Palaeo papers read closely, with the tangents left in.
Kurt, Amanda and James drift through dreams, cats and a talkative delivery van before they settle on a paper and test what its evidence can bear. Charnia reconstructions, a biomechanical study of jumping, fossil skin and light-sensing organs all get the same mix of teasing and careful doubt.
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Palaeo After Dark rarely starts with science. Kurt, Amanda and James usually begin wherever the week has left them. One of them describes a dream in which a book about ports and ships was somehow by James Gurney, the Dinotopia artist. One of them also tells of a delivery van that chanted 'good, good, good' in a calm voice, like the midwife droid from Revenge of the Sith, and suggests electric cars should make the same noise. There is nail polish that lasted a week without chipping, a hood cut from dinosaur fabric, and an orange cat who spent an hour shut in the basement and keeps coming back up in conversation. When a paper finally arrives, the looseness goes straight into the argument. On Charnia, they put the fossil beside its reconstructions and point out a plug the rock does not show. They credit a biomechanical study of how an animal might have jumped for laying out a range of plausible behaviours and for claiming no more than its evidence allows. A tail-reconstruction approach gets a harder time. The data is thin and a lot rests on convergent evolution, so they call the split partly philosophical. A claim of preserved skin layers gets a divided verdict: the layering is convincing, the cell nuclei less so. There is also a detour when stratum corneum is briefly mistaken for a sedimentary term. Light-sensing organs lead them to scorpions that fluoresce under UV, moon phases, diapause and homeobox genes shared across animals. The humour works as a tool, not a break. One photo, with the jaws placed right over the head so the teeth throw shadows on the skull, earns the remark that its authors know how to sell a paper. The episode titled 'Podcast 327 - Horse or Deer?' closes by sorting household appliances into horses and deer, and the dryer is ruled a horse. Journals take a kicking, which one of them compares to an old man yelling at a cloud. One episode includes a short appeal from James on behalf of PRI, an institution he praises for its collections, its science advocacy and its outreach to educators. The language is frank and at times profane. What a listener gets is a close look at how a published claim holds up when it is checked against the fossil, against the data, and against three people who do not always agree.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants to hear palaeontology and evolutionary biology papers tested on their evidence, and who enjoys detours about cats, dreams and appliance taxonomy along the way. It also suits someone who doesn't mind strong language.
What sets it apart: The critique is specific: fossils against their reconstructions, models checked for phylogenetic constraint, conclusions measured against the data behind them. All of that happens inside an unguarded, joke-heavy conversation, not a polished explainer.
A group of scientists have biweekly informal discussions about evolutionary biology and palaeontology... over beer.
That Charnia reconstruction has a plug the fossil doesn't; you get to hear why the gap matters.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp, lightly unruly look at how fossil reconstructions can turn assumptions into apparent facts.
A palaeontology discussion becomes a careful look at how fossils can inherit features from the stories told around them. The episode spends time with Charnia, weighing the fossil against reconstructions that add a plug or possible holdfast, then follows the reasoning behind…
A loose, funny discussion of what dinosaur anatomy can suggest about jumping.
Palaeo After Dark follows James, Amanda, and Curtis through a lively discussion of dinosaur biomechanics, with the focus on what a Coelophysis might have managed when it jumped and how a modern tinamou helps set the comparison.
A lively, careful argument about shark comparisons, convergence, and the limits of evolutionary inference.
Palaeo After Dark turns a paper built around modern shark comparisons into a lively discussion of how scientists read form across deep time. The hosts weigh phylogenetic constraint against convergence, asking when sharks help as a guide and when locomotion, development, and…
A loose biology conversation finds serious questions about eyes amid cats, stuck cars, and ketchup.
This single episode turns a casual conversation into a curious look at how animals sense the world. The hosts move from a cat stuck in the basement and an elderly neighbor's car trouble to scorpions glowing under ultraviolet light, then on to moon phases, diapause, torpor, and…
Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.
A podcast host recounts dropping a tray of fossils and then discusses making a homemade lasagna for Thanksgiving.
The host discusses the Panatological Research Institute's financial difficulties and encourages donations to support its research and outreach.
Palaeo After Dark spends much of this episode on Ediacaran rangeomorphs, microbial mats, and the question of whether fossils like Charnia stood upright or lay flat on the seafloor.
Palaeo After Dark episode 329, “Boom Shakalaka,” centers on two biomechanics papers that Amanda says pushed the show toward more math-heavy fossil work.
Palaeo After Dark’s 'Fins for Days' centers on a mosasaur paper that uses a predictive model to infer soft-tissue tail shape from fossil landmarks and shark data.
Palaeo After Dark’s “Podcast 327 - Horse or Deer?” centers on an iguanodontian dinosaur from China, described as having pebbly scales, filament-like structures, and larger spikes.
Palaeo After Dark’s “Podcast 326 - But What Is It?” centers on a paper about early vertebrates from the 518-million-year-old Chengjiang Biota and whether dark head structures were eyes, nostrils, or pineal organs.
Palaeo After Dark’s James, Amanda, and Curtis compare two papers on Nimravids, including a newly described middle Oligocene species from China.
James, Amanda, and Curtis examine a Fezouata Formation paper describing six or seven eurypterid fossils, including two more complete limbs.
A blade-limbed robot drives the crew through a zero-gravity ore smasher and combat spire.
A humorous and critical look at the frustrations of dealing with automated customer service phone systems and the elusive human representative.
The episode begins with a plea to support the Paleontological Research Institute's mortgage fundraiser, then transitions into a discussion about dreams of lightning strikes.
A chaotic holiday role-playing game where players control a pack of raccoons planning a heist in suburbia, with outcomes determined by dice.