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  • 13
  • Documentary

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2019
2019x1
When Humans Were Prey
Episode overview
08, 2019
Not too long ago, our early human ancestors were under constant threat of attack from predators. And it turns out that this difficult chapter in our history may be responsible for the adaptations that allowed us to become so successful.
2019x2
How Blood Evolved (Many Times)
Episode overview
15, 2019
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 .. show full overview
2019x3
The Humans That Lived Before Us
Episode overview
29, 2019
As more and more fossil ancestors have been found, our genus has become more and more inclusive, incorporating more members that look less like us, Homo sapiens. By getting to know these .. show full overview
2019x4
The Island of Shrinking Mammoths
Episode overview
05, 2019
The mammoths fossils found on the Channel Islands off the coast of southern California are much smaller than their relatives found on the mainland. They were so small that they came to .. show full overview
2019x5
The Evolution of the Heart (A Love Story)
Episode overview
13, 2019
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 .. show full overview
2019x6
How 7,000 Years of Epic Floods Changed the World
Episode overview
27, 2019
Strange geologic landmarks in the Pacific Northwest are the lingering remains of a mystery that took nearly half a century to solve. These features turned out to be a result one of the .. show full overview
2019x7
The Island of Huge Hamsters and Giant Owls
Episode overview
05, 2019
Back in the late Miocene epoch, there was an island--or maybe a group of islands-- in the Mediterranean Sea that was populated with fantastic giant beasts. It’s a lesson in the very strange, but very real, powers of natural selection.
2019x8
The Giant Bird That Got Lost in Time
Episode overview
12, 2019
The California condor is the biggest flying bird in North America, a title that it has held since the Late Pleistocene Epoch. It's just one example of an organism that we share the planet with today that seems lost in time, out of place in our world.
2019x9
When We First Made Tools
Episode overview
26, 2019
The tools made by our human ancestors may not seem like much when you compare them to the screen you’re looking at right now but their creation represents a pivotal moment in the origin of technology and in the evolution of our lineage.
2019x10
When Giant Scorpions Swarmed the Seas
Episode overview
02, 2019
Sea scorpions thrived for 200 million years, coming in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Over time, they developed a number of adaptations--from crushing claws to flattened tails for .. show full overview
2019x11
When We Tamed Fire
Episode overview
09, 2019
The ability to make and use fire has fundamentally changed the arc of our evolution. The bodies we have today were, in many ways, shaped by that time when we first tamed fire.
2019x12
The Mystery Behind the Biggest Bears of All Time
Episode overview
23, 2019
The short-faced bears turned out to be remarkably adaptable, undergoing radical changes to meet the demands of two changing continents. And yet, for reasons we don’t quite understand, their adaptability wasn’t enough to keep them from going extinct.
2019x13
The Croc That Ran on Hooves
Episode overview
01, 2019
In the Eocene Epoch, there was a reptile that had teeth equipped for biting through flesh, its hind legs were a lot longer than its front legs and instead of claws, its toes were each capped with hooves. How did this living nightmare come to evolve?
2019x14
When We Took Over the World
Episode overview
07, 2019
From our deepest origins in Africa all the way to the Americas, by looking at the fossils and archaeological materials we have been able to trace the path our ancestors took during thee short window of time when we took over the world.
2019x15
The Ghostly Origins of the Big Cats
Episode overview
16, 2019
All of today’s big cat species evolved less than 11 million years ago and yet their evolutionary history remains an almost total mystery. But scientists have recently discovered a major .. show full overview
2019x16
The History of Climate Cycles (and the Woolly Rhino) Explained
Episode overview
30, 2019
Throughout the Pleistocene Epoch, the range of the woolly rhino grew and shrank in sync with global climate. So what caused the climate -- and the range of the woolly rhino -- to cycle back and forth between such extremes?
2019x17
The Hellacious Lives of the "Hell Pigs"
Episode overview
05, 2019
Despite the name, we don’t know where the so-called “hell pigs” belong in the mammalian family tree. They walked on hooves, like pigs do, but had longer legs, almost like deer. They had .. show full overview
2019x18
How Evolution Works (And How We Figured It Out)
Episode overview
11, 2019
As a scientific concept, evolution was revolutionary when it was first introduced. With the help of all three of our hosts and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s new .. show full overview
2019x19
When the Synapsids Struck Back
Episode overview
19, 2019
Synapsids were the world’s first-ever terrestrial megafauna but the vast majority of these giants were doomed to extinction. However some lived on, keeping a low profile among the .. show full overview
2019x20
When Ichthyosaurs Led a Revolution in the Seas
Episode overview
25, 2019
The marine reptiles Ichthyosaurs arose after The Great Dying, which wiped out at least 90 percent of life in the oceans, changing the seas forever and triggering a new evolutionary arms race between predator and prey.
2019x21
When We Met Other Human Species
Episode overview
09, 2019
We all belong to the only group of hominins on the planet today. But we weren’t always alone. 100,000 years ago, Eurasia was home to other hominin species, some of which we know our ancestors met, and spent some quality time with.
2019x22
How Volcanoes Froze the Earth (Twice)
Episode overview
17, 2019
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 today.
2019x23
How Earth's First, Unkillable Animals Saved the World
Episode overview
30, 2019
They have survived every catastrophe and every mass extinction event that nature has thrown at them. And by being the little, filter-feeding, water-cleaning creatures that they are, sponges may have saved the world.
2019x24
When Giant Deer Roamed Eurasia
Episode overview
07, 2019
Megaloceros was one of the largest members of the deer family ever to walk the Earth. The archaeological record is full of evidence that our ancestors lived alongside and interacted with .. show full overview
2019x25
Was This Dinosaur a Cannibal?
Episode overview
14, 2019
Paleontologists have spent the better part of two decades debating whether Coelophysis ate its own kind. It turns out, the evidence that scientists have had to study in order to answer .. show full overview
2019x26
The Missing Link That Wasn’t
Episode overview
21, 2019
The myth of the Missing Link--the idea that there must be a specimen that partly resembles an ape but also partly resembles a modern human--is persistent. But the reality is that there .. show full overview
2019x27
The Raptor That Made Us Rethink Dinosaurs
Episode overview
28, 2019
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 .. show full overview
2019x28
When Bats Took Flight
Episode overview
11, 2019
Bats pretty much appear in the fossil record as recognizable, full-on, flying bats. And they show up on all of the continents, except Antarctica, around the same time. So where did bats .. show full overview
2019x29
How Pterosaurs Got Their Wings
Episode overview
18, 2019
When pterosaurs first took flight, you could say that it marked the beginning of the end for the winged reptiles. Because, strangely enough, the power of flight -- and the changes that it led to -- may have ultimately led to their downfall.
2019x30
When Giant Lemurs Ruled Madagascar
Episode overview
25, 2019
Just a few thousand years ago, the island of Madagascar was inhabited by giant lemurs. How did such a diverse group of primates evolve in the first place, and how did they help shape the .. show full overview
2019x31
When Antarctica Was Green
Episode overview
03, 2019
Before the start of the Eocene Epoch about 56 million years ago--Antarctica was still joined to both Australia and South America. And it turns out that a lot of what we recognize about .. show full overview
2019x32
The (Ovi)Raptor That Paleontologists Got Wrong
Episode overview
16, 2019
Original Title: The Case of the Dinosaur Egg Thief Paleontologists found a small theropod dinosaur skull right on top of a nest of eggs that were believed to belong to a plant-eating .. show full overview
2019x33
When Hobbits Were Real
Episode overview
22, 2019
Its discoverers named it Homo floresiensis, but it’s often called “the hobbit” for its short stature and oddly proportioned feet. And it’s been at the center of a major controversy in .. show full overview
2019x34
Were These Monsters Inspired by Fossils?
Episode overview
29, 2019
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 .. show full overview
2019x35
How We Domesticated Cats (Twice)
Episode overview
06, 2019
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 the world?
2019x36
When Giant Hypercarnivores Prowled Africa
Episode overview
19, 2019
These hyaenodonts gave the world some of its largest terrestrial, carnivorous mammals ever known. And while these behemoths were the apex predators of their time, they were no match for a changing world.
2019x37
Why Male Mammoths Lost the Game
Episode overview
26, 2019
Woolly mammoths, our favorite ice age proboscidean, disappeared from Europe and North America at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. Today, we’ve teamed up with TierZoo .. show full overview
2019x38
The Forgotten Story of the Beardogs
Episode overview
12, 2019
Because of their strange combination of bear-like and dog-like traits, they’re sometimes confusingly called the beardogs. And even though you’ve never met one of these animals, the .. show full overview
2019x39
The Fuzzy Origins of the Giant Panda
Episode overview
17, 2019
How does a bear -- which is a member of the order Carnivora -- evolve into an herbivore? Despite how it looks, nothing about the history of the giant panda is black and white.

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