The Age of Dinosaurs with Henry Gee

March 5, 2026·1 hr 17 min·2 clips

The question is simple: favorite dinosaur? From there, the host opens the door to over a hundred million years of paleontology, from Triassic beginnings to extinction. Dr. Henry Gee returns for favorite dinosaurs, the wider age of dinosaurs, and the awkward question of whether some dinosaurs swam. The strongest stretch is all body mechanics. Gee explains that giant dinosaurs could grow so large because so much of them was air. Size brings a heat problem. Bigger bodies have interiors farther from the surface, so ordinary heat exchange gets harder. The liver matters here. In a big dinosaur, Gee says, it could be the size of a car and throw off enormous heat. Air sacs helped carry that heat away more directly, instead of relying only on blood moving heat toward the lungs. It is a neat, slightly strange image: a liver almost exposed to air. Then the talk turns to anatomy as engineering. Sauropod bones, especially backbones, were stripped down to struts that carried the load. Extra bone vanished. That light build helps explain how such huge animals avoided becoming impossible slabs of weight. Gee nudges the comparison toward birds: less familiar reptile, more gigantic quadrupedal flightless bird.

As heard by us

A lively dinosaur conversation that favors evidence, engineering, and a few good uncertainties.

This episode gives the age of dinosaurs a brisk, curious tour, with Henry Gee revisiting the sweep from the Triassic to extinction. It works best when it keeps the scale of the story grounded in mechanics: how giants managed heat, why air sacs mattered, and what bones can…

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Want a smart tour through the age of dinosaurs, from Triassic beginnings to extinction?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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