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Science Friday

Undiscovered Presents: The Holdout. Sept 18, 2018.

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Natural Sciences, Wnyc, Science, Friday, Life Sciences

4.4 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2018

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ 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? Subscribe to Undiscovered HERE, or wherever you get your podcasts. GUESTS Gerta Keller, professor of paleontology and geology at Princeton James Powell, geologist and author of Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Dinosaur Extinction and the Transformation of Modern Geology (St. Martin's Press) FOOTNOTES Michael Benton reviews the many, sometimes hilarious explanations for the (non-avian) dinosaurs’ extinction. Note: Ideas marked with asterisks were jokes! More in Benton’s book. Walter Alvarez tells his own story of the impact hypothesis in T. Rex and the Crater of Doom. The New York Times interviews Luis Alvarez before he dies, and he takes some parting shots at his scientific opponents. The impact and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary were simultaneous according to this paper. Learn more about how volcanoes are major suspects in mass extinctions. Read more about Gerta Keller, the holdout. CREDITS This episode of Undiscovered was reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata. Original music by Daniel Peterschmidt. Fact-checking help from Robin Palmer. Lucy Huang polled visitors to AMNH about what killed the dinosaurs. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. Excerpts from All Things Considered used with permission from NPR.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, Science Friday listeners.

0:01.5

Our science documentary podcast Undiscovered is back for its second season.

0:06.8

So over the next few weeks, we'll be sharing a few of this season's episodes.

0:10.8

This week, I bet you have a good idea what killed the dinosaurs, right?

0:14.3

Well, not so fast.

0:15.9

In this episode of Undiscovered, Annie and Ella bring you the tale of a holdout,

0:20.7

a scientist who just doesn't

0:22.1

buy the common theory and her investigation of an alternate idea.

0:28.4

This is Undiscovered.

0:34.4

What killed the dinosaurs?

0:36.9

It is one of the great mysteries, the great enduring questions of science.

0:42.6

They lived on this planet for 170 million years.

0:47.7

Then abruptly, the rain ends.

0:50.0

Dinosaurus is doing great.

0:51.8

Where'd they go?

0:52.7

And one of the first people to field an actual scientific

0:56.7

explanation for this was a Transylvanian Baron, Franz Nopsha. It was 1917. Franz was obsessed with

1:06.6

dinosaurs, got into it after his sister found some giant bones near their castle because they

1:12.5

lived in one.

1:13.3

Right. Barron.

1:14.3

And even though France was self-taught, he actually came up with some really great ideas about dinosaurs.

1:19.1

But when it came to this very pivotal question, like what the heck happened to them?

...

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