Listen to Episode 36 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast source!
In this episode we dive into the concept of reefs. Reefs today are one of the most crucial environments in the oceans. They promote extremely high biodiversity and protect coast lines. Today we are accustomed to coral reefs, but throughout history many organisms have built reefs that proved just as important to ancient ocean life.
Listen to Episode 35 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast-place!
It’s time for another extinction episode!
Is extinction truly forever? In this episode, we discuss the stirrings of the real-life science seeking to bring back some semblance of the creatures of the past: De-extinction.
Listen to Episode 34 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your personal preferred podcast platform!
Over the past three decades, a particular field of study has been revolutionizing our understanding of the past, driven by advances in technology and good ol’ scientific persistence. This episode, we discuss Ancient DNA.
Listen to Episode 33 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or a podcast provider near you!
In this episode we discuss the process through which organisms develop throughout their lives, otherwise known as ontogeny. We’ll examine what ontogeny is, what it teaches us, and how we deal with it in the fossil record.
Listen to Episode 32 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other place you get podcasts!
This episode, we dive in (not literally – we wish!) to the paleontology of Australia’s Naracoorte Caves, among the world’s best windows into the last several hundred thousand years of Australia’s history.
Listen to Episode 31 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other place you get podcasts!
Before the Cambrian Explosion, there was … a lot of weird squishy organisms. The Ediacaran, the subject of this episode, was a period just before the Cambrian. During this time we see the rise of a very odd and interesting group of organisms known as the Ediacaran Biota.
Listen to Episode 29 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts!
In this episode we discuss an interesting and important group of ancient armored fish; Placoderms! We discuss some of their wide variety, their evolutionary significance, and focus a bit on their biggest and most famous member: Dunkleosteus.
Listen to Episode 28 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever podcasts are provided!
February 12th is Darwin Day! On this day, biology-nerds like us – and our special guest, Dr. Sarah Bray! – celebrate the birthday and life achievements of the scientist who ushered in our modern understanding of the subjects that underlie just about every topic we discuss on this podcast: Charles Darwin.
Listen to Episode 26 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other place you get podcasts!
This episode is unique. In fact, it is really out of this world (okay, that’s the only bad joke, promise). We examine the scientific field of astrobiology – life among the stars – barely scratching the surface of this fascinating and still growing field of study.
Listen to Episode 25 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other place you get podcasts!
Episode 5 and 15 were both about major extinction events of the past. Now, another ten episodes later, we’re back on the subject. This time, it’s the most recent major prehistoric extinction event, the one that took out the mammoths and other Ice Age giants, the first such event that our own species may have had a hand in: the Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinction.
The Common Descent Podcast 