The Holdout

Undiscovered

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Wnyc, Society & Culture, 805813, Science, History, Friday, Studios

4.6 • 768 Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2018

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Since the 1980s, Gerta Keller, professor of paleontology and geology at Princeton, has been speaking out against an idea most of us take as scientific gospel: That a giant rock from space killed the dinosaurs. Nice story, she says—but it’s just not true. Gerta's been shouted down and ostracized at conferences, but in three decades, she hasn’t backed down. And now, things might finally be coming around for Gerta’s theory. But is she right? Did something else kill the dinosaurs? Or is she just too proud to admit she’s been wrong for 30 years?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Listener supported, WNYC Studios.
0:07.0	This is undiscovered.
0:13.0	What killed the dinosaurs?
0:18.0	It is one of the great mysteries, the great enduring questions of science.
0:24.4	They lived on this planet for 170 million years.
0:29.5	Then abruptly, the rain ends.
0:31.8	Dinosaurs doing great.
0:33.5	Where'd they go?
0:34.5	And one of the first people to field an actual scientific explanation for this
0:40.2	was a Transylvanian Baron, Franz Nopsha. It was 1917. Franz was obsessed with dinosaurs, got into it
0:50.2	after his sister found some giant bones near their castle because they lived in one.
0:55.0	Right, Barron?
0:56.0	And even though France was self-taught, he actually came up with some really great ideas about dinosaurs.
1:01.0	But when it came to this very pivotal question, like what the heck happened to them?
1:05.0	Not his best work.
1:07.0	Franz thought.
1:08.0	Dinosaurs.
1:10.0	Mm-hmm. Got too big.
1:11.6	Okay.
1:12.6	Maybe it was like a pituitary disorder.
1:14.6	Very close runner-up idea?
1:16.6	They stopped doing it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Science Friday and WNYC Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Science Friday and WNYC Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.