Palaeo After Dark
The crew of CS Perry were offered the perfect deal, a quick stop at an abandoned spaceport to grab some mothballed tech and they'd be set for life. What could possibly go wrong? "Lightless Dawn" from Kevin MacLeod () Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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For our holiday episodes this year, James, Curt, Amanda, and Ants get together to play a game of the space horror tabletop RPG Mothership. Join us for our introductory episode where we discuss the setting, rules, and the main characters of our story. "Lightless Dawn" from Kevin MacLeod () Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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The gang discusses two papers that are about dinosaurs, and that is all that connects them! The first paper investigates community structure during the Cretaceous, and the second paper describes a well preserved “mummy” of a duck-billed dinosaur. Meanwhile, Amanda is doing well (really she is now), Curt makes an awkward segue, and James has not seen Tremors. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers about big angry animals from a long time ago. The first paper looks at how many types of big angry animals were in a place before something bad happened and all the...
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The gang discusses two papers that have very little in common with each except for the word “stem”. The first paper uses birth death models to simulate the fossil record in order investigate if neutral models can produce patterns similar to the “crown”/“stem” evolutionary dynamics that have been observed in real data. The second paper investigates stem mandibulate fossils to investigate the timing of major key innovations in the evolutionary history of this arthropod group. Meanwhile, Amanda decides, James bullies, and Curt explains. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends...
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The gang discusses two papers that investigate injuries in fossil bones. The first paper tests hypotheses about the causes of facial injuries in herrarasaurids, and the second paper tests if inferred hunting strategies map onto injury patterns in predators from the La Brea Tar Pits. Meanwhile, Curt provides some hypotheses, Amanda gets spiritual, and James is photogenic. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at why animals from a long time ago got hurt. The first paper looks at some very old and angry animals with no hair that all got hurt in the...
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The gang discusses two papers that use taphonomic experiments to test hypotheses about the paleo-environmental conditions of the Crato Formation. Meanwhile, Amanda has her daily requirements, James longs for the rack, Curt launched a new podcast concept, and no one on this podcast can keep to a topic for longer than five minutes. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at rocks that come from the same place. This place is a spot where you get a lot of soft things from animals in the rocks which would usually not be able to be in the rocks because they...
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The gang discusses two papers that provide nuanced information to test when key innovations in vertebrate evolution occurred. The first paper looks at unique semi-terrestrial trace fossils in the early Devonian in order to determine the trace maker, and the second paper looks at fossils that could provide information about the origins of teeth. Meanwhile, Curt has theme park ambitions, James provides Amanda with new anxieties, and Amanda leaves it all to chance. Up-Goer Five (James Edition): The group talk about two papers that are looking at the earliest time things have been seen in...
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The gang discusses two papers that deal with fossil brains. The first paper looks at a fossil arthropod from the Cambrian and uses neurological characters to determine its phylogenetic placement. The second paper looks at a synapsid braincase and tries to infer why this one species has lost its parietal eye when other members of the species have he eye. Meanwhile, Curt invents some new sponsors, Amanda has plans for James, and James discusses some personal growth. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition) The friends talk about two papers that look at very old brains in animals that are long gone....
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The gang discusses two papers about skin preservation in fossil tetrapods. The first paper describes skin impressions from a Permian synapsid, and the second paper identifies feather-like structures in an early Triassic diapsid. Meanwhile, James considers the horse, Amanda shames extinct animals, and Curt quotes “philosophy”. Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition): Today our friends talk about things that are sort of close to things with hair but not that close to things with hair. They are closer to things with hair than to things with dry skin with no hair or long many-part skin things....
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The gang ends “Wet Hot Archosaur Summer” with the final podcast recorded from our undisclosed location in the woods. For this podcast, we indulge Amanda by talking about birds and trace fossils. The first paper looks at the remains of nesting sites that date back to the Cretaceous, and the second paper investigates sources of error in estimates of avian maximum speeds from trace fossils. Meanwhile, Amanda has a message for the bears, James proposes an alliance with the crows, and Curt does an “homage”. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talks about two papers that will...
info_outlineThe gang discusses two papers that look at the evolution of photosynthesis in different groups. The first paper looks at what might be the first fossil evidence of thylakoids, and the second paper finds evidence for photosynthesizing symbiotes in Devonian fossil corals. Meanwhile, Amanda is making a lasagna, James has a lot of opinions about lasagna (~10 minutes until we actually get to the paper), and Curt is all about those sponges.
Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):
The friends talk about two papers that look at how some types of living things can make food from the sun. The first paper looks at these very very old things that are very very very small. Inside these things they find very very very small parts of things that are used today by some living things to help make food from the sun. This might be the oldest one of these things that we have ever found, and it makes it so that we can see how things might have gotten better at making food from the sun over time.
The second paper looks at old animals that live in the big blue wet thing that all live close together and make big hard parts that make walls in the water. These old animals are like the ones we see today but they are a group that is not around anymore. Groups today have friends that help make food from the sun for them. This paper looks to see if the old animals had those friends (or friends like them) too. They find that animals today keep some bits of things they do not usually want so that their friends can eat them. This can be seen in the hard parts they make. When they looked at the hard parts of the old group of animals, they saw that they were doing this too. This means that these animals were keeping food for friends just like that animals we see today.
References:
Demoulin, Catherine F., et al. "Oldest thylakoids in fossil cells directly evidence oxygenic photosynthesis." Nature 625.7995 (2024): 529-534.
Jung, Jonathan, et al. "Coral photosymbiosis on Mid-Devonian reefs." Nature (2024): 1-7.