Writing Excuses 20.43: An Interview with Dr. Tara Lepore on Paleontology

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Writing Excuses 20.43:  An Interview with Dr. Tara Lepore on Paleontology

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-43-an-interview-with-dr-tara-lepore-on-paleontology

Key points: Paleontology is more than just dinosaurs. Mammal teeth have a neonatal line formed during birth. What is paleontology? Lots of stuff! The study of life on Earth and how it came to be, the evolution of life. Integrative more than boundaries. What do you get tired of answering? Indiana Jones was an archeologist, and Ross from Friends was a paleontologist, but so were others! What can paleontology tell us? It's like a time machine. Deep time! Snowball Earth! For more information, try your local museum or library.

[Season 20, Episode  43]

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 20, Episode  43]

[Erin] This is Writing Excuses.

[Howard]  An interview with Dr. Tara Lepore on paleontology. 

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Howard] And we're joined by paleontologist and newly minted Doctor Tara Lepore.

[Tara] Hey, everybody. How's it going?

[Howard] We are so excited to have you here. Because we all have so many questions. I'm going to lead with the big one. Are you in the feathers or not feathers camp?

[Chuckles]

[Tara] Oh, you're cutting it deep, right off the bat. Yeah. Full disclosure, the last 5 years of my paleontology work have been on mammals. But, as a velociraptor fan and also reader of many papers on feathers, I'm in the feathers camp. I'm in the... There's a lot of evidence for feathers. But not all dinosaurs probably had feathers. Yeah. So kick it off with the feather stuff. That's what I have to say about that.

[Howard] I gotta say, we're all... I say we are all. I'm a 56-year-old dude, and so my introduction to dinosaurs was kind of... On the one hand was Dinotopia, and on the other hand was Jurassic Park. So we're either going to ride them like horses or they're going to eat us like we are livestock. And... But we all were fascinated by them, we loved them, and the look on your face, for those who are not benefiting from the video feed, tells me paleontology is actually a lot more than just dinosaurs, Howard.

[Tara] Yeah. Although I will say, full disclosure, as a kid, I watched Dino Riders. Which is another show about riding on top of dinosaurs that have lasers attached to their heads.

[Chuckles]

[Tara] So... Big fan, and we could talk about Beast Wars, the Transformers with animals, they're top epic. But there is, Howard, a lot more to do with paleontology than just dinosaurs. I'm happy to talk more about that. And as I alluded to, just a few minutes ago, I've been diving into the world of fossil and modern mammals and mammal evolution. Yeah, so we can zoom way out and talk about all the good stuff.

[Howard] Okay. One of my favorite questions to ask an expert on anything is... And I'm going to tee up mammals... What's the most interesting thing you've learned about paleontological mammals recently?

[Tara] Oh, yeah. So, part of my PhD dissertation research had to do with looking inside mammal teeth. So slicing them up. These were deceased mammals, mostly modern mammals I asked very nicely. And so I was looking at all kinds of modern mammal teeth, looking for evidence of birth, so there's actually like a little line that we can call like a birth certificate, a line called the neonatal line, like a neonate. And it forms in all the teeth that are forming during the birth transition in humans. And some friends of mine, some colleagues, came out with a study looking at not just modern mammals, not just humans, but looking at one of the oldest mammals that has this evidence marker of what we would think of today as a placental mammal birth. So the kind of birth that humans have, with the placenta. And the mammal had this line, this neonatal line, inside its teeth, and it was from just after the end of the age of dinosaurs. Which makes sense, because mammals at that time would have been what we call placental mammals today. There were also examples of marsupials, at least early ones, and monotremes, early ones. But I think it's so cool because we can zoom in inside of teeth and look at the chemistry and the structure inside teeth, we can kind of connect our own history of birth as like human beings to some of the earliest mammals. And I would love to see where that line of work goes, like, looking at the mammals that were around during the time of dinosaurs. So, birth certificates inside our mouths connecting us to all mammals and mammal evolution. I think it's super, super cool.

[Howard] That is... That is I mean...

[Tara] Yes.

[Howard] Fascinating and mind blowing. The idea that we have a... There's a bone structure in our mouths that says, yeah, you didn't come from an egg. You came from a uterus. And you're saying that that shows that placental birth for mammals is 60 to 65 million years old.

[Tara] At least. And then there's a whole boatload of other pieces of evidence that we can look at in the skeleton of mammals and also in some of the genes that have to do with, like, egg yolk and why don't humans have egg yolk, but we have other stuff that's yolk-y or amniotic at least and all these other kind of pieces of evidence that come along with being a mammal. But looking inside the teeth is one really cool way that we can kind of get a better sense of where we came from and also what mammals were doing back in the time of dinosaurs. So I'm super psyched about that kind of stuff.

[Howard] That is so cool.

[Erin] One of the things that I really love about this is... Thinking about, if I said, like, all the information... this is a misstatement of what you said, but like all the information about you is in your teeth. That sounds like something that is very science fictional. You know what I mean? And so what I think is really cool about looking at these, like, these types of scientific studies, are you can extrapolate pieces from those. So even if you aren't  writing about dinosaurs specifically, or ancient mammals, there's something really cool in the way that you're studying it that I could take that piece of information and put it in a story as some really interesting fact that I then build an entire world or species around. And... So I just think that's cool. But also, I just have a question, as somebody who does not know much. I'll be honest. Like, I am the, like, paleontological newbie, I guess, of the group. Which is, like, what then does make something paleontology? Is it about the time period it is, is it about the type of creature? Are there any things where like we will refuse to study bugs? Like, what is it that makes something within your realm?

[Tara] Yeah. Totally, Erin, that's a great question. And it's one that we get a lot  also in the kind of world of outreach and education as paleontologists. So, my training is specifically in what I would call vertebrate paleontology, where I work really specifically on vertebrates. I worked on everything within that from mammals and mammal teeth to dinosaur footprints and trackways to even... And this is a great party conversation starter, but... Dinosaur poop. Droppings, fossils known as coprolites.

[Chuckles]

[Tara] So, really, a lot of stuff can fall within vertebrate paleontology. But to get to your question, paleontology is the study of all life on Earth and how it came to be as we understand it today. So the evolution of life on Earth. It could be involving bacteria, plants, fungi, all kinds of vertebrates, invertebrates, shelled... All kinds of shelled organisms. So there's a ton of stuff within paleontology that really is united by the study of the evolution of life on Earth.

[Howard] It sounds... And I could be too freely mixing of my disciplines here, but it sounds like paleontology without organic chemistry, paleontology without geology, paleontology without astrophysics stops being complete paleontology. Because if you don't know how to tell, for instance, that an asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula, then a lot of your fossils don't make sense, and you don't have the whole story. How... How is the wrong way to start that question. Do you guys draw like discreet lines... You. You are a geologist, not a paleontologist. Go to your rock room.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Stay away from my bones.

[Tara] I do have a rock room. No, I wish I did, actually. The program that I came from and the way I was trained throughout different parts of my career is to think of what I do as integrative. I did my PhD in an integrative biology department. And you mentioned geology, and often people will need to learn a lot about geology and rocks, as well as biology and the study of life, to do different kinds of paleontological work. That being said, I'm also a really big kind of supporter of thinking across what we might traditionally call boundaries between different disciplines. I think we really learn a lot when we talk to the people who do organic chemistry or we talk to the people who are studying insects, maybe that are alive today. In my line of work, I did quite a bit of cross talk with people who look at modern mammals and modern mammal birth, because that also helped me understand a little bit more about the landscape of how mammals are born today and what do we know about them and what is their parental kind of care and things like that. Sometimes in our scientific communities, we will have different conferences that can kind of push people into that silo effect, where we'll go to a geological society meeting or a paleontology meeting or vertebrate paleontology over here. But I also think that we have a lot to gain by breaking down those kinds of silos. So, yes, some structure exists, but I think we have a lot more fun and do a lot more interesting things when we have spaces where people can talk together. And not just as scientists, but as people who do all kinds of different types of work. Some of the best people I know in paleontology have come from really wide-ranging backgrounds. I have a really good friend who had an English degree as their first degree. And I really feel like we need to open up more spaces for that kind of stuff. Because it's all about telling stories. Stories about Earth and life and everything that's relevant to us today. So I think we benefit from a wide range of backgrounds.

[Howard] That's... That's amazing. And as writers, we kind of have to be interdisciplinary. As Erin pointed out, oh, now that I know this thing about mammal teeth, I can invent a thing about these alien jaw bones or whatever and use it to inform my story. And Erin doesn't need to be a paleontologist. And I don't need to be an astrophysicist. But we need to know that those disciplines exist, and we need to... Like, the way English steals from other languages, we need to steal from all the other disciplines in order to do the things that we want to do. I think it was Terry Pratchett who said English doesn't borrow from other languages, it follows them down dark alleys and mugs them, and then goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

[laughter]

[Howard] But, yeah, the idea that we don't want these silos. getting an English degree is fine if you just want to know how English works. But if you want to actually write stories about interesting things, you have to learn all the interesting things. And learning all the interesting things brings us to a nice spot to pause.

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[Tara] So, we want to give a shout out to the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Or UCMP. And UCMP is a museum that I just finished up my graduate work at, and it is based at the University of California, Berkeley. And they have an amazing website ucmp.berkeley.edu. And this is a really great one-stop shop if you want to go on there and check out what it's like to be a paleontologist. They also have really great resources on understanding evolution and understanding science, which is really widely accessed by a lot of teachers and other educators, and there are a  number of blog posts that are also written on the UCMP website that were written by grad students, myself included. But I also just want to give a shout out for everybody who shared their really great research through these blog posts so if you click on the UCMP website, you'll find a link for blog posts. And, yeah, I think it's a really great resource in general on that website. Just for people who want to learn more about paleontology.

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[Howard] We're back. Tara, I have a question for you, and it's a scary one. What's the question that you get tired of answering?

[Tara] Oh, man. I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

[Chuckles]

[Tara] So I want to preface all of this with I would never get mad or upset or push somebody away or be like, no, you don't know what you're talking about. But I kind of grit my teeth a little bit when people try to relate what I do as a paleontologist and they say something like, oh, yeah, I really love Indiana Jones too, or, I absolutely can relate to that because of Ross  from Friends. and I feel like we're doing society as a whole a disservice because Indiana Jones, for better or worse, was supposed to be an archaeologist, and I think that's also an important distinction that we can make in our conversation about, like, that difference. and Ross from Friends, I mean if you even watched Friends or know that Ross, the character, was a paleontologist, if that's our only touch point for paleontology, and people are skipping right over, like, I don't know, Ellie Sattler, Ellen Grants, any of the other fictional people from the movies, then I think we're just missing out. And so, yeah, it makes me grit my teeth a little.

[Erin] What... It's funny, that gives me an idea for a question, which is a lot of that's about stories, that we were talking a little bit earlier about how paleontology helps you tell these really interesting stories about the way that the Earth existed in all the... The thing that you said earlier that I'm not going to remember or do credit to. But these other stories have sort of taken the focus, it's like, this is what paleontology is. So a question I have is what are some of the stories about our world, about beings and creatures on it, that paleontology is able to tell in a way that no other field can?

[Tara] Yeah. That's a really good question, because I think paleontology and other ways of looking at the natural world, different kinds of sciences and also social sciences, we unite all  of these ways of thinking. Paleontology as situated in that context gives us like the next best thing to a time machine. And I really think that that's a powerful way that people can not only connect to paleontology as a concept, as a science, but to think about why it matters, and what can paleontology tell us about the story of life on Earth. Which is really our story as human beings. And, of course, there's a whole field too that has to do with human history and human evolution and things like that, related to paleontology. Some might say that there's a lot of overlap, but that would be things like paleoanthropology, for  example, the study of ancient humans. And often those folks will work with people who are more expertise in other types of life besides humans. So, yeah, I think having the ability to look back into what we might call deep time, not just the time frame of human lifespans or human history, but deep time that goes into thousands and millions and even billions of years. Way back before humans were around. I think paleontology is a really cool kind of vector for us to do that. And it's a big reason why I think it also captures a lot of people's imaginations. Like, paleontology can help us learn about what life was like before any people were here.

[Howard] I love the concept... Just the idea, the mental framework that the words deep time create. Just this idea that the stories that we're able to tell from history, the stories we're able to tell from deep history... We have writings that are 5,000 years old or whatever. Those are shallow time. Those are back when the moon was still in basically the same orbit it's in now. One of my favorite deep time stories is, oh, yeah, y'all, the moon was a planet that slammed into Earth and spat back out and there was a whole ring around Earth for a long time. I say a long time, I don't know how long the ring lasted, but Earth was a hot, miserable place for a long time and the moon was really close and it's been moving away. And I love that story. I can't remember which... There was some show I watched where they've gone back in time and someone looked up at the sky and was like, the Moon is too close. Oh, crap.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] We went back further than we were supposed to. Because if I can see that the Moon is bigger, actually bigger, not on the horizon, optical illusion bigger, then we overshot. So, yeah, I love deep time. And I want to re-ask Erin's question, do you have a favorite deep time story? I've already told you, mine's the Moon. Do you have one?

[Tara] Oh, wow. So deep time, thinking about all the things that have happened to and on this planet that I'm aware of, and there are many more that I'm not aware of. My mind immediately goes to how the planet has changed and, Howard, you mentioned how the Moon was formed and Earth was changed. It was a hot molten mass for so many millions and millions of years. I like thinking about how Earth has changed, how it went through a period called Snowball Earth, where at least there's good evidence that for several million years, the Earth was an ice ball planet and not entirely inhospitable to life, but very different from what we would think of it today.

[Howard] Not friendly to sunbathers.

[Chuckles]

[Tara] Exactly. I'm sure there was great snowshoeing. But, yeah... And then my area of thinking about this often comes back to the animals and plants and the interesting kind of creatures that, number one, we have evidence of in the fossil record but, number two, this is sort of like... Not so much my favorite part of deep time, but something I love thinking about is what are the creatures that probably existed but never became fossilized? Or if they did, we haven't found them yet? So I love thinking about the huge diverse array of life on Earth that we know of from the fossil record and how imperfect and incomplete that fossil record is. And it just is such an imaginative and creative thing. Not just as a scientist, which I think can be a really creative endeavor, but as somebody who likes to think about stories and wonder what else was here? So, yeah.  I think that kind of stuff is really cool to think about.

[Erin] Yeah. And I think the... One of the things that I love about that is how many possibilities it opens up. Again, not just for the thing that it is, but for the things that we can imagine. If you think about, okay, I'm  writing a story that's... We're going to go to an ice planet. Finding out that there was a snowball Earth, like, there's actually a thing you could study looking back that could help you create a planet a million years away or in a fantastical landscape that has no human intervention, based on that. So I'm wondering, like, if we wanted to get more of these stories, I mean we could keep you here for hours and we wish we could, but, like, what are some other resources that, like, we could go to in addition to the one you shared at the break? Are there other places to start when we're looking for this kind of information to inspire us to  create interesting stories?

[Tara] Yeah. So I think that there are a whole number of different museums around the country and around the world that are doing really cool work, both online and in person. Trying to share these kinds of stories with the public and maybe with people who aren't always tapped into the, say, paleontology realm or maybe really interested in it, but they don't know where to start. So I think that a really great just general shout out is, if you have a local museum, even if it's really small, try checking them out. And you can also search for, like, what we would call accredited museums through the American Association of Museums, the AAM. So that's just another place where if you're like, I don't know if this museum is telling me the truth or what's going on or what is truth? Ah! Existential crisis. But, yeah, there are a number of really great museums that you can visit, and I'm a big fan of local museums. I got my start in paleontology as a volunteer just going to my local museum, and I think that made a huge impact on my life. And this sounds really old school, but just honestly the library, because a librarian or somebody that you can talk to and say, hey, what resources do you have on this? I really like the idea of just touching base with those kinds of folks. For me, a lot of that was something that I had really the privilege to access through the PhD program and I could talk with people. But I also really want to shout out, like, check out your local library, talk to your local museum. If you don't have a local museum, look for a website of one in the biggest city near you period and uhm yeah. I think that's what I would probably highlight the most.

[Howard] I love librarians. I mean, they're like the original interdisciplinarians because... They're not... They're literally not allowed to put a book on the shelf unless they've read it. So they've read all the books. And this fact that I just made up now...

[laughter]

[Tara][garbled] true?

[laughter]

[Howard] I'm so sorry. I'm a terrible person.

[Tara][garbled] librarians[garbled]

[so many years in solitude]

[Howard] But librarians get asked all of the questions all of the time, and, yeah, they're a brilliant resource. Well, gosh, we could just keep talking, and asking, and talking, and sharing. I love this, but at some point, we have to send everybody home with some homework. Tara? Do you have some homework for our listeners?

[Tara] Yeah. So I would love for the listeners to think about if you have some way of making deep time, this concept of deep time, within the millions and maybe billions of years, relevant to your upcoming or current writing project. So, maybe pick three ways that deep time could be interwoven into what you're currently working on, whether that's a fantasy, with what kind of fossils could have been on that planet, or maybe it's as simple as how deep time and fossils and the Earth are relevant to your memoir. So, yeah, pick three things and see what comes up this next few weeks and enjoy. I hope it's an interesting exercise.

[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.