Selects: How Extinction Works
Josh and Chuck explain how extinction works, distinguishing between slow background extinctions and rare but catastrophic mass extinction events. They walk through the history of scientific ideas about extinction, the Big Five mass extinctions in Earth's history, and evidence that we are likely entering a human-driven sixth mass extinction. The episode also touches on de-extinction efforts, ecological cascades from species loss, and a listener letter about how interrogation settings can make innocent people appear guilty.
[Insert Your Own Catchy Title About Younger Dryas Here]
The hosts explain the Younger Dryas, a sudden return to near-ice age conditions about 12,900 years ago that interrupted the warming after the last glacial maximum. They describe what Earth was like during the preceding ice age and the brief warm Bølling-Allerød interstadial, how the Younger Dryas abruptly cooled the Northern Hemisphere while warming much of the Southern Hemisphere, and how this affected humans, megafauna, and early agriculture. They then walk through the main scientific hypotheses for what triggered the event and close by noting how its abrupt end opened into the Holocene, when agriculture and complex civilizations emerged.