Season 2017 (2017)

The Trouble With Trilobites
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June 26, 2017 • 10m

Trilobites are famous not just because they were so beautifully functional, or because they happened to preserve so well. They’re ...Read more

When Did the First Flower Bloom?
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July 3, 2017 • 10m

During the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs were more diverse, more fierce, and more strange than ever. But something else was happeni...Read more

The Tully Monster & Other Problematic Creatures
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July 11, 2017 • 10m

There are animals in the fossil record that challenge some of our most basic ideas about what animals are supposed to look like. I...Read more

Stegosaurs: Tiny Brains & Thagomizers
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July 17, 2017 • 10m

If you take it as a given that extinct dinosaurs were all weird and wonderful, then you gotta at least consider that Stegosaurus w...Read more

What Colors Were Dinosaurs?
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July 24, 2017 • 10m

We know a lot about dinosaurs but there’s one question that has plagued paleontologists for decades: what color were they?

The Story of Saberteeth
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July 31, 2017 • 10m

Smilodon was a fearsome Ice Age cat, the size of a modern-day tiger, that had a pair of fangs nearly 18 centimeters long. But it w...Read more

That Time Oxygen Almost Killed Everything
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August 7, 2017 • 10m

What if we told you that there was a time when oxygen almost wiped out all life on Earth? 3 billion years ago, when the world was ...Read more

The Biggest Thing That Ever Flew
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August 14, 2017 • 10m

Today, we’re familiar with two types of flying vertebrates -- birds and bats. But over 66 million years ago, there was a giraffe-s...Read more

Dimetrodon: Our Most Unlikely Ancestor
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August 21, 2017 • 10m

With its lizard-like appearance and that distinctive sail on it back, Dimetrodon is practically the mascot of the Palaeozoic Era, ...Read more

The Extinction That Never Happened
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August 28, 2017 • 10m

Natural history is full of living things that were long thought to have gone extinct only to show up again, alive and well. Paleon...Read more

The Strange Case of the Buzzsaw Jaws
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September 11, 2017 • 10m

There are many fossils that challenge our ability to form even the most basic idea of how a living thing looked, or lived, or func...Read more

The Age of Giant Insects
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September 18, 2017 • 10m

Insects outnumber humans by a lot and we only like to think we're in charge because we're bigger than they are. But insects and ot...Read more

History's Most Powerful Plants
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September 26, 2017 • 10m

Fossil fuels are made from the remains of extinct organisms that have been exposed to millions of years of heat and pressure. But ...Read more

How Did Dinosaurs Get So Huge?
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October 2, 2017 • 10m

Part of why we’re so fascinated with extinct dinosaurs it’s just hard for us to believe that animals that huge actually existed. A...Read more

When The Earth Was Purple
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October 9, 2017 • 10m

Besides the blue of the oceans, the dominant color of our planet, as we know it, is green. But imagine a time when the Earth looked a little … purple.

'Living Fossils' Aren't Really a Thing
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October 16, 2017 • 10m

Crocodiles, horseshoe crabs and tuatara are animals that have persisted for millions of years, said to have gone unchanged since t...Read more

When Whales Walked
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October 23, 2017 • 10m

We know whales as graceful giants bound to the sea. But what if we told you there was actually a time when whales could walk.

An Illustrated History of Dinosaurs
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October 30, 2017 • 10m

Our image of dinosaurs has been constantly changing since naturalists started studying them about 350 years ago. Taken together, t...Read more

A Brief History of Geologic Time
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November 6, 2017 • 10m

By looking at the layers beneath our feet, geologists have been able to identify and describe crucial episodes in life’s history. ...Read more

The Search for the Earliest Life
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November 20, 2017 • 10m

More than 4 billion years ago, the crust of the Earth was still cooling and the oceans were only beginning to form. But in recent ...Read more

The Facts About Dinosaurs & Feathers
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November 27, 2017 • 10m

Over the past 20 years, dinosaurs of all types and sizes have been found with some sort of fluff or even full-on plumage. These fu...Read more

The Last Time the Globe Warmed
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December 4, 2017 • 10m

Imagine an enormous, lush rainforest teeming with life...in the Arctic. Well there was a time -- and not too long ago -- when the ...Read more

What Happened to the World's Greatest Ape?
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December 11, 2017 • 10m

Probably twice the size of a modern gorilla, Gigantopithecus is the greatest great-ape that ever was. And for us fellow primates, ...Read more

When Giant Fungi Ruled
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December 18, 2017 • 10m

420 million years ago, a giant feasted on the dead, growing slowly into the largest living thing on land. It belonged to an unlike...Read more