Season 2022 (2022)

How our deadliest parasite turned to the dark side
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January 11, 2022 • 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...Read more

Primates vs Snakes (An Evolutionary Arms Race)
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January 19, 2022 • 10m

The Snake Detection Hypothesis proposes that the ability to quickly spot and avoid snakes is deeply embedded in primates, includin...Read more

How the Rise of Social Insects Shrunk These Dinosaurs
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January 27, 2022 • 10m

We often think of dinosaurs as either preying on other dinos or mammals, or as plant-eaters -- but in ecosystems today, those aren...Read more

How Vertebrates Got Teeth... And Lost Them Again
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February 8, 2022 • 10m

As revolutionary as teeth were, they would go on to disappear in some groups of vertebrates. But why?

How Horses Went From Food To Friends
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February 16, 2022 • 10m

Do our modern horses descend from just one domesticated population, or did it happen many times, in many places? Answering these q...Read more

Why We Only Have Ten Toes (It's a Long Story)
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February 23, 2022 • 10m

Today, all mammals from humans to bats have five fingers or fewer. Yes, even whales, whose finger bones are hidden in their fins. ...Read more

Sharks nearly went extinct 19 million years ago #shorts
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March 2, 2022 • 1m

There used to be SO MANY sharks...where did they go?

Dire wolves aren’t wolves at all #shorts
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March 3, 2022 • 1m

Dire wolves aren’t actually wolves but what they are might be even cooler.

Could humans survive if they traveled back in time 3 billion years? #shorts
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March 4, 2022 • 1m

Could humans survive during the Precambrian?

Some trees are more closely related to broccoli than to other trees #shorts
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March 7, 2022 • 1m

Don’t be fooled by convergent evolution.

Human knees are the worst and we have evolution to thank for that #shorts
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March 8, 2022 • 1m

Why do human knees suck?

A crater in Turkmenistan has been on fire for about 50 years #shorts
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March 10, 2022 • 1m

And it’s been reported that one of the geologists started it on purpose?

When a Giant Pterosaur Ruled the European Islands
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March 15, 2022 • 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.

Only one human has been excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits #shorts
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March 17, 2022 • 1m

Episode 14 of Season 2022 premiered on March 17, 2022

Could humans survive a giant space rock colliding with Earth 66 million years ago? #shorts
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March 18, 2022 • 1m

Would you have survived the K-Pg Impact?

The Sudden Rise of the First Colossal Animal
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March 22, 2022 • 10m

A truly enormous ichthyosaur around the size of a modern sperm whale, reached its size within just a few million years of taking t...Read more

The Tasmanian tiger is definitely extinct. So why do people keep report sightings of them? #shorts
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March 25, 2022 • 1m

Thylacines are definitely extinct!

The Extreme Hyenas That Didn't Last
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March 29, 2022 • 10m

Hyenas weren’t always able to eat bones. In fact, only a few million years ago, they lived very different lives.

Who forged one of the most famous fake fossils of all time? #shorts
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March 31, 2022 • 1m

Episode 19 of Season 2022 premiered on March 31, 2022

After this bird went extinct the first time, evolution just hit replay #shorts
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April 4, 2022 • 1m

The bird that evolved twice!

Someone lost the only fossil from what might’ve been the biggest dinosaur ever #shorts
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April 5, 2022 • 1m

Episode 21 of Season 2022 premiered on April 5, 2022

Would you have survived the biggest mass extinction of all time? #shorts
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April 6, 2022 • 1m

Episode 22 of Season 2022 premiered on April 6, 2022

An ancient insect trapped in amber has a parasitic mushroom erupting out of it? #shorts
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April 8, 2022 • 1m

I will pass on the parasitic mind-controlling mushroom, thanks

How the Smallest Animal Got So Simple
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April 13, 2022 • 8m

We tend to think that evolution only goes in one direction— toward getting bigger and more advanced. But that’s not always the cas...Read more

We know a lot about dinosaurs but...what was the first dinosaur? #shorts
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April 14, 2022 • 1m

Episode 25 of Season 2022 premiered on April 14, 2022

Why Sour May Be The Oldest Taste
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April 20, 2022 • 8m

While sour taste's original purpose was to warn vertebrates of danger, in a few animal groups, including us, its role has reversed...Read more

The Ancient Human Species With A Missing Body
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April 27, 2022 • 10m

Only a handful of Denisovan fossils have been identified. In the absence of actual body fossils, it’s impossible for us to reconst...Read more

Are there dinosaur fossils in space? #shorts
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May 2, 2022 • 1m

Episode 28 of Season 2022 premiered on May 2, 2022

Why don’t rabbits get really, really big? #shorts
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May 3, 2022 • 1m

Episode 29 of Season 2022 premiered on May 3, 2022

An extinct human species was discovered deep within a cave system #shorts
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May 4, 2022 • 1m

Episode 30 of Season 2022 premiered on May 4, 2022

When Ants Domesticated Fungi
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May 10, 2022 • 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. ...Read more

The Curious Case of the Cave Lion
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May 17, 2022 • 9m

A mysterious, large feline roamed Eurasia during the last ice age. Its fossils have been found across the continent, and it’s been...Read more

Is This The Oldest Dad In The Fossil Record?
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May 26, 2022 • 8m

Fossil evidence suggests Diictodon used burrows to breed, and that a parent stayed behind to feed and protect their young. And the...Read more

Why did so many predators die at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry? #shorts
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May 27, 2022 • 1m

There’s something weird going on at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in what’s now Utah.

What is the most successful human species? #shorts
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May 31, 2022 • 1m

Does Homo erectus beat out Homo sapiens?

Sharks have antibacterial skin. Can we use that to save lives? #shorts
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June 1, 2022 • 1m

Sometimes modern problems require ancient, evolutionary solutions.

This Ice Age pup's last meal was a woolly rhino #shorts
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June 2, 2022 • 1m

What was this ancient pup’s last meal?

What came first, the sabertooth or the cat? #shorts
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June 3, 2022 • 1m

The newest oldest saber-toothed mammal

How To Build A Woolly Mammoth (But Should We?)
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June 8, 2022 • 8m

In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.

Something Has Been Making This Mark For 500 Million Years
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June 15, 2022 • 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 itse...Read more

Giant Viruses Blur The Line Between Alive and Not
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June 29, 2022 • 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 e...Read more

This new giant bacterium is visible to the naked eye #shorts
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July 6, 2022 • 1m

Microbiology goes macro with a new giant bacterium!

Another Spinosaurus study, another opportunity to debate if Spinosaurus was aquatic #shorts
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July 7, 2022 • 1m

Spinosaurus had dense bones!

There were dinosaurs with basically no arms at all, just hands! #shorts
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July 8, 2022 • 1m

Guemesia: a new no-arm dino

When Giant Millipedes Reigned
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July 13, 2022 • 8m

This giant millipede was the largest known invertebrate to ever live on land. So how did it get so big??

How Plate Tectonics Transformed Los Angeles
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July 21, 2022 • 14m

Despite the profound changes we’ve made here in recent history, the epic saga of Los Angeles' natural history is still visible - a...Read more

Why Does Caffeine Exist?
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July 28, 2022 • 11m

Today, billions of people around the world start their day with caffeine. But how and why did the ability to produce this molecule...Read more

This was the biggest earthquake humans ever experienced #shorts
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August 3, 2022 • 1m

One of the biggest earthquakes humans ever experienced happened around 3800 years ago in what's now northern Chile.

Someone stole two of the most important documents in the history of science #shorts
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August 3, 2022 • 1m

We have no idea where they were all this time, or who stole and returned them and why.

You can thank evolution for flesh-eating bees #shorts
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August 5, 2022 • 1m

Flesh-eating bees exist!

This is one of the oldest art workshops ever discovered! #shorts
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August 5, 2022 • 1m

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient art workshop

Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?
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August 11, 2022 • 9m

There is one - and only one - group of mammals that doesn’t have alpha-gal: the catarrhine primates, which are the monkeys of Afri...Read more

How Whale Evolution Kind Of Sucked
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August 18, 2022 • 11m

Mystacodon is the earliest known mysticete, the group that, today, we call the baleen whales. But if this was a baleen whale, wher...Read more

The Fungi That Turned Ants Into Zombies
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August 23, 2022 • 9m

This fungus was actually manipulating ants’ movements, forcing them to do something they’d never ordinarily do, something strange, yet specific…

Did you know that fossils can get sick? #shorts
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August 31, 2022 • 1m

Did you know that fossils can get sick? – Specifically with Pyrite Disease

A supervolcano in Idaho once caused a disaster 900 miles away. #shorts
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September 8, 2022 • 1m

Disaster in the great plains!

A bunch of very important fossils disappeared during WWII. #shorts
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September 9, 2022 • 1m

80 years ago, a bunch of fossils of ancient humans disappeared.

Did this animal poop cubes? Giant cubes? #shorts
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September 13, 2022 • 1m

Congrats! You just found a wombat burrow. And the cubes are its poop.

Are wisdom teeth a problem for us because of evolution? Or because of our development? #shorts
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September 14, 2022 • 1m

Wisdom teeth can be such a pain

Our extinct relative was an ancient leopard’s lunch. #shorts
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September 16, 2022 • 1m

Paranthropus got chomped by a leopard

When did we start wearing clothes? #shorts
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September 17, 2022 • 1m

We didn’t always wear clothes!

Did Megalodon go after whale faces specifically? #shorts
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September 22, 2022 • 1m

Ancient sperm whale heads belonged on every shark-cuterie board

Where Did Water Come From?
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September 27, 2022 • 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 w...Read more

Our Ancient Relative That Said 'No Thanks' To Life On Land
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October 4, 2022 • 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.

Imagine a cat's mouth fully covering up their saber teeth. #shorts
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October 5, 2022 • 1m

We might’ve been wrong about how this saber-toothed cat looked

Darwin correctly predicted an animal existed without ever seeing it. #shorts
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October 7, 2022 • 1m

Sometimes evolution is completely predictable.

Neandertals weren’t dumb cavemen. In lots of ways, they were just like us. #shorts
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October 10, 2022 • 1m

Shanidar 1 got by with a little help from his friends

Here are two ways to get a fossil species named after you. #shorts
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October 14, 2022 • 1m

Here are two ways to get a fossil species named after you.