schedule 1m
Sometimes evolution is completely predictable.
67. Neandertals weren’t dumb cavemen. In lots of ways, they were just like us. #shorts
event 2022-10-10 • schedule 1m
Shanidar 1 got by with a little help from his friends
68. Here are two ways to get a fossil species named after you. #shorts
End of season • event 2022-10-14 • schedule 1m
Here are two ways to get a fossil species named after you.
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This season's cast
Kallie Moore
Self
Self
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Blake de Pastino
Self
Self
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Michelle Barboza-Ramirez
Self
Self
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