PBS
How Volcanoes Froze the Earth (Twice)
Over 600 million years ago, sheets of ice coated our planet on both land and sea. How did this happen? And most importantly for us, why did the planet eventually thaw again? The evidence for Snowball Earth is written on every continent...
PBS
How To Survive the Little Ice Age
Nunalleq, a village in what’s today southwest Alaska, seemed to have thrived during the Little Ice Age. How did this village manage to survive and prosper during this time period? And what caused this period of climate change in the...
PBS
How South America Made the Marsupials
Throughout the Cenozoic Era -- the era we’re in now -- marsupials and their metatherian relatives flourished all over South America, filling all kinds of ecological niches and radiating into forms that still thrive on other continents.
PBS
How Plants Caused the First Mass Extinction
In the middle of the Cambrian, life on land was about to get a little more crowded. And those newcomers would end up changing the world. The arrival of plants on land would make the world colder, drain much of the oxygen out of the...
PBS
The Sea Monster from the Andes
In 1977, a farmer was plowing his field on a plateau high in the Andes mountains when he stumbled upon a giant fossilized skeleton. How did this giant marine reptile end up high in the Andes Mountains?
PBS
The Return of Giant Skin-Shell Sea Turtles
The biggest turtle ever described wasn’t an ancestor of today’s leatherback turtles or any other living sea turtles. But it looks like there are some things about being a giant, skin-shelled sea turtle that just work, no matter where, or...
PBS
The Raptor That Made Us Rethink Dinosaurs
In 1964, a paleontologist named John Ostrom unearthed some fascinating fossils from the mudstone of Montana. Its discovery set the stage for what’s known today as the Dinosaur Renaissance, a total re-thinking of what we thought we knew...
PBS
The Evolution of the Heart (A Love Story)
In order to understand where hearts came from, we have to go back to the earliest common ancestor of everything that has a heart. It took hundreds of millions of years, and countless different iterations of the same basic structure to...
PBS
How We Domesticated Cats (Twice)
A 9,500-year-old burial in Cyprus represents some of the oldest known evidence of human/cat companionships anywhere in the world. But when did this close relationship between humans and cats start? And how did humans help cats take over...
PBS
When the Earth Suddenly Stopped Warming
For decades, scientists have been studying the cause of the Younger Dryas, and trying to figure out if something like it could happen again. And it turns out that what caused this event is the subject of a heated debate.
PBS
Were These Monsters Inspired by Fossils? (w/ Monstrum!)
People have been discovering the traces and remains of prehistoric creatures for thousands of years. And they’ve also probably been telling stories about fantastic beasts since language became a thing. So, is it possible that the...
PBS
When a Billion Years Disappeared
In some places, the rocks below the Great Unconformity are about 1.2 billion years older than those above it. This missing chapter in Earth’s history might be linked to a fracturing supercontinent, out-of-control glaciers, and maybe the...
PBS
How Blood Evolved (Many Times)
Blood is one of the most revolutionary features in our evolutionary history. Over hundreds of millions of years, the way in which blood does its job has changed over and over again. As a result, we animals have our familiar red blood....
Be Smart
The Impossible Hugeness of Deep Time
Humans have a hard time with really big numbers, especially when it comes to DEEP TIME. The history of the Earth took a lot longer than you think, trust me. But I’m here to help you put it in perspective. With some string.
Be Smart
The Mystery of Earth's Disappearing Giants | IN OUR NATURE
Seemingly distant ecosystems, even half a world apart, are connected in surprising ways. In this special limited series, Emily Graslie and Trace Dominguez join me as we explore the universal rules of life that tie together Earth’s living...
Be Smart
What Is A Dinosaur And What Isn’t a Dinosaur?
There’s a lot of confusion out there about what is and isn’t a dinosaur. And you’d be forgiven for being kinda confused. Maybe paleontologists are just messing with us. Or… maybe the question of what is and isn’t a dinosaur goes deeper...
Be Smart
How Did Giant Pterosaurs Fly?
The largest pterosaurs like Quetzalcoatlus were closer in size to airplanes than birds. No flying animal alive today comes close to their huge size. So did giant pterosaurs actually fly? I went to see the fossil bones of the largest...
SciShow
Why Are Saturn’s Rings Younger Than Saturn?
Saturn's rings are younger than Saturn, and the most spectacular sight in the Solar System is also disappearing. How do we know? By running our finger through some cosmic dust.
SciShow
Were Long Necks Also Tall Necks?
Long-necked sauropod dinosaurs are some of the most striking animals that ever lived. But we don't know what they used their long necks for, and whether they held them high in the air or parallel to the ground. Here's what we do know.
SciShow
Could Dinosaurs Have Been Warm-Blooded?
For a long time, scientists have debated whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded. Turns out, they were probably somewhere in between.
SciShow
10 of the Strangest Prehistoric Creatures
We know what the dinosaurs looked like thanks to fossils, but have you seen some of these wild creatures? Join Michael Aranda for a new episode of SciShow and take a closer look at some of the strangest-looking animals evolution has...
SciShow
Why Aren't Mammals as Big as Dinosaurs?
Dinosaurs were huge—it's common knowledge. So why aren't modern mammals anywhere near that size? In this episode of SciShow, Hank gives a quick run-down of the reasons scientists think the land mammals of today are nowhere near the size...
SciShow
What Did Dinosaurs Taste Like?
Have you ever wondered what dinosaur meat might have tasted like? Chances are you've eaten dinosaur more recently than you might expect.
SciShow
The Science of Screaming, And What Was the Biggest Dinosaur?
Scientists dissect the human scream for the first time, and also re-think what was thought to be the biggest dinosaur in the world.