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 Snakes So Creepy? Jan 31, 2025

Show notes

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

Ophidiophobia: The abnormal fear of snakes
Lateral Undulation: Waves of lateral bending through the body that propel the snake forward.
Trichromatic Vision: Three color receptors in the eye that allow the animal to see a wider spectrum of colors.
Electroencephalogram: A non-invasive method of measuring electrical activity in the brain.

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 Did T Rex Have Such Tiny Arms? Jan 30, 2025

Show notes

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

Evolutionary Mechanisms: Forces that change the frequency of genes in populations.
Natural Selection: The process whereby traits that make animals more likely to survive and reproduce take hold in a population.
Vestigiality: The process by which a genetically-determined structure loses some or all of its functionality.
Genetic Drift: A change in the frequency of an allele due to random sampling.

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 Is Poop Brown And Pee Yellow? Jan 29, 2025

Show notes

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

Red blood cells (RBCs), also called erythrocytes, are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate's principal means of delivering oxygen
Hemoglobin also spelled haemoglobin and abbreviated Hb or Hgb, is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of all vertebrates as well as the tissues of some invertebrates.
Bilirubin is a yellow compound that occurs in the normal catabolic pathway that breaks down heme in vertebrates.
Urobilinogen is a colourless by-product of bilirubin reduction. It is formed in the intestines by bacterial action on bilirubin. About half of the urobilinogen formed is reabsorbed and taken up via the portal vein to the liver, enters circulation and is excreted by the kidney.
Urobilin or urochrome is the chemical primarily responsible for the yellow color of urine.
Stercobilin is the chemical responsible for the brown color of human feces.

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

Should We Grow Human Organs In Pigs? Jan 28, 2025

Show notes

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

Organ transplantation - surgically transferring an organ from one person into another.
Xenotransplantation - transplanting organs between members of different species.
Transplant rejection - when the organ recipient’s immune system destroys transplanted tissue.
Pluripotent stem cells - embryonic cells that can give rise to all the different types of cells that make up the body.
CRISPR - a genome editing tool that allows scientists to modify genes in living cells.

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 Don't Americans Eat Reindeer? Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

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

Reindeer - the smaller, (semi-)domesticated version/subspecies of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus)
Caribou - the wild, north American subspecies of Rangifer tarandus (Rangifer tarandus granti and others).
Wild reindeer - the wild, European/Asian subspecies of Rangifer tarandus.
Herding - bringing animals together into a group, maintaining the group, and moving the group from place to place
Rain-on-snow event - exactly what it sounds like! Rain that falls on snow, freezes into a thick layer of impenetrable ice over pastures, and causes mass starvation of reindeer (or caribou).

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

Cannibal Hamsters Jan 26, 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

Air Conditioners Jan 25, 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

How These Sea Shells Know the Weather in Greenland Jan 24, 2025

Show notes

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

Foraminifera: a class of single-celled marine organisms – protists, not animals – that live either near the surface ("planktonic foraminifera") or on the seafloor ("benthic foraminifera"). Called forams for short.
Climate proxy: something that tells us what the climate was like in the past, such as data from the thickness of tree rings, the composition of gases trapped in ancient ice, historical human records of annual bloom times (eg the long-recorded bloom dates of cherry trees in Kyoto, Japan), or the ratios of certain stable isotopes found in shells, corals, or other biogenic substances
Oxygen-18: a stable isotope of oxygen that contains 8 protons and 10 neutrons, rather than the 8 protons and 8 neutrons of "regular" oxygen (oxygen-16). The ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 in seawater (and sea shells) can be used as a proxy for the global average temperature
Ice sheet: a permanent layer of ice covering land, as found in polar regions (and as distinguished from sea ice, like the stuff that floats at the north pole in the Arctic ocean). Combined, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contain more than 99% of the total freshwater ice on Earth.

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 Humans Made Malaria So Deadly Jan 23, 2025

Show notes

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

Malaria - a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.
Parasite - an organism that benefits by living in/on a host organism and deriving nutrients at the host's expense.
Host - an organism in/on which another organism lives.
Protozoa - a group of single-celled microscopic animals (not bacteria or viruses) that includes the Plasmodium species.
Plasmodium - a genus of parasitic protozoa, many of which cause malaria in their hosts. Four species regularly infect humans: P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. malariae, & P. ovale.
P. falciparum - the Plasmodium species that kills the most people, by causing malignant malaria, the most dangerous form of malaria.
Anopheles gambiae - a ‘complex' of at least seven species of mosquitoes that are the main vectors of P. falciparum in sub-Saharan Africa.
Species complex - a group of closely related species that look so similar that the boundaries between them are often unclear.
Hunting and gathering - depending primarily on wild foods for subsistence
Paleontology - the study of fossils and what fossils tell us about the past, about evolution, and about how humans fit into 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

Why Only Some Monkeys Have Awesome Tails Jan 22, 2025

Show notes

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

Prehensile Tail: An animal tail that can grasp or hold objects. A wide range of animals have prehensile tails, including mammals (like opossums and kinkajous), reptiles (like chameleons), amphibians (like salamanders), and fish (seahorses).
Old World Monkeys (Cercopithecidae): A family of primates native to Africa and Asia that includes baboons, guenons and macaques – all of which have non-prehensile tails.
New World Monkeys (Platyrrhini): A family of primates native to Central and South America that includes spider monkeys, howlers, and capuchins – all of which have prehensile tails.
Prehensile tails evolved twice in new world monkeys: In atelines (spider monkey and howlers) the prehensile tail tip is like a finger and incredibly dextrous. In cebines (capuchin monkeys) the tip is furry and not quite as dextrous.

*Species featured in this video:

Spider Monkey (and Diddy Kong!)

Ficus insipida (tripical fig tree)

Barbary Macaque (from Northern Africa)

Rhesus Macaque(from India)

Opossum

Chameleon

Salamander (Aneides lugubris)

Seahorses (actually Horsea!)

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

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