Hunting for dinosaurs showed me our place in the universe | Kennet Lacovara

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when you discover a dinosaur? Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara details his unearthing of Dreadnoughtus -- a 77-million-year-old sauropod that was as tall as a two-story house and as heavy as a jumbo jet -- and considers how amazingly improbable it is that a tiny mammal living in the cracks of the dinosaur world could evolve into a sentient being capable of understanding these magnificent creatures. Join him in a celebration of the Earth's geological history and contemplate our place in deep time.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's TED Talks Daily, and I'm your host, Elise Hugh.
0:07.0	Today's archive talk from TED-2016 is so delightfully nerdy. It's from the paleontologist Kenneth
0:13.3	Lachabara. He's behind the discovery of a dinosaur species, the size of eight T-Rexes. And his talk
0:20.3	celebrates discovery, new understanding, and contributing to scientific knowledge.
0:26.2	If you want to hear more from Ken, listen to Pindrop, a new podcast from TED.
0:30.6	Each episode journeys across the globe to ask, if this place could give a TED talk, what would it be about?
0:37.1	In the New Jersey episode, we travel with Ken to the site of an incredible discovery,
0:42.2	and we hear how it's going to change the town where it was found.
0:46.1	Check out Pindrop wherever you get your podcasts.
0:51.3	How do you find a dinosaur?
0:56.0	Sounds impossible, doesn't it? It's not.
0:58.0	And the answer relies on a formula that all paleontologists use.
1:03.0	And I'm going to tell you the secret.
1:05.0	First, find rocks of the right age.
1:09.0	Second, those rocks must be sedimentary rocks.
1:14.3	And third, layers of those rocks must be naturally exposed.
1:19.1	That's it.
1:20.2	Find those three things and get yourself on the ground.
1:23.8	Chances are good that you will find fossils.
1:26.7	Now let me break down this formula.
1:28.3	Organisms exist only during certain geological intervals.
1:33.3	So you have to find rocks of the right age,
	...

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