Best Matt Borths Podcasts (2024)

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Episode 34 – March of the Trilobites 18:11

4y ago18:11

18:11

Of Collective Behavior and Trilobites Reading scientific papers can be a daunting prospect. Even the titles can contain layers of jargon. On Past Time, we work diligently to break down the barriers of science to make the discoveries of science for audiences of all ages. In this episode, we experiment with a new method: breaking […]…

1
Episode 33 – The Story of the Sloth 37:15

4+ y ago37:15

37:15

PAST TIME RETURNS! After three and a half months of discovering how insanely busy a museum curator can be, I (Adam) am back to past times with a brand new episode of Past Time! Join me on a journey back to the Smithsonian Institution to learn about the whole history of sloths. We’ll also meet RYAN […]…

1
Episode 32 – The Changing Face of Crocodiles 24:13

5y ago24:13

24:13

Episode 32 – The Changing Face of Crocodiles INTRODUCTION TO GROWING UP – Every living thing grows up, and this episode of “Past Time” explores the evolution of the growing process. Specifically, we explore the evolution of growth in crocodiles, and how changes to the growing process at the earliest stages of crocodile development help […]…

1
Episode 31 – The First Frogs of the Age of Dinosaurs! 11:38

5y ago11:38

11:38

THE FIRST FROGS OF NORTH AMERICA Every discovery we make in natural history happens thanks to specimens. Fossil bones, shells, footprints, coprolites, tissue samples—even field notes and photograms—are the building blocks scientists use to tell the story of life on our planet. On Past Time, we talk a LOT about the contributions of museums and […]…

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Episode 30 – SVP Recap, guest-starring I KNOW DINO 26:44

5+ y ago26:44

26:44

Meeting of the Minds There is no bigger paleontology conference for fans of dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, birds, fishes, and reptiles than the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting. The 78th annual meeting just took place this October in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA and Matt, Adam, and Catherine were in attendance. They learned about …

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Episode 29 – First of the Four-Footed Giant Dinosaurs! 12:02

5+ y ago12:02

12:02

Ledumahadi and the first dinosaur giants The sauropod dinosaurs—the classic long-necks—included the largest land animal species that have ever lived. Throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous, multiple families of sauropods achieved body masses over 50 tons: greater than any modern elephant and even exceeding the colossal indricothere rhinoceroses. De…

1
Episode 28 – PAST TIME reviews Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom! 50:15

5+ y ago50:15

50:15

First Iteration I (Adam) am both proud and nervous to say that this is an atypical Past Time episode, as we’re not talking about a new discovery nor a real scientific topic; it is a recap/review of Jurassic World 2. However, I think it is worth addressing whether or not particular elements of new movies, […]…

1
Episode 27 – Machairoceratops: An Extinct Horned Dinosaur Under Threat! 31:30

5+ y ago31:30

31:30

Eighty million years ago, a wildly ornamented species of horned dinosaur roamed the southern half of North America’s western landmass, Laramidia. In 2016, paleontologist Eric Lund and his colleagues named it Machairoceratops cronusi, and we fell in love with this ceratopsian from Utah with hooks over its frill. In 2017, the site where Machairocerat…

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Episode 26 – Colobops: the tiny reptile with a big bite! 15:33

6y ago15:33

15:33

Big bites come in small skulls This episode tells a story of one of Adam Pritchard’s favorite projects from Yale University, describing the skull of a teeny reptile from the early days of the Age of Reptiles. Hailing from the eastern coast of North America (present-day Connecticut), Colobops noviportensis had a skull only an inch […]…

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Episode 25 – Ceratosaurs: Story of a Predatory Dinosaur Dynasty! 4:16

6y ago4:16

4:16

Masters of horns and teeth Throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods, dinosaurs were top dogs on every continent and in every sort of environment. The ceratosaurs were some of the classic predators that ruled the tops of the food chains for much of that time. Including classic predators such as Ceratosaurus, Carnotaurus, and Majungasaurus—as w…

1
Episode 24 – Dinosaurs and crocodiles in the Land Before Egypt! 9:02

6y ago9:02

9:02

Egyptian paleontology has a long and storied history, although much of it is focused on discoveries from the Cenozoic Era. Incredible fossils of early whales, primates, and other mammals have been discovered in Egypt since the beginning of the twentieth century, work that continues to this day. However, fossils from the Age of Reptiles are […]…

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Episode 23: Meet the Echinoderms! Adventures with Ancient Sea Stars! 14:03

6y ago14:03

14:03

This episode was a blast to produce for a vertebrate scientist. I learned a ton about the echinoderms, the group of invertebrate animals to which sea stars, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and crinoids belong. Be prepared for more adventures with invertebrate animals in the future. Engineering Echinoderms with Elizabeth Clark! This episo…

1
Episode 22: Matheronodon, a new dinosaur with a different kind of bite! 13:51

6+ y ago13:51

13:51

Matheronodon is certainly a dinosaur worthy of a bigger bite. With proportionally giant teeth strikingly different from the standard-issue ornithopod dinosaur, it is certainly one of the most important dino discoveries out of Europe this year. Better yet, the original scientific paper by Pascal Godefroit and colleagues is free to read in the journa…

1
Episode 21: New History of Ancient DNA

6+ y ago

—

The quest to recover ancient genetic material from extinct animals had its blockbuster moment when Jurassic Park came out. But where did the idea come from and who is trying to figure out if the science fiction of Jurassic Park can be science reality? We talk to Dr. Elizabeth Jones, a science historian at University […]…

1
Episode 20: Digging the Dawn of Dinosaurs – Paleontology at Ghost Ranch 33:40

6+ y ago33:40

33:40

Hi all. Adam Pritchard here. I’ve been thinking about telling the story of my field experience in the Triassic-aged Chinle Formation of northern New Mexico for many years. The Hayden Quarry fossil site at Ghost Ranch has produced the best-preserved and most diverse record of American dinosaurs from the Triassic of North America, plus some […]…

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Episode 19: Masrasector—Egypt’s Ancient Slicer! 12:10

7y ago12:10

12:10

A few weeks ago Past Time co-host Matt Borths published a study that identified a new species of now-extinct carnivorous mammal from Egypt. The animal was near the top of the African food chain when Africa was cut off from the other continents. It lived in the same swampy ecosystem that was home to our earliest […]…

1
Episode 18: The Bird Brains and the Dinosaur Expert 26:27

7y ago26:27

26:27

By Matt Borths, Adam Pritchard, Catherine Early

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Episode 17: Kingdom of the Monkey Lizard! 16:46

7y ago16:46

16:46

Past Time is BACK! Matt and Adam have been traveling the world independently for some time, delving deeply into the history of life on the planet, but now they’re back to tell you all about what they’ve discovered! In this episode, Matt interviews Adam about his research into the early days of the Age of […]…

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A Food Chain in a Fossil: A snake skeleton with its prey still inside! 6:20

7+ y ago6:20

6:20

The relationship between predator and prey is a primal one, and one that fires the curiosity of many fossil fans. We love paintings of Tyrannosaurus battling Triceratops or saber-toothed cats leaping onto the backs of ground sloths. And we can be pretty sure that those interactions happened based on TRACE FOSSILS, like tooth marks in […]…

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Grandma Sharkie: The Greenland Shark is the World’s Oldest Vertebrate Animal! 6:53

7+ y ago6:53

6:53

Growth is a universal facet of all organisms that have ever lived, but figuring out how old they grow isn’t always easy. A new study examined the growth in one of the biggest predatory fish in all the ocean, the Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus), revealing it to be the vertebrate species with the longest lifespan: nearly […]…

1
A Tale of Two Crocs: Predators of Cretaceous Spain 8:33

8y ago8:33

8:33

I tried to google “crocodiles are living fossils,” to see just how commonly that expression was used in popular articles. There were indeed a few articles that referenced this idea, suggesting that croc fossils from 80 million years ago would look identical the skeletons they have today. However, most were news stories reporting various discoveries…

1
Episode 16: Hunting Antarctic Dinosaurs 18:51

8y ago18:51

18:51

Erik Gorscak and Pat O'Connor, two paleontologists from Ohio University, are about to set out on an expedition to Antarctica to hunt for fossils from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. They are part of a larger team called the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project (AP3), an international collaboration of fossil hunters and geologists who are about…

1
News Bite: Dodos and the evolution of bird brains 7:24

8y ago7:24

7:24

If you wander into the basement of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, and wander into the fossil collections, you will find a vast array of different dinosaurs dating back over 200 million years. However, just a few feet away from the oldest dinosaurs you will find several drawers filled with the […]…

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News Bite: The evolution of ornithischian dinosaur jaws and bites! 5:39

8y ago5:39

5:39

With Past Time, Matt and I tend to focus on the new discoveries in paleontology: the new species that show up in the news, or the important specimens discovered in museum collections. These are the raw materials that feed the fires of paleontology as a science. However, observation is only the first step in the […]…

1
Episode 15: Degrees of Doctoral Dissertation Domination 37:42

8+ y ago37:42

37:42

On this episode of Past Time, Drs. Matthew Borths and Adam Pritchard share their dissertation stories, and a bit of advice on the grad school experience!By Matt Borths, Adam Pritchard, Catherine Early

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News Bite: Kerberos! Giant mammal carnivore from after the Age of Dinosaurs! 6:40

8+ y ago6:40

6:40

It weighed twice as much as a modern wolf. It had three pairs of meat-slicing teeth. It was the first carnivorous land animal to reach 200 pounds on the entire continent of Europe after the extinction of the dinosaurs. And a team of European scientists and Past Time co-host Matthew Borths just introduced us to it. Ladies and gentlemen: meet Kerbero…

1
News Bite: Salamanders of the Caribbean! 5:10

8+ y ago5:10

5:10

Arrr, ye mateys! Pour out some grog, and I’ll tell ye a tale of mines, beaches, and death in ancient jungles. I of course be talkin’…about salamanders! Okay, not going to do that voice the whole time (though maybe it should be in the episode), but I will briefly present Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae, the first salamander […]…

1
News Bite: Basilisks in the Old(er) West! 5:40

9y ago5:40

5:40

The oldest basilisk lizard from North America, described by Jack Conrad from NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine, shows the 48 million year old animal was part of an ancient lush jungle ecosystem...in the middle of Wyoming. The beautifully preserved skull has important stories to tell about the evolution of the lizards most famous for their abilit…

1
News Bite: Genes and Jurassic Park 8:46

9y ago8:46

8:46

As Jurassic World rolls out, Matt has some thoughts on the scientific impact of Jurassic Park and offers his hopes for the scientific discussions Jurassic World might spark.By Matt Borths, Adam Pritchard, Catherine Early

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News Bite: Cosmic rays date ancient human ancestor 5:30

9y ago5:30

5:30

Dating fossils might sound like Saturday night for a paleontologist, but it’s serious science! In a new study, a group of physicists and paleontologists teamed up to re-date one of the most complete skeletons of a human relative ever discovered. The skeleton was discovered in a cave in South Africa twenty years ago, but the […]…

1
News Bite: Brontosaurus revived! 7:45

9y ago7:45

7:45

Brontosaurus was an extinct name for an extinct animal, but a new study brings the “Thunder Lizard” title roaring back to life! But how does a name get dropped, and how does it get brought back again? Follow us into the winding world of paleontology taxonomy, the study of names. In the 1870s two giant hip […]…

1
News Bite: Crazy croc diversity in the ancient Amazon! 3:00

9y ago3:00

3:00

In a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi and other paleontontologists described the crocodiles from a gigantic wetland that predated the Amazon. Ten million years ago there was the giant Purussarus, the duck-billed Mourasuchus, the tube-snouted gharial-like croc, a coyote-like croc similar to Paleosuchu…

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Quick Bite: Clash of the Triassic Titans! 10:37

9y ago10:37

10:37

Under the canopy of an ancient fern forest near the border of Arizona and New Mexico a colossal crocodile-like reptile took a bite out of an even larger, toothy giant. The attack failed and the victim limped on to fight another day, until its carcass was finally pillaged by another scaly monster and smaller, pickier scavengers. Studying bones colle…

1
News Bite: Parental care in extinct reptiles 2:48

9y ago2:48

2:48

A new fossil shows an ancient reptile, Philydrosaurus, surrounded by young. Possible evidence that parental investment is a more ancient trait in land-based vertebrates than paleontologists thought! Reptiles aren’t known for being great parents. When it comes to time and energy spent with the kids, mammals get all the glory. Birds also spend a lot …

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News Bite: Giant dinosaur brain from Uzbekistan! 2:42

9y ago2:42

2:42

Researchers lead by Hans-Dieter Sues from the Smithsonian Institution described a wealth of new giant, long-necked dinosaur material from Western Asia (Uzbekistan). They were able to reconstruct what the brain looked like and discvered the dinosaur, part of the lineage called "titanosaurs", is closely related to animals from the far East of Asia, p…

1
Quick Bite: Iguanodon, History of a Dinosaur! 11:20

9+ y ago11:20

11:20

Iguanodon was discovered before the word "dinosaur" was invented and the story of Iguanodon research is the story of dinosaur research as paleontologists use new fossils to test old ideas about what the animal looked like and how it moved. Was it a lumbering quadruped? A springy kangaroo reptile? A little of both? Join us as we dive into the histor…

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Episode 14: The Art of Dinosaurs 21:14

9+ y ago21:14

21:14

To conjure up extinct environments, museums, books, and documentaries rely on art to show vanished animals revitalized in their ancient surroundings. This type of educational reconstruction is called Paleoart (or Palaeoart for the UK inclined) and you can't help but look at an image of a roaming Tyrannosaurus rex without wondering, "How much of tha…

1
Episode 13: Following in the Footsteps of Dinosaurs 22:44

10y ago22:44

22:44

When we think of paleontologists, we think of people hunkered down with bones, teeth, and shells studying the preserved body parts of dead organisms. But animals leave behind more than just their skeletons. As they walk they can leave behind footprints, as they eat they can leave behind bite marks, and as they finish eating they leave behind…well…w…

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Episode 12: Growing up Dinosaur 22:43

10y ago22:43

22:43

When we think of iconic dinosaurs, like T. rex with its massive head full of teeth, and Parasaurolophus crowned with a gigantic, tube-like horn, we’re thinking of the features of adult dinosaurs. But we know from looking around today that animals change a lot from birth to adulthood. Did T. rex always have a massive maw and Parasaurolophus a huge c…

1
Quick Bite: Weird Whales and Swimming Sloths 15:40

10y ago15:40

15:40

Marine mammals are fascinating beasts. Whales, manatees, seals, otters...they've all gone back to the water and in the process evolved all kinds of spectacular adaptations to make a living in a soggy setting. Toothed evolved an ability to “see” the underwater world around them using echolocation - basically sonar - to track prey with high-pitched s…

1
Episode 11: Trilobites and the Cincinnati Sea 21:00

10y ago21:00

21:00

Over 400 million years ago the oceans were teeming with life, but it didn’t look much like what you see at the aquarium or in Finding Nemo. Instead of colorful fish flitting through coral reefs, the ancient seas had giant, shelled squids darting past the icons of the early ocean: The Trilobites! Journey back to the Late Ordovician sea with Dr. Bren…

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Quick Bite: From Terror Bird to Gentle Giant 10:30

10y ago10:30

10:30

50 million-years ago, the heir to Tyrannosaurus stalked the forests of ancient Europe and North America, snapping up the tiny ancestors of horses, cows, and wolves in its colossal meat-cleaving beak. Gastornis was a six-foot-tall, flightless bird and the king of the food chain...or that’s what we thought. For decades paleontologists looked at the h…

1
Quick Bite: The Alien Turtle and Ancient Color 7:00

10y ago7:00

7:00

Meet Alienochelys selloumi, a giant, snorkel-nosed turtle with powerful, shell-crushing plates in its massive beak! The distant relative of the largest turtle alive today, the leatherback sea turtle, Alienochelys swam the ancient ocean of North Africa at the very end of the Age of Dinosaurs (the Late Cretaceous). It was found in the same rocks as O…

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Episode 10: The Hobbit – An Unexpected Discovery 22:00

10+ y ago22:00

22:00

Little people! Giant reptiles! Towering elephants! Huge birds! It sounds like the stuff of literary and box-office gold, but this Middle-Earth-like world actually existed 17,000 years ago on Flores, an island near Indonesia. Homo floresiensis, or "The Hobbts", only stood three feet tall but they cast a huge shadow over the story of human evolution.…

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Quick Bite: The Giant Before the Tyrant! 7:57

10+ y ago7:57

7:57

Last episode we featured Lythronax, the oldest-known North American tyrannosaur and a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex. But tyrannosaurs weren’t the only big carnivores to tromp through the Mesozoic of North America. Before the tyrant lizards were huge, there was another giant terrorizing the American West: Siats! Named for a Ute mythological gi…

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Episode 9: New Relatives of Tyrannosaurus rex! 17:00

10+ y ago17:00

17:00

Tyrannosaurus rex is a dinosaur celebrity, a villain in most dinosaur movies and documentaries, but where did the massive beast come from? On November 6, 2013, a team of paleontologists including our expert in this episode, Dr. Randy Irmis from the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah, published two new skeletons of Tyrannosaur…

1
Episode 8: Crocodiles are the Chomping Champions 20:00

10+ y ago20:00

20:00

Fossils are the raw materials of paleontology, but if we want to know how an animal moved or ate, paleontologists, like Dr. Paul Gignac, need to study living animals, too. Dr. Gignac studies crocodylians, measuring their bite forces across species and as they grow up to figure out how the strongest bite in nature evolved. Using techniques drawn fro…

1
Episode 7: Walking through Whale Evolution 20:00

10+ y ago20:00

20:00

Whales are spectacularly specialized mammals that seem perfectly adapted to their marine habitat. Plenty of other mammals have gone back to the water, but whales take it to a whole new level. No back legs, weird ear bones, noses on top of the head. What could the land-based ancestor of whales possibly looked like? Is there a fossil record of walkin…

1
Quick Bite: New Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs! 7:45

10+ y ago7:45

7:45

Mammals were scrambling around during the Age of Dinosaurs and they're usually seen as small, shrew-like animals waiting for their chance to become diverse. But recent research, including three new fossils discovered in 160 million-year-old rocks from China, show our mammalian cousins were ecologically specialized creatures. Arboroharamiya was clim…

1
Episode 6: Tiny Horses, Galloping Crocs, and Fossilized Jungles! 19:30

10+ y ago19:30

19:30

The fossil record is pretty patchy. Most discoveries are tooth fragments, chunks of shell, or isolated slivers of bone and paleontologists are trained to eke out as much information from these precious fragments as they can. But some fossil deposits preserve more than just bones and teeth. Called "Lagerstätte" some rare deposites preserve traces of…

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