Palaeo After Dark

The gang discusses two papers that look at the correlation between climate change and extinction risk in the fossil record. The first paper uses climate modeling to simulate extinction risk during past periods of climate change, and the second paper uses new radiometric age dates to infer diachronous extinction between marine and terrestrial environments during the Permian mass extinction. Meanwhile, James orders food, Curt stirs the pot, and Amanda lives with her choices.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at times when a lot of things died. The first paper uses computers and numbers to see how things could die during times when things get real hot or real cold. They look at real times in the past when lots of things die during these cold and hot times, and then they use their computers and numbers to make those things happen in the world of a computer to see if they can find out what may or may not make that happen. They find that lots of things can cause animals to die

The gang talks about two papers that look through existing museum collections to discover some fascinating new discoveries. Meanwhile, Curt may be haunted, James may be losing energy, and Amanda may not be real.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers about new things that found when going through the stuff stored in a big building where you keep things so that people can look at them later. The first paper finds some really cool new small things that live in water that had been found before and put in a big building to keep things, but no one saw that these small things were not the same as the other small things. These small things are part of a group that lives in fast moving water that we usually do not get a lot of them in the ground. The second paper finds that a thing that was put in a big building a long time ago was actually a lie. This thing is not what everyone thinks it is and the paper looks into what it really is, which is that it is a painting on rock. The paper talks abo

The gang discusses two papers that look at the fossil frog record. The first paper identifies fossil frogs from Antarctica, and the second paper looks at some exceptional soft-tissue preservation. Meanwhile, James has ideas for expanding the brand, Amanda asks for clarification on an important topic, and Curt makes some executive decisions.   Up-Goer Five (James Edition): The group looks at two papers that are interested in animals that are wrong and good at jumping and live in the water but some can walk on land and climb trees. The first paper is looking at one from the very cold land in the bottom of the round thing we live on, where we do not find any of them today because it is too cold. The animal is known by two small bits but we can tell what type of jumping thing it is and so we know it is part of a group that is found in two areas that do not touch today, but the place at the bottom of the round thing we live on is between them, so that makes sense! But it is very cold today, so that is strange, bu

The gang discusses two papers that investigate evidence of symbiosis in the fossil record. The first paper looks at wormy organisms living inside Cambrian vetulicolians, and the second paper shows potential evidence of hydroids growing in mollusc shells. Meanwhile, Amanda is haunted, James’s computer is totally cooperating, and Curt may or may not have had to stitch this podcast together from other sources.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at animals that live inside of other animals. Sometimes these things live inside other things and both of the things do well because of it. Sometimes, these things live inside other things and they cause problems for the thing they live in. These two papers look at the ways we can see old bits of things that used to live in other things and how we can try and figure out why they might have lived inside other things. The first paper looks long animals living inside a weird animal from a long long time ago. These long animals are all in

The gang discusses two papers that look at Mesozoic tracks that may or may not have been made by an avian archosaur. Meanwhile, Curt becomes activated, Amanda has to deal with harsh truths, James gets creative with taxon names, and everyone get distracted very quickly. (Editor’s Note: If you want to just “get to the science” skip to 11 minutes in. We hadn’t talked in 2 months and it shows. I just didn’t have the heart to cut all of it)   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at foot falls in the ground from a very very long time ago which may or may not be made by animals that can fly through the sky, or may have been made by big angry animals. The problem is that big angry animals and the animals that can fly are very close to each other, and their foot falls can look a lot like each other. The first paper looks at some very old foot falls and some of these foot falls do look like they were made by animals that can fly, but that would be very very strange because it would nee

A cleric, a wizard, and a paladin finally make their way into the center of the woods. What will they find at the end of their journey? "The Builder", “The Other Side of the Door”, “For Originz” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A paladin, a wizard, and a cleric continue their trek through a totally normal nature preserve where I am sure nothing bad will happen whatsoever. "The Builder", “Constancy Part Three” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A cleric, a wizard, and a paladin prepare for a trip through a dangerous wood. What could go wrong? "The Builder", “Constancy Part Three” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gang discusses two papers that look at... well... let's be honest here... we really didn't have much of a hook. You see, James was slammed with bureaucratic work, Curt was knee deep in grading hell, and Amanda was traveling for the holidays. So we made... this; a podcast about a worm and a lamprey.    We're sorry.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers about animals that are long with no legs. The first  paper looks at a small long animal that is actually pretty big for the  kind of animal that it is. It is very old and is found in a very cold  place. This is an important animal to find from a long time ago because  there are not a lot of these animals found at this time, and not a lot  of them in the cold. The fact that it is big could be a part of  something we see a lot where some animals get big to live in the cold.  The second paper looks at a long animals that moves through water and  some of them will eat parts of other animals while they are still  living. This paper is l

The gang discusses two papers about taphonomy and its influence on our understanding of the fossil record. The first paper looks at how taphonomic processes can blur our understanding of cause and effect, while the second paper looks at the impacts of collector and size biases on our understanding of the ecology of an ancient plant. Meanwhile, James deals with spirits, Curt gets philosophical, and Amanda smartly ignores things.   Up-Goer Five (Curt): The friends talk about two papers that look at the ways in which the things we know can be changed because of other problems that we do not always know are there to make things look like one thing but actually be another thing. The first paper looks at how not getting things to be saved over time could mean that you might not see the reason something happens until it looks like it is after that thing has happened. The paper uses a time in the past when it got very cold and looks at what could have made this happen. There are lots of talk about the growing of big

The gang discusses two papers that look at plankton through time. The first paper looks at some Cambrian acritarch fossils and shows that they are likely colonial algae, and the second paper looks at how shifting temperature affected plankton distribution across the Cenozoic. Meanwhile, everyone stays completely on task with the stated goals of this podcast: a detailed (and wrong) discussion on the events of the movie “The Hunt for Red October”. Yes, it is going to be “one of those” podcasts.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at things that live in the water without having to move parts to stay in the water and maybe they are single cells and maybe they are groups of cells. The first paper looks very very old things that live in the water. These old things are so old and hard to figure out that people are not always sure what they are. These things are often thought to be all single cells. This paper shows that some of these things that are very old might be groups of

The gang discusses two papers that deal with the evolution of tardigrades. The first paper looks at some fossil tardigrades in amber, and the second paper looks to the Cambrian to determine the ancestors of modern tardigrades. Meanwhile, Amanda confuses some details about medication, James has some money making crab solutions, and Curt is somehow the one person trying to keep people on track.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at a group of animals that are very very very small and have been seen as cute by a lot of people even though you can not really see them without help. The first paper finds some of these very very small animals in bits that come out of things that grow big and make their own food. These bits get hard when they get covered in ground over a long time and things that get stuck in the stuff can be there. This paper looks at these old very very small animals and tries to see what they could be like. It also talks about how we might not have as good an i

The gang discusses two papers that look at the gut contents and traces of ancient animals. The first paper reconstructs gut traces (or lack thereof) for Ediacarans and then the second paper looks at the detailed gut contents and 3d track of a lichid trilobite. Meanwhile, Amanda’s cat is changing careers, James is feeling “motivated”, and Curt has some house improvement recommendations.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about the insides of different animals from a long long time ago. The first paper looks at animals from a long long time ago that do not look much like things we see today. There is a lot of talk about how these animal would eat and where the food would go when they did eat. This paper looks at the parts that remain and looks over the things that are left behind to see if they can find out what the insides of these things were like. What they find is that the things we think are more like things we see today all have insides where the food goes. The one really strange thing does

  The gang discusses two papers that look at the provide clues to the modern biogeographic distribution of species, specifically bees and new world monkeys. Meanwhile, Amanda shares something, James finds out about where’s the beef in more ways than one, and Curt invents a band.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at where animals live and how those animals got to those places. The first paper looks at group of small animals that fly and go to things that grow their own food and picks up parts of them when looking for food that helps these things that grow their own food make more of themselves. A long time ago, people had an idea that all of these small animals that fly came from one place and them moved to other places. No one had done a big paper using computers to see if this was true. This paper uses computers and finds that it does seem to be true. The second paper looks at small animals that move in trees and can not fly but are closer to people than lots of other

The gang discusses two papers that look at fossils of the early whale group Basilosauridae. Specially, these papers describe the largest whale recovered from this group, as well as the smallest whale from the group. Meanwhile, Amanda has a lovely home, James has some whale facts, and Curt has some art critiques.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at one group of big animals that breathe air but move in the water that are no longer around today. These papers are looking at different animals within the same group. The cool thing about both of these papers is that they talk about the same thing, but from different ways of looking at it. This is because one of these papers is about the biggest animal that people have found in this group and the other paper is about the smallest animal found in this group. This is a big thing because this is a group that today has gotten really big and the reasons why these groups get big has been something people are really interested in.

The gang discusses two papers that investigate the feeding strategies of ancient animals, including a fossil stingray and an ancient bird. Meanwhile, James is recovering, Curt refuses to do his job, and Amanda is in podcast heaven but teetering over podcast hell.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that looks into what old animals that are long dead would eat. The first paper looks at the teeth of a group of animals that move through the water like waves and have a long back part. Animals in this group today eat lots of different things. In the past, we do not know what these animals would eat so we do not know the ways in which these animals have changed to better eat the things they eat. This paper finds an old animal with teeth and body parts and finds that this thing could break hard things with its teeth, but also that it moved through the water in a different way than the animals today that break hard things. The second paper looks at hard things in the stomach of an

The gang discusses two papers that use Blender 3d modeling techniques (and other functional morphology techniques) to study arthropod morphology. The first paper looks at trilobite enrollment and the second paper looks at the anomalocaris great frontal appendages. Meanwhile, James likes horses, Amanda has some name ideas, and Curt fails to segue.   Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends look at two papers that talk about things with legs that have many parts. The first paper looks at very old pretty large things with mouth legs that people can't decide if they were strong or not strong. The paper does lots of computer stuff to figure out just how strong the mouth legs are. They find that the mouth legs are not as strong as people thought they might be and so they did not eat things with very hard parts, probably, but things that were not hard at all. The second paper looks at how cute little things with legs that have many parts might have made themselves into balls. There are many ways that th

The gang discusses two papers that looks at mammal jaws and teeth. The first paper uses many different analyses to study how the mammal jaw evolved, and the second paper looks at a unique set of teeth in a fossil whale group. Meanwhile, Curt gets ideas from Mortal Kombat, James has discusses farming practices, and Amanda finds any excuse to be fabulous.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at how mouths for animals with hair have changed over time. The first paper looks at the bottom hard part of the mouth to see how it first started and how it has changed and why it changed. Lots of people have ideas about this, but this paper is the first attempt to really look at this problem for a lot of different ways of handling it. They do a lot of things that are very number heavy to look at how these hard parts are able to move, and they look at a lot of parts from living and long dead things. What they find is that the bottom mouth parts of animals with hair are not as g

The gang discusses two papers that look at examples of unusually large animals in the fossil record; one large lacewing larvae and one very large skink. Meanwhile, James is having a great day, Amanda starts a chant, and Curt learns the true meaning of “cool fossil bro”.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers about things that are big for what they are. The first paper is a type of kid of an animal that is small thing that flies when it is grown but does not fly when it is a kid. These animals have a neck when they are kids which some of these animals do not have. This animal has a really long body and a really long neck. They found it in water, so they think this animal would have been a big thing living in the water and eating things that it caught with its long neck. The second paper looks at another group of animals with cold blood and hard bits on its skin that runs around on four legs. This animal is really big for its group. Parts of this animal were found before, but they were s

The gang discusses two papers that look at the ecomorphology of Mesozoic swimming reptiles. The first paper investigates swimming strategies in various marine swimming reptile groups, and the second paper looks at changes in the skull of mosasaurs compared to stem whales. Meanwhile, James has a meal, Amanda “makes” animals, and Curt needs more insight.   Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at how big angry animals that move through the water lived a long time ago. The first paper looks at how these big animals moved through the water, because there are many ways that an animal can move through water. They use numbers to look at how these animals look, and they also use some animals from today that move through water to see if the way they look is like the ones from the past. They find that there are some ways that animals look with their bodies that change how they move through the water. This shows a lot of cool things. Some groups start moving through water in one way and