The Theme: Below the Crust.

Be sure to check out each of the Paleopal’s solstice shopping recommendations under their individual “About” pages.

Patrick, Charlie, Ryan, and Justin (sort of).

Intro: 00:00:00 One of the Paleopals is missing but, on the other hand, that means that 75% of them are here.  That’s a passing grade.   It could be a lot worse.

Crocs… sort of: 00:02:55 Patrick is his usual crusty self in examining this feast of fossils.  Did these fossil crocs rule the world? Are they even crocs? Does duckcroc satisfy Kirk Cameron?

Nitrogenous Isopterans: 00:21:35 We interview Professor Kena Fox-Dobbs about her work suggesting that when in Africa, the termite is king of the nitrogen hill (or mound).  You might think that big organisms would hold the keys to moving nitrogen around the savannah, but you might be wrong.

Trailer Trash Talk -  Clash of the Titans: 00:43:54 A remake of a 1980′s stop-motion classic.  Patrick reminisces about the original movie that tells the story of the myth of Perseus.  Will the remake be a Greek tragedy?

Fish on Europa? 00:53:47 There is almost certainly a vast ocean on Europa (everybody knows that).  There may be some oxygen dissolved in the water (Ok). There may be 600 million tons of fish on the planet (I’m listening)!?!   The question is, would the sushi be any good by the time you got it back to Earth?  Call me back when there is life on Uranus.

Music from this episode:

We Want Fun – Andrew W. K.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy – Great White

Rock The Casbah – The Clash

Big Eyed Fish – Dave Matthews Band

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• Komodo dragons are venomous. They just may not need it. We plan our field trip to see if Ryan bleeds to death or dies of neurotoxin.  Learn all about reptile venom here, if you have the $$$.  Also, here is sweet picture of a Komodo dragon taken my brother when he was on the island, you can see some of his other pictures here.
• Ryan and Justin try to leave me out of Ocean by Warren Ellis, but fail miserably.
• We review trailer 1 for  Where the Wild Things Are and come away with slightly mixed feelings, given that the original book (comic?) is only 10 sentences long.
• A discussion of the 5th force and dark matter leaves us wondering if gravity is real or not.
• We close the show ever more nervous that a Velociraptor could ambush us from above.
• Bump music this week is Neighborhood #2 (Laika) by The Arcade Fire. This choice was inspired by our brief discussion of dying in space and the Russian test dog Laika, as well as The Arcade Fire song Wake Up used in the Where the Wild Things Are trailer.

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Directly download the show: Ep. 3: Science… sort of – Going Over to the Dark Side

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