Episode 979: Steve Brusatte on “The Story of Birds”

Summary

---

Newt’s World – Episode 979: Steve Brusatte on “The Story of Birds”

Date: May 17, 2026
Host: Newt Gingrich
Guest: Steve Brusatte, paleontologist & author

---

Episode Overview

This episode features a lively and in-depth discussion between Newt Gingrich and renowned paleontologist Steve Brusatte about Brusatte's bestselling book, The Story of Birds: A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present. The conversation explores the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and birds, fossil discoveries, the integration of paleontology with popular culture (notably the Jurassic World films), and the resilience and future of birds. The tone is curious, enthusiastic, and accessible, designed to engage both science enthusiasts and general listeners.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. Dinosaur Discoveries and Paleontology Today

• New Dating of Dinosaur Origins

  • Recent research suggests dinosaurs may have originated 10 million years earlier than previously thought (07:34–09:20).
  • Study uses statistical methods, including Bayesian statistics, to estimate the origin of dinosaurs around 240 million years ago after the end-Permian extinction.
  • Quote:

    “This puts dinosaurs about 10 million years older than their first fossils. ... If dinosaurs are closer in time to [the Permian extinction], that means their origin story probably has something to do with the recovery from that extinction.” – Steve Brusatte (08:32)

• Massive Dinosaur Finds in China

  • Discussion about a recent fossil discovery at a construction site in China of a possible 92-ft long dinosaur, likely one of the largest ever found (09:20–09:58).
  • Brusatte notes many major fossils are discovered by non-academics such as farmers and construction workers (09:58–10:57).
  • The importance of diverse contributors to paleontological discoveries.

• Defense Mechanisms & Behavior of Giant Dinosaurs

  • Large sauropods were likely impervious to predators, akin to modern elephants (11:04–11:57).
  • Computer modeling shows some dinosaurs, like Diplodocus, had whip-like tails that may have broken the sound barrier—possibly used for defense, communication, or mating displays (12:12–14:00).

II. Bridging Science & Pop Culture

• Brusatte’s Experience with Jurassic World Films
  • Steve shares delight in working as the franchise's paleontology advisor, valuing the opportunity to inject scientific accuracy and inspire interest in paleontology through popular media (14:00–16:02).

III. Evolutionary Link Between Dinosaurs & Birds

• Birds as Living Dinosaurs

  • Emphasis on birds as the only surviving group of dinosaurs—a concept central to both the book and paleontology today (16:26–18:37).
  • Quote:

    “Dinosaur family was very diverse, but they all died, except for this one peculiar group that could fly ...” – Steve Brusatte (17:18)

  • Birds have diversified and flourished; present-day birds outnumber mammals in species diversity: at least 10,000–15,000 bird species vs. ~6,500 mammal species (18:37–20:00).
  • Quote:

    "There's probably roughly double the number of bird species as mammal species, which means there's roughly double the number of dinosaurs as mammals in the world today." – Steve Brusatte (19:30)

• Survival & Flourishing After the Asteroid

  • After the mass extinction, some birds diversified rapidly; “terror birds” and “demon ducks” evolved, many large, some becoming apex predators or major plant-eaters, but not all survived to the present (20:00–23:48).
  • Human activity contributed to extinction of some, such as demon ducks in Australia.

IV. Anatomy, Physiology, and Adaptations

• Birds’ Walk & Dinosaur Movement

  • Birds' unique bipedal walk originated with their dinosaur ancestors; studies of T. Rex footprints suggest similar but not identical biomechanics (23:48–27:57).
  • Bird and T. Rex differences: birds have lost their long tails, affecting locomotion and muscle structure (25:29–27:32).

• Flight and Feathers Evolution

  • Fossil evidence from China in the 1990s showed many dinosaurs had feathers, not just “proto-birds” (28:11–31:15).
  • Most had simple, downy feathers for insulation; flight-capable feathers evolved later in the raptors leading to modern birds.
  • Quote:

    “Many dinosaurs had feathers ... but most dinosaurs had very simple feathers. ... Feathers must have developed originally for something else, and we think it was for insulation.” – Steve Brusatte (29:48)

• Pterosaurs vs. Birds vs. Bats

  • Pterosaurs (pterodactyls) were not dinosaurs, evolved independent flight with skin-wing structure; some pterosaurs were as large as fighter jets (36:33–39:35).
  • Bats evolved flight much later with a different wing structure; convergent evolution is a recurring theme.

V. Survival & Extinction Through Mass Catastrophes

• Why Some Species Survived the Asteroid

  • Selectivity of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction: most large animals died due to food scarcity and rapid climate change; birds and mammals survived due to small size and rapid reproduction (42:53–45:09).
  • Some aquatic reptiles survived in river/lake detritus-based food webs.

• Decline of Pterosaurs and Rise of Birds

  • Birds and pterosaurs coexisted for about 80 million years. Pterosaurs dwindled, possibly due to competition and size vulnerability, and vanished with the asteroid event (45:09–46:37).

VI. The Resilience and Future of Birds

• Modern Challenges and Conservation

  • Though birds survived mass extinction, today they face drastic population declines due to human-driven factors: habitat loss, pesticides, climate change, predation by domestic cats (49:27–52:04).
  • Successful conservation stories: Bald eagle and California condor recoveries as evidence of possible hope if attention is paid.
  • Quote:

    “Birds are in a perilous state, probably the most perilous state since the asteroid hit. But I have a lot of confidence in birds, though, because birds are survivors.” – Steve Brusatte (49:52)

• Human-Nature Interaction & Stewardship

  • Newt draws parallels to American alligator recovery, highlighting nature’s resilience and underscoring the role of humans as environmental caretakers (52:04–53:19).
  • Quote:

    “We have to see ourselves as caretakers, not exploiters.” – Newt Gingrich (53:15)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Science's Evolution:

  “When somebody gets up and says this is the fact, the answer is, well, for this week and we’ll see if we learn something new next week.” – Newt Gingrich (16:39)

• On Paleontology for All:

  “A lot of the best fossils are not found by the professors ... but farmers, construction workers, hikers ... just all kinds of folks from all walks of life often find amazing fossils.” – Steve Brusatte (09:58)

• On Science Communication:

  “When I do a book like The Story of Birds, ... that’s all me. ... With the films it’s great because ... I can get some science in there and it’s a great break from the day job ... knowing that what we get in there is going to be seen by a lot of people.” – Steve Brusatte (14:09)

• On Future Extinctions:

  "Even very abundant birds, the passenger pigeon. ... There were once billions ... and they crashed and ended up going extinct. It seemed impossible.... So we have to be mindful of that." – Steve Brusatte (51:40)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Dinosaur Origins/Statistical Studies – 07:34–09:20
• Chinese Mega-Dinosaur Discovery – 09:20–10:57
• Giant Sauropods and Predation – 11:04–11:57
• Whiplash Tails in Sauropods – 12:12–14:00
• Pop Science in Hollywood (Jurassic World) – 14:00–16:02
• Birds as Surviving Dinosaurs – 16:26–18:37
• Diversity & Success of Birds – 18:37–20:00
• Post-Asteroid Bird Evolution – 20:00–23:48
• Bird vs. Dinosaur Locomotion – 23:48–27:57
• Evolution & Function of Feathers – 28:11–31:15
• Ancient DNA/Fossil Limitations – 32:23–34:29
• Pterosaurs, Birds, Bats: Convergent Flight – 36:33–39:35
• Survival of Birds & Mammals Post-Asteroid – 42:53–45:09
• Birds Outcompete Pterosaurs – 45:09–46:37
• Birds & Conservation Amid Extinction Threats – 49:27–53:19
• Human Responsibility & Hope – 53:15–54:54

---

Final Thoughts & Listeners’ Takeaways

• Birds are the only dinosaurs that survived—living reminders of prehistoric worlds.
• Science is always evolving; major new findings often come from unexpected places and people.
• Feathers originated for purposes other than flight; the story of bird evolution is complex and ongoing.
• Modern birds face major human-driven challenges, but history and recent conservation wins provide hope—if we act as caretakers.
• Popular books and films can inspire, educate, and open new generations to the wonders of paleontology.

---

Recommended Action

• For those interested in inspiring the next generation, Steve Brusatte’s books—Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Rise and Reign of the Mammals, and most recently, The Story of Birds—are hailed as accessible and exciting introductions to the wonders of Earth's ancient life.

---

(End of Content Summary)

Transcript

[Cindy Crawford]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Guaranteed Human Amazon Health AI presents painful

[Cindy Crawford]

thoughts why did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prom and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures.

[Steve Brusatte]

Your vehicle doesn't just get you from here to there.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

It's a bridge to the people and places that matter most.

[Steve Brusatte]

It's how you show up for your

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

family, your community and everyone else that depends on you. That's why for 125 years Firestone has

[Steve Brusatte]

been building tires with one thing in

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

mind to deliver products that are as

[Steve Brusatte]

reliable as you are.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Firestone always dependable since 1900. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments.

[Steve Brusatte]

But that's weird.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[Cindy Crawford]

of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail].

[Newt Gingrich]

Welcome to Newt's World Podcast on the iHeart Podcast Network. I have to say that watching President Trump in China was sort of amazing. I mean, from the time he got off the airplane and there were hundreds of young children there, to the kind of meetings he had with Xi Jinping, to watching him leave, almost like he was reluctant to get on the airplane. He kept talking to people. They again had the same, I think 500 young people out there. Based on what both the Chinese have put out and what the White House has put out, this may have been a very important and very successful meeting. Important in that I think they're dealing with artificial intelligence, they're dealing with how the US And China should relate, they're dealing with solving trade problems. And I just had a sense that the agreements were far better and far more than I expected. And I think that it's really encouraging sign to see the President dealing with Xi Jinping in this kind of a setting. Coming up, I am joined by one of my favorite people, paleontologist and best selling author Steve Brissette. We're going to discuss his new book, already a bestseller, the Story of a New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present. That's next.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com, podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts why did I

[Cindy Crawford]

search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but like, I never liked being told oh wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age? Every age. That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful Beauty Beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Craven Bold, authentic taste without kitchen chaos True Nature Meat Southern Barbecue Chicken Breast delivers juicy pre cooked chicken with classic sweet smoky sauce. Full of soul. 30 years supplying the finest restaurants. Chances are you've already had their chicken heat in 2 minutes. Serve with sides or buns. Complaints turn to second helpings. Real meat, real flavor. Go to TrueNatureMeats.com code free meat for 20% off plus free New York strip Texas Smoked Brisket and Mediterranean Chicken with Code free [e-mail].

[Newt Gingrich]

I am really pleased to welcome back my guest, Steve Brissette. He is an American paleontologist, the Chair of Paleontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and the author of the international bestseller the Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and also international bestseller the Rise and Reign of the Mammals. He's also the paleontology advisor on the Jurassic World film franchise. His new book, also a bestseller, is the Story of Birds A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present. Steve, welcome and thank you for joining me again on Newt's world.

[Steve Brusatte]

Mr. Speaker, always a pleasure. I've loved doing these chats over the years and I've always loved how enthused you are about dinosaurs and about fossils and the history of life. And this is going to be fun. Talking about Birds before we get to

[Newt Gingrich]

birds, let me ask you a couple new dinosaurs headlines. There's a recent study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society suggesting that dinosaurs may have originated 10 million years earlier than we thought, about 250 to 240 million years ago. If true, does that change much about our understanding of how quickly dinosaurs evolved and spread?

[Steve Brusatte]

It would. It's a very interesting new study, and it's a study done by a young paleontologist, Chase Bronstein, and it's basically A statistical study. So it's not the discovery of a single new fossil that pushes back the age of dinosaurs. Rather, it's building these big family trees of dinosaurs and then dating those trees based on the ages of the fossils. But also there's these algorithms that can use the features of the skeletons and some assumptions about how quickly things evolve to estimate when a group originated. And so this puts dinosaurs about 10 million years older than their first fossils. The first fossil dinosaurs are about 230 million years old from the Triassic period. This was the time of the supercontinent of Pangea. And if the fossils of dinosaurs actually got older, if they got to about 240, that's not too long after the worst mass extinction ever, the great extinction at the end of the Permian, when these huge volcanoes caused unimaginable climate change. So if dinosaurs are closer in time to that, that means their origin story probably has something to do with the recovery from that extinction. So I find this to be a really interesting study. And these statistics that are being used, these are what are called Bayesian statistics. They're in the same family of statistics a lot of stock market analysts use, election pollsters. You know, the stats are getting really, really sophisticated.

[Newt Gingrich]

Apparently, in China, there was a construction site and they ran across a dinosaur which may be 90ft long, which would be big by any standard. So they think it probably reached about 92ft. It's still something like Tang Nanlong Zhimingji.

[Steve Brusatte]

Yep. I take your word for it. I saw the name. I will not pretend to know how to say it.

[Newt Gingrich]

I am daring in my willingness to sound stupid. But it's interesting because there was construction work, and of course, this has often happened where you'll start to dig and find something interesting. But this may be close to the largest dinosaur we've found.

[Steve Brusatte]

I would think it's big. And I find it fascinating for a few reasons. First of all, the scientist who's described it is a young Chinese paleontologist, Wei Zhu Fong. And she is going to come to Edinburgh, to the University of Edinburgh, where I'm at, and she's going to join our lab. She got some funding to come for a couple of years, so she's going to join our crew. And she's great. I mean, she's part of this new generation of Chinese paleontologists making incredible discoveries. But of course, this one was found by a construction worker, and that happens a lot more than you think. A lot of the best fossils are not found by the professors like me or the people with the PhDs like you and me, we're on the field maybe a few weeks, a few months out of the year if we're lucky. But farmers, construction workers, hikers, just all kinds of folks from all walks of life often find amazing fossils. And this is one of them. And imagine, you know, you're operating a backhoe and you crunch into something hard and you look down and it's a bone, a giant bone of this unimaginably large dinosaur. I mean, the exhilaration there must really be something.

[Newt Gingrich]

Do you think when they got to full size, they're a little bit like modern elephants and that they're impervious to predators?

[Steve Brusatte]

Yeah, I can imagine. And these are the long necked dinosaurs, the ones that got really big, the Brachiosaurus and Brontosaurus and Diplodocus group. And some of them probably were like 100ft feet long and some of them probably did weigh 50, 60 tons. You know, that's heavier than a Boeing 737 airplane. So, you know, next time, if you're listening, next time you're on a flight just like an average, you know, regular plane, just think there were once dinosaurs that were heavier than that, real living animals. And when you're up at that size, even a T. Rex or something would have a hard time taking you down. T. Rex was merely the size of a bus, so it was probably the younger ones if they got old or sick, just like we see in nature. As you say today, like with elephants,

[Newt Gingrich]

even when you hunt in a pack, if they're relatively mature and healthy, they're just too big.

[Steve Brusatte]

Yeah, and that's one of the great benefits of being huge. People often ask me, why did dinosaurs get so big? And you know, why would they want to be so big if you can kind of give meaning to that type of evolution. But there's a lot of benefits. And if you're big, it's very hard for something to attack you.

[Newt Gingrich]

And weren't the ones with the longest tails, couldn't they actually move them at almost amazing speed?

[Steve Brusatte]

Yeah, there have been these computer models that have been done, 3D scans of the skeletons of dinosaurs. And you can put these into animation software similar to what movie makers use. And you can run all kinds of batteries of tests. You know, you can just see what's possible and what's not and make them move certain ways and see if it works or see if they fall over when this is done with some dinosaurs like Diplodocus or Diplodocus, you know, we say it both Ways the tail is so long and so thin but so strong that it could plausibly have been used as a whip. It could have been used as a whip, a bullwhip that would crack, that would break the sound barrier. And, you know, why would it do that? Well, maybe for extra defense. Maybe when it was younger it would need to defend itself or you know, maybe for communication with others. But it's wild to think there were dinosaurs that had whiplash tails.

[Newt Gingrich]

Could it also have been a mating signal?

[Steve Brusatte]

Could have been, yeah. A lot of times, you know, we see things in fossils and see, okay, you know, we can tell the tail is long. And what could it be used for? Okay, we put it into the animation software. Okay, it's plausible that it could have been used as a whip. And then you're like, why would it be? So there's layers of inferences and we don't know for sure, but absolutely. Like if I was advising a film, if I was advising a Jurassic film. And we did this for the most recent one, Jurassic World Rebirth, where there were these enormous long necked dinosaurs and we had to make them do stuff, you know. So Gareth Edwards, the director, asked me a lot of questions about what they could do and we talked a lot about the tails. And they kind of use their tails that way. So I think it's very likely they could do it. And I think mating, part of mating rituals or just communicating with mates or scaring away rivals to a mate is a really likely use of those tails.

[Newt Gingrich]

You mentioned the Jurassic World. I mean, what is it like as an academic to be suddenly dropped into the Hollywood world?

[Steve Brusatte]

I'll need to ask you the same what it's like as an academic dropped into the world of politics. That could be a whole conversation. But you know what the academic world is like. It's great. You know, I love doing what I do. I love teaching my classes in Edinburgh, I love running the lab and advising my grad students. But ultimately, you know, most of what I do on a day to day basis is pretty technical and pretty esoteric and you know, I'm writing scientific papers, communicating with a small group of other scientists. But, but doing the films, doing the books, you know, writing these pop science books is great because it's reaching out to other audiences. That's what I really like to do. I just love dinosaurs, I love birds, I love fossils and I like to shout it as loud as I can. And the books are great because, you know, when I do a book like the Story of Birds, the new one, I Mean, that's all me. You know what it's like. You've written, you know, lots of best selling books. You know what it's like. You sit down as your voice, you can say what you want to say. You know, with the films it's great because the people that make these films are so creative. I mean these, these are some of the most artistically astounding people I've ever met. You know the directors like Gareth Edwards and Colin Trevorrow on the previous film. And the artist, David Vickery is the name of the guy who basically runs the visuals. He was up for an Oscar this year for the Jurassic World Rebirth dinosaurs and the artists that you know, work on the teams. These people are creative geniuses and the platform is just huge. I mean I don't think there's any way to reach a bigger audience than through a summer Hollywood blockbuster film. So although they're not science documentaries, although I can't do everything I would want to do, I can get some science in there and it's a great break from the day job and it's super cool just working with really creative people and knowing that what we get in there is going to be seen by a lot of people. You know, maybe 20 people read an academic paper if I write it, but millions see those films.

[Newt Gingrich]

It probably creates a lot of paleontology fans and would be paleontologists that enriches the system. You've written this new best selling book as we just discussed. I mean it's already a bestseller, which is terrific. The Story of Birds A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the present. It seems like you could also have said today's dinosaurs.

[Steve Brusatte]

Maybe that's a better title.

[Newt Gingrich]

This is one of the key points which I'm going to ask you about in a couple different ways. One of the great breakthroughs which I think occurred in the 60s and 70s was going back to the notion that birds and dinosaurs are related.

[Steve Brusatte]

That's right.

[Newt Gingrich]

And that was a good reminder to people that science evolves. When somebody gets up and says this is the fact, the answer is, well, for this week and we'll see if we learn something new next week.

[Steve Brusatte]

That's right. And that's what sets science apart from many other ways of thinking. You know, real true science is about looking at evidence and coming up with ideas, ideas and testing those ideas and always adapting and always evolving and always being willing to change your mind if new evidence is there. And that's what I love about being a scientist.

[Newt Gingrich]

So in a sense this is a branch of the dinosaur world. And this is the branch that survived and flourished.

[Steve Brusatte]

That's exactly the right way to think about it. Dinosaur family was very diverse, but they all died, except for this one peculiar group that could fly, which means there

[Newt Gingrich]

are also a whole lot of relatively small dinosaurs, but they were called birds. When we say dinosaurs are always big, that's not true. In fact, there were a lot of small bird dinosaurs wandering around and being very successful.

[Steve Brusatte]

That's exactly right. And we should think of dinosaurs like we think of mammals today. You know, we are a mammal, but we are part of a much bigger mammal family. And yes, when we go to the zoo, we want to see the elephants, we want to see the rhinos and the hippos, the big mammals. But most mammals are actually small. And there's even some small mammals that are weird because they have wings and can flap those wings and fly, and those are bats, and they're just a peculiar type of mammal that can fly. And birds are really the dinosaur equivalent of that. They're this weird group of dinosaurs that got small and developed wings and started to fly. And yeah, they don't look like a T. Rex or a Brontosaurus or a Stegosaurus, but that's the same way a bat doesn't look like a whale or an elephant or a horse. You know, these are very diverse families. But when it comes to dinosaurs, they all died. They all died when that asteroid hit, except for birds. So you're looking at this last remnant of this once great family and then

[Newt Gingrich]

they flourish, which is one of the points you make. It's always astonishing to me, I almost refuse to believe it, that birds are actually, in terms of number of existing species, more successful than we are because we're so mammal centric.

[Steve Brusatte]

I know, you're totally right. We call today the Age of Mammals. And the story we often learn, even as paleontologists is that dinosaurs had their day and they ruled the world, and there were all these giant dinosaurs, and then the asteroid came down and they died and the mammals took over and it became the Age of Mammals. And out of the age of mammals came humans and all the mammals today. And that story's not wrong, it's just a little bit simplistic. And the simplicity of it is when you look at the number of species today of mammals, there are about 6,500 or so. There are at least 10,000 species of birds, but probably closer to about 15,000, because people still are finding a lot of bird species in the world today. So there's probably Roughly double the number of bird species as mammal species, which means there's roughly double the number of dinosaurs as mammals in the world today. So in that way, the age of dinosaurs continues. But of course, there's no T. Rexes anymore, no Triceratops. And it is the elephants and the hippos and the rhinos and the whales, you know, the mammals that really do fill a lot of those top of the food chain, keystone ecological roles that dinosaurs once had when they come into

[Newt Gingrich]

the Paleocene and then the Eocene coming out of the asteroid strike. Birds are pretty competitive. I don't know whether it's because they're vulnerable when they're young or what's going on. You have very brief periods of pretty big birds that are actually pretty carnivorous, but they're not able to compete over time with the mammals. Why does that part of the bird world not quite make it?

[Steve Brusatte]

It's a really good question because you have the asteroid that hits 66 million years ago. It ends the age of dinosaurs. 75% of all species go extinct. Pretty much anything bigger than a husky dog died on the land because there just wasn't enough food with all the fires. And when the Earth went dark and cold after the atmosphere was blocked out. And so that was a terrible extinction. But in the recovery from that extinction, these weird little feathered winged birds that could fly with beaks, they survived alongside some small little mammals. And they would have looked out on this brave new world, this world that was largely empty. T Rex is gone. Triceratops is gone. It was a world of abundant opportunities, and birds diversified. Birds really diversified, as did mammals. And so many of the groups of birds that we know today got their start in that mad waltz of evolution after the asteroid. And it's not just that the modern birds got their start. There were, as you say, a lot of birds that are now extinct, that were once sublime. And a lot of them were really big. And there were birds that were getting big to fill some of those ecological niches left behind by the dead dinosaurs. And there were top predator birds, terror birds, that ruled South America for tens of millions of years. They were the top predators in South America. And they were taller than a human. They had a head the size of a horse's head. They had these big sharp beaks for slicing flesh. They were the top of the food chain. They were like T Rex reincarnated in Australia. There were these things called demon ducks, and they were about a hundred times the size in terms of weight, of like a modern goose, a Canada Goose that you might see. My parents have tons of these in their backyard in Illinois back home. And whenever I see them, I think, my goodness, there used to be these demon ducks that were 100 times their size. But they were gentle plant eaters. They weren't really demonic. They were the base of the food chain. They were like the big bulk feeding plant eaters. You know, the bisons or the wildebeest, these kind of things. Those are just two examples of some of these incredible birds that once lived, that once were huge. They couldn't fly, by the way. They gave up the ability to fly. They lost flight probably as a trade off for getting bigger, just because the bigger you get, the harder it is to flap wings and keep yourself in the air. You just need so much muscle to do it. But these birds had their day. They were important for a long time, but a lot of them did not reach the modern day. Some, like the demon ducks, actually met early humans. And we know from archaeological sites in Australia that there are campfires where there are charred demon duck eggs. So some of the first settlers to Australia were eating these demon duck omelet. But the terror birds went extinct before humans. They did it just on their own. And it does seem like when North America joined up to South America, you had all these big cats, jaguars and wolves and other things streaming southwards. And these in some way out competed or at least outlasted these terror birds. We don't really know why. I don't have a good explanation for that. I'm sure the answer's out there. Some brilliant young paleontologists will figure it out, but that's probably what ended up happening. But evolution's always doing this. There's always a.

[Newt Gingrich]

When you think about it, when you watch birds walk, they have a very particular kind of walk.

[Steve Brusatte]

Yes, they do.

[Newt Gingrich]

And it hit me. I wondered if, for example, a T. Rex would have walked the same way because it's so different from a mammalian walk.

[Steve Brusatte]

Yep, you're right. Watch. Like a pigeon, let's say, you know, one of the most common, most unremarkable birds, a bird you might not even want to see. But next time any of you that are listening and you see a pigeon, watch it walk, of course, it doesn't stick its wings out. You know, it tucks its wings against its body to protect the wings. It walks on its hind legs like we do. That's a really unusual thing in the animal world. And it walks with this motion. It moves its head back and forth. You know, that. That classic motion that birds do. And that's all about coordination and balance. It seems that's the reason birds walk that way. There was a study recently about T. Rex that used footprints. So there are footprints of T. Rex that are known. And just based on the depth of the footprints and how they're deeper at the front really than the back. So they really were walking not just only on their toes, but their tiptoes. You know, these researchers made a case that these T. Rexes were actually walking quite a bit like birds, maybe not exactly like a pigeon. T. Rexes were the size of buses, and they had these huge legs and they had tiny arms instead of big wings. But still, it does seem like based on the footprints, the body mass distribution and the center of gravity and these kind of things would have been kind of similar to birds, certainly more similar to birds than to, like, a crocodile or a lizard or something like that. And I think that's really cool. It's just an unexpected link between these vast diets.

[Newt Gingrich]

Birds tend to go sort of forward, one side, then the other side.

[Steve Brusatte]

Yeah. 1.

[Newt Gingrich]

Do you think that the T. Rex probably walked in that sense of moving one side and then the other?

[Steve Brusatte]

Probably. The big difference with T. Rex and birds is T. Rex, of course, was much bigger. Okay, that's the big difference. But also it had a really long tail, and that tail was really muscular. And that's the same kind of tail that a crocodile has today. So if any of you have ever eaten alligator, I've done it. You know, down in Louisiana, most of the meat you get is from that tail. That tail is a huge muscle. That muscle attaches to the legs, and that's what really powers the legs. T. Rex walked like that. Birds do not have long tails. They lost their tails. Basically. They have just this little nubbin, and then they attach feathers to that nubbin. But they've completely reconfigured their hips so that the thigh bone becomes part of the pelvis is really weird. But the motion is really all in the drumstick. That's the equivalent of our shin bone. And they don't have those tail muscles to power it. So it's the hamstring muscles that power the walk of a bird. Now, I know that all sounds kind of technical, but the point is that there are similarities between T. Rex and birds. But also, there's quite a big evolutionary distance as well. And they would have moved in a different way just because their muscles were so different. And you can get a sense of that just by when you look at it, when you Roast a chicken or roasted Thanksgiving turkey if you want. Look at those bones. See how the leg bones are connected to the pelvis. See how the tail is this little short nub? And you'll get a feel for the posture.

[Newt Gingrich]

So the T Rex would have been much faster than a purely bird dinosaur, the same size.

[Steve Brusatte]

Yeah, you know, it's hard to know. People have built these digital models of T Rex and tried to estimate how fast it could move. It probably could not move super fast. There's the scene in Jurassic park where it's chasing down the Jeep. And that Jeep, you know, it's getting up into third gear or something. I mean, and it's real. T. Rex couldn't do that. A real T. Rex probably would max out at about 10 or maybe 15 miles an hour, we think, based on the modeling.

[Newt Gingrich]

Although emus and ostriches and cassowaries are

[Steve Brusatte]

all fast, they are so fast, they are some of the sprinters of the animal world. I mean, ostriches, I can't quite remember the numbers, but they're certainly the fastest birds. Their sprint speed is maybe even faster than things like big cats and other mammals. They are really, really, really, really fast. They can't fly, and they rely on their speed on the ground.

[Newt Gingrich]

When you think about the bird dinosaurs and the non bird dinosaurs, increasingly we see that both had feathers. Were they the same kind of feathers, do you think?

[Steve Brusatte]

Yes, this is one of the remarkable things that we have learned from the fossil record. So this is one of the great things that fossils have told us is that many dinosaurs had feathers. This is not a guess. If you've seen artwork or maybe in the new Jurassic films, you know, there are some feathered dinosaurs. For those of you out there listening, if you've seen these things, this is not like the hallucination of a mad artist or is not paleontologists being crazy? No, we have direct evidence from fossils of lots of dinosaurs with feathers. But they were only found starting about 30 years ago. And they were discovered first in northeastern China, a place called Liaoning Province. Now, this is way off the tourist trail. This shares a long border with North Korea. I don't know, Mr. Speaker, maybe you've been there in some of your trips. I've been there to visit some of the museums. I mean, it's out there there, but it's a land of factories, of rolling hills and a lot of farms. And it was farmers working their fields in the mid-90s that started to find these dinosaur skeletons engulfed, just covered in halos of fossil feathers. And what Happened was there were volcanoes that erupted way back when that buried these entire ecosystems. Kind of like when Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii. And it captured that city in stone. And that's why you see the feathers. Otherwise it's very hard to preserve soft bits like hair or feathers or skin. That's why it took until the 90s to find these. But because these whole ecosystems were buried, we actually have a snapshot of lots of different dinosaurs. And it turns out many dinosaurs had feathers, big ones and small ones. There's a tyrannosaur there that's 30ft long and weighed a ton. It's called Yutyrannus, covered in feathers. There's meat eaters, there's plant eaters. So when you map that on the family tree of dinosaurs, really the only conclusion is that the common ancestor, the original dinosaur, must have had feathers. But most dinosaurs had very simple feathers. I'm not saying they had wings. I'm not saying they could fly. T. Rex wasn't flying around. They had simple feathers that were downy feathers. And they looked like hair, just little strands. And the same way that we cannot fly with our hair or people like me with what's left of our hair, these dinosaurs couldn't fly with those feathers. So feathers must have developed originally for something else. And we think probably it was for insulation to stay warm, control body temperature, just like hair and mammals. But then some raptor dinosaurs, the Velociraptor group, elaborated. Those simple feathers lengthen them out. They started to branch out. They turned from little hairs into brushes. They lined them up on the arms. They became quill pens. And those quill pen feathers formed the wings that birds would eventually use to fly. And this is what we know from the fossil record. This isn't a guess. This is something we directly know. We don't know exactly how birds started to fly. We weren't there to see it. There's different theories. But what we fundamentally know is that a lot of dinosaurs had feathers. And that really still does blow my mind. And when these were discovered in the 90s, it was a big deal. Hey, you were speaker at the time. You were probably busy, but maybe you remember.

[Newt Gingrich]

One of my proudest possessions is a copy of one of the earliest discoveries from China. China, which the American Museum was allowed to exhibit. And then I think they were allowed to make three copies. And one of them ended up, wow,

[Steve Brusatte]

wow, wow, I'm jealous of you. I know you've supported the American Museum for a long time. That's where I did my PhD and so it's a special place. I'm glad they gave that to you.

[Newt Gingrich]

The scale of their collection is so astonishing.

[Steve Brusatte]

It is. It was the best place in the world to do a PhD and a lot of people listening probably don't know what you just said. I mean, we know it in the field, but just the support you've given financially over the years to the museum enabled a lot of work by young paleontologists. And so it's great we never met when you were passing through.

[Newt Gingrich]

If any of our listeners get excited, they can also establish something there to help. It is one of the great production centers for the next generation of paleontologists. Let me ask you one of the questions that comes up out of the movie thing, which is, are we anywhere close to having the kind of DNA from dinosaurs that could actually be used, used to try to reverse engineer and create a dinosaur?

[Steve Brusatte]

This is cool to think about. So in the book, it's funny, when I was writing the Story of Birds, you know, I wrote it over the few years, I kind of write these books interspersed within teaching and I had all my students read a draft of it. We did a chapter a week, and it was great. They gave me great feedback and I had a bit in there about DNA and they actually gave me some pretty harsh feedback, but very useful feedback. They told me to scale it back. You know, I was getting kind of gung ho about someday we'll find DNA and dinosaur and stuff. And they're like, yeah, scale it back. They're right. Just because nobody has found any DNA in a T. Rex or Triceratops yet in those kind of dinosaurs. We do have DNA for some of the recently extinct birds. That's why we know what demon ducks are and where they fit in the family tree. They died so recently, the DNA is still there, but DNA breaks down so quickly when an animal dies. And really the oldest DNA that we have in a fossil is really just a million, a million and a half or so years old. It's a million mammoth bone. I think maybe somebody's pushed the boundary back a little bit further since I last looked into this, but it's just so hard. So T Rex was 66 million years old, you know, so to get DNA, I'm never going to say it's impossible. I'm not going to say that, because no scientist should use that word. You know, we want to keep an open mind, but it'll be very improbable. So we just don't know. But there is DNA again, of some of these recently extinct weird birds, but also for things like woolly mammoths and saber toothed tigers. I mean, these things died so recently. We not only have DNA, we have a lot of DNA. We know the complete genome of the woolly mammoth. We know more about the genes of woolly mammoths than we do about most living species. So there is scope there potential for some of this de extinction work. And this is where things start to get a little bit thorny. And it also gets very far out of my expertise where I'm not a geneticist. I don't know. I'm sure it's very difficult to do something like bring back a mammoth, otherwise somebody would have done it already. But I think, I know some people are looking into it and trying and I think it's very possible that this could happen. But a mammoth, you know, not a T. Rex.

[Newt Gingrich]

I read somewhere a long time ago, it may well be that the feathers as they first evolved on the Velociraptor actually enabled them to go slightly faster in running.

[Steve Brusatte]

Yeah, that's a theory that's out there. It's very hard to test that theory in a rigorous way. You know, as a scientist, scientist is plausible. There's lots of ideas that are plausible, that are possible, maybe even likely. But it's hard to know for sure if that's what did it. What we know is that feathers first appear as these simpler structures, these hairy type of filaments, so they could not be used for flying. Then we know that the raptors that started to elaborate these feathers did turn them into wings, made a quill pens. But the very first wings show up on dinosaurs that are about the size of sheep up to the size of horses. And those wings are no bigger than a laptop screen. So they're just not big enough to fly. So we think wings did evolve first for something else in a simpler, smaller form and aid in steering or breaking or turning. In a running dinosaur, that's very possible. Another leading idea is that they were used as display structures to attract mates to intimidate rivals, like little billboards sticking off of the arms. And the evidence for that is a bit circumstantial, but we can tell the colors of some dinosaur feathers if they're well preserved. You can see the melanin pigment. It actually survives fossilization. And we can tell that a lot of these feathered dinosaurs with these first wings had pretty elaborate colors and patterns. So that would make sense for the display structure. But when it comes down to it, all that we really know with the High degree of confidence is that feathers evolved for something other than flying. And the exact way they were turned into an airfoil is still really up for debate. So that was one of the harder parts of the book to write. And I really had to just be honest there and punt a little bit and just say, we, we don't know. There are different ideas, different theories. I don't think any one of them is particularly well supported by the evidence. Right now we got to keep an open mind and see where the fossils lead.

[Newt Gingrich]

There was one group that had evolved to fly that didn't have feathers, and that's the pterosaurs. Some of them got to be huge.

[Steve Brusatte]

Some of them were the size of fighter jets. Some of these pterosaurs, these are the pterodactyls, that's just another name, that's their nickname. Some of them were 30 foot wingspans. I mean, incredible. The biggest flying animals ever, but very lightweight. They were like hang glass gliders. They were the very first animals with bones to develop flight. And they did this Sometime between about 215 and 230 million years ago, way back on Pangea, the supercontinent in the Triassic. This was around the time the first dinosaurs were entering the scene as well. Now, the pterodactyls are not actually dinosaurs. They're close relatives, they're cousins, the same way that, you know, a monkey is not a human, that kind of thing, but they are reptiles that evolved wings and started to fly. But very peculiar wings, wings that were not made of feathers, they were wings that were made of skin. They were basically giant cells of skin that attached to a single long finger, the ring finger, it stretched out, you know, like E.T. in the movie, the finger stretches out and so the pterosaurs had this one giant finger with the skin attached. We find their fossils here in Scotland. You know, I bring my students to the Isle of Skye, and one of our students, Amelia Penny, she was out with us, her first time ever, looking for fossil bones. And she found the skull of a pterodactyl sticking out of the rocks in the tidal zone on this beautiful misty Scottish island. And we dug in further and it led to a neck and led to a body, and there were wings. And there's a nearly complete skeleton is in my lab now at the University of Edinburgh. We named it a few years ago and called it Yarkskianach, which is a Gaelic name. We took it from the Scottish Gaelic, the language of the Highlands and the islands, and it means winged reptile. The Isle of Skye. And we love it. It's the coolest fossil we've ever found. And these pterodactyls were flying around even before they were birds. They were the true pioneers.

[Newt Gingrich]

Their use of a stretched skin is relatively like bats, isn't it?

[Steve Brusatte]

Yes. So pterodactyls, they evolved their skin wings. Then you had birds evolve wings made of feathers. And then the third group of animals with bones to evolve precise, proper powered flapping flight. So flapping wings and getting lift and thrust that way. The third group is the bats. And the bats, they enter the fossil record about 55 million years ago. So about 10 million years after the asteroid. They were probably part of the diversification of mammals that survived. And they have wings made of skin, of course they have hair because they're mammals, but the wings are made of skin. And that wing, though, stretches across the entire hand hand, not just one giant finger. So the three different types of wings in pterodactyls, birds and bats, they're all solutions to a similar problem. How do you make a wing that can flap and fly? But they're all slightly different and that shows that they all had different origins.

[Newt Gingrich]

When we come back, we're going to discuss how birds survived the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs and how birds of evolved after that mass extinction event.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts.

[Cindy Crawford]

Why did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem. Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly grand traffic source in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.

[Cindy Crawford]

Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types. And it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melanleaf stem cell technology. Its melon leaves stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. All that [e-mail] Grocery prices are skyrocketing, but true nature meets beef. Garnasada delivers zesty flair for under $6 per person. Juicy pre cooked with ornorin marinade. Ready for tacos or plates. Eat in two minutes. Vibrant restaurant level, taste at home, exceptional taste, honest value. Visit TrueNatureMeats.com code free meat for 20 off plus free New York strip Texas smoked brisket and Mediterranean chicken with code free meat@trunature meats.com.

[Newt Gingrich]

When you think about it, it does strike me that there's this strange pattern of killing. Yeah, not like the Great Killing, which I think was like 97% right?

[Steve Brusatte]

That one at the end of the Permian caused by those big volcanoes before there were dinosaurs. Yeah, that was like indiscriminate basically across the board. When the asteroid hit, it was bad. Okay, 75% of species died, so it was a disaster. But it was more selective in what it killed. And we see in the fossil record pretty much everything bigger than a husky dog that lived on land. It died. And that's probably because there just wasn't enough food to go around. I mean you had all these wildfires that swept across the world, you had tsunamis that ravaged the coast and you had the Earth enter this nuclear winter state, because all the soot from the fires and the grime from the collision with the asteroid that went into the atmosphere and blocked out the sun. So the Earth went dark and cold probably for several years, and plants didn't have sunlight, they died and the whole ecosystems collapsed. So there was not much food on offer. So being big was bad, and pretty much everything big died. Now, some crocodiles and turtles did survive, including some that were, you know, decently sized. We think that's because they lived in rivers and lakes and ponds. Ponds. And were part of ecosystems that didn't have plants at the base of the food web, but they had detritus, basically decaying stuff at the base of their food web. And there's food webs today that are like this. And we know there would have been tons of decaying stuff when the asteroid had all these plants that died. So if you were part of one of those food webs, that was maybe a ticket out of the chaos. Now, why birds survived and why mammals survived, survived is probably because in large part they were small, so they didn't need to eat a lot of food and they grew and reproduced really quickly. If you can turn over the generations quickly, that's a good thing for surviving upheaval. If you're like a T. Rex and it takes you 20 years to become an adult, that's just not going to work when the Earth changes so quickly. So those are some of the factors that we think determine what lived and what died when the asteroid, asteroid hit.

[Newt Gingrich]

Did the pterosaurs survive to the extinction event or were they gradually out competed by the birds?

[Steve Brusatte]

That's a really fascinating thing because when the first birds started to fly, when they evolved from the dinosaur ancestors, they were not the first species to do that. There were already pterodactyls. And so birds would have been interlopers in this pterodactyl world and they would have had to compete with pterodactyls, and they did. And birds and pterodactyls lived alongside each other for good. 80 million years until the asteroid, which maybe seems odd, but, you know, birds and bats live together today and they find ways to share the space. Birds are mostly out at day, not all of them, but bats are mostly out at night. And there's other differences. So birds and pterosaurs probably did something similar. They probably found a way to coexist by dividing up the roles in the ecosystem. But pterosaurs do get to the very end. They were there when the astronauts there weren't as many as there were previously. So birds probably were very slowly through this war of attrition, out competing them or out dueling them. But they were still there, and the asteroid is what finished them off. No pterodactyls survived that asteroid holocaust, and maybe because it was their size, a lot of pterosaurs were big, and the bigger you were, the more food you needed and the slower you would grow. So that could be it. But it still really is a mystery code.

[Newt Gingrich]

Coming up, we're going to discuss the future of birds, what their past extinctions might tell us about where they're headed next.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts why did I

[Cindy Crawford]

search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic source in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but like I never liked being told oh wow, you look so good for your age. Like why even bother saying saying that why don't you just say you look great at any age, Every age. That's what meaningful beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful beauty, beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com. Craving bold, authentic taste without kitchen chaos. True nature meets Japanese teriyaki style. Delicious Delivers tender beef glazed with sweet savory umami. Pre cooked perfection inspired by Japanese chefs. Eat in two minutes. Slice over salads or plates. Complaints turn to second helpings. Real meat, real flavor. Go to trunature meats.com code free meat for 20% off plus free New York strip Texas smoked brisket and Mediterranean chicken with code free meat@trunature meats.com.

[Newt Gingrich]

Having looked at the past and being aware of how evolution drifts forward, what do you think happens to the birds now?

[Steve Brusatte]

It's a good question. And look, I'll be up front and say, like most paleontologists, I'm much more comfortable looking to the past and telling you what's in the fossil record than I am predicting the future. But I think when I look at the world around us today and just how quickly the world's changing and how it has changed. Yes, as the climate is also environment, land use, pesticides, the cities we build, all the cats that we have, you know, a lot of us love cats. Keep your cats indoors. You know, they kill a lot of birds. All these things have really affected birds. And there's just billions of fewer birds now today than there were just a few decades ago. That's not billions of fewer species, of course. I just mean of individual birds. The standing population has really dropped. And I think birds are in a perilous state, probably the most perilous state since the asteroid hit. But I have a lot of confidence in birds, though, because birds are survivors. Birds endured that asteroid, they stared down that extinction. And I hope we can conserve as many birds as possible. And when we turn our attention to it, we do a really good job. The California condor, the bald eagle, these birds, especially the condor, they were on the brink of extinction. And then we as humans recognized that they were and we conserved them. And I mean, even just bald eagles, I mean, you know, this is our national symbol. These are the most important birds to conserve. Right. And when I was growing up in northern Illinois, we hardly ever saw any of them. This was in the late 80s and early 90s. And then they really came back because the conservation efforts picked up. And by the end of the 90s into the early 2000s at Starved Rock State park on the Illinois river, close to my hometown of Ottawa. There's so many bald eagles now. It's a tourist destination. That's incredible. I've seen that in my lifetime. I've seen us make an effort, you know, to conserve birds. And when we make that effort, we can do it. And that's what I, I hope. But by and large, birds are adaptable and they're great survivors. And so I have confidence that they can deal with a lot of the stuff we're throwing at them. But it is a perilous time and we do see sometimes even very successful birds, even very abundant birds, the passenger pigeon. You know, there were once billions of these across North America and they were over hunted. The land use changed, there's pesticides and they crashed and they ended up going extinct. And it seemed impossible. They were caught in this genetic bottlenec. They had lost too much diversity, they couldn't persist. Maybe a bit of a freak occurrence, but it can happen. So we have to be mindful of

[Newt Gingrich]

that in terms of resilience. At about the time that the bald eagle was threatened, the American alligator was threatened. Today there are an estimated 1,700,000 alligators in Florida alone.

[Steve Brusatte]

Wow. That's why you hear these stories of people going into the swamps and getting in trouble. I didn't realize there was.

[Newt Gingrich]

You don't have to be on the swamp, you can be walking on the golf course, given a chance. Nature is just amazingly resilient.

[Steve Brusatte]

It is, it is. And we're throwing a lot at nature. We are. There's 8 billion plus, you know, humans on the planet. There's a lot of us, we need a lot. We need space, we need energy, we need food. You know, we cannot live on this earth, so many of us, without affecting it. The hope is that we find the ways to be the best stewards possible of the environment without, you know, harming ourselves. And I think, you know, you've always been devoted to that. The first time I ever met you is when you came to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting and you know, you were talking about, your book had come out about your approach to environmentalism. I liked that. I respected that. I thought that was fantastic. You know, we have to find a way to coexist with the rest of the earth without harming ourselves in the process.

[Newt Gingrich]

We have to see ourselves as caretakers, not exploiters.

[Steve Brusatte]

Right.

[Newt Gingrich]

I'm sure anybody who's listening to this realizes how much fun we have together and how much I admire Admire you. One part of me kind of wishes I'd had your life.

[Steve Brusatte]

Well, I wanted to be a politician. I was really young. I got so into politics in the late 80s and you know, the Bush years and then into the Clinton years and you took over the House. I knew everything that was going on. I was the most annoying 10 year old. I said I was going to be president one day. I didn't care about dinosaurs. And so in many ways I wanted to live your life.

[Newt Gingrich]

I want to encourage you to keep collecting. You're making a great contribution. And I do think your books, by the way, are going to dramatically explore, expand the number of people who care about paleontology.

[Steve Brusatte]

I appreciate that. And that's what they're for. They're not academic books, as you know. You know, when I was a teenager and I became obsessed with fossils, growing up in farm country, it was through reading a lot of books. And I hope these books can have a similar impact. They are meant to be read by everybody. You know, I get emails from readers and messages on social media. And just over the last few months, there was a long distance truck driver who told me he was listening to the audiobook as he was driving night shifts. And there was a kid who was stationed overseas in the army and he said, you know, he was bored in the barracks. He found this dinosaur book. And I love that. I mean, that's exactly what I want the books to mean. That's the whole point.

[Newt Gingrich]

Well, listen, I would say to all of our listeners, if you have young people, these three books make great Christmas gifts. I mean, I got into it in part. It was an old time life series with lots of big pictures and everything. And I was babysitting one night at Fort Riley and the family I was babysitting for had these books sitting out and I got totally sucked in and have never recovered.

[Steve Brusatte]

That's great. I think a lot of us have these origin stories of how we became interested in dinosaurs and it's usually seeing some fantastic artwork or reading some books.

[Newt Gingrich]

That's wonderful. Listen, Steve, I want to thank you for joining me. I'm looking forward to a future visit with your next book, whatever that term turns out to be. Your new book, I gotta tell you, I'm very impressed. It's already a bestseller. The Story of Birds A New History From Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present. It's available on Amazon and bookstores everywhere. It's always just fun to talk to you.

[Steve Brusatte]

Well, thank you. And as I always say, thank you for your service to the country. God bless and I look forward to talking to you again.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures Amazon Pharmacy presents Painful Thoughts of course I see

[Steve Brusatte]

my co worker in line at the pharmacy. Can he tell I'm picking up prescription hemorrhoid cream? I'm probably standing weird. Why is he smiling? He knows knows.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

He's going to call me Hemroid Lloyd tomorrow. I know it. I gotta quit my job. Next time avoid awkward conversations and get fast free delivery. With Amazon Pharmacy Healthcare just got less painful.

[Cindy Crawford]

Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. Its melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

All that [e-mail] craving bold authentic taste without kitchen chaos? True nature meets Hawaiian Kahlua Pork delivers slow roasted tenderness with smok smoky tropical notes. Pre cooked perfection. 30 years supplying the finest restaurants. Chances are you've already had their pork heat in two minutes. Shred for plates or bowls. Complaints turn to second helpings and laughter. Real meat, real flavor. Go to TrueNatureMeats.com code free meat for 20% off plus free New York strip Texas smoked Brisket and Mediterranean chicken with code free [e-mail].

[Newt Gingrich]

I'm pleased to introduce a new segment to Newt's World where I answer listeners questions. To ask a question please email me at newtingrich360.com David F. From Wisconsin asks do you think we should consider repealing the 22nd amendment? That's the amendment which was ratified in 1951 after President Roosevelt had served four terms. And that amendment says presidents are limited to two terms with which had been the pattern starting with George Washington and really was designed to block anybody from ever following Roosevelt and lasting more than two terms. I have to say personally, I think it's a healthy, positive amendment. I think that it's useful if a president serves eight years at the speed and pace of the presidency. They need a break and what we don't need is to get into a habit of people staying around. In fact, you see what Roosevelt who died in April shortly after getting into his fourth term, that he had really been worn out and probably the country would have been healthier had they had some kind of limitation. I look forward to hearing from any of you who have questions. Just remember to ask a question. Email me at newtingrich360.com thank you to my guest Steve Brissette. Newt's World is produced by Gingrich360 and I Diehard Media. Our Executive producer is Garnzi Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich360. If you've been enjoying Newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Join me on [e-mail] I'm Newt Gingrich. This is NewtWorld Foreign.

[Cindy Crawford]

This is Sophia Donner from OK Storytime this summer.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Find your next obsession on Prime Video and listen we're not saying you need

[Cindy Crawford]

another obsession, but there could be a lot worse ones.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Steamy romance, addictive love stories, and the

[Cindy Crawford]

book to screen favorites you've already read twice, so why not watch them a

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

third time off campus? L the Love Hypothesis and more Slow

[Cindy Crawford]

Burns Second Chances chemistry you can feel

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

through the screen and it makes you

[Cindy Crawford]

wish you were actually in that movie.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

We've got binge worthy series can't miss movies perfect for when you're ignoring your

[Steve Brusatte]

own problems or procrastinating as one does.

[Cindy Crawford]

Your next obsession is waiting.

[Steve Brusatte]

Watch only on Prime. Your vehicle doesn't just get you from here to there.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

It's a bridge to the people and places that matter most.

[Steve Brusatte]

It's how you show up for your

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

family, your community and everyone else that depends on you. That's why for 125 years Firestone has

[Steve Brusatte]

been building tires with one thing in

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

to deliver products that are as reliable as you are. Firestone always dependable since 1900. Tired of juggling sales tools or spending hours on prospecting just to book a few few meetings? Meet Apollo, the go to market platform for finding leads, connecting with buyers and closing deals all in one place. Apollo gives you access to over 210 million contacts and AI that handles all your busywork finding leads, drafting emails and even prioritizing your day. So stop paying for five different sales tools when one does it all. Visit Apollo I.O. and sign up free today.

[Cindy Crawford]

Turn Someday into Right now with Buddy by Jake Radio Non stop workout music and expert tips 247 hey.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Head over to iheart.com search body by Jake Radio and stream it for free right now.

[Cindy Crawford]

Awesome health and wellness tips 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Remember, stick to the fight when your hardest hit. It's when things seem worse that you must not quit. Don't quit.

[Cindy Crawford]

Body by Jake Radio where hope meets momentum.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free. Have a great day.

[Steve Brusatte]

Iheartradio

[Cindy Crawford]

this is an iheart podcast. Guaranteed human.