The Life Scientific: Dean Lomax
Discovery
BBC
4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2026
⏱️ 27 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...
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.5 | From that crazy viral video to bizarre trends that are taking over our social feeds, |
| 0:12.7 | we investigate the stuff you're scrolling through in our brand new podcast, top comment. |
| 0:18.0 | I'm BBC correspondent, Mariana Spring. |
| 0:20.2 | And I'm investigative reporter Matt Shea. |
| 0:22.0 | Every week we look at the stories spilling out from our screens and into real life. |
| 0:26.0 | To work out what's actually real. |
| 0:27.9 | And what's not. |
| 0:29.2 | Top comment. |
| 0:30.4 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | Imagine being told as a teenager that you're not clever enough to make it as a scientist, a paleontologist to be more specific, then proving those voices wrong by discovering some of the largest prehistoric creatures to have ever roamed the seas. |
| 0:49.4 | No, this isn't some boy done good movie plot, it's the true story of today's guest. Dr Dean Lomax is now one of |
| 0:56.4 | the world's leading experts on ichthyosaurs, marine reptiles that once ruled our prehistoric seas. |
| 1:03.3 | But his journey has been anything but conventional. Growing up in Doncaster, Dean's thirst to learn |
| 1:08.7 | everything he could about fossils and dinosaurs somewhat outstripped |
| 1:13.0 | his academic achievements. He failed his science GCSEs and then his A-Levels and was told by |
| 1:19.6 | teachers to give up on his dreams. But passion has a way of rewriting expectations. At the age of 18, Dean |
| 1:26.8 | sold his beloved childhood Star Wars collection |
| 1:29.8 | to fund a fossil dig in the United States. Not long after that, a chance discovery led him to |
| 1:36.3 | publish his first scientific paper when he was just 20. Since then, he's discovered multiple new |
| 1:41.7 | species, presented TV shows and written books for both adults and kids. |
| 1:47.0 | Proof, if it were needed, that it's worth challenging people who tell you you can't do something. |
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