MinuteEarth - Minute Earth

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Earth Sciences
**MinuteEarth – Minute Earth**

From the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the MinuteEarth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had – but once you hear the answer, you’ll want to share it with everyone you know. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. We’ll tell the incredible story of how monkeys crossed the Atlantic ocean on natural rafts, and we’ll explain why it gets hotter the deeper you dig underground.

Latest Episodes:

Why Are There Penguins At The Equator? Apr 01, 2025

Show notes

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Net Primary Production (NPP): the amount of primary production that organisms do, minus the amount of carbon they use up to do so (by respiring)
Phytoplankton: microscopic green algae that live in water and get energy through photosynthesis. Learn more here: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/p...
Primary Production: the synthesis of organic chemicals from carbon dioxide (mostly happens through photosynthesis)
Upwelling: the motion of cooler, usually nutrient-rich, water towards the ocean surface

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

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Why Earth Has Two Levels | Hypsometric Curve Mar 31, 2025

Show notes

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Hypsometric Curve: Basically, a chart that shows the proportions of surface area at every elevation on a planet.
Crust: Earth's outermost layer, made out of two distinct materials – oceanic crust (which is denser) and continental crust (which is less dense).
Lithosphere: The rigid outer layer of Earth, including the crust and the hard, un-bending part of the upper mantle.
Subduction: The process of an ocean plate crashing into another plate and getting forced to dive down into Earth's mantle.
Isostasy: Describes the way earth's crust sort of floats in the underlying mantle. Continental crust is less dense and thicker, and floats higher than the oceanic crust, which is denser and thinner. Geologists talk about things like "isostatic rebound," which is what happens after an ice age, when the ice melts off a continent and the continent lifts up, like a floating raft in a pool after someone gets off (though continents rise more slowly).

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

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Carbonaceous Chondrite Mar 30, 2025

Show notes

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Planet Formation Mar 29, 2025

Show notes

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Similarity Trap Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Cladistics: A method of recreating evolutionary trees based on evidence about relationships.
Etymology: The study of the origin of words and how they have changed throughout history.
Convergent Evolution: A process whereby different species evolve similar traits in order to adapt to similar environments.
Polyphyly: A group containing members with multiple ancestral sources.
Homoplasy: A trait shared by a group of species that is not shared in their common ancestor.
False Cognates: Pairs of words with similar sounds and meanings but unrelated etymologies.

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rise Of The Mesopredator🎵 Mar 27, 2025

Show notes

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Food Web: the feeding relationships between animals that determine how energy and nutrients are spread throughout an ecosystem.
Trophic Level: a hierarchical level in an ecosystem made up of organisms that share the same function in the food web.
Apex predator: the animals at the top trophic level that feed on animals and organisms below them.
Mesopredator: a member of a mid-ranking trophic level that preys on animals and organisms in lower trophic levels and occasionally gets eat by apex predators.
Mesopredator Release: an ecological phenomenon in which mesopredators rapidly grow in population once apex predators are removed from an ecosystem.
Trophic Cascade: a series of dramatic changes in an ecosystem often triggered by mesopredator release.

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Long Can We Live? Mar 26, 2025

Show notes

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Mortality plateau: the leveling out of the mortality rate that is observed at late ages in various species

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Trees Go Nuts Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Mast Year: A year in which all the plants of a particular species in a region ramp up their seed production.
Predator Satiation Hypothesis: The hypothesis that mast seeding is a strategy plants use for controlling the population of squirrels and other seed-eating animals.

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why You Shouldn't Give Ginger To Monkeys (and other animal sayings) Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Sunshower: A meteorological phenomenon in which the sunshines while rain is falling.
Idiom: A group of words whose meaning is not readily understandable by defining the individual words.
Anthropomorphism: The attribution of human characteristics to an animal or god or object.
Linguistic Anthropology: A field of study into how language shapes communication around the world.

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

If you like what we do, you can help us!

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Buy our merch: http://dftba.com/minuteearth

- Buy our book: https://minuteearth.com/books

- Sign up to our newsletter: http://news.minuteearth.com

- Share with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mountain Sink Mar 23, 2025

Show notes