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The Life Scientific

Dean Lomax on discovering ichthyosaurs and defying nay-sayers

The Life Scientific

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Science

4.61.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Have you ever been told you aren't good enough to do something, then gone ahead and proved the naysayers wrong by doing it anyway - in glorious, headline-grabbing style?

That is the satisfying story of Dr Dean Lomax. Dean grew up in Doncaster with a passion for fossils but after failing various school exams, was told by teachers that he'd never make it as a palaeontologist. Undeterred by leaving school with no qualifications, Dean sold his childhood Star Wars collection to fund a fossil-hunting trip to America that changed his life - after which a chance discovery led to him publishing his first ever scientific paper at the age of just 20.

Today, he’s an expert on ichthyosaurs - the massive marine reptiles that once inhabited our seas - and has discovered and named several new species, written books for both adults and children, and brought the prehistoric world to life on TV. Talking to Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Dean discusses dinosaurs as a 'gateway science', discovering the Rutland Sea Dragon and the importance of cutting out noise from nay-sayers to follow your dreams...

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced by Lucy Taylor A BBC Studios production

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:07.2

Things just swirling around my head.

0:09.6

Am I really the product of this?

0:12.1

Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests.

0:17.0

Little did I know what more was to come.

0:19.5

I'm Jenny Clemen, and in the new series of The Gift, we'll hear more stories emerging

0:25.2

out of the ever-expanding global DNA database.

0:28.8

They did know that I was different.

0:31.7

You had kids together.

0:33.0

Yeah.

0:33.5

Then you met.

0:34.3

Then we met.

0:35.3

The Gift.

0:36.1

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:39.0

You're about to listen to the latest series of the Life Scientific.

0:43.1

Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

0:47.0

But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days before anywhere else first on BBC Sounds.

0:56.5

Imagine being told as a teenager that you're not clever enough to make it as a scientist,

1:02.6

a paleontologist to be more specific, then proving those voices wrong by discovering some of

1:08.0

the largest prehistoric creatures to have ever roamed the seas.

1:12.1

No, this isn't some boy done good movie plot, it's the true story of today's guest.

1:17.5

Dr Dean Lomax is now one of the world's leading experts on ichthyosaurs,

...

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