About this season
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 experts.
Episodes (68)
1. How our deadliest parasite turned to the dark side
Aired 11 January 2022 • 10 min
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)
Aired 19 January 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 27 January 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 8 February 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 16 February 2022 • 10 min
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)
Aired 23 February 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 2 March 2022 • 1 min
There used to be SO MANY sharks...where did they go?
8. Dire wolves aren’t wolves at all #shorts
Aired 3 March 2022 • 1 min
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
Aired 4 March 2022 • 1 min
Could humans survive during the Precambrian?
10. Some trees are more closely related to broccoli than to other trees #shorts
Aired 7 March 2022 • 1 min
Don’t be fooled by convergent evolution.
11. Human knees are the worst and we have evolution to thank for that #shorts
Aired 8 March 2022 • 1 min
Why do human knees suck?
12. A crater in Turkmenistan has been on fire for about 50 years #shorts
Aired 10 March 2022 • 1 min
And it’s been reported that one of the geologists started it on purpose?
13. When a Giant Pterosaur Ruled the European Islands
Aired 15 March 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 17 March 2022 • 1 min
15. Could humans survive a giant space rock colliding with Earth 66 million years ago? #shorts
Aired 18 March 2022 • 1 min
Would you have survived the K-Pg Impact?
16. The Sudden Rise of the First Colossal Animal
Aired 22 March 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 25 March 2022 • 1 min
Thylacines are definitely extinct!
18. The Extreme Hyenas That Didn't Last
Aired 29 March 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 31 March 2022 • 1 min
20. After this bird went extinct the first time, evolution just hit replay #shorts
Aired 4 April 2022 • 1 min
The bird that evolved twice!
21. Someone lost the only fossil from what might’ve been the biggest dinosaur ever #shorts
Aired 5 April 2022 • 1 min
22. Would you have survived the biggest mass extinction of all time? #shorts
Aired 6 April 2022 • 1 min
23. An ancient insect trapped in amber has a parasitic mushroom erupting out of it? #shorts
Aired 8 April 2022 • 1 min
I will pass on the parasitic mind-controlling mushroom, thanks
24. How the Smallest Animal Got So Simple
Aired 13 April 2022 • 8 min
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
Aired 14 April 2022 • 1 min
26. Why Sour May Be The Oldest Taste
Aired 20 April 2022 • 8 min
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
Aired 27 April 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 2 May 2022 • 1 min
29. Why don’t rabbits get really, really big? #shorts
Aired 3 May 2022 • 1 min
30. An extinct human species was discovered deep within a cave system #shorts
Aired 4 May 2022 • 1 min
31. When Ants Domesticated Fungi
Aired 10 May 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 17 May 2022 • 9 min
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?
Aired 26 May 2022 • 8 min
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
Aired 27 May 2022 • 1 min
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
Aired 31 May 2022 • 1 min
Does Homo erectus beat out Homo sapiens?
36. Sharks have antibacterial skin. Can we use that to save lives? #shorts
Aired 1 June 2022 • 1 min
Sometimes modern problems require ancient, evolutionary solutions.
37. This Ice Age pup's last meal was a woolly rhino #shorts
Aired 2 June 2022 • 1 min
What was this ancient pup’s last meal?
38. What came first, the sabertooth or the cat? #shorts
Aired 3 June 2022 • 1 min
The newest oldest saber-toothed mammal
39. How To Build A Woolly Mammoth (But Should We?)
Aired 8 June 2022 • 8 min
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
Aired 15 June 2022 • 11 min
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
Aired 29 June 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 6 July 2022 • 1 min
Microbiology goes macro with a new giant bacterium!
43. Another Spinosaurus study, another opportunity to debate if Spinosaurus was aquatic #shorts
Aired 7 July 2022 • 1 min
Spinosaurus had dense bones!
44. There were dinosaurs with basically no arms at all, just hands! #shorts
Aired 8 July 2022 • 1 min
Guemesia: a new no-arm dino
45. When Giant Millipedes Reigned
Aired 13 July 2022 • 8 min
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
Aired 21 July 2022 • 14 min
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?
Aired 28 July 2022 • 11 min
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
Aired 3 August 2022 • 1 min
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
Aired 3 August 2022 • 1 min
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
Aired 5 August 2022 • 1 min
Flesh-eating bees exist!
51. This is one of the oldest art workshops ever discovered! #shorts
Aired 5 August 2022 • 1 min
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient art workshop
52. Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?
Aired 11 August 2022 • 9 min
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
Aired 18 August 2022 • 11 min
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
Aired 23 August 2022 • 9 min
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
Aired 31 August 2022 • 1 min
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
Aired 8 September 2022 • 1 min
Disaster in the great plains!
57. A bunch of very important fossils disappeared during WWII. #shorts
Aired 9 September 2022 • 1 min
80 years ago, a bunch of fossils of ancient humans disappeared.
58. Did this animal poop cubes? Giant cubes? #shorts
Aired 13 September 2022 • 1 min
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
Aired 14 September 2022 • 1 min
Wisdom teeth can be such a pain
60. Our extinct relative was an ancient leopard’s lunch. #shorts
Aired 16 September 2022 • 1 min
Paranthropus got chomped by a leopard
61. When did we start wearing clothes? #shorts
Aired 17 September 2022 • 1 min
We didn’t always wear clothes!
62. Did Megalodon go after whale faces specifically? #shorts
Aired 22 September 2022 • 1 min
Ancient sperm whale heads belonged on every shark-cuterie board
63. Where Did Water Come From?
Aired 27 September 2022 • 12 min
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
Aired 4 October 2022 • 10 min
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
Aired 5 October 2022 • 1 min
We might’ve been wrong about how this saber-toothed cat looked
66. Darwin correctly predicted an animal existed without ever seeing it. #shorts
Aired 7 October 2022 • 1 min
Sometimes evolution is completely predictable.
67. Neandertals weren’t dumb cavemen. In lots of ways, they were just like us. #shorts
Aired 10 October 2022 • 1 min
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
Aired 14 October 2022 • 1 min
Here are two ways to get a fossil species named after you.