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Seals, sea lions, and walruses (oh my!) are widespread, successful, and invariably charming. In this episode, we examine the adaptations, mysterious origins, and diverse but spotty fossil record of this fascinating group of aquatic mammals, the Pinnipeds.
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It’s been called the largest natural climate event of the Cenozoic Era, it set off a series of environmental changes that paved the way for our modern world, and it’s a critical case study in what happens when a huge rise in atmospheric Carbon triggers rapid warming of the global climate. This episode, we discuss the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
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It may not sound appealing, but without a doubt one of the most successful of all life strategies is to siphon, steal, and exploit resources from other living things. In this episode, we discuss the evolution, deep history, and extraordinary diversity of Parasites.
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Dinosaurs are famous for being successful, strange, and super-sized, but one group outdoes all the rest. This episode, we’re discussing the fascinating and puzzling group of animals that smash the record for largest land animals of all time: Sauropods.
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As far as we can tell, all life on Earth is descended from a common ancestry. But there are so many open questions about when, where, and how life got started. In this episode, we tackle some of the biggest questions in the universe as we discuss The Origin of Life.
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They’ve been on Earth for around 400 million years, they have occupied nearly every ecosystem on land for most of that time, they come in a more dazzling diversity than arguably any other group of life, and they have a fascinating, complex, and deep evolutionary story. This episode, we try our best to touch lightly upon the Evolution of Insects.
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The study of life, past and present, revolves around the evolution, diversity, and extinction of organisms. But exactly how we group organisms and how we understand how new groups arise is a complex topic with much terminology and occasional turmoil. In this episode, we discuss Species and Speciation.
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From microbes to mushrooms, spiders to snakes, urchins to us, all life engages in chemical warfare. Toxins produced by organisms are enormously varied in their origins, functions, and evolutionary histories. In this episode, we discuss the nasty chemicals that make up Venom and Poison.
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Kangaroos, koalas, opossums, possums, Tasmanian devils, and their relatives … they all have a few things in common: an unusual reproductive strategy, a pouch for their young, and a shared evolutionary history that separates them from the majority of living mammals. This episode is all about Marsupials.
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Most famous extinction events are very animal-focused, but the end of the Carboniferous saw one of the worst plant mass extinctions in Earth history. In this episode, we discuss the specifics, the background, the causes, and the impacts of the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse.
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