A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included)
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0:01 - 0:03Paleontology,
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0:03 - 0:06a science geared towards small children,
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0:06 - 0:09focused on digging up dinosaurs
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0:09 - 0:11while sporting a "Jurassic Park" costume.
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0:11 - 0:13Skulls are popped out of the ground
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0:13 - 0:16and put on display for public gawking.
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0:16 - 0:21The relevance of this, beyond clickbait,
coloring books and monster movies -
0:21 - 0:22is unknown.
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0:23 - 0:24No ...
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0:24 - 0:26Wait.
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0:27 - 0:29That's not paleontology at all.
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0:30 - 0:34Paleontology is nothing less
than the study of past life. -
0:34 - 0:36All past life.
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0:36 - 0:38From ancestors to alien forms.
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0:39 - 0:42It involves fundamental questions
like "Who are we?" -
0:42 - 0:44And "How did we get here?" --
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0:44 - 0:47using the broadest possible
definition of "we": -
0:47 - 0:49life itself.
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0:50 - 0:53Dinosaurs, a category of birds,
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0:53 - 0:55are just a small percentage of that.
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0:55 - 0:56(Laughter)
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0:56 - 0:59Yet they get the most media attention.
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0:59 - 1:02[The incredible diversity of ancient life,
Dinosaurs, Paleontology] -
1:02 - 1:05It's a very accurate meme;
I didn't even make this one. -
1:05 - 1:07This is just the truth.
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1:07 - 1:13Anyway, most of us paleontologists
consider dinosaurs to be a gateway drug. -
1:13 - 1:16There is so much cooler stuff
in the fossil record, -
1:16 - 1:18and we know so much about it.
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1:18 - 1:21Let's go on a brief, dinosaur-free tour
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1:21 - 1:23of the last four billion years.
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1:24 - 1:25(Laughter)
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1:25 - 1:27First up, genetic material.
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1:27 - 1:30Viruses, basically,
started producing proteins -
1:30 - 1:32and wrecking their environment.
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1:33 - 1:35The Earth was infected with life.
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1:36 - 1:40Some of these new bacteria
learned how to eat sunshine, -
1:40 - 1:41producing oxygen,
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1:41 - 1:43pulling in carbon from the air
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1:43 - 1:47and destroying the iron food
of other microbes -
1:47 - 1:49by turning it into rust.
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1:49 - 1:52This went on for billions of years.
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1:52 - 1:55Some bacteria consumed other bacteria,
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1:55 - 1:58gaining their power
to turn oxygen into energy, -
1:58 - 2:02becoming the precursors
of animals and plants. -
2:02 - 2:04But as a result,
there were climate shocks, -
2:05 - 2:07from hot to cold and back again,
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2:07 - 2:11which ended up turning the Earth
into a snowball covered with glaciers. -
2:12 - 2:15The technical term for this time period
is "Snowball Earth." -
2:15 - 2:18(Laughter)
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2:18 - 2:21Seven hundred, eight hundred
million years ago. -
2:21 - 2:23Anyway, microbes banded together,
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2:23 - 2:26creating multicellular life.
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2:26 - 2:28Six hundred million years ago,
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2:28 - 2:32geometric colonies appeared,
sucking microbes from the water. -
2:32 - 2:36These were soon replaced
by the ancestors of modern animals. -
2:36 - 2:38The Cambrian explosion.
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2:38 - 2:42Lobster relatives ate other animals,
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2:42 - 2:44capturing them using their grasping arms.
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2:45 - 2:49Armored wriggling clam worms
crawled across the seafloor and into it, -
2:49 - 2:52creating new ecosystems.
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2:52 - 2:56Our tadpole-like ancestors
flitted along ancient coastlines, -
2:56 - 3:00while their eel-like relatives
with gnashing throat teeth -
3:00 - 3:04swam above the ice-cream cone corals
of the first reefs, -
3:04 - 3:06dodging school-bus-sized krakens
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3:06 - 3:09and hungry sea scorpions.
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3:09 - 3:11Plant fungus came onto land.
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3:12 - 3:15But then the glaciers returned,
killing pretty much everything. -
3:16 - 3:18But mass extinctions open opportunities.
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3:18 - 3:21Jawless fishes invaded the ocean,
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3:21 - 3:25sporting points, prongs,
and finally, fins. -
3:25 - 3:29Spiders, scorpions, snails
and worms came onto land. -
3:30 - 3:33Somewhere around China,
a fish developed jaws, -
3:33 - 3:36and its descendants drove jawless fishes,
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3:36 - 3:38sea scorpions and branching plankton
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3:38 - 3:40to extinction.
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3:40 - 3:41Some of these fishes,
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3:41 - 3:43which had arm bones in their fins,
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3:43 - 3:44sprouted fingers,
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3:44 - 3:46seven or eight per flipper.
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3:47 - 3:49On land, plants became trees,
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3:49 - 3:51growing massive
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3:51 - 3:54or spreading their spores
only once before dying. -
3:55 - 3:57But then the glaciers came back again,
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3:57 - 3:59and it was mass extinction number two.
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3:59 - 4:03It was the age of weird fishes
and plated sea lilies. -
4:03 - 4:05Sharks with wings.
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4:05 - 4:07Sharks with buzz saw jaws.
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4:07 - 4:09Sharks with fins covered in tiny teeth.
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4:09 - 4:11Sharks with crushing tooth plates.
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4:12 - 4:15Bony fishes that looked like
modern angelfish and eels -
4:15 - 4:16for the first time.
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4:17 - 4:18Wetlands developed,
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4:18 - 4:22sporting ten-foot-long millipedes
and giant dragon flies. -
4:22 - 4:25These spread across the supercontinent
of Pangaea and died, -
4:25 - 4:27creating coal,
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4:27 - 4:30leading to a 100-million-year Ice Age.
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4:31 - 4:35Finally, vertebrates made it onto land
on a permanent basis, -
4:35 - 4:37leading to alligator-like amphibians
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4:37 - 4:40and saber-toothed protomammals.
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4:40 - 4:44But then, volcanoes erupted
all over Siberia, -
4:44 - 4:45everything almost died
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4:45 - 4:48and it was mass extinction number three.
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4:48 - 4:49(Laughter)
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4:49 - 4:51The day life nearly died.
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4:51 - 4:56A single, lonely tusked mammal
survived and thrived, -
4:56 - 5:00but it was soon replaced
by galloping crocodiles. -
5:00 - 5:02In the ocean, marine reptiles,
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5:02 - 5:07giant rafts made of the living
relatives of sea urchins -
5:07 - 5:12and armored squids, ammonoids,
of every kind and form. -
5:12 - 5:15But then, Pangaea started to split apart,
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5:15 - 5:16forming a sea of lava
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5:17 - 5:19that would one day become
the Atlantic Ocean, -
5:19 - 5:22spewing toxic gas into the atmosphere
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5:22 - 5:24and mass extinction number four.
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5:24 - 5:25(Laughter)
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5:25 - 5:28Yeah, there's actually
a lot more than these five, -
5:28 - 5:29these are the big ones.
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5:29 - 5:32(Laughter)
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5:33 - 5:37So, finally, there were
whale-sized fishes, -
5:37 - 5:39and modern fishes mobbed corals,
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5:39 - 5:44made gigantic by using
their captured algae to eat sunshine. -
5:44 - 5:49Crabs, stingrays and other fishes
with crushing teeth appeared, -
5:49 - 5:50smashing shells
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5:50 - 5:53and leading to an arms race
between predators and prey. -
5:53 - 5:56There was an explosion
of marine biodiversity. -
5:57 - 5:59Mammals climbed trees, flew
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5:59 - 6:04and did a lot of other things
that are seemingly sort of modern. -
6:04 - 6:08They were feeding on the first flowers
pollinated by the first bees. -
6:08 - 6:12There were ecological revolutions
on land and at sea, -
6:12 - 6:14leading to the modern world.
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6:14 - 6:17Except that an asteroid hit Mexico,
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6:18 - 6:22and then that triggered volcanoes
on the other side of the world in India, -
6:22 - 6:24and everything almost died again.
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6:24 - 6:26(Laughter)
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6:26 - 6:30But -- there's always a but,
because we're still here -- -
6:30 - 6:32mammals arose from the ashes,
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6:32 - 6:36became small under extreme heat
and then ever larger. -
6:36 - 6:39There were palm trees
and snakes in the Arctic. -
6:39 - 6:43Predatory deer dogs frolicked
along ancient rivers, -
6:43 - 6:45while their relatives
returned to the ocean -
6:45 - 6:48to become the first otter-like whales.
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6:48 - 6:52Not hyenas and other sort of carnivores
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6:52 - 6:55were chased off by giant
long-necked rhinos. -
6:55 - 6:58Everything at this point
seems kind of familiar -
6:58 - 6:59but not really.
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6:59 - 7:03In Antarctica, an ice age started,
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7:03 - 7:07forming the first permanent polar ice cap
in two hundred million years. -
7:07 - 7:10This dried out the rest of the world,
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7:10 - 7:14but it allowed the rise of grasses,
of rodents, of cats. -
7:14 - 7:16Somewhere in Africa,
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7:16 - 7:18an ape started walking
across the new savannah. -
7:19 - 7:22Oh, and there were giant
saber-toothed salmon, -
7:22 - 7:23I just have to mention that.
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7:23 - 7:26(Laughter)
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7:26 - 7:29So, we know all of this happened
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7:29 - 7:31and so much more.
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7:31 - 7:32How?
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7:32 - 7:33Why?
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7:33 - 7:36Paleontology is a thriving science
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7:36 - 7:40at the intersection of multiple
other fields and technologies. -
7:40 - 7:43There is no bigger data
than the fossil record, -
7:43 - 7:45and we mine every bit of it.
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7:45 - 7:46We use CAT scans,
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7:46 - 7:48we use isotopes,
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7:48 - 7:49we use genomes,
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7:49 - 7:51we use robots,
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7:51 - 7:53we use mathematical simulations
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7:53 - 7:55and all kinds of analytics.
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7:55 - 7:59We maximize all of it
so that we can understand the past -
7:59 - 8:01and how evolution works.
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8:01 - 8:04It also lets us make
predictions for the future. -
8:04 - 8:07What will happen after the next
mass extinction? -
8:07 - 8:09What weird things will show up?
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8:09 - 8:11Will mammals get smaller again?
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8:12 - 8:14Will there even be mammals?
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8:15 - 8:16In sum,
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8:16 - 8:20we have learned a lot about dinosaurs.
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8:20 - 8:22But there's so much left to learn
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8:22 - 8:26from the other 99.9 percent of things
that have ever lived. -
8:26 - 8:29And that's paleontology.
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8:29 - 8:30Thank you.
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8:30 - 8:35(Applause and cheers)
- Title:
- A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included)
- Speaker:
- Lauren Sallan
- Description:
-
In this hilarious, whirlwind tour of the last four billion years of evolution, paleontologist and TED Fellow Lauren Sallan introduces us to some of the wildly diverse animals that roamed the prehistoric planet (from sharks with wings to galloping crocodiles and long-necked rhinos) and shows why paleontology is about way more than dinosaurs.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 08:48
marialadias edited English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) | ||
Erin Gregory approved English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) | ||
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) | ||
Krystian Aparta accepted English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for A brief tour of the last 4 billion years (dinosaurs not included) |