1
00:00:01,024 --> 00:00:02,754
Paleontology.

2
00:00:02,778 --> 00:00:05,619
A science geared towards small children.

3
00:00:05,643 --> 00:00:08,532
Focused on digging up dinosaurs

4
00:00:08,556 --> 00:00:10,635
while sporting a "Jurassic Park" costume.

5
00:00:11,188 --> 00:00:13,236
Skulls are popped out of the ground

6
00:00:13,260 --> 00:00:15,736
and put on display for public gawking.

7
00:00:16,204 --> 00:00:20,951
The relevance of this beyond clickbait,
coloring books and monster movies

8
00:00:20,975 --> 00:00:22,125
is unknown.

9
00:00:22,792 --> 00:00:25,033
No, wait.

10
00:00:26,801 --> 00:00:29,221
That's not paleontology at all.

11
00:00:29,815 --> 00:00:33,965
Paleontology is nothing less
than the study of past life.

12
00:00:33,989 --> 00:00:35,545
All past life.

13
00:00:35,569 --> 00:00:38,264
From ancestors to alien forms.

14
00:00:38,693 --> 00:00:42,336
It involves fundamental questions
like, who are we,

15
00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:44,042
and how did we get here,

16
00:00:44,066 --> 00:00:46,736
using the broadest possible
definition of "we."

17
00:00:47,058 --> 00:00:48,796
Life itself.

18
00:00:49,714 --> 00:00:52,769
Dinosaurs, a category of birds,

19
00:00:52,793 --> 00:00:54,960
are just a small percentage of that.

20
00:00:54,984 --> 00:00:56,182
(Laughter)

21
00:00:56,206 --> 00:00:59,174
Yet, they get the most media attention.

22
00:00:59,198 --> 00:01:01,568
(Laughter)

23
00:01:01,592 --> 00:01:03,425
It's a very accurate meme,

24
00:01:03,449 --> 00:01:05,251
I didn't even make this one.

25
00:01:05,275 --> 00:01:06,886
This is just the truth.

26
00:01:06,910 --> 00:01:09,966
Anyway, most of us paleontologists

27
00:01:09,990 --> 00:01:12,590
consider dinosaurs to be a gateway drug.

28
00:01:12,919 --> 00:01:15,855
There is so much cooler stuff
in the fossil record,

29
00:01:15,879 --> 00:01:18,227
and we know so much about it.

30
00:01:18,251 --> 00:01:21,244
Let's go on a brief, dinosaur-free tour

31
00:01:21,268 --> 00:01:23,482
of the last four billion years.

32
00:01:23,506 --> 00:01:24,783
(Laughter)

33
00:01:24,807 --> 00:01:26,720
First up, genetic material.

34
00:01:26,744 --> 00:01:29,886
Viruses, basically,
started producing proteins

35
00:01:29,910 --> 00:01:32,102
and wrecking their environment.

36
00:01:32,514 --> 00:01:35,243
The earth was infected with life.

37
00:01:35,826 --> 00:01:39,723
Some of these new bacteria
learned how to eat sunshine,

38
00:01:39,747 --> 00:01:41,255
producing oxygen,

39
00:01:41,279 --> 00:01:43,247
pulling carbon from the air,

40
00:01:43,271 --> 00:01:47,075
and destroying the iron food
of other microbes,

41
00:01:47,099 --> 00:01:48,764
by turning it into rust.

42
00:01:48,788 --> 00:01:51,557
This went on for billions of years.

43
00:01:51,581 --> 00:01:54,724
Some bacteria consumed other bacteria,

44
00:01:54,748 --> 00:01:58,423
gaining their power
to turn oxygen into energy,

45
00:01:58,447 --> 00:02:01,685
becoming the precursors
of animals and plants.

46
00:02:01,709 --> 00:02:04,494
But as a result, there were climate shocks

47
00:02:04,518 --> 00:02:07,005
from hot to cold and back again,

48
00:02:07,029 --> 00:02:11,091
which ended up turning the earth
into a snowball covered with glaciers.

49
00:02:11,538 --> 00:02:14,834
The technical term for this
time period is snowball earth.

50
00:02:15,434 --> 00:02:18,283
(Laughter)

51
00:02:18,307 --> 00:02:20,728
Seven hundred, eight hundred
million years ago.

52
00:02:20,752 --> 00:02:23,337
Anyway, microbes banded together,

53
00:02:23,361 --> 00:02:25,672
creating multicelular life.

54
00:02:25,696 --> 00:02:27,617
Six hundred million years ago,

55
00:02:27,641 --> 00:02:29,410
geometric colonies appeared,

56
00:02:29,434 --> 00:02:31,720
sucking microbes from he water.

57
00:02:31,744 --> 00:02:33,339
There were soon replaced

58
00:02:33,363 --> 00:02:35,736
by the ancestors of modern animals.

59
00:02:36,077 --> 00:02:38,442
The Cambrian explosion.

60
00:02:38,466 --> 00:02:41,633
Lobster relatives ate other animals,

61
00:02:41,657 --> 00:02:44,390
capturing them using their grasping arms.

62
00:02:44,749 --> 00:02:49,455
Armored wriggling clam worms
crawled across the sea floor and into it,

63
00:02:49,479 --> 00:02:51,518
creating new ecosystems.

64
00:02:52,097 --> 00:02:54,093
Our tadpole-like ancestors

65
00:02:54,117 --> 00:02:56,403
[unclear] along ancient coastlines,

66
00:02:56,427 --> 00:02:59,998
while their eel-like relatives
with gnashing throat teeth

67
00:03:00,022 --> 00:03:04,401
swam above the ice cream cone corals
of the first reefs,

68
00:03:04,425 --> 00:03:06,457
dodging school bus-sized krakens

69
00:03:06,481 --> 00:03:08,750
and hungry sea scorpions.

70
00:03:09,139 --> 00:03:11,353
Plant fungus came onto land.

71
00:03:11,703 --> 00:03:15,189
But then the glaciers returned
killing pretty much everything.

72
00:03:15,641 --> 00:03:18,380
But mass extinctions open opportunities.

73
00:03:18,404 --> 00:03:20,800
Jawless fishes invaded the ocean,

74
00:03:20,824 --> 00:03:24,522
sporting points, prongs,
and finally, fins.

75
00:03:24,546 --> 00:03:29,172
Spiders, scorpions, snails
and worms came onto land.

76
00:03:29,649 --> 00:03:31,101
Somewhere around China,

77
00:03:31,125 --> 00:03:33,117
a fish developed jaws.

78
00:03:33,141 --> 00:03:35,768
And its descendants drove jawless fishes,

79
00:03:35,792 --> 00:03:37,895
sea scorpions and branching plankton

80
00:03:37,919 --> 00:03:39,537
to extinction.

81
00:03:39,561 --> 00:03:40,752
Some of these fishes,

82
00:03:40,776 --> 00:03:42,672
which had arm bones in their fins,

83
00:03:42,696 --> 00:03:44,141
sprouted fingers,

84
00:03:44,165 --> 00:03:46,434
seven or eight per flipper.

85
00:03:47,007 --> 00:03:49,252
On land, plants became trees,

86
00:03:49,276 --> 00:03:50,656
growing massive

87
00:03:50,680 --> 00:03:54,014
or spreading their spores
only once before dying.

88
00:03:54,617 --> 00:03:56,958
But then the glaciers came back again

89
00:03:56,982 --> 00:03:59,347
and it was mass extinction number two.

90
00:03:59,371 --> 00:04:01,283
It was the age of weird fishes

91
00:04:01,307 --> 00:04:02,998
and plated sea lilies.

92
00:04:03,022 --> 00:04:04,680
Sharks with wings.

93
00:04:04,704 --> 00:04:06,609
Sharks with buzz saw jaws.

94
00:04:06,633 --> 00:04:09,299
Sharks with fins covered in tiny teeth.

95
00:04:09,323 --> 00:04:11,489
Sharks with crushing tooth plates.

96
00:04:11,513 --> 00:04:14,871
Bony fishes that looked like
[unclear] and angel fish and eels

97
00:04:14,895 --> 00:04:16,274
for the first time.

98
00:04:16,649 --> 00:04:18,014
Wetlands developed,

99
00:04:18,038 --> 00:04:21,887
sporting ten-foot long millipedes
and giant dragon flies.

100
00:04:21,911 --> 00:04:25,474
These spread across the supercontinent
of Pangaea and died,

101
00:04:25,498 --> 00:04:27,006
creating coal,

102
00:04:27,030 --> 00:04:30,259
leading to 100-million-year ice age.

103
00:04:30,716 --> 00:04:35,002
Finally, vertebrates made it onto land
on a permanent basis,

104
00:04:35,026 --> 00:04:37,359
leading to alligator-like amphibians,

105
00:04:37,383 --> 00:04:40,343
and saber-toothed protomammals.

106
00:04:40,367 --> 00:04:44,047
But then, volcanoes erupted
all over Siberia,

107
00:04:44,071 --> 00:04:45,251
everything almost died,

108
00:04:45,275 --> 00:04:47,531
and it was mass extinction number three.

109
00:04:49,111 --> 00:04:50,778
The day life nearly died.

110
00:04:51,307 --> 00:04:55,970
A single, lonely tusked mammal
survived and thrived.

111
00:04:56,434 --> 00:04:59,591
But it was soon replaced
by galloping crocodiles.

112
00:04:59,615 --> 00:05:02,353
In the ocean, marine reptiles,

113
00:05:02,377 --> 00:05:06,551
giant [unclear] made of the living
relatives of sea urchins.

114
00:05:06,853 --> 00:05:09,728
And armored squids, ammonoids

115
00:05:09,752 --> 00:05:11,759
of every kind and form.

116
00:05:12,347 --> 00:05:14,760
But then, Pangaea started to split apart,

117
00:05:14,784 --> 00:05:16,481
forming a sea of lava

118
00:05:16,505 --> 00:05:19,260
that would one day become
the Atlantic ocean,

119
00:05:19,284 --> 00:05:21,696
spewing toxic gas into the atmosphere

120
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:23,853
and mass extinction number four.

121
00:05:24,195 --> 00:05:25,426
(Laughter)

122
00:05:25,450 --> 00:05:27,798
Yeah, there's actually
a lot more than these five,

123
00:05:27,822 --> 00:05:29,029
these are the big ones.

124
00:05:29,053 --> 00:05:31,186
(Laughter)

125
00:05:32,662 --> 00:05:36,790
So, finally, there were
whale-sized fishes,

126
00:05:36,814 --> 00:05:38,877
and modern fishes mobbed corals,

127
00:05:38,901 --> 00:05:40,266
made gigantic,

128
00:05:40,290 --> 00:05:43,935
by using their captured algae
to eat sunshine.

129
00:05:44,269 --> 00:05:48,697
Crabs, stingrays and other fishes
with crushing teeth appeared,

130
00:05:48,721 --> 00:05:49,936
smashing shells

131
00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,466
and leading to an arms race
between predators and prey.

132
00:05:53,490 --> 00:05:56,623
There was an explosion
of marine biodiversity.

133
00:05:57,244 --> 00:05:59,434
Mammals climbed trees, flew,

134
00:05:59,458 --> 00:06:01,045
and did a lot of other things

135
00:06:01,069 --> 00:06:03,693
that are seemingly sort of modern.

136
00:06:04,238 --> 00:06:06,199
They were feeding on the first flowers

137
00:06:06,223 --> 00:06:08,389
pollinated by the first bees.

138
00:06:08,413 --> 00:06:12,214
There were ecological revolutions
on land and at sea,

139
00:06:12,238 --> 00:06:14,105
leading to the modern world.

140
00:06:14,434 --> 00:06:17,490
Except that an asteroid hit Mexico,

141
00:06:17,514 --> 00:06:21,704
and then that triggered volcanoes
on the other side of the world in India,

142
00:06:21,728 --> 00:06:24,100
and everything almost died again.

143
00:06:24,124 --> 00:06:25,586
(Laughter)

144
00:06:25,610 --> 00:06:27,935
But -- there's always a but,

145
00:06:27,959 --> 00:06:29,260
because we're still here.

146
00:06:30,038 --> 00:06:32,419
Mammals arose from the ashes,

147
00:06:32,443 --> 00:06:34,380
became small under extreme heat

148
00:06:34,404 --> 00:06:36,212
and then ever larger.

149
00:06:36,236 --> 00:06:38,966
There were palm trees
and snakes in the Arctic.

150
00:06:38,990 --> 00:06:42,569
Predatory deer dogs frolicked
along ancient rivers,

151
00:06:42,593 --> 00:06:45,048
while their relatives
returned to the ocean

152
00:06:45,072 --> 00:06:48,246
to become the first otter-like whales.

153
00:06:48,270 --> 00:06:51,730
Not hyenas and other sort of carnivores

154
00:06:51,754 --> 00:06:54,839
were chased off by giant
long-necked rhinos.

155
00:06:54,863 --> 00:06:57,672
Everything at this point
seems kind of familiar,

156
00:06:57,696 --> 00:06:58,846
but not really.

157
00:06:59,268 --> 00:07:02,545
In Antarctica, an ice age started,

158
00:07:02,569 --> 00:07:04,768
forming the first permanent polar ice cap

159
00:07:04,792 --> 00:07:06,799
in two hundred million years.

160
00:07:07,268 --> 00:07:09,553
This dried out the rest of the world.

161
00:07:09,577 --> 00:07:11,807
But it allowed the rise of grasses,

162
00:07:11,831 --> 00:07:13,632
of rodents, of cats.

163
00:07:13,998 --> 00:07:15,506
Somewhere in Africa,

164
00:07:15,530 --> 00:07:18,091
an ape started walking
across the new savannah.

165
00:07:19,002 --> 00:07:21,661
Oh, and there were giant
saber-toothed salmon,

166
00:07:21,685 --> 00:07:23,153
I just have to mention that.

167
00:07:23,177 --> 00:07:25,070
(Laughter)

168
00:07:26,225 --> 00:07:29,307
So we know all of this happened.

169
00:07:29,331 --> 00:07:30,736
And so much more.

170
00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:31,911
How?

171
00:07:31,935 --> 00:07:33,141
Why?

172
00:07:33,165 --> 00:07:35,816
Paleontology is a thriving science

173
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:40,374
at the intersection of multiple
other fields and technologies.

174
00:07:40,398 --> 00:07:43,128
There is no bigger data
than the fossil record,

175
00:07:43,152 --> 00:07:45,112
and we mine every bit of it.

176
00:07:45,136 --> 00:07:46,429
We use CAT scans,

177
00:07:46,453 --> 00:07:47,802
we use isotopes,

178
00:07:47,826 --> 00:07:49,350
we use genomes,

179
00:07:49,374 --> 00:07:50,696
we use robots,

180
00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:52,783
we use mathematical simulations,

181
00:07:52,807 --> 00:07:55,149
and all kinds of analytics.

182
00:07:55,173 --> 00:07:56,704
We maximize all of it

183
00:07:56,728 --> 00:07:58,970
so that we can understand the past

184
00:07:58,994 --> 00:08:00,594
and how evolution works.

185
00:08:01,049 --> 00:08:04,049
It also lets us make
predictions for the future.

186
00:08:04,073 --> 00:08:06,827
What will happen after the next
mass extinction?

187
00:08:06,851 --> 00:08:08,918
What weird things will show up?

188
00:08:09,307 --> 00:08:11,374
Will mammals get smaller again?

189
00:08:11,712 --> 00:08:13,767
Will there even be mammals?

190
00:08:14,831 --> 00:08:16,355
In sum,

191
00:08:16,379 --> 00:08:19,831
we have learned a lot about dinosaurs.

192
00:08:20,236 --> 00:08:21,838
But there's so much left to learn

193
00:08:21,862 --> 00:08:26,013
from the other 99.9 percent of things
that have ever lived.

194
00:08:26,434 --> 00:08:28,545
And that's paleontology.

195
00:08:28,990 --> 00:08:30,188
Thank you.

196
00:08:30,212 --> 00:08:35,219
(Applause and cheers)