|
Thomas Demere - San Diego National History Museum and Walking Whales - Dr. Thomas Demere, did you know he's worked at the NAT in San Diego for decades? That he's the guy to talk two about manatees from prehistory? How about the fact that whales used to walk around in Pakistan? Yep, all of that and more in our super fun and interesting chat with the Nat's top Doc!
Pete A Turner and Best-Selling author Scott Huesing host this fun chat that ended up with post-show drinks on the rooftop bar at the museum. #palentology #science #podcast #episode #history #bids #groundtruth #theNat Haiku There are two Bibles Man’s is written on paper God’s book is the earth Similar episodes: Dr. Greenberg Teresa Rodriguez Chandra Lynn |
Transcription
Jon Leon Guerrero 0:00
Hey this john Leon Guerrero. Our guest today is Dr. Tom de Mary. He's the curator of paleontology and the director of paleo services at the San Diego natural history museum and beautiful Balboa Park. Dr. Barry has authored several articles and scientific papers about the paleontological history of Southern California, and the evolutionary history of marine mammals. Which fascinates me because my favorite animal is the Orca. He's been with the San Diego natural history museum since 1979, which should tell us two things, that he's got one of the coolest jobs in the world. And then he ain't getting off this train till the wheels fall off. And it's going to be a while before that happens because all the indicators point to Dr. Tom having a whole lot of fight left in him. And we all need him to do his work. In addition to being an historian, as director of paleo services, he works with the various municipalities all through Central and Southern California,
Hey this john Leon Guerrero. Our guest today is Dr. Tom de Mary. He's the curator of paleontology and the director of paleo services at the San Diego natural history museum and beautiful Balboa Park. Dr. Barry has authored several articles and scientific papers about the paleontological history of Southern California, and the evolutionary history of marine mammals. Which fascinates me because my favorite animal is the Orca. He's been with the San Diego natural history museum since 1979, which should tell us two things, that he's got one of the coolest jobs in the world. And then he ain't getting off this train till the wheels fall off. And it's going to be a while before that happens because all the indicators point to Dr. Tom having a whole lot of fight left in him. And we all need him to do his work. In addition to being an historian, as director of paleo services, he works with the various municipalities all through Central and Southern California,
Jon Leon Guerrero 0:00
Hey this john Leon Guerrero. Our guest today is Dr. Tom de Mary. He's the curator of paleontology and the director of paleo services at the San Diego natural history museum and beautiful Balboa Park. Dr. Barry has authored several articles and scientific papers about the paleontological history of Southern California, and the evolutionary history of marine mammals. Which fascinates me because my favorite animal is the Orca. He's been with the San Diego natural history museum since 1979, which should tell us two things, that he's got one of the coolest jobs in the world. And then he ain't getting off this train till the wheels fall off. And it's going to be a while before that happens because all the indicators point to Dr. Tom having a whole lot of fight left in him. And we all need him to do his work. In addition to being an historian, as director of paleo services, he works with the various municipalities all through Central and Southern California, in the planning and operational stages for residential and commercial developments, infrastructure projects, natural gas pipelines, power plants, and utility transmission lines to assess and sometimes mitigate their impact on the surrounding geology. And what am i contained Dr. To marry welcome Scott and Pete to the Natural History Museum, San Diego, which by the way, you should check out if you're in and around the area. And if you really dig what they're doing, become a member, or give them a few bucks or volunteer and help them do some of the fascinating work. Maybe you'll get to dig up some bones or be part of a major discovery that reshapes our understanding of history. Anyway, the fellas talk a bit about the current understanding of human history and various other creatures and how they got to North America, and about many other things that may surprise you about paleontology. Like they got a rooftop bar at the San Diego natural history museum and is cracking at night time. Now, we love what we do to bring you the breakdown show and as a listener, you clearly care about learning something from some fascinating folks. So I'm going to ask you to do two things today. Go out and support the charities you care about or that are making a difference in your neighborhood, or for some people you care about. Whether it's the San Diego Natural History Museum, or maybe it's the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Owens borough, Kentucky, donate some money, volunteer your time, lend a helping hand. You'll feel great about it. And you'll meet some like minded people, and you'll learn something meaningful. We support save the brave and you can find them at save the brave.org we also support seal veterans foundation and you can go to seal veterans foundation org to see what they're about. You've probably heard me say that Pete is doing the Cornetto seal Memorial swim on Saturday, September 21 to benefit the families of Naval Special Warfare operators who've made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom. And Pete is supporting them on September 21 by swimming in a Tsonga. So go see that. We also want to shout out someone special at the Natural History Museum. Stephanie Avila hooked us up with Dr. Tom. And that is unforgettable. So she's awesome. And we're grateful. Thank you Stefania here with Scott and Pete is our special guest today. Dr. Tom to marry
Joel Manzer 3:18
lions rock productions.
Unknown Speaker 3:23
This is Jay Mohr
Unknown Speaker 3:24
and this is Jordan. Dexter from the
Unknown Speaker 3:27
naked Sebastian youngsters Rick Marotta, Stewart
Unknown Speaker 3:29
Copeland.
Unknown Speaker 3:31
Scott Baxter,
Unknown Speaker 3:32
Gabby Reese, Rob belly,
Jon Leon Guerrero 3:34
this is john Leon gray
Pete Turner 3:35
and this is Pete a Turner.
Thomas Demere 3:39
Hello, my name is Tom demaree. I'm curator paleontology here at the net. And we're we're on the break it down show.
Niko Leon Guerrero 3:48
And now the break it down show with jon Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 3:55
Perfect. I can fix everything and post. Yeah. So I've been reading Mr. Hancock's book about early American history. And he references guy, Tom from the net and San Diego. And I'm like, Wait, what? What's going on here? I live right by San Diego. I gotta go talk and learn to learn about paleontology and just it's such a fascinating thing. You know, you see it all the time. And actually, as a kid living up in the bay, I remember when they found the what was it a mastodon down here and this. I remember that news story as a kid and I thought, you know, I didn't know what to make of it. You know, because what you guys finally get excited. And what I picture in my 13 year old head are two different things. You know, I picture like a woolly mammoth jacket and maybe some cool boots or something. Anyhow, so I wanted to come down and talk to you just to learn a lot about what you do and and just, you know, expand everybody's mind as in terms of paleontology and how we are still today putting these things together. It's such a fascinating topic and we have Scott bestselling author Scott Husing sitting here with us. Yeah. Good to be here. This is Pete real quick. I just want to let you guys know we are proud to announce our official support of save the brave a certified nonprofit 501 c three with a charter of helping veterans with post traumatic stress here's how you can help go to save the brave calm click on the link on the website and my recommendation is this subscribe give them 20 bucks a month you've got subscriptions that you can turn off right now that you're not using that are $20 a month swap that out get involved Let's help these folks out that's selling author Scott using sitting here with us
scott huesing 5:31
yeah good to be here is you know for a guy that tried to escape school as much as possible with a you know again not a friggin session 1.24 GPA in high school and sit here with you know, Dr. I'm going to use the absolute proper Dr. Tom demaree is super humble guy out of out of the chute. But to you know, to be here at the net and the museum and just walking up here with Stephanie's in studio with us to and Tom's office. Hey, Stephanie. Love it. But we got a mini tour coming up here. I'm thinking we're going to learn some shit today. Sorry, stuff today. Yeah, I can say that on here. But Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah, it's not g rated show. But sorry, Stephanie. But just to learn so much, and really good education. We had some conversations to Tom come and I was like, so what is Tom like? Who would be the equivalent to would he be like Ross on friends, and he would be like Ross, his boss,
Thomas Demere 6:31
his boss's boss, I'd be his ex boss, because he would have been fired.
Pete Turner 6:38
I do it just just not for your benefit. But for my friends listening actually read the abstract from your most recent paper. Okay, talking about the SOPS, you guys would like to see. So I've actually done some academic level reading. And we can stop talking about that or talking more about your recent paper. But where would you want to start? I mean, this is your world. You've been here for decades, learn how
Thomas Demere 7:00
benching and everything. I've been at the nap for 40 years. Which is a long time. Even for me, yeah, well, as a paleontologist, I have the privilege of studying the history of the planet. And that's what we do. deep history. Geologists refer to this is deep time, you know, we're used to thinking in terms of minutes, seconds, hours, maybe days, years. But for paleontologist geologists, it's thousands of years, more likely hundred thousands of years, millions of years. And to, to be able to explore that history, by going out in the field and looking at, at stratified deposits that preserve this record of ancient environments and to climates and organisms that occupied those, those those environments. That's really exciting. And so we have the opportunity to dig up new things, and then figured out what they have to tell us about the history of the planet and their role in it. And this site that you're referring to that we excavated, actually, in 92, originally, this massive on site, here in San Diego, that we were puzzled over when we were excavating it. And over the 25 year period, we were able to cobble together eventually enough. other scientists have been interested in it because it had an archaeological component to it. We had to find some archaeologists that were willing to stick their neck out for a site that was as old as this site. It's at 130,000 do anthropologists
Pete Turner 8:30
come into play to or
Thomas Demere 8:34
physical anthropologist could were who the ones that study skeletons and what they have to tell us about the primate family tree. But we don't have any human remains at our site. It's all circumstantial evidence. It's what we call expedient tools and broken bones.
scott huesing 8:52
How did you we run in such vastly similar circles, Pete nine a lot. But we also interview on the bracket down show so many cool guests from such diverse backgrounds and outside our own circle. We know how we evolved into the military. Obviously, I was kind of a bad kid centered. But when you were growing up in the Bay Area, in San Francisco area, what thrust you into this? I mean, were you in this case, like, Hey, I gotta find what's at the bottom of the sandbox? Or like, what sparked I always investing? Like, what drives you to this career?
Thomas Demere 9:29
Yeah, that's not about that a bit. Because I mean, I wasn't a kid that was interested in dinosaurs. I was interested in exploring. I had three brothers. And we did a lot of crazy stuff. And we lived on a creek and we would explore the creek, we would construct wraps and build things. And but I wasn't, I wasn't interested in specifically interested in fossils. But I did like to collect things, I collected shells, and I collected books, and I collected insects, and I organized them. And so I kind of had this curate curator mentality. But it wasn't until college when I took a geology class that I really thought,
Pete Turner 10:11
what kind of major did you start out?
scott huesing 10:13
I was a photography major.
Thomas Demere 10:17
large format film, photography still. And I was at community college up in the in the Bay Area. That's
Pete Turner 10:25
why you didn't go the traditional path and go to high end University right from the start.
Thomas Demere 10:28
And now I was a community college student. But I took a geology class and I was just blown over by this, this, this window into the past and this ability that it gives you to look at a road cat that most people just drive by and see time and see different environments. And so I became a geology major when I moved to San Diego, but I have to admit, I moved to San Diego because of the warm water. Because I was surfing all the time. And so I came to San Diego. So it's kind of a mixed passion.
scott huesing 11:02
We just got two layers peel back, dude, photographer, paleontologists. How do we categorize Tom? Like I'm just like, awesome, awesome. Guests like we're cattery fallen. Yeah.
Pete Turner 11:15
We think in terms of like athletes and authors and all these other things, scientists
scott huesing 11:18
PhDs doctor, yeah, gosh, we've had so many on the show.
Pete Turner 11:22
Is there a sort of sets you on your way? Like, okay, the survey classes one thing, but I'm assuming that's not the point where it pivots and you're like, now this is it?
Thomas Demere 11:32
Well, it's interesting. I, in high school, I had a math teacher who kind of turned things around for me, Mr. Hubbard, and I always wish I'd written him a letter to after I'd, you know, finished my PhD. But he had passed away by then. But yeah, he just kind of turned me around and gave me a window into science and math. And the fact that I could do this sort of thing I did. I didn't know it at the time. Yeah, so it would step that would kind of was part of it, it was kind of a germ of what would eventually turn into something much different from me being a science major.
scott huesing 12:12
What, what did your folks say? What was your What was your parents background? When you when you announced to them? Hey, guess what I'm gonna do for living?
Pete Turner 12:20
You're never gonna make money doing that?
Thomas Demere 12:23
Well, they said, I glad you graduated from college. They were happy that I met a girl who I'm married and still married to. And so far, so good. And I got a job in my field, right out of winning pretty much right out of school. And so and I was living 500 miles from him. So what could they say anyway? But no, they were happy for me.
scott huesing 12:47
What was the first job? What what? What can budding paleontologist graduating from UCLA expect? Like? What's your first job?
Thomas Demere 12:53
Actually? Yeah, actually, it's just have my bachelor's degree. So I went to school. I mean, so I will, I was working at a micro paleontology firm, here in San Diego, which is when when, when you drill for oil exploration, they take samples out of the drill cuttings, and they can screen watch those and they get these little tiny fossils, marine plankton fossils, and they help you tell time and environment by going down holy change going down hole, and that changes the reflection of evolution. But it also allows you to correlate from one layer underground to another and that can help you understand the structure underground, like we're in that leads to where oil might be found. So that's what we did. And then I went back to school, I was working there and I went to USC and got a master's degree in geology.
Pete Turner 13:43
There's two things I want to ask the search for oil, like we think of dinosaurs, but really it's it's leaves and plankton and all kinds of other things.
Thomas Demere 13:52
It's mostly it's mostly planktonic organisms. Yeah, for a minute for which are little zooplankton and a lot of plan. diatoms and these things called carriers, nano plankton calculus, just this constant rain of organic material effect in time. It's all about time. And more than 6000 years, I should say. I just wondered like it What? No, I only did that because that's a biblical. Oh, sure. Yeah, the age of the Earth is much older than that. Yeah. How old? Is the planet Earth? 4.3 billion
scott huesing 14:28
1.3 billion with a be but what? What? When do you get your clock recalibrated man, like in college and on the job where you stop thinking in normal human terms like seconds, minutes, hours, years, into these massive chunks of time where I mean, just everything you look at this kind of us is surfer artists, like, the lens that you look at things through must be vastly different. I don't know, how do you like? How did you explain that to someone that has no insight into the vast scope of your time,
Thomas Demere 15:07
Scott, I even though I say millions of years or billions of years, I frankly don't, I can't comprehend what that means. My The only way I really get a grasp on it is to roll it standing on the on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, looking down into Cutler looking back. And you see how thick that is. And you just think no time is represented in those rocks. And that's, that's, that's just a fragment of geologic time for the age of the earth. But you gives you a sense of how much time there is in the earth. When you think of each layer and how long it might take the deposit each layer, although there's no constant rate of accumulation of sediment, but you can average it and just that gives you a sense of God, that's a long time.
Pete Turner 15:55
It's something like light traveling from distant galaxy Bitly.
scott huesing 15:59
It says, because I say that in kind of comparison to modern day society, where especially in America, we're a fast food nation, we want fast cash, you know, fast food we want you know, fast car, everything. Everything we want instant is you know, fast shopping on Amazon, but in to see things through your I mean, just being your brain is so compacted with so much information and how do you do you look at things differently, though, that kind of get back to the questions like this? The things seem not so like, why rush around so much because the insignificance of what you're doing. You're like, what we're doing in this moment, or all this social media stuff? And like, is it? Do you see it that way?
Pete Turner 16:44
Where Mrs The Nat calls you at your desk? And she's like, I need that report on Friday? Do you roll your eyes and go? What's Friday?
Thomas Demere 16:52
Oh, no, I mean, there is a, a just just connection sometimes between the things I need to do, and that this concept, geologic time. But I've got the perspective is that there's a deep history, to the planet, and the deep history to all the organisms on the planet. And I mean, you know, in your body, you have DNA that reflects relationships that that Homo sapiens has with other members of the primate family tree. And we carry that those remnants in us and our skeletons to reflect this his history that we have, with this particular group of mammals we call primates. And then that particular group of mammals we call primates as closely related to another group. And as you step back You, you, for me, I look at the biology of our planet. And I see this huge, intricate family tree, this tree of life, and with all these amazing branches that are still existing. But then, as a paleontologist, I can fill in all the branches that have been pruned by extinction. And it gives you a sense of how, how connected we all are it so I don't have the sense that we're insignificant. I have a sense that we belong to this bigger story
scott huesing 18:17
and network because 4.3 billion years the planet and then the human animal didn't have it
Thomas Demere 18:23
until well, Homo sapiens, maybe 200,000 years, 1000 years, and
scott huesing 18:27
it's a quarter million but I was off but it's close enough. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty close to think that what we didn't i didn't take it. I took a little anthropology in college Illinois State, though, not UCLA, or USC. But it's it's I think it's interesting perspective, though, for most people that one they're getting like a high school or college, you know, geology refresher just by listening to this podcast with with Tom on the show, and Stephanie, and the amazing things he talked about that the human, human animal, and then network and everything. I mean, just walking up, you think about like, the physical skeletons we walk past and where they were impacted in the earth. And what we take for granted on our daily lives when we're so hamstrung by a lot of this technology, which is ironic, because we're sitting here recording on a, you know, podcasts on something that fits in literally, in pizza. Pizza Bry case, but how does the technology, how has that helped you? So you've been here for decades, 40 years at the net here in San Diego, which is a great location right by the zoo. Ocean View is on the top floor. But back in the day, and he talked to Tom, you talked about your library, and there's like this huge stack of books behind you. And I assume that he unlike my library, he's actually read all the books.
Thomas Demere 19:45
Not all of them. No,
scott huesing 19:46
no, that's a good true confession right
Thomas Demere 19:48
there. I can't say I have. Not that I don't want to but I haven't.
scott huesing 19:53
Yeah, a lot of tough. It's challenging. It's, it's kind of been my first is like a kid that didn't read his first book, I can tell us in Desert Storm as a young Lance Corporal. Now people give me all these books. And I can't keep up and now that I'm an author, but how is the technology helped you or maybe even hindered you where to get the information used to probably have to spend weeks or months or travel to get that information? And then you got this crazy thing that kids are all talking about this fad called the internet? And that's terrific. It's the internet. How does that? How does that help you? Is it heard you have to continually vet the information because you can't just go to Wikipedia and say, Oh, this is paleontology. You know, people will believe what they read online. Like it's gospel, and he's got three monitors on his desk in here. And a walrus head on the wall. Is it a prehistoric walrus? No, this is a walrus. It's a it's a mounted head of a female Arctic walrus Arctic walrus. So talk about the technology. Yeah.
Thomas Demere 20:53
Well, I mean, it's true. I mean, the internet is terrific for networking with other scientists, I have colleagues I work with in other parts of the world, and where we used to have to send snail mail and wait. I mean, now we can, we can be as well and tell you how far away they are. Well, how will late we want, we're willing to stay up we can Skype but but the email is terrific for sharing information, sharing files, carrying on collaborative research projects where you don't have to travel necessarily, which is kind of a bummer, because it's good to travel to Italy. I have to admit Japan. But yeah, so that part of its terrific. imaging. Technology has been a real boon to paleontology, CT scanning, both medical scanners, but also high resolution micro CT scans. scanners provide incredible windows into the anatomy of organisms that we can never could never see before. I'm working on a project with a colleague at San Diego State a little while and there's a 3d printer that skulls sitting over there in the corner. And we CT scan this false it's about 25 million years old from Washington. And and it's a it's an early missing link, I'd say between living bailing whales and their ancient to ancestors. And it's an animal that has teeth, but we think it also had some kind of proto Beilein, we've done some, some very detailed scanning of that skull and we can, we can trace the the vascular structures in the face the rostrum of this, that that are that that are to us clear indications that the blood vessels that would feed just the teeth in tooth whales, and this animal are feeding the teeth and these new structures on the palate, that would would be for the bailing plates. So and so that that technology has really allowed us to do this. We couldn't have done this 15 years ago, and and then we can make 3d prints of it. Yeah. And
Pete Turner 23:03
in 3d prints in different very different, almost like CAT scan level things you could start to
Thomas Demere 23:09
Yeah, we could,
Pete Turner 23:10
yeah, the like the internal head structure, like for a bird to see like what kind of sound that might make you could really play around with that structure.
Unknown Speaker 23:18
Yeah, and then we can make movies of this too. And then we can then strip away the bones and just look at the vascular structures, which in an animal 25 million years old, I mean, you're looking at, we're looking at where the Bloods and nerves went, yeah. And we can just look at that. And that's, that's incredible to be able to do,
Pete Turner 23:35
it seems like with the, with what all of you folks do, it's easy to get siloed and lose track of what's possible over in the archeology, part of the way, you know, being of the building. You know, when someone specializes in vascular structure, you know, when some of the head and you're like, Wait a second, let me let me go talk to Ricky over there muscular structure archaeology. My put that my getting too far ahead? Or is that a how that works? Where you look at different disciplines, and then sub disciplines in there, where it maybe it's relevant to what you're doing?
Unknown Speaker 24:07
Yeah, well, I think a lot of a lot of our science now, or my science now is collaborative. So we, you know, I have a particular strength and my, my colleagues will have a different strength and put together we're pretty good team. And this paper that we wrote on what we call the stream acid on site, is a reflection of that. I mean, I was involved in the original excavation, and I have a geology background. So I know the site very well. And we brought in archaeologists, who's really good knows a lot about how bones are broken by humans and by other other activities. And then another archaeologist who's a lyric expert, how rocks are used to, has tools, and then a geo chronology, somebody who could date the site, and another paleontologists who's an expert on mastering on anatomy. And so, you know, we had 10 authors on that paper. And that's not unusual now. Yeah, not
scott huesing 25:06
not withstanding the whole technical influence that technology's had on it, like the scans or anything, but just that the human element, the collaboration, where, before it was, you know, dr. john Bowne in whatever state or country and he's working on this thing, and that's his thing, he doesn't even know to ask all of these other, you know, 20 pound brain club members. Hey, can you weigh in on this? Because you're an expert at this. And I mean, just how, how important to you is a guy that thinks long range in time, how important is that this fraction, Milla fraction of a second in time, called the information age and the internet? How is that change? And how is that going to continue to revolutionize your field of what you do?
Unknown Speaker 25:56
Well, one of the things in paleontology is that our source material is buried in the ground, we have to find it. First, we have to excavate it. And then we have to prepare it so we can see it. Which means we have to remove the enclosing sediment. And sometimes that sediment is soft, and you can brush it off with a paintbrush. And sometimes it's so hard, you need the pneumatic jackhammer to get it off of there. And then there's the whole the, you know, everything in between. With new imaging techniques, it may be that we don't really have to do all that preparation, we can just look at it, you know, virtually look at what
scott huesing 26:41
do we got right now, like, as far as technology or machinery that takes an X ray of the Earth's surface down? And how far does it get talk a little bit. That's fascinating. I
Unknown Speaker 26:50
haven't used any, but we're about to do this. We're going to go out to the site where we collect to this mastodon and do a GDPR survey ground penetrating radar survey, archaeologists use it and that's getting it. So I don't know really anything about it. But the colleague at San Diego State, the ternary, geologists, and he, he has this, these he puts these antennas out and he drives this or pushes this card looks like a lawn mower across the ground surface. And it it takes readings of the subsurface and it has apparently some fairly good accuracy depending upon the strength of the of the
scott huesing 27:31
signal. And it's like the size of a lot more. Yeah, what happens when they build one like the Hubble telescope? You know, those big graders that do the commercial construction? Some genius comes up with that, is it. The bigger was bigger is always better for America. The Chinese are pretty good at two.
Thomas Demere 27:52
Well, that's because they get it from us.
scott huesing 27:56
We're gonna get into some conspiracy theory here. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 27:58
yes. No.
Thomas Demere 28:01
I don't know. I haven't used this this GDPR technology, but I'm excited about it. Because apparently it'll show not only, you know, where potentially fossils are, and rocks and maybe a human skeleton. But a
scott huesing 28:16
best impersonation of a human skeleton. This is obviously how everyone dies, we get a picture of Tom Hanks in the show notes. This is dead. He was killed by Tom Emery.
Thomas Demere 28:27
Sorry, that's okay.
scott huesing 28:30
High School mentality.
Pete Turner 28:34
I want to I want to ask you about that. So these radars, it's part fish finder, where you're like, yeah, there is something worth digging here? Or is it? Like we don't have we want to get away from digging, and we want to maintain the context. Because if there's microscopic fossils, everything you dig away can be something part of the record, right? Yeah.
Thomas Demere 28:52
Yeah, the context is everything, especially for a site like I'm describing, you know, it's the arrangement of materials Not, not this one particular object, but is that object in relation to everything else around it. So it's, it's, it's more like a crime scene investigation where you have to have all the evidence, you know, its distribution in space, you know, and both horizontally and vertically. And so it because it all is part of one story, and so we're hoping that the GDPR survey will allow us to find targets, so to speak, but then also, it'll, it'll show us I'm told the strategically the layering and because you want to know everything in one layer is has has the same temporal context versus the layer below it versus the layer above like a you kind of baited that to Pete by saying, What do you find some you start digging deep? The those of you are in those in your field. Once you see that image, or you know, there's something that you have some obsessive compulsive drive to dig. Like we dig in sweet.
scott huesing 29:58
Like, I can't go over the top. How's it going? Like? Like,
Thomas Demere 30:03
wife said, when I started working at the museum, you can bring all the stuff here. Yeah. But yeah, it's fun. It's exciting. How many
scott huesing 30:10
how many have you been on throughout your career? I don't know. They call it a dig.
Thomas Demere 30:15
Well, no, we call it an excavation station. Yeah, I don't know
scott huesing 30:21
what maybe they've done some excavation and Archer military. Normally, four feet by four feet by just actually
Pete Turner 30:27
these are foxholes, you actually have a horrible Hey, this is Pete a Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here. And if you your brand, or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show me how to take a podcast that makes sense for you. That's sustainable, that's scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show com
scott huesing 30:52
Let me help I want to hear about it. These are foxholes, you
Pete Turner 30:55
actually have a horrible story it's not quite paleontology but I don't camp there were tells a tell is a mound of something that was not naturally there. And we were driving giant army trucks over it and they were scooping it practicing army stuff. And there was all kinds of artifacts in it. We hadn't filled HESCO l barriers with artifact lead wonder
Thomas Demere 31:18
what country was Iraq? Iraq?
Pete Turner 31:21
I mean, you know Yes, so much history. Oh my god and then so the Army's like it
scott huesing 31:25
so little technology
Pete Turner 31:26
so many units later as we are closing this camp down. I mean, all kinds of stuff. It was shocking. And then that we you know, because brigade has everything you ever needed. We had a guy who's an archaeologist, he flew robot planes for the infantry. Really? Yeah, yeah. He's like, well, I happen to be an archaeologist and they'll like get over there because you know, it's pretty bad crime to be smashing artifacts everywhere. So
scott huesing 31:52
yeah, terrible. That's a cool that's something cool just a thought just came ahead with what we enjoy, you know, we blend a little bit everything like science and military and military science or whatever but we enjoy a lot of freedom with partner nations and what we do here in America to dig and get permits and all this there's a lot of that that doesn't go on because when like I just said there's certain countries Third World developing and emerging countries just don't have the technology they don't have the desire to learn about this rich history
Thomas Demere 32:22
or they're trying to survive
scott huesing 32:24
Yeah, it just yet just trying to survive. But I'm in your community here in America is we're so lucky to be safeguarded by I mean we got the naval base here in the Marine Corps Base we were pretty safe down here we got the
Thomas Demere 32:36
ocean and the Atlantic
scott huesing 32:38
See that's how he thinks I think city city he thinks or notion so but do you ever talk within your community about there's areas of the world that you don't have access to because of political restrictions? You're like God if we can only get into Babylon or God if we can only get into here what will the some of the well the bucket list country you like, man, I want to dig something up Pakistan, you want to dig in Pakistan
Pete Turner 33:05
and then behind the shot to get into like arm wrestling matches, decide who gets to dig because they're above you, right? In the stratification? Yeah.
Thomas Demere 33:12
But But often the deposits are I mean, if there's old deposits to excavate the younger deposits are gone already because they're exposed at the surface right now if it's a slope, you know, and you've got like the Grand Canyon you got lots of layers going down I mean, there's still not going to be you're not gonna be interfering
scott huesing 33:32
YY Pakistan
Thomas Demere 33:34
well the the earliest whales walking whales are found in Pakistan This is an animal called ambulance see this which literally means walking well this from Paki? See, I'm from Pakistan, and the oldest known world is called Paki see this from Pakistan. And I have colleagues, Phil Gingrich, the University of Michigan and hunter Davison, who was a student of filth, they found these early whales over in Pakistan went before all the bad things were happening. And they've been closed out of that nobody's been excavating there. And maybe with all the impact. There's maybe there's new exposures of these early well, so that would that would be an area that's kind of off limits. Well, it is off limits now because it's just too dangerous. But who knows? What's their
scott huesing 34:28
Disneyland of excavation?
Pete Turner 34:30
Yeah, I mean, cuz you're a scientist, but you're not like, like a cosmologist. All numbers, right? Like, big powerful numbers. How much is your field an art versus a science? Because it sounds like you guys have to get way out of your head to think of what's possible, right?
Thomas Demere 34:48
Well, statistics are important. Okay, but I'm statistically challenged. So I leave that to my friends who are better at that. Yeah. Is there their focus and their strength?
Pete Turner 35:00
Yeah, that's so yeah, I'm really about a quiet guy. You really qualitative me? No, no, I love it.
Thomas Demere 35:06
Yeah. So I'm more qualitative Okay.
Pete Turner 35:09
Yeah. And yet you're a science you know, like a real science not like a hippy dippy one, like you know, sociology or something, you know? Well that's a social science whatever, they don't even have to take chemistry What's with that? I'm sorry to my friends and their social style thrown under the bus.
scott huesing 35:31
Like I was a social scientist major it no she was you were history. See? A and just a science major criminal.
Pete Turner 35:40
been shown over stuff more
scott huesing 35:42
Yes, degree.
Stefan EF. Right.
Pete Turner 35:47
Yeah, so Scott always gets names wrong. Tim was not Tom comes up, Tim. Stefania, right.
Unknown Speaker 35:55
Yes, definitely.
Unknown Speaker 35:57
Jump step to the plate. Okay, Stephanie, Stephanie, a
Thomas Demere 36:00
seven year Argentinian,
scott huesing 36:02
Argentinian Justinian.
Pete Turner 36:04
cosmologists still have to use art to kind of break their paradigm. You know, like, what if people are made out of gold as an element that sends them on a path where they might think of a new way of approaching an old problem? Do you have these kind of things where you're just reconstructing life, you know, and to some other way helps you see something differently?
Thomas Demere 36:27
Well, I think there's an art to science. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's such a big idea. Science, right? Yeah, there's room for everybody. Even archaeologists, I like I like, Hey, I mean, sorry.
scott huesing 36:43
From a, from an industry, you know, leader in your field is, you know, very humble again, about what you're not good at. I'm not this guy don't do this. So when the community calls up and say, Oh, we need an answer on this, we gotta call Tom, like, what is your? What do you say your best at?
Thomas Demere 37:02
That's, that's an interesting question like, Well, I mean, my, my primary expertise is on this the evolution of whales and other marine mammals. Only because I've looked at so many, and I've thought about this for a long time. So I've looked at the whole range from the earliest to the present one, I've done dissections of modern whales, just to kind of get a sense of what they're about how their bodies work and are put together and how they're plumbed. Yeah. And how their bones are, are used by the muscles that they have. And so we've done some, I think, some groundbreaking work in that regard. So it's, it's it is more of a qualitative approach to understanding morphology and what it has to tell us about evolution. Because I'm, my degree at UCLA was in evolutionary biology, I mean, and paleontologists, we also refer to ourselves as paleo biologists. So I mean, I think that's kind of more deck is, is looking at the big picture for for lineages of organisms from the earliest forums that are just starting to diverged from their ancestors. Lauren Eisley used to say that those animals need to be watched because over time, they're going to become something different. Yeah. When when you think about whales, and we look at them. Just as an example, we look at the DNA of whales, and we compare it to all the DNA of all living mammals. It's most closely related to already adapted. Even total. hippos, apples, yeah. Right. Yeah, they're evolutionary cousins, both in their terms of their DNA, but also in terms of their soft anatomy. And also in terms of their, their skeletons to some extent, and primarily plumbing in the head. So that's, that's pretty crazy. But go back in time, 52 million years ago to Pakistan. And you have these already doctors that are like putting their feet in the water. And they look like other already those but they're doing something different. Yeah, they're, they're there. They're moving into an aquatic environment there and fabulous and they're there. They need to be watched, as Laura nicely said, because over time, over evolutionary time, they they give up the connection to the land, they lose their hind limbs. They they're still air breathing animals, but they're fully aquatic and they're whales and
scott huesing 39:23
I think most have the opposite perception that everything comes from the water.
Thomas Demere 39:28
Well, there is that so this is a real invasion of the sea. Ah, so, you know, life comes out of the sea, on the land, diversifies and then goes back into se because there's all these opportunities. You guys have an Allosaurus downstairs,
Pete Turner 39:45
and when you look at it, I see a tibia. I see. parcels metatarsal, I see the same bones that I had. Yeah,
Thomas Demere 39:53
you know, we're all tetrapods. Allosaurus Haha, you and me. Yeah, my dog. Right? We're all tetrapods. So we have this common answer. You go back in time enough and we have you know, we're we're all the same.
Pete Turner 40:08
So whales have a tibia. Also, or no, yeah. Crazy
Thomas Demere 40:12
ancestral whales had
Pete Turner 40:13
had your hands look similar in bone structure.
Thomas Demere 40:17
humor, 3ds. And Allah. They have carpools, meta, carpools, phalanges, they have five hand fingers,
Pete Turner 40:25
any of them owe me money.
Thomas Demere 40:27
You'd have to ask them
Pete Turner 40:28
to shake them down.
scott huesing 40:30
When I was in college, I was studying. I was an anthropology I think it may have even been taking a philosophy of religion class at the same time in the same semester, which is disaster for me
Thomas Demere 40:42
again, well, you're a deep thinker.
scott huesing 40:44
I don't know not many, you may be the only person ever accuse me that. But
Thomas Demere 40:48
as you get deeper things like
scott huesing 40:51
denser maybe. But I saw I read, I read some paper. And I was really confused about something. So I reached out to you a friend of mine, Dr. George Taylor. He's a cardiologist, one of the premier in in the Midwest at the time. And I asked George, I said, What do you think about religion and science? And he gave me a great answer. But I'd like before I give you the answer here, I'd like I like to ask you that question is a person of, you know, steeped in science? And how the two, especially in a lot of the divisive discussion we have on mainstream media about religion and politics and science and everything we do? How has How has that affected how you view things in your job and faith? Or if you have faith or lack of faith? How do you do that?
Thomas Demere 41:43
Well, for science, the role of science is to provide us with knowledge of the natural world, how it works, our place in it, so to speak, in terms of ecologically, but largely How does it work? And how can that help us survive? it so in It also explains, origins. And although religion used to do that used to have a cosmology part of it, and moral part of it, I mean, really, those are the two main supports of, or products of religion, I would say. But science, I think, does a much better job explaining origins and the natural world. And
scott huesing 42:31
so we don't have to worry about demons and
Unknown Speaker 42:36
terrible things happening that are supernatural, because we can understand how the natural world works. And we can understand why we have thunder and lightning storms here right now and why people have tornadoes and other parts of this country right now. And hurricanes, you know, we understand that it's not some whimsical God saying, we're going to punish these bastards, because they did something terrible. Yeah, the least I think so I'd look at that. The role of science in the modern world, and it provides us with, I think, comfort in that we know what to expect, right? And religion has this whole thing about moral messages, you know, and how to how to treat each other and at least, that's I was brought up, Episcopalian altar boy and
scott huesing 43:23
St. Vincent brother,
Unknown Speaker 43:26
St. Andrews. And I, you know, I mean, I love the pageantry of it. I love the music.
scott huesing 43:33
The great people, but
Thomas Demere 43:36
I don't think it explains where we came from. I don't think it explains the natural world. And I have a friend of mine, jack Horner, who talks about there, there are two Bibles there was there's one written by God. And there's one written by man. And he chooses the study the one written by God, which he means the world. The outcrops, Grand Canyon, planet moon, things you can see in touch, and that are there, obviously there. And the other is his book that's purports to be the Word of God but is written by humans. So that that's the way he looks at it. That's not necessarily the way I look at it. But it's kind of an interesting way of thinking about
the world that we live in.
scott huesing 44:24
So growing up in the Episcopal Church, and for listeners don't know, we're being an Episcopalian. Is this kind of like Catholicism light? It's like all the religion.
Pete Turner 44:32
Yeah. We have to get said, Yeah,
scott huesing 44:35
he's legit. He's been vetted right now. So that's it. That's our bumper sticker. That I think all is I'll give you George's answer. And he said, No, science is is, is, is always played a huge part in everything we do. But the Bible is a great guidebook for life and answers those questions that science has not what happens when science answers all the questions?
Thomas Demere 45:01
Well, I don't think it ever can. They can answer why we're here. They can just say how we're here. So the questions of why are really not something that science really answers so much.
Pete Turner 45:14
There's also a moral, moral accountability that you get with religion. Yeah. I mean, granted, you can bastardized that make it horrible. But, you know, there's something science doesn't require you to be a better person, you know, maybe a more enlightened person. But it doesn't make like, you know, God fearing has a place in society where
Thomas Demere 45:33
we think it's better to be God loving God. Sure. Yeah. That's, I mean, because to me, some some part of religion or some religious people are, it's only the afterlife insurance that they get from it. Yeah, rather than how they treat one another, how they treat their family, how they treat other people. And I think it's, there's a expression in, in evolutionary ecology, reciprocal altruism, with such, you know, I mean, it doesn't make sense from a natural selection standpoint, necessarily to help your neighbor, right? Because if you're struggling to get ahead, guys tooth and claw thing, but but you see organisms that do that humans do that, and naked mole rats do that beast? I mean, there's a lot of this cooperation in nature. And and it's because you help me it's quid pro quo, you know, you help me, I'll help you. And it's, I don't know, I mean, I think it's just, it's natural to be to have that altruistic behavior within humanity. And the aberration is not to be that way.
Pete Turner 46:38
Some things like religion, I'm
Thomas Demere 46:40
also an idealist. So an optimistic idea.
scott huesing 46:44
Is that compatible or not?
Unknown Speaker 46:46
This is what it is.
Pete Turner 46:48
When I struggle with religion, I find in a lot of things like what I do in combat zones, I can't look directly at it and see it, I have to kind of look at it from a peripheral view, because it just comes to focus more, it's more possible out there. So like religion, Jay Mohr, his great, great, great uncle, I think he's the guy that wrote Silent night, you know, so I don't actually have to believe in God, but that guy sure did, and came up with this song. So there's evidence of God right there. But I don't you know, I can't really wrap my hands around it, is that when you when you get to the edges of what you guys are learning and understandings, it's sort of like that, where you can't just tackle it straight on, you have to kind of let the what that?
Unknown Speaker 47:28
Well, there's some things we will never know. And I don't know what you call that. I mean, the native Native Americans called it walk on Tonka. great mystery in now. And it's like, things are mysterious that you want to give it a name. call it God, I don't, I don't know. But to suggest that, that it's necessary to fear God because you're going to burn in hell. I don't know. Do we really need to talk about
scott huesing 47:55
you know, we talk about everyone it's it does, you can pull the thread on that sucker man in it. It's a long, long sweater to unravel right there talking about that song about something I
Unknown Speaker 48:06
just my biggest fear is that, that people will use the Bible and its prophecies to force us into a path that we can't get off of the self fulfilling prophecies like, you know, Armageddon. I mean, who wants that? But but there are people that want that.
scott huesing 48:23
And there are scientists who say like, this is happening, we only got another, whatever, 330 years left, or they forecast that based off of scientific evidence, but with, you know, with an evolving planet and evolving solar system is like who's to say things can't change that other impacts from the universe will make it better? Something will spark to life or?
Unknown Speaker 48:45
Well, I mean, the wonderful thing about the geologic record is that it records all these catastrophes that occurred on this planet natural you know, Earthbound catastrophes as well as extraterrestrials with the
Pete Turner 48:57
Houston that fascinates me that comes from your world is Lake Bonneville. I just cannot get enough thinking about it and talking about it and reading about it. Because I just find it fascinating that that whole massive section of the of the Great Western States was just a big pond and other big ponds kind of connected to it. Is that is that like, a place for your life? We should dig over here at this part of Nevada or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 49:21
Well, geologically, that's pretty young now. Okay, that's all related to the ice ages. Okay. And there's, if you heard of the scab lands and Eastern Washington link cooling the Coulee Dam. I mean, there are these cars like Bonneville is a glacial lake because of glacial runoff and all that water filling it up, and the Grand Coulee and scab lands in eastern Washington there was a glacial dam that broke catastrophic Lee and huge volume of water just rushed down that to the sea and just destroyed the landscape. But it's so and it was such a puzzle the people for long time How did this happen?
scott huesing 50:08
I feared Tom's one of those guys he says back when we register 7.7 earthquakes like yes couldn't have been bigger. Because like something's gonna pop out guys like yeah, I can dig there now.
Thomas Demere 50:21
My shovel about geology though the earthquake, nothing personal. It's a growing pains. Yeah, they're just, they just have
scott huesing 50:29
to take an offense to that me or they're
Unknown Speaker 50:32
just talking but I mean, some people take it personally and all like it's Yeah, but I mean, it's terrible. I mean, magnitude eight or nine.
scott huesing 50:44
He's like, Oh, if only we, you know, no, I don't want it
Pete Turner 50:48
is water. A significant impediment to guys like the Mediterranean must just have just treasure troves of stuff just eight feet deep, but under eight feet of water.
Unknown Speaker 50:58
Yeah, water is a problem.
Unknown Speaker 51:00
Yeah.
Thomas Demere 51:03
The geologic record for the Mediterranean indicates that it was it would dry it up about 7 million years ago. And then catastrophic Lee refilled. Wow. Yeah.
scott huesing 51:14
I think, you know, I always like throw true confession out. Episcopalian i think is the first time I mentioned that, but this kind of week. But when we had another we were telling staff because I'm going to screw up the name.
Unknown Speaker 51:30
Stefania Stephanie,
scott huesing 51:33
that was a horrible Argentinian accent is more Italian. But it's, we were telling her we're interviewing this Navy SEAL best selling author actors and transformers, which has a little archaeological, paleontological history to it right, then they come on earth does. So from a Hollywood standpoint, but true confession is out. I am extremely energized, like to be here at the net and talking about all this stuff. Because there's so many things I'd never thought of until I get done. I meet people. And thanks to Pete for introducing me to like all the different fields you could go in that are in paleontology, you're not just the guy stuck in a museum surrounded by Arctic walruses, and skeletons in a library with you know, nerdy t shirts, like, hey, science is fun. There's so many other implications. The industries that use paleontology in this study, like the oil industry, you know, crime, or agencies, you know, forensic paleontology, all of these things that are really cool fields, and I never, you just don't think about those things.
Thomas Demere 52:41
Well, I have several colleagues that the their profession is they teach human anatomy at medical schools, because they have this strong vertebrate anatomy background. And that's the only place they could get a job, so to speak. And so they what not, that's not I mean, they enjoy it.
scott huesing 52:57
Is it tough to get a job you graduate? You got to what is the geology degree in undergrad? And then you get your, your masters and your PhD and in your specific field?
Thomas Demere 53:07
Is it difficult? Yeah, there are there. There aren't as many jobs as there are.
Unknown Speaker 53:10
How many paleontologists are working on our bus? 40 years?
scott huesing 53:15
Yeah, I know. Yeah.
Pete Turner 53:17
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I feel guilty at times. But I get a lot of that guilt. I get over it. Yeah. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 53:23
Guilt is a wasted emotion sometimes. But yeah, I don't know how many work at Starbucks, but
scott huesing 53:29
like, I have an art history degree. Good luck with that.
Thomas Demere 53:32
But I guess you have to be the gig economy high here. So yes.
scott huesing 53:36
Well, yeah, it's I think it's I think it's pretty tough, though. If you go on in D, the United type it in paleontology, I suppose you could work your way up to in certain certain fields. Maybe in private sector in the you know, as a curator, work your way up, and I'm sure there's a career path for all that. But it's gonna be pretty daunting. But I think like you, you can tell you're really passionate about what you do, and you have this love for and what I love even more, is it just in the last hour, you've brought in so many different aspects of who you are. And what I always love, is we, you could totally blow my mind. Here's an intriguing question. I was going to come into this interview with Pete, does he want to come here this guy, you know, his name's Dr. Tom demaree. And I was like, I have no idea. I'm way out of my league. But I love it that you make the connection to people, and how impactful that is. That's what always fascinates me to get you know, that kind of gets me energized, and really kind of look at things from a different angle where I haven't in a long, long time, so Well, that's super cool.
Thomas Demere 54:38
So one of the wonderful things about working at the San Diego Natural History Museum, the nap. For scientists, it's this interesting, sweet spot that allows you to interface between academia and the general public. You know, and I get to, I get to meet these little kids that know more about dinosaurs than most people. Yeah, that actually, sometimes the me, and they're so proud of their of their knowledge in the fact that they know a hell of a lot more than their parents do about the subject. And they're just, they're oozing with excitement. And I get to talk to them at this stage in their careers, so to speak. And that's really exciting. To me, it's a real privilege.
Pete Turner 55:19
How many of those kids have come back and said, I did it I got all the way through I'm, I'm a proto unit.
Thomas Demere 55:25
At the PhD level. I only have one that's actually come back that I know, but but I mean, you know, the point is, they're interested, yeah, science in there. And they feel that they can do it. And that's so important to them, that they feel that they have the confidence that they can be an explorer, you know, as scientific Explorer, whether it be in the field or on the library, or on the internet or whatever, but they, you know, they go in different directions, but at least they have a passion for something and not just, you know, with a stick I like that term
scott huesing 55:57
Explorer. Most people don't associate scientists as synonymous with Explorer, but if you put on your Instagram page scientist, they'd be like, dork I'm not fond of if you put explorer you'll be like, yeah, I'm gonna follow that guy. Yes, sir. Walking wheels, like, yeah, it's at walking wills on Instagram.
Pete Turner 56:23
When you you're at your pier in New York at the Metropolitan Museum, does that person? Are they tied to a desk because they're in New York? And it's just like, that's more museum than research facility? Or how does that work out for you guys
Thomas Demere 56:36
to the American Museum of Natural History, New York, is well endowed financially, and they have they do international expeditions and their, their, their field of study is the whole planet. Wow. Our museum is a Regional Museum our focuses on what we call Peninsula, California. So it's the Baja California peninsula and Southern California. And so that's our area of expertise. And we we know it better than anybody else, we think. And that's what our collections reflect. So they they get to do some terrific fieldwork. They are in Manhattan, obviously. But yeah, it's a terrific museum.
Pete Turner 57:18
Do you guys ever put scoop on going to the red carpets? Look for stuff down there? Like really get deep? I mean, I'm actually asking Yeah, can you explore that space? Or
Thomas Demere 57:27
will the brand carpets that you couldn't use scuba, you know, it's it's too sticky into viscous? They, and they've been excavating there for Well, since the 1919. teens, the 17 and 1917 I think, but scoop offshore there. And in Florida there are paleontologists that they're all their field areas are underwater, and they excavate the big Miguel Don teeth and
Pete Turner 57:58
yeah, they got whole rivers just full of TES walk up and build their shark to literally walk up and walk out with a three inch shark tooth of some kind. I'm saying shark to
Thomas Demere 58:08
ya know, they are Yeah, so but I've never done that kind of that kind of fieldwork. We're in the water. I mean, I swim. But sure. No, sir. No, I ocean swim. I was like that was swimming this morning at the cove here. Nice. Before work. It was terrific. We had a it was a beautiful morning.
scott huesing 58:27
Do you like to go traditional whale watching or is that too? Like Yeah, when you've seen this No, no, no, I seen him walk into the water.
Thomas Demere 58:39
That's in my mind's eye. I've had the pleasure of going down to San Ignacio lagoon in Baja California when the gray whales are in there in the nursery, and petting calves primarily, but sometimes the mothers will come up but that experiences
scott huesing 58:57
mine was pretty cool that that connection like honkin I'm fascinated by the ocean and the water and everything and through a lot of experiences we've had with guests on the show just to like really open your eyes up to that and then I wish we'd done this have it in we could have picked times random when I was just down in Baja California in Mexico and Cabo to sound smarter in front of everybody
Pete Turner 59:19
going Marlin he get shots getting Marlon
scott huesing 59:22
that's really hanging upside down like a moral and religious. Yeah, I did not do that. I was in East Cape, so I heard they do that
Unknown Speaker 59:31
upside down.Yeah, like a Marlin the hang ups I know. I know. But
Thomas Demere 59:35
that'd be hard to swallow. Yeah, sure. Maybe it's an enema or something. Now
Pete Turner 59:44
we're running but what time Yeah, so I want to make sure getting Are you serious?
scott huesing 59:47
Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was gonna be like in science, but I was gonna like God was the dog in a ring and then Tom pulls out a photographer's server bad as dude. Like, does Yeah,
Pete Turner 1:00:00
it's incredible. Right? Yeah. And the experiences because you know, it's easy to think of museum is boring. But here we are having this great conversation. What What should people do who liked wanna I mean obviously come to the net greatest people in Germany. There's people in Korea listening to the show. So what can people do to just get a better handle on? What do you like for Scott? Right? He's a marine. Those guys can watch Heartbreak Ridge over and over again and just be like, yeah, that's us. what's what's your guys's thing in paleontology? What do you want to watch? Do you want to watch Jurassic Park? No, that's not really your your guys's spot. But what do you guys do? You mean like, like for someone wants to walk back? This is what paleontologists loved you guys. Is it documentaries? Is it a book or?
Thomas Demere 1:00:44
Well, it's? Well, books. I mean, because you have the opportunity to reflect on what you're experiencing. But I mean, I watch a lot of public broadcasting. If I'm watching TV, I like nature. I mean, I, I like to pop culture stuff too, though. But, uh, I mean, Jurassic Park is fun. Yeah. There's some science in there. And I think it gives you the wonder of what dinosaurs were like. I mean, that's what I experienced as a paleontologist looking at extinct animals, trying to envision what they what they what they lived like. So this is the art side this idea paleo biology. How did this animal live? I mean, here's a early whale from Peru. And it's an artist's reconstruction of what it might look like. And so trying to envision what they look like, but also how they lived and interacted with other organisms. So Jurassic Park is fun in that way, because it brings these animals light in it uses. It uses science. I mean, jack Horner, dinosaur paleontologist was the technical advisor and I think all the Jurassic Park's and so there's a there's a lot of rigor in not 100% because it's Hollywood, but it does give you a sense of what these extinct animals were like, cuz we think of think of them as skeletons. But no, they had flesh on and, and, and they interacted with each other. They had offspring, you know, they had they had to eat and they had to, you know, they had to copulate, they had to deprecate, they had to do all the things that organisms do today, and and trying to envision all that is pretty exciting. And so shows like that, that, like Walking with Dinosaurs, or walking with bees, or whatever, that those other shows that are on Discovery Channel. But there are there's a lot of garbage out there to these these documentaries, these things that I know if you saw the mermaids? No, no. And then they put it out. It's like, it's a real documentary, you know, and they have scientists from know and stuff, but it's fake. And at the end, they kind of say that, but you watch it. People still going to reference it.
scott huesing 1:02:55
Yeah. So I guess for the people who want to be tuned in on from some, some sort of something that's really representative of the community that where they, you know, they're not going to subscription to geo diversity us with, you know, the whales or nature magazine. Yeah. Which, you know, nature magazine is not sponsoring the show, but that good. Like, read read is
Thomas Demere 1:03:19
that saying The other thing you might want to do is listen to the break it down show? Yeah. Because? Because there's some truth on that show. And the conversations with people that don't have an agenda.
Pete Turner 1:03:30
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons why I love to have your peers who are PhDs. Because publishing in nature is the pinnacle being that'll blow your mind. You read that every issue and you're gonna you blow you away. It says quantum logic on there. And we had UCSD cosmologists Andrew Freeman on the show, he talks about quantum, whatever you want. And you go quickly, from cosmic Bell test, to you know, john Knox, materia thought about predestination, and then bang left, and you all of a sudden, you're over in quantum gravity. I didn't know quantum gravity is extrapolated from the conversation. He's like, no, quantum gravity's it's an emerging field. And it's blowing our minds. And I'm, you know, and so next thing, you know, you're talking about dinosaurs. So for sure, all of these things. Nature magazine is incredible for that. No, it is. I mean, that's that magazine. Right. There is a is a argument.
scott huesing 1:04:27
And do you remember like, growing up, I think this is a good message for guys are a little bit older. Remember, when magazines would show up at your house? Your grandparents would get you subscription to whatever magazine, we had National Geographic? Do they still even make it all online? Still have it?
Thomas Demere 1:04:45
library?
scott huesing 1:04:46
Yes. But to get that I think is a great source. Because to get your name on an article in that magazine means you are extremely vetted. And you are the resident expert in that field, Vice, hey, here's an apple gift card. Like go buy your kid a subscription to nature magazine, I think, or whatever they're really interested in, where there's credible authors, credible contributors in the field. And there's cool pictures and for those who have short attention span theater like me, and can't read a lot, which is my curse, but
Pete Turner 1:05:18
what's the best way to find out about
Thomas Demere 1:05:20
the mat? Go to our website, www dot the net,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:25
right? SD net.org. We're also on social media,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:30
where can they find you on social? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are big ones.
scott huesing 1:05:35
Where do they type in
Unknown Speaker 1:05:37
SDMHM or San Diego natural history museum then?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:45
This year for the looks
Pete Turner 1:05:46
you know that whales could walk?
scott huesing 1:05:48
Yeah. So
Thomas Demere 1:05:49
I was there. 2 million years ago.
Pete Turner 1:05:54
Thanks, Tom. Yeah, well, thank you.
Hey this john Leon Guerrero. Our guest today is Dr. Tom de Mary. He's the curator of paleontology and the director of paleo services at the San Diego natural history museum and beautiful Balboa Park. Dr. Barry has authored several articles and scientific papers about the paleontological history of Southern California, and the evolutionary history of marine mammals. Which fascinates me because my favorite animal is the Orca. He's been with the San Diego natural history museum since 1979, which should tell us two things, that he's got one of the coolest jobs in the world. And then he ain't getting off this train till the wheels fall off. And it's going to be a while before that happens because all the indicators point to Dr. Tom having a whole lot of fight left in him. And we all need him to do his work. In addition to being an historian, as director of paleo services, he works with the various municipalities all through Central and Southern California, in the planning and operational stages for residential and commercial developments, infrastructure projects, natural gas pipelines, power plants, and utility transmission lines to assess and sometimes mitigate their impact on the surrounding geology. And what am i contained Dr. To marry welcome Scott and Pete to the Natural History Museum, San Diego, which by the way, you should check out if you're in and around the area. And if you really dig what they're doing, become a member, or give them a few bucks or volunteer and help them do some of the fascinating work. Maybe you'll get to dig up some bones or be part of a major discovery that reshapes our understanding of history. Anyway, the fellas talk a bit about the current understanding of human history and various other creatures and how they got to North America, and about many other things that may surprise you about paleontology. Like they got a rooftop bar at the San Diego natural history museum and is cracking at night time. Now, we love what we do to bring you the breakdown show and as a listener, you clearly care about learning something from some fascinating folks. So I'm going to ask you to do two things today. Go out and support the charities you care about or that are making a difference in your neighborhood, or for some people you care about. Whether it's the San Diego Natural History Museum, or maybe it's the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Owens borough, Kentucky, donate some money, volunteer your time, lend a helping hand. You'll feel great about it. And you'll meet some like minded people, and you'll learn something meaningful. We support save the brave and you can find them at save the brave.org we also support seal veterans foundation and you can go to seal veterans foundation org to see what they're about. You've probably heard me say that Pete is doing the Cornetto seal Memorial swim on Saturday, September 21 to benefit the families of Naval Special Warfare operators who've made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom. And Pete is supporting them on September 21 by swimming in a Tsonga. So go see that. We also want to shout out someone special at the Natural History Museum. Stephanie Avila hooked us up with Dr. Tom. And that is unforgettable. So she's awesome. And we're grateful. Thank you Stefania here with Scott and Pete is our special guest today. Dr. Tom to marry
Joel Manzer 3:18
lions rock productions.
Unknown Speaker 3:23
This is Jay Mohr
Unknown Speaker 3:24
and this is Jordan. Dexter from the
Unknown Speaker 3:27
naked Sebastian youngsters Rick Marotta, Stewart
Unknown Speaker 3:29
Copeland.
Unknown Speaker 3:31
Scott Baxter,
Unknown Speaker 3:32
Gabby Reese, Rob belly,
Jon Leon Guerrero 3:34
this is john Leon gray
Pete Turner 3:35
and this is Pete a Turner.
Thomas Demere 3:39
Hello, my name is Tom demaree. I'm curator paleontology here at the net. And we're we're on the break it down show.
Niko Leon Guerrero 3:48
And now the break it down show with jon Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 3:55
Perfect. I can fix everything and post. Yeah. So I've been reading Mr. Hancock's book about early American history. And he references guy, Tom from the net and San Diego. And I'm like, Wait, what? What's going on here? I live right by San Diego. I gotta go talk and learn to learn about paleontology and just it's such a fascinating thing. You know, you see it all the time. And actually, as a kid living up in the bay, I remember when they found the what was it a mastodon down here and this. I remember that news story as a kid and I thought, you know, I didn't know what to make of it. You know, because what you guys finally get excited. And what I picture in my 13 year old head are two different things. You know, I picture like a woolly mammoth jacket and maybe some cool boots or something. Anyhow, so I wanted to come down and talk to you just to learn a lot about what you do and and just, you know, expand everybody's mind as in terms of paleontology and how we are still today putting these things together. It's such a fascinating topic and we have Scott bestselling author Scott Husing sitting here with us. Yeah. Good to be here. This is Pete real quick. I just want to let you guys know we are proud to announce our official support of save the brave a certified nonprofit 501 c three with a charter of helping veterans with post traumatic stress here's how you can help go to save the brave calm click on the link on the website and my recommendation is this subscribe give them 20 bucks a month you've got subscriptions that you can turn off right now that you're not using that are $20 a month swap that out get involved Let's help these folks out that's selling author Scott using sitting here with us
scott huesing 5:31
yeah good to be here is you know for a guy that tried to escape school as much as possible with a you know again not a friggin session 1.24 GPA in high school and sit here with you know, Dr. I'm going to use the absolute proper Dr. Tom demaree is super humble guy out of out of the chute. But to you know, to be here at the net and the museum and just walking up here with Stephanie's in studio with us to and Tom's office. Hey, Stephanie. Love it. But we got a mini tour coming up here. I'm thinking we're going to learn some shit today. Sorry, stuff today. Yeah, I can say that on here. But Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah, it's not g rated show. But sorry, Stephanie. But just to learn so much, and really good education. We had some conversations to Tom come and I was like, so what is Tom like? Who would be the equivalent to would he be like Ross on friends, and he would be like Ross, his boss,
Thomas Demere 6:31
his boss's boss, I'd be his ex boss, because he would have been fired.
Pete Turner 6:38
I do it just just not for your benefit. But for my friends listening actually read the abstract from your most recent paper. Okay, talking about the SOPS, you guys would like to see. So I've actually done some academic level reading. And we can stop talking about that or talking more about your recent paper. But where would you want to start? I mean, this is your world. You've been here for decades, learn how
Thomas Demere 7:00
benching and everything. I've been at the nap for 40 years. Which is a long time. Even for me, yeah, well, as a paleontologist, I have the privilege of studying the history of the planet. And that's what we do. deep history. Geologists refer to this is deep time, you know, we're used to thinking in terms of minutes, seconds, hours, maybe days, years. But for paleontologist geologists, it's thousands of years, more likely hundred thousands of years, millions of years. And to, to be able to explore that history, by going out in the field and looking at, at stratified deposits that preserve this record of ancient environments and to climates and organisms that occupied those, those those environments. That's really exciting. And so we have the opportunity to dig up new things, and then figured out what they have to tell us about the history of the planet and their role in it. And this site that you're referring to that we excavated, actually, in 92, originally, this massive on site, here in San Diego, that we were puzzled over when we were excavating it. And over the 25 year period, we were able to cobble together eventually enough. other scientists have been interested in it because it had an archaeological component to it. We had to find some archaeologists that were willing to stick their neck out for a site that was as old as this site. It's at 130,000 do anthropologists
Pete Turner 8:30
come into play to or
Thomas Demere 8:34
physical anthropologist could were who the ones that study skeletons and what they have to tell us about the primate family tree. But we don't have any human remains at our site. It's all circumstantial evidence. It's what we call expedient tools and broken bones.
scott huesing 8:52
How did you we run in such vastly similar circles, Pete nine a lot. But we also interview on the bracket down show so many cool guests from such diverse backgrounds and outside our own circle. We know how we evolved into the military. Obviously, I was kind of a bad kid centered. But when you were growing up in the Bay Area, in San Francisco area, what thrust you into this? I mean, were you in this case, like, Hey, I gotta find what's at the bottom of the sandbox? Or like, what sparked I always investing? Like, what drives you to this career?
Thomas Demere 9:29
Yeah, that's not about that a bit. Because I mean, I wasn't a kid that was interested in dinosaurs. I was interested in exploring. I had three brothers. And we did a lot of crazy stuff. And we lived on a creek and we would explore the creek, we would construct wraps and build things. And but I wasn't, I wasn't interested in specifically interested in fossils. But I did like to collect things, I collected shells, and I collected books, and I collected insects, and I organized them. And so I kind of had this curate curator mentality. But it wasn't until college when I took a geology class that I really thought,
Pete Turner 10:11
what kind of major did you start out?
scott huesing 10:13
I was a photography major.
Thomas Demere 10:17
large format film, photography still. And I was at community college up in the in the Bay Area. That's
Pete Turner 10:25
why you didn't go the traditional path and go to high end University right from the start.
Thomas Demere 10:28
And now I was a community college student. But I took a geology class and I was just blown over by this, this, this window into the past and this ability that it gives you to look at a road cat that most people just drive by and see time and see different environments. And so I became a geology major when I moved to San Diego, but I have to admit, I moved to San Diego because of the warm water. Because I was surfing all the time. And so I came to San Diego. So it's kind of a mixed passion.
scott huesing 11:02
We just got two layers peel back, dude, photographer, paleontologists. How do we categorize Tom? Like I'm just like, awesome, awesome. Guests like we're cattery fallen. Yeah.
Pete Turner 11:15
We think in terms of like athletes and authors and all these other things, scientists
scott huesing 11:18
PhDs doctor, yeah, gosh, we've had so many on the show.
Pete Turner 11:22
Is there a sort of sets you on your way? Like, okay, the survey classes one thing, but I'm assuming that's not the point where it pivots and you're like, now this is it?
Thomas Demere 11:32
Well, it's interesting. I, in high school, I had a math teacher who kind of turned things around for me, Mr. Hubbard, and I always wish I'd written him a letter to after I'd, you know, finished my PhD. But he had passed away by then. But yeah, he just kind of turned me around and gave me a window into science and math. And the fact that I could do this sort of thing I did. I didn't know it at the time. Yeah, so it would step that would kind of was part of it, it was kind of a germ of what would eventually turn into something much different from me being a science major.
scott huesing 12:12
What, what did your folks say? What was your What was your parents background? When you when you announced to them? Hey, guess what I'm gonna do for living?
Pete Turner 12:20
You're never gonna make money doing that?
Thomas Demere 12:23
Well, they said, I glad you graduated from college. They were happy that I met a girl who I'm married and still married to. And so far, so good. And I got a job in my field, right out of winning pretty much right out of school. And so and I was living 500 miles from him. So what could they say anyway? But no, they were happy for me.
scott huesing 12:47
What was the first job? What what? What can budding paleontologist graduating from UCLA expect? Like? What's your first job?
Thomas Demere 12:53
Actually? Yeah, actually, it's just have my bachelor's degree. So I went to school. I mean, so I will, I was working at a micro paleontology firm, here in San Diego, which is when when, when you drill for oil exploration, they take samples out of the drill cuttings, and they can screen watch those and they get these little tiny fossils, marine plankton fossils, and they help you tell time and environment by going down holy change going down hole, and that changes the reflection of evolution. But it also allows you to correlate from one layer underground to another and that can help you understand the structure underground, like we're in that leads to where oil might be found. So that's what we did. And then I went back to school, I was working there and I went to USC and got a master's degree in geology.
Pete Turner 13:43
There's two things I want to ask the search for oil, like we think of dinosaurs, but really it's it's leaves and plankton and all kinds of other things.
Thomas Demere 13:52
It's mostly it's mostly planktonic organisms. Yeah, for a minute for which are little zooplankton and a lot of plan. diatoms and these things called carriers, nano plankton calculus, just this constant rain of organic material effect in time. It's all about time. And more than 6000 years, I should say. I just wondered like it What? No, I only did that because that's a biblical. Oh, sure. Yeah, the age of the Earth is much older than that. Yeah. How old? Is the planet Earth? 4.3 billion
scott huesing 14:28
1.3 billion with a be but what? What? When do you get your clock recalibrated man, like in college and on the job where you stop thinking in normal human terms like seconds, minutes, hours, years, into these massive chunks of time where I mean, just everything you look at this kind of us is surfer artists, like, the lens that you look at things through must be vastly different. I don't know, how do you like? How did you explain that to someone that has no insight into the vast scope of your time,
Thomas Demere 15:07
Scott, I even though I say millions of years or billions of years, I frankly don't, I can't comprehend what that means. My The only way I really get a grasp on it is to roll it standing on the on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, looking down into Cutler looking back. And you see how thick that is. And you just think no time is represented in those rocks. And that's, that's, that's just a fragment of geologic time for the age of the earth. But you gives you a sense of how much time there is in the earth. When you think of each layer and how long it might take the deposit each layer, although there's no constant rate of accumulation of sediment, but you can average it and just that gives you a sense of God, that's a long time.
Pete Turner 15:55
It's something like light traveling from distant galaxy Bitly.
scott huesing 15:59
It says, because I say that in kind of comparison to modern day society, where especially in America, we're a fast food nation, we want fast cash, you know, fast food we want you know, fast car, everything. Everything we want instant is you know, fast shopping on Amazon, but in to see things through your I mean, just being your brain is so compacted with so much information and how do you do you look at things differently, though, that kind of get back to the questions like this? The things seem not so like, why rush around so much because the insignificance of what you're doing. You're like, what we're doing in this moment, or all this social media stuff? And like, is it? Do you see it that way?
Pete Turner 16:44
Where Mrs The Nat calls you at your desk? And she's like, I need that report on Friday? Do you roll your eyes and go? What's Friday?
Thomas Demere 16:52
Oh, no, I mean, there is a, a just just connection sometimes between the things I need to do, and that this concept, geologic time. But I've got the perspective is that there's a deep history, to the planet, and the deep history to all the organisms on the planet. And I mean, you know, in your body, you have DNA that reflects relationships that that Homo sapiens has with other members of the primate family tree. And we carry that those remnants in us and our skeletons to reflect this his history that we have, with this particular group of mammals we call primates. And then that particular group of mammals we call primates as closely related to another group. And as you step back You, you, for me, I look at the biology of our planet. And I see this huge, intricate family tree, this tree of life, and with all these amazing branches that are still existing. But then, as a paleontologist, I can fill in all the branches that have been pruned by extinction. And it gives you a sense of how, how connected we all are it so I don't have the sense that we're insignificant. I have a sense that we belong to this bigger story
scott huesing 18:17
and network because 4.3 billion years the planet and then the human animal didn't have it
Thomas Demere 18:23
until well, Homo sapiens, maybe 200,000 years, 1000 years, and
scott huesing 18:27
it's a quarter million but I was off but it's close enough. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty close to think that what we didn't i didn't take it. I took a little anthropology in college Illinois State, though, not UCLA, or USC. But it's it's I think it's interesting perspective, though, for most people that one they're getting like a high school or college, you know, geology refresher just by listening to this podcast with with Tom on the show, and Stephanie, and the amazing things he talked about that the human, human animal, and then network and everything. I mean, just walking up, you think about like, the physical skeletons we walk past and where they were impacted in the earth. And what we take for granted on our daily lives when we're so hamstrung by a lot of this technology, which is ironic, because we're sitting here recording on a, you know, podcasts on something that fits in literally, in pizza. Pizza Bry case, but how does the technology, how has that helped you? So you've been here for decades, 40 years at the net here in San Diego, which is a great location right by the zoo. Ocean View is on the top floor. But back in the day, and he talked to Tom, you talked about your library, and there's like this huge stack of books behind you. And I assume that he unlike my library, he's actually read all the books.
Thomas Demere 19:45
Not all of them. No,
scott huesing 19:46
no, that's a good true confession right
Thomas Demere 19:48
there. I can't say I have. Not that I don't want to but I haven't.
scott huesing 19:53
Yeah, a lot of tough. It's challenging. It's, it's kind of been my first is like a kid that didn't read his first book, I can tell us in Desert Storm as a young Lance Corporal. Now people give me all these books. And I can't keep up and now that I'm an author, but how is the technology helped you or maybe even hindered you where to get the information used to probably have to spend weeks or months or travel to get that information? And then you got this crazy thing that kids are all talking about this fad called the internet? And that's terrific. It's the internet. How does that? How does that help you? Is it heard you have to continually vet the information because you can't just go to Wikipedia and say, Oh, this is paleontology. You know, people will believe what they read online. Like it's gospel, and he's got three monitors on his desk in here. And a walrus head on the wall. Is it a prehistoric walrus? No, this is a walrus. It's a it's a mounted head of a female Arctic walrus Arctic walrus. So talk about the technology. Yeah.
Thomas Demere 20:53
Well, I mean, it's true. I mean, the internet is terrific for networking with other scientists, I have colleagues I work with in other parts of the world, and where we used to have to send snail mail and wait. I mean, now we can, we can be as well and tell you how far away they are. Well, how will late we want, we're willing to stay up we can Skype but but the email is terrific for sharing information, sharing files, carrying on collaborative research projects where you don't have to travel necessarily, which is kind of a bummer, because it's good to travel to Italy. I have to admit Japan. But yeah, so that part of its terrific. imaging. Technology has been a real boon to paleontology, CT scanning, both medical scanners, but also high resolution micro CT scans. scanners provide incredible windows into the anatomy of organisms that we can never could never see before. I'm working on a project with a colleague at San Diego State a little while and there's a 3d printer that skulls sitting over there in the corner. And we CT scan this false it's about 25 million years old from Washington. And and it's a it's an early missing link, I'd say between living bailing whales and their ancient to ancestors. And it's an animal that has teeth, but we think it also had some kind of proto Beilein, we've done some, some very detailed scanning of that skull and we can, we can trace the the vascular structures in the face the rostrum of this, that that are that that are to us clear indications that the blood vessels that would feed just the teeth in tooth whales, and this animal are feeding the teeth and these new structures on the palate, that would would be for the bailing plates. So and so that that technology has really allowed us to do this. We couldn't have done this 15 years ago, and and then we can make 3d prints of it. Yeah. And
Pete Turner 23:03
in 3d prints in different very different, almost like CAT scan level things you could start to
Thomas Demere 23:09
Yeah, we could,
Pete Turner 23:10
yeah, the like the internal head structure, like for a bird to see like what kind of sound that might make you could really play around with that structure.
Unknown Speaker 23:18
Yeah, and then we can make movies of this too. And then we can then strip away the bones and just look at the vascular structures, which in an animal 25 million years old, I mean, you're looking at, we're looking at where the Bloods and nerves went, yeah. And we can just look at that. And that's, that's incredible to be able to do,
Pete Turner 23:35
it seems like with the, with what all of you folks do, it's easy to get siloed and lose track of what's possible over in the archeology, part of the way, you know, being of the building. You know, when someone specializes in vascular structure, you know, when some of the head and you're like, Wait a second, let me let me go talk to Ricky over there muscular structure archaeology. My put that my getting too far ahead? Or is that a how that works? Where you look at different disciplines, and then sub disciplines in there, where it maybe it's relevant to what you're doing?
Unknown Speaker 24:07
Yeah, well, I think a lot of a lot of our science now, or my science now is collaborative. So we, you know, I have a particular strength and my, my colleagues will have a different strength and put together we're pretty good team. And this paper that we wrote on what we call the stream acid on site, is a reflection of that. I mean, I was involved in the original excavation, and I have a geology background. So I know the site very well. And we brought in archaeologists, who's really good knows a lot about how bones are broken by humans and by other other activities. And then another archaeologist who's a lyric expert, how rocks are used to, has tools, and then a geo chronology, somebody who could date the site, and another paleontologists who's an expert on mastering on anatomy. And so, you know, we had 10 authors on that paper. And that's not unusual now. Yeah, not
scott huesing 25:06
not withstanding the whole technical influence that technology's had on it, like the scans or anything, but just that the human element, the collaboration, where, before it was, you know, dr. john Bowne in whatever state or country and he's working on this thing, and that's his thing, he doesn't even know to ask all of these other, you know, 20 pound brain club members. Hey, can you weigh in on this? Because you're an expert at this. And I mean, just how, how important to you is a guy that thinks long range in time, how important is that this fraction, Milla fraction of a second in time, called the information age and the internet? How is that change? And how is that going to continue to revolutionize your field of what you do?
Unknown Speaker 25:56
Well, one of the things in paleontology is that our source material is buried in the ground, we have to find it. First, we have to excavate it. And then we have to prepare it so we can see it. Which means we have to remove the enclosing sediment. And sometimes that sediment is soft, and you can brush it off with a paintbrush. And sometimes it's so hard, you need the pneumatic jackhammer to get it off of there. And then there's the whole the, you know, everything in between. With new imaging techniques, it may be that we don't really have to do all that preparation, we can just look at it, you know, virtually look at what
scott huesing 26:41
do we got right now, like, as far as technology or machinery that takes an X ray of the Earth's surface down? And how far does it get talk a little bit. That's fascinating. I
Unknown Speaker 26:50
haven't used any, but we're about to do this. We're going to go out to the site where we collect to this mastodon and do a GDPR survey ground penetrating radar survey, archaeologists use it and that's getting it. So I don't know really anything about it. But the colleague at San Diego State, the ternary, geologists, and he, he has this, these he puts these antennas out and he drives this or pushes this card looks like a lawn mower across the ground surface. And it it takes readings of the subsurface and it has apparently some fairly good accuracy depending upon the strength of the of the
scott huesing 27:31
signal. And it's like the size of a lot more. Yeah, what happens when they build one like the Hubble telescope? You know, those big graders that do the commercial construction? Some genius comes up with that, is it. The bigger was bigger is always better for America. The Chinese are pretty good at two.
Thomas Demere 27:52
Well, that's because they get it from us.
scott huesing 27:56
We're gonna get into some conspiracy theory here. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 27:58
yes. No.
Thomas Demere 28:01
I don't know. I haven't used this this GDPR technology, but I'm excited about it. Because apparently it'll show not only, you know, where potentially fossils are, and rocks and maybe a human skeleton. But a
scott huesing 28:16
best impersonation of a human skeleton. This is obviously how everyone dies, we get a picture of Tom Hanks in the show notes. This is dead. He was killed by Tom Emery.
Thomas Demere 28:27
Sorry, that's okay.
scott huesing 28:30
High School mentality.
Pete Turner 28:34
I want to I want to ask you about that. So these radars, it's part fish finder, where you're like, yeah, there is something worth digging here? Or is it? Like we don't have we want to get away from digging, and we want to maintain the context. Because if there's microscopic fossils, everything you dig away can be something part of the record, right? Yeah.
Thomas Demere 28:52
Yeah, the context is everything, especially for a site like I'm describing, you know, it's the arrangement of materials Not, not this one particular object, but is that object in relation to everything else around it. So it's, it's, it's more like a crime scene investigation where you have to have all the evidence, you know, its distribution in space, you know, and both horizontally and vertically. And so it because it all is part of one story, and so we're hoping that the GDPR survey will allow us to find targets, so to speak, but then also, it'll, it'll show us I'm told the strategically the layering and because you want to know everything in one layer is has has the same temporal context versus the layer below it versus the layer above like a you kind of baited that to Pete by saying, What do you find some you start digging deep? The those of you are in those in your field. Once you see that image, or you know, there's something that you have some obsessive compulsive drive to dig. Like we dig in sweet.
scott huesing 29:58
Like, I can't go over the top. How's it going? Like? Like,
Thomas Demere 30:03
wife said, when I started working at the museum, you can bring all the stuff here. Yeah. But yeah, it's fun. It's exciting. How many
scott huesing 30:10
how many have you been on throughout your career? I don't know. They call it a dig.
Thomas Demere 30:15
Well, no, we call it an excavation station. Yeah, I don't know
scott huesing 30:21
what maybe they've done some excavation and Archer military. Normally, four feet by four feet by just actually
Pete Turner 30:27
these are foxholes, you actually have a horrible Hey, this is Pete a Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here. And if you your brand, or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show me how to take a podcast that makes sense for you. That's sustainable, that's scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show com
scott huesing 30:52
Let me help I want to hear about it. These are foxholes, you
Pete Turner 30:55
actually have a horrible story it's not quite paleontology but I don't camp there were tells a tell is a mound of something that was not naturally there. And we were driving giant army trucks over it and they were scooping it practicing army stuff. And there was all kinds of artifacts in it. We hadn't filled HESCO l barriers with artifact lead wonder
Thomas Demere 31:18
what country was Iraq? Iraq?
Pete Turner 31:21
I mean, you know Yes, so much history. Oh my god and then so the Army's like it
scott huesing 31:25
so little technology
Pete Turner 31:26
so many units later as we are closing this camp down. I mean, all kinds of stuff. It was shocking. And then that we you know, because brigade has everything you ever needed. We had a guy who's an archaeologist, he flew robot planes for the infantry. Really? Yeah, yeah. He's like, well, I happen to be an archaeologist and they'll like get over there because you know, it's pretty bad crime to be smashing artifacts everywhere. So
scott huesing 31:52
yeah, terrible. That's a cool that's something cool just a thought just came ahead with what we enjoy, you know, we blend a little bit everything like science and military and military science or whatever but we enjoy a lot of freedom with partner nations and what we do here in America to dig and get permits and all this there's a lot of that that doesn't go on because when like I just said there's certain countries Third World developing and emerging countries just don't have the technology they don't have the desire to learn about this rich history
Thomas Demere 32:22
or they're trying to survive
scott huesing 32:24
Yeah, it just yet just trying to survive. But I'm in your community here in America is we're so lucky to be safeguarded by I mean we got the naval base here in the Marine Corps Base we were pretty safe down here we got the
Thomas Demere 32:36
ocean and the Atlantic
scott huesing 32:38
See that's how he thinks I think city city he thinks or notion so but do you ever talk within your community about there's areas of the world that you don't have access to because of political restrictions? You're like God if we can only get into Babylon or God if we can only get into here what will the some of the well the bucket list country you like, man, I want to dig something up Pakistan, you want to dig in Pakistan
Pete Turner 33:05
and then behind the shot to get into like arm wrestling matches, decide who gets to dig because they're above you, right? In the stratification? Yeah.
Thomas Demere 33:12
But But often the deposits are I mean, if there's old deposits to excavate the younger deposits are gone already because they're exposed at the surface right now if it's a slope, you know, and you've got like the Grand Canyon you got lots of layers going down I mean, there's still not going to be you're not gonna be interfering
scott huesing 33:32
YY Pakistan
Thomas Demere 33:34
well the the earliest whales walking whales are found in Pakistan This is an animal called ambulance see this which literally means walking well this from Paki? See, I'm from Pakistan, and the oldest known world is called Paki see this from Pakistan. And I have colleagues, Phil Gingrich, the University of Michigan and hunter Davison, who was a student of filth, they found these early whales over in Pakistan went before all the bad things were happening. And they've been closed out of that nobody's been excavating there. And maybe with all the impact. There's maybe there's new exposures of these early well, so that would that would be an area that's kind of off limits. Well, it is off limits now because it's just too dangerous. But who knows? What's their
scott huesing 34:28
Disneyland of excavation?
Pete Turner 34:30
Yeah, I mean, cuz you're a scientist, but you're not like, like a cosmologist. All numbers, right? Like, big powerful numbers. How much is your field an art versus a science? Because it sounds like you guys have to get way out of your head to think of what's possible, right?
Thomas Demere 34:48
Well, statistics are important. Okay, but I'm statistically challenged. So I leave that to my friends who are better at that. Yeah. Is there their focus and their strength?
Pete Turner 35:00
Yeah, that's so yeah, I'm really about a quiet guy. You really qualitative me? No, no, I love it.
Thomas Demere 35:06
Yeah. So I'm more qualitative Okay.
Pete Turner 35:09
Yeah. And yet you're a science you know, like a real science not like a hippy dippy one, like you know, sociology or something, you know? Well that's a social science whatever, they don't even have to take chemistry What's with that? I'm sorry to my friends and their social style thrown under the bus.
scott huesing 35:31
Like I was a social scientist major it no she was you were history. See? A and just a science major criminal.
Pete Turner 35:40
been shown over stuff more
scott huesing 35:42
Yes, degree.
Stefan EF. Right.
Pete Turner 35:47
Yeah, so Scott always gets names wrong. Tim was not Tom comes up, Tim. Stefania, right.
Unknown Speaker 35:55
Yes, definitely.
Unknown Speaker 35:57
Jump step to the plate. Okay, Stephanie, Stephanie, a
Thomas Demere 36:00
seven year Argentinian,
scott huesing 36:02
Argentinian Justinian.
Pete Turner 36:04
cosmologists still have to use art to kind of break their paradigm. You know, like, what if people are made out of gold as an element that sends them on a path where they might think of a new way of approaching an old problem? Do you have these kind of things where you're just reconstructing life, you know, and to some other way helps you see something differently?
Thomas Demere 36:27
Well, I think there's an art to science. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's such a big idea. Science, right? Yeah, there's room for everybody. Even archaeologists, I like I like, Hey, I mean, sorry.
scott huesing 36:43
From a, from an industry, you know, leader in your field is, you know, very humble again, about what you're not good at. I'm not this guy don't do this. So when the community calls up and say, Oh, we need an answer on this, we gotta call Tom, like, what is your? What do you say your best at?
Thomas Demere 37:02
That's, that's an interesting question like, Well, I mean, my, my primary expertise is on this the evolution of whales and other marine mammals. Only because I've looked at so many, and I've thought about this for a long time. So I've looked at the whole range from the earliest to the present one, I've done dissections of modern whales, just to kind of get a sense of what they're about how their bodies work and are put together and how they're plumbed. Yeah. And how their bones are, are used by the muscles that they have. And so we've done some, I think, some groundbreaking work in that regard. So it's, it's it is more of a qualitative approach to understanding morphology and what it has to tell us about evolution. Because I'm, my degree at UCLA was in evolutionary biology, I mean, and paleontologists, we also refer to ourselves as paleo biologists. So I mean, I think that's kind of more deck is, is looking at the big picture for for lineages of organisms from the earliest forums that are just starting to diverged from their ancestors. Lauren Eisley used to say that those animals need to be watched because over time, they're going to become something different. Yeah. When when you think about whales, and we look at them. Just as an example, we look at the DNA of whales, and we compare it to all the DNA of all living mammals. It's most closely related to already adapted. Even total. hippos, apples, yeah. Right. Yeah, they're evolutionary cousins, both in their terms of their DNA, but also in terms of their soft anatomy. And also in terms of their, their skeletons to some extent, and primarily plumbing in the head. So that's, that's pretty crazy. But go back in time, 52 million years ago to Pakistan. And you have these already doctors that are like putting their feet in the water. And they look like other already those but they're doing something different. Yeah, they're, they're there. They're moving into an aquatic environment there and fabulous and they're there. They need to be watched, as Laura nicely said, because over time, over evolutionary time, they they give up the connection to the land, they lose their hind limbs. They they're still air breathing animals, but they're fully aquatic and they're whales and
scott huesing 39:23
I think most have the opposite perception that everything comes from the water.
Thomas Demere 39:28
Well, there is that so this is a real invasion of the sea. Ah, so, you know, life comes out of the sea, on the land, diversifies and then goes back into se because there's all these opportunities. You guys have an Allosaurus downstairs,
Pete Turner 39:45
and when you look at it, I see a tibia. I see. parcels metatarsal, I see the same bones that I had. Yeah,
Thomas Demere 39:53
you know, we're all tetrapods. Allosaurus Haha, you and me. Yeah, my dog. Right? We're all tetrapods. So we have this common answer. You go back in time enough and we have you know, we're we're all the same.
Pete Turner 40:08
So whales have a tibia. Also, or no, yeah. Crazy
Thomas Demere 40:12
ancestral whales had
Pete Turner 40:13
had your hands look similar in bone structure.
Thomas Demere 40:17
humor, 3ds. And Allah. They have carpools, meta, carpools, phalanges, they have five hand fingers,
Pete Turner 40:25
any of them owe me money.
Thomas Demere 40:27
You'd have to ask them
Pete Turner 40:28
to shake them down.
scott huesing 40:30
When I was in college, I was studying. I was an anthropology I think it may have even been taking a philosophy of religion class at the same time in the same semester, which is disaster for me
Thomas Demere 40:42
again, well, you're a deep thinker.
scott huesing 40:44
I don't know not many, you may be the only person ever accuse me that. But
Thomas Demere 40:48
as you get deeper things like
scott huesing 40:51
denser maybe. But I saw I read, I read some paper. And I was really confused about something. So I reached out to you a friend of mine, Dr. George Taylor. He's a cardiologist, one of the premier in in the Midwest at the time. And I asked George, I said, What do you think about religion and science? And he gave me a great answer. But I'd like before I give you the answer here, I'd like I like to ask you that question is a person of, you know, steeped in science? And how the two, especially in a lot of the divisive discussion we have on mainstream media about religion and politics and science and everything we do? How has How has that affected how you view things in your job and faith? Or if you have faith or lack of faith? How do you do that?
Thomas Demere 41:43
Well, for science, the role of science is to provide us with knowledge of the natural world, how it works, our place in it, so to speak, in terms of ecologically, but largely How does it work? And how can that help us survive? it so in It also explains, origins. And although religion used to do that used to have a cosmology part of it, and moral part of it, I mean, really, those are the two main supports of, or products of religion, I would say. But science, I think, does a much better job explaining origins and the natural world. And
scott huesing 42:31
so we don't have to worry about demons and
Unknown Speaker 42:36
terrible things happening that are supernatural, because we can understand how the natural world works. And we can understand why we have thunder and lightning storms here right now and why people have tornadoes and other parts of this country right now. And hurricanes, you know, we understand that it's not some whimsical God saying, we're going to punish these bastards, because they did something terrible. Yeah, the least I think so I'd look at that. The role of science in the modern world, and it provides us with, I think, comfort in that we know what to expect, right? And religion has this whole thing about moral messages, you know, and how to how to treat each other and at least, that's I was brought up, Episcopalian altar boy and
scott huesing 43:23
St. Vincent brother,
Unknown Speaker 43:26
St. Andrews. And I, you know, I mean, I love the pageantry of it. I love the music.
scott huesing 43:33
The great people, but
Thomas Demere 43:36
I don't think it explains where we came from. I don't think it explains the natural world. And I have a friend of mine, jack Horner, who talks about there, there are two Bibles there was there's one written by God. And there's one written by man. And he chooses the study the one written by God, which he means the world. The outcrops, Grand Canyon, planet moon, things you can see in touch, and that are there, obviously there. And the other is his book that's purports to be the Word of God but is written by humans. So that that's the way he looks at it. That's not necessarily the way I look at it. But it's kind of an interesting way of thinking about
the world that we live in.
scott huesing 44:24
So growing up in the Episcopal Church, and for listeners don't know, we're being an Episcopalian. Is this kind of like Catholicism light? It's like all the religion.
Pete Turner 44:32
Yeah. We have to get said, Yeah,
scott huesing 44:35
he's legit. He's been vetted right now. So that's it. That's our bumper sticker. That I think all is I'll give you George's answer. And he said, No, science is is, is, is always played a huge part in everything we do. But the Bible is a great guidebook for life and answers those questions that science has not what happens when science answers all the questions?
Thomas Demere 45:01
Well, I don't think it ever can. They can answer why we're here. They can just say how we're here. So the questions of why are really not something that science really answers so much.
Pete Turner 45:14
There's also a moral, moral accountability that you get with religion. Yeah. I mean, granted, you can bastardized that make it horrible. But, you know, there's something science doesn't require you to be a better person, you know, maybe a more enlightened person. But it doesn't make like, you know, God fearing has a place in society where
Thomas Demere 45:33
we think it's better to be God loving God. Sure. Yeah. That's, I mean, because to me, some some part of religion or some religious people are, it's only the afterlife insurance that they get from it. Yeah, rather than how they treat one another, how they treat their family, how they treat other people. And I think it's, there's a expression in, in evolutionary ecology, reciprocal altruism, with such, you know, I mean, it doesn't make sense from a natural selection standpoint, necessarily to help your neighbor, right? Because if you're struggling to get ahead, guys tooth and claw thing, but but you see organisms that do that humans do that, and naked mole rats do that beast? I mean, there's a lot of this cooperation in nature. And and it's because you help me it's quid pro quo, you know, you help me, I'll help you. And it's, I don't know, I mean, I think it's just, it's natural to be to have that altruistic behavior within humanity. And the aberration is not to be that way.
Pete Turner 46:38
Some things like religion, I'm
Thomas Demere 46:40
also an idealist. So an optimistic idea.
scott huesing 46:44
Is that compatible or not?
Unknown Speaker 46:46
This is what it is.
Pete Turner 46:48
When I struggle with religion, I find in a lot of things like what I do in combat zones, I can't look directly at it and see it, I have to kind of look at it from a peripheral view, because it just comes to focus more, it's more possible out there. So like religion, Jay Mohr, his great, great, great uncle, I think he's the guy that wrote Silent night, you know, so I don't actually have to believe in God, but that guy sure did, and came up with this song. So there's evidence of God right there. But I don't you know, I can't really wrap my hands around it, is that when you when you get to the edges of what you guys are learning and understandings, it's sort of like that, where you can't just tackle it straight on, you have to kind of let the what that?
Unknown Speaker 47:28
Well, there's some things we will never know. And I don't know what you call that. I mean, the native Native Americans called it walk on Tonka. great mystery in now. And it's like, things are mysterious that you want to give it a name. call it God, I don't, I don't know. But to suggest that, that it's necessary to fear God because you're going to burn in hell. I don't know. Do we really need to talk about
scott huesing 47:55
you know, we talk about everyone it's it does, you can pull the thread on that sucker man in it. It's a long, long sweater to unravel right there talking about that song about something I
Unknown Speaker 48:06
just my biggest fear is that, that people will use the Bible and its prophecies to force us into a path that we can't get off of the self fulfilling prophecies like, you know, Armageddon. I mean, who wants that? But but there are people that want that.
scott huesing 48:23
And there are scientists who say like, this is happening, we only got another, whatever, 330 years left, or they forecast that based off of scientific evidence, but with, you know, with an evolving planet and evolving solar system is like who's to say things can't change that other impacts from the universe will make it better? Something will spark to life or?
Unknown Speaker 48:45
Well, I mean, the wonderful thing about the geologic record is that it records all these catastrophes that occurred on this planet natural you know, Earthbound catastrophes as well as extraterrestrials with the
Pete Turner 48:57
Houston that fascinates me that comes from your world is Lake Bonneville. I just cannot get enough thinking about it and talking about it and reading about it. Because I just find it fascinating that that whole massive section of the of the Great Western States was just a big pond and other big ponds kind of connected to it. Is that is that like, a place for your life? We should dig over here at this part of Nevada or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 49:21
Well, geologically, that's pretty young now. Okay, that's all related to the ice ages. Okay. And there's, if you heard of the scab lands and Eastern Washington link cooling the Coulee Dam. I mean, there are these cars like Bonneville is a glacial lake because of glacial runoff and all that water filling it up, and the Grand Coulee and scab lands in eastern Washington there was a glacial dam that broke catastrophic Lee and huge volume of water just rushed down that to the sea and just destroyed the landscape. But it's so and it was such a puzzle the people for long time How did this happen?
scott huesing 50:08
I feared Tom's one of those guys he says back when we register 7.7 earthquakes like yes couldn't have been bigger. Because like something's gonna pop out guys like yeah, I can dig there now.
Thomas Demere 50:21
My shovel about geology though the earthquake, nothing personal. It's a growing pains. Yeah, they're just, they just have
scott huesing 50:29
to take an offense to that me or they're
Unknown Speaker 50:32
just talking but I mean, some people take it personally and all like it's Yeah, but I mean, it's terrible. I mean, magnitude eight or nine.
scott huesing 50:44
He's like, Oh, if only we, you know, no, I don't want it
Pete Turner 50:48
is water. A significant impediment to guys like the Mediterranean must just have just treasure troves of stuff just eight feet deep, but under eight feet of water.
Unknown Speaker 50:58
Yeah, water is a problem.
Unknown Speaker 51:00
Yeah.
Thomas Demere 51:03
The geologic record for the Mediterranean indicates that it was it would dry it up about 7 million years ago. And then catastrophic Lee refilled. Wow. Yeah.
scott huesing 51:14
I think, you know, I always like throw true confession out. Episcopalian i think is the first time I mentioned that, but this kind of week. But when we had another we were telling staff because I'm going to screw up the name.
Unknown Speaker 51:30
Stefania Stephanie,
scott huesing 51:33
that was a horrible Argentinian accent is more Italian. But it's, we were telling her we're interviewing this Navy SEAL best selling author actors and transformers, which has a little archaeological, paleontological history to it right, then they come on earth does. So from a Hollywood standpoint, but true confession is out. I am extremely energized, like to be here at the net and talking about all this stuff. Because there's so many things I'd never thought of until I get done. I meet people. And thanks to Pete for introducing me to like all the different fields you could go in that are in paleontology, you're not just the guy stuck in a museum surrounded by Arctic walruses, and skeletons in a library with you know, nerdy t shirts, like, hey, science is fun. There's so many other implications. The industries that use paleontology in this study, like the oil industry, you know, crime, or agencies, you know, forensic paleontology, all of these things that are really cool fields, and I never, you just don't think about those things.
Thomas Demere 52:41
Well, I have several colleagues that the their profession is they teach human anatomy at medical schools, because they have this strong vertebrate anatomy background. And that's the only place they could get a job, so to speak. And so they what not, that's not I mean, they enjoy it.
scott huesing 52:57
Is it tough to get a job you graduate? You got to what is the geology degree in undergrad? And then you get your, your masters and your PhD and in your specific field?
Thomas Demere 53:07
Is it difficult? Yeah, there are there. There aren't as many jobs as there are.
Unknown Speaker 53:10
How many paleontologists are working on our bus? 40 years?
scott huesing 53:15
Yeah, I know. Yeah.
Pete Turner 53:17
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I feel guilty at times. But I get a lot of that guilt. I get over it. Yeah. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 53:23
Guilt is a wasted emotion sometimes. But yeah, I don't know how many work at Starbucks, but
scott huesing 53:29
like, I have an art history degree. Good luck with that.
Thomas Demere 53:32
But I guess you have to be the gig economy high here. So yes.
scott huesing 53:36
Well, yeah, it's I think it's I think it's pretty tough, though. If you go on in D, the United type it in paleontology, I suppose you could work your way up to in certain certain fields. Maybe in private sector in the you know, as a curator, work your way up, and I'm sure there's a career path for all that. But it's gonna be pretty daunting. But I think like you, you can tell you're really passionate about what you do, and you have this love for and what I love even more, is it just in the last hour, you've brought in so many different aspects of who you are. And what I always love, is we, you could totally blow my mind. Here's an intriguing question. I was going to come into this interview with Pete, does he want to come here this guy, you know, his name's Dr. Tom demaree. And I was like, I have no idea. I'm way out of my league. But I love it that you make the connection to people, and how impactful that is. That's what always fascinates me to get you know, that kind of gets me energized, and really kind of look at things from a different angle where I haven't in a long, long time, so Well, that's super cool.
Thomas Demere 54:38
So one of the wonderful things about working at the San Diego Natural History Museum, the nap. For scientists, it's this interesting, sweet spot that allows you to interface between academia and the general public. You know, and I get to, I get to meet these little kids that know more about dinosaurs than most people. Yeah, that actually, sometimes the me, and they're so proud of their of their knowledge in the fact that they know a hell of a lot more than their parents do about the subject. And they're just, they're oozing with excitement. And I get to talk to them at this stage in their careers, so to speak. And that's really exciting. To me, it's a real privilege.
Pete Turner 55:19
How many of those kids have come back and said, I did it I got all the way through I'm, I'm a proto unit.
Thomas Demere 55:25
At the PhD level. I only have one that's actually come back that I know, but but I mean, you know, the point is, they're interested, yeah, science in there. And they feel that they can do it. And that's so important to them, that they feel that they have the confidence that they can be an explorer, you know, as scientific Explorer, whether it be in the field or on the library, or on the internet or whatever, but they, you know, they go in different directions, but at least they have a passion for something and not just, you know, with a stick I like that term
scott huesing 55:57
Explorer. Most people don't associate scientists as synonymous with Explorer, but if you put on your Instagram page scientist, they'd be like, dork I'm not fond of if you put explorer you'll be like, yeah, I'm gonna follow that guy. Yes, sir. Walking wheels, like, yeah, it's at walking wills on Instagram.
Pete Turner 56:23
When you you're at your pier in New York at the Metropolitan Museum, does that person? Are they tied to a desk because they're in New York? And it's just like, that's more museum than research facility? Or how does that work out for you guys
Thomas Demere 56:36
to the American Museum of Natural History, New York, is well endowed financially, and they have they do international expeditions and their, their, their field of study is the whole planet. Wow. Our museum is a Regional Museum our focuses on what we call Peninsula, California. So it's the Baja California peninsula and Southern California. And so that's our area of expertise. And we we know it better than anybody else, we think. And that's what our collections reflect. So they they get to do some terrific fieldwork. They are in Manhattan, obviously. But yeah, it's a terrific museum.
Pete Turner 57:18
Do you guys ever put scoop on going to the red carpets? Look for stuff down there? Like really get deep? I mean, I'm actually asking Yeah, can you explore that space? Or
Thomas Demere 57:27
will the brand carpets that you couldn't use scuba, you know, it's it's too sticky into viscous? They, and they've been excavating there for Well, since the 1919. teens, the 17 and 1917 I think, but scoop offshore there. And in Florida there are paleontologists that they're all their field areas are underwater, and they excavate the big Miguel Don teeth and
Pete Turner 57:58
yeah, they got whole rivers just full of TES walk up and build their shark to literally walk up and walk out with a three inch shark tooth of some kind. I'm saying shark to
Thomas Demere 58:08
ya know, they are Yeah, so but I've never done that kind of that kind of fieldwork. We're in the water. I mean, I swim. But sure. No, sir. No, I ocean swim. I was like that was swimming this morning at the cove here. Nice. Before work. It was terrific. We had a it was a beautiful morning.
scott huesing 58:27
Do you like to go traditional whale watching or is that too? Like Yeah, when you've seen this No, no, no, I seen him walk into the water.
Thomas Demere 58:39
That's in my mind's eye. I've had the pleasure of going down to San Ignacio lagoon in Baja California when the gray whales are in there in the nursery, and petting calves primarily, but sometimes the mothers will come up but that experiences
scott huesing 58:57
mine was pretty cool that that connection like honkin I'm fascinated by the ocean and the water and everything and through a lot of experiences we've had with guests on the show just to like really open your eyes up to that and then I wish we'd done this have it in we could have picked times random when I was just down in Baja California in Mexico and Cabo to sound smarter in front of everybody
Pete Turner 59:19
going Marlin he get shots getting Marlon
scott huesing 59:22
that's really hanging upside down like a moral and religious. Yeah, I did not do that. I was in East Cape, so I heard they do that
Unknown Speaker 59:31
upside down.Yeah, like a Marlin the hang ups I know. I know. But
Thomas Demere 59:35
that'd be hard to swallow. Yeah, sure. Maybe it's an enema or something. Now
Pete Turner 59:44
we're running but what time Yeah, so I want to make sure getting Are you serious?
scott huesing 59:47
Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was gonna be like in science, but I was gonna like God was the dog in a ring and then Tom pulls out a photographer's server bad as dude. Like, does Yeah,
Pete Turner 1:00:00
it's incredible. Right? Yeah. And the experiences because you know, it's easy to think of museum is boring. But here we are having this great conversation. What What should people do who liked wanna I mean obviously come to the net greatest people in Germany. There's people in Korea listening to the show. So what can people do to just get a better handle on? What do you like for Scott? Right? He's a marine. Those guys can watch Heartbreak Ridge over and over again and just be like, yeah, that's us. what's what's your guys's thing in paleontology? What do you want to watch? Do you want to watch Jurassic Park? No, that's not really your your guys's spot. But what do you guys do? You mean like, like for someone wants to walk back? This is what paleontologists loved you guys. Is it documentaries? Is it a book or?
Thomas Demere 1:00:44
Well, it's? Well, books. I mean, because you have the opportunity to reflect on what you're experiencing. But I mean, I watch a lot of public broadcasting. If I'm watching TV, I like nature. I mean, I, I like to pop culture stuff too, though. But, uh, I mean, Jurassic Park is fun. Yeah. There's some science in there. And I think it gives you the wonder of what dinosaurs were like. I mean, that's what I experienced as a paleontologist looking at extinct animals, trying to envision what they what they what they lived like. So this is the art side this idea paleo biology. How did this animal live? I mean, here's a early whale from Peru. And it's an artist's reconstruction of what it might look like. And so trying to envision what they look like, but also how they lived and interacted with other organisms. So Jurassic Park is fun in that way, because it brings these animals light in it uses. It uses science. I mean, jack Horner, dinosaur paleontologist was the technical advisor and I think all the Jurassic Park's and so there's a there's a lot of rigor in not 100% because it's Hollywood, but it does give you a sense of what these extinct animals were like, cuz we think of think of them as skeletons. But no, they had flesh on and, and, and they interacted with each other. They had offspring, you know, they had they had to eat and they had to, you know, they had to copulate, they had to deprecate, they had to do all the things that organisms do today, and and trying to envision all that is pretty exciting. And so shows like that, that, like Walking with Dinosaurs, or walking with bees, or whatever, that those other shows that are on Discovery Channel. But there are there's a lot of garbage out there to these these documentaries, these things that I know if you saw the mermaids? No, no. And then they put it out. It's like, it's a real documentary, you know, and they have scientists from know and stuff, but it's fake. And at the end, they kind of say that, but you watch it. People still going to reference it.
scott huesing 1:02:55
Yeah. So I guess for the people who want to be tuned in on from some, some sort of something that's really representative of the community that where they, you know, they're not going to subscription to geo diversity us with, you know, the whales or nature magazine. Yeah. Which, you know, nature magazine is not sponsoring the show, but that good. Like, read read is
Thomas Demere 1:03:19
that saying The other thing you might want to do is listen to the break it down show? Yeah. Because? Because there's some truth on that show. And the conversations with people that don't have an agenda.
Pete Turner 1:03:30
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons why I love to have your peers who are PhDs. Because publishing in nature is the pinnacle being that'll blow your mind. You read that every issue and you're gonna you blow you away. It says quantum logic on there. And we had UCSD cosmologists Andrew Freeman on the show, he talks about quantum, whatever you want. And you go quickly, from cosmic Bell test, to you know, john Knox, materia thought about predestination, and then bang left, and you all of a sudden, you're over in quantum gravity. I didn't know quantum gravity is extrapolated from the conversation. He's like, no, quantum gravity's it's an emerging field. And it's blowing our minds. And I'm, you know, and so next thing, you know, you're talking about dinosaurs. So for sure, all of these things. Nature magazine is incredible for that. No, it is. I mean, that's that magazine. Right. There is a is a argument.
scott huesing 1:04:27
And do you remember like, growing up, I think this is a good message for guys are a little bit older. Remember, when magazines would show up at your house? Your grandparents would get you subscription to whatever magazine, we had National Geographic? Do they still even make it all online? Still have it?
Thomas Demere 1:04:45
library?
scott huesing 1:04:46
Yes. But to get that I think is a great source. Because to get your name on an article in that magazine means you are extremely vetted. And you are the resident expert in that field, Vice, hey, here's an apple gift card. Like go buy your kid a subscription to nature magazine, I think, or whatever they're really interested in, where there's credible authors, credible contributors in the field. And there's cool pictures and for those who have short attention span theater like me, and can't read a lot, which is my curse, but
Pete Turner 1:05:18
what's the best way to find out about
Thomas Demere 1:05:20
the mat? Go to our website, www dot the net,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:25
right? SD net.org. We're also on social media,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:30
where can they find you on social? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are big ones.
scott huesing 1:05:35
Where do they type in
Unknown Speaker 1:05:37
SDMHM or San Diego natural history museum then?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:45
This year for the looks
Pete Turner 1:05:46
you know that whales could walk?
scott huesing 1:05:48
Yeah. So
Thomas Demere 1:05:49
I was there. 2 million years ago.
Pete Turner 1:05:54
Thanks, Tom. Yeah, well, thank you.