July 10, 2025 • 62 mins
Journey through millions of years of plant evolution with paleobotanist Dr. Aaron Pan, who unearths fascinating stories locked within fossilized leaves, fruits, and seeds from Earth's distant past. As Executive Director of the Museum of Texas Tech University, Dr. Pan bridges the worlds of scientific research and public education, sharing how ancient plant remains challenge our understanding of modern ecosystems.
Prepare to have your assumptions about plant origins completely upended. Did you know eucalyptus trees – quintessentially Australian icons – likely originated in South America? Or that Africa once had thriving palm forests despite hosting fewer palm species today than tiny Singapore? Dr. Pan's research in Ethiopia reveals evidence of lush, palm-filled landscapes that existed 21-27 million years ago, before continental collisions dramatically reshaped Earth's biodiversity.
The conversation explores how paleobotany differs from other paleontological disciplines, with plants presenting unique challenges since their various parts – leaves, flowers, fruits – can be scattered and fossilized separately. We delve into the collision of Africa with Eurasia that introduced zebras, giraffes, and lions to the continent, fundamentally altering both plant and animal communities in ways that continue to influence modern ecosystems.
Beyond the science, Dr. Pan offers insights into museum work and the importance of preserving both specimens and knowledge. With 9.5 million items in its collection, the Museum of Texas Tech stands as the 19th largest natural history collection in America. Whether you're fascinated by ancient plants, curious about how continents shape evolution, or simply love museums, this episode invites you to appreciate the incredible depth of time and the long, winding journey of plant life on our planet.
As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It helps the show keep growing and reaching more people! As a bonus, if you review Planthropology on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser and send me a screenshot of it, I'll send you an awesome sticker pack!
Planthropology is written, hosted, and produced by Vikram Baliga. Our theme song is "If You Want to Love Me, Babe, by the talented and award-winning composer, Nick Scout. Midroll tunes are by Rooey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is up?
Plant people it's time oncemore for the Plantthropology
podcast, the show where we diveinto the lives and careers of
some very cool plant people tofigure out why they do what they
do and what keeps them comingback for more.
I'm Vikram Baliga, your hostand your humble guide in this
journey through the greensciences and, as always, my
friends.
I am so darn excited to be withyou today.
I got to go to a museum forthis episode.
(00:21):
Do you know how excited thatmakes me?
Do you know how much I lovemuseums?
So this episode is with Dr AaronPan, who's a friend and the
executive director of the Museumof Texas Tech University.
He's done a lot of things inthe museum world, from curator
to executive director at acouple of different places, but
by training.
Aaron is a paleobotanist, whichmeans that he studies really
(00:43):
old plants, but he also studiesevolutionary biology and
paleontology and all kinds ofsuper cool things.
This was a fascinatingconversation and, honestly, I
could have talked to Aaron foranother several hours and I
might make him come back in thefuture and we can listen to him
talk for several hours.
We talked about everything fromthe history of plants on
different continents and howthey move from continent to
(01:04):
continent.
We talked about evolutionarybiology and what we can learn
from the past about our future.
We talked about palm trees.
We talked about museumcollections and museum life and
how important museums are in oursociety and in our lives and in
our culture, and it was just somuch fun.
Aaron's a great guy, brilliantscientist and a wonderful
director at this museum, so Idon't want to belabor this too
(01:26):
much.
I want you to really like diveinto this episode.
So just, I'm excited you'rewith me and I'm excited I
finally got to sit down withAaron, and the more times I can
go to museums to do stuff, I'mgoing to do that.
So grab your tiny little brushor toothbrush or an electric
toothbrush and your pick and alittle scraper and a magnifying
glass and whatever else it takesto find old plants and
(01:48):
dinosaurs and settle in forepisode 121 of the
Plantthropology Podcast with DrAaron Pan.
Hey, it's actually futureediting Vikram and not past
(02:21):
talking to Aaron Vikram.
Yet Sorry about that.
I know the other guys betterListen.
I had forgotten that.
I had just gotten over a coldwhen I recorded with Aaron, so
there's some weird audio stuff.
We had some room mic issues aswell too, and it sounds pretty
good, everything's good.
I just I have to apologize thatthere's a couple of times in
this episode that you can hearme trying very hard to survive,
(02:46):
like and breathe, and I'm sorry.
Anyway, getting into the episodeRecording, okay.
Well, aaron, thanks so much forletting me invade your office
and set up all my stuff.
I realize, as I'm unloading thecar, that like there's no way
to do this in travel light.
Yeah, you've got a lot of stuffLike I always mean to like.
(03:06):
Oh, I'm just gonna take a fewthings and it's just sort of
evolved over time.
But I appreciate your time thismorning.
I'm excited to talk about, Imean, everything paleobotany,
the museum and everything else.
But, just starting off, whydon't you introduce yourself a
little bit?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Tell us where you went to school what you studied
and kind of how you got to whereyou are.
Okay, yeah, my name is uh aaronpan.
Uh, I am now the uh executivedirector of the museum at texas
tech university, um, andbasically I've been really
interested and I guess mytechnically, my research is
(03:39):
mainly focused in, uh,paleontology, paleobotany
specifically.
But I'd rather sort of callmyself a naturalist because I
don't know if I can't fullyfocus on one thing at one time
or not, but we do a lot of.
I actually sort of do researchon other things as well, or,
more likely, I have some verykind colleagues who let me
(04:01):
insert myself into asking weirdquestions and then pursuing it,
and they helped me along withthat too.
So that includes things likenative bees, velvet ants,
abalone, systematics, sort of itruns the gamut.
But my first research love ispaleobotany and it sort of
(04:22):
started, went actually K through12, amarillo, amarillo
Independent School District.
I went to, you know, elementaryschool, middle school, amarillo
High for high school and then Iwent off to University of
California, santa Barbara,because I thought at that point
that I was going to do marinebiology and I was going to
(04:45):
wanting to study whale evolution.
So that was my first and so ityou know it's not OK.
Well, I'll head for the coastto do that.
It doesn't hurt that.
You see, santa Barbara's campusis gorgeous.
It has a lagoon, it has a, ithas a beach, it has, you know,
and the dorms are right on the,on the marine terrace.
Yeah, it's absolutely stunning.
(05:05):
So not that Texas Tech isn'tbeautiful as well, but the ocean
views are a little to bewanting.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, we have like all beach and no ocean, like
endless sand, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
If we were here during the Cretaceous, we'd be
good Sure yeah, so that'd begood.
But I went there for undergrad.
Sure yeah, so that would begood, but I went there for
undergrad.
What's interesting is, if yougo in biology at UC Santa
Barbara to sort of weed outthose who quote, unquote can't
cut it.
You don't get to take a singlebiology course your first year
as a biology major.
You have to take chemistry, andif you can do that then okay.
(05:44):
Now it's software, you canstart doing it.
So what I did was um, and Ireally wanted to learn about
organisms still in that time.
So I actually became part ofthe college of creative studies
at uc santa barbara, which is aninteresting program where it's
for those who know that theywant to graduate school after
they graduate, and so what?
You actually get partnered witha counselor, mentor, professor
(06:09):
who basically sort of determineswhat your schedule of classes
will be.
So it means that you canleapfrog.
So it means that you may notnecessarily have to take a
preliminary course before youtake the course you want.
You can actually start takingupper division courses.
You can start taking graduatecourses your freshman year, and
so I got to do that.
So what was nice about that wasthat they let me take geology
(06:31):
and paleontology courses myfirst year, and so that's where
I really started to enjoylearning.
And the professor who was mymentor, dr Bruce Tiffany, who's
a very well-renownedpaleobotanist, you know,
basically, you know he made itso exciting that basically
(06:52):
that's, I sort of fell in lovewith, with paleobotany at that
point.
Ok, and so so after I graduatedfrom there, I really thought,
hey, I want to graduate school,I want to do work in paleobotany
, but I would really like towork in the tropics.
So I'd love to work in theNeotropics, whether it was
Southeast Asia and Malaysia orif it was in Sub-Saharan Africa.
(07:16):
I'd really like to do that.
And so I applied to schools andan amazing professor, dr Bonnie
Jacobs, at SMU, you know,offered me, you know, thought I
could be her graduate student atSMU and she worked in and she
was very well known for workingin sub-Saharan Africa.
(07:37):
She had been working in Kenya.
She lived in Kenya briefly.
She worked Tanzania.
She lived in Kenya briefly, sheworked Tanzania, and she was
very so she knew Africa was herplace to study.
So I was very excited to workwith her and so I moved there in
2002 and then went to graduateschool, got my PhD in 2007, was
(08:01):
there briefly for a postdoc andthen my first position was as
curator of science at the FortWorth Museum of Science and
History.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
That's pretty cool, that's a great museum.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah, it is.
What was nice about that one isthat it is a multidisciplinary
one as well.
It's got the science partobviously in the name, and it's
got the humanities part beingthe history part, so that was
really cool as well.
That's awesome, and then fromthere I also fell in love with
museums.
So that's sort of how itstarted, both how research and
(08:34):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, so, and then I saw you were also, I guess, the
director at the Don Harringtonfor a while as well, so you went
home, I guess, back to Amarillo.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I went home one because I, you know I really
enjoyed the Horace Museum ofScience and History, but I
wanted to try some and grow inadministration and things like
that.
And the Discovery Center was agreat opportunity, one that was
also one of the places thatactually got me excited about
science in the first place.
So that's kind of cool to so asa little kid, that sort of gets
(09:06):
to spark you and then you getto put your name on it and put a
little bit of impression onthere.
So, yeah, I was there for eightyears and then I had the
opportunity to apply here and Icouldn't pass that up because I
miss doing academia.
I missed the resources andstuff that are available for an
(09:29):
institution like this.
And Texas Tech University isamazing and this museum was
amazing that it had againmultidisciplinary.
So my scattered brain lovesthat it's not just one
discipline that we have a goodexpertise in, but there's
multiple ones.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You know.
It's interesting to hear you saythat we'll talk a little bit
more about the tech museum, uh,sort of in the back half of this
episode.
But so I grew up here in lubbockmy wife and I actually both did
, and we grew up going to thescience spectrum here in town.
And so my wife, in herundergrad, alana, did wildlife
science.
So she wildlife and fisheries,but she focused more on
(10:08):
collections and ecology, and sothen she was the education
director at the science spectrumfor quite a while.
She worked there for 12 years,did everything from, like, the
front desk to the animal room toa little bit of everything.
Spent the last I think five orsix years as the education
director and um or educationcoordinator I don't know how, I
(10:30):
don't know how they title them,but um works there part-time,
sort of as a consultant now.
But yeah, she's tells the samestory that like as a kid, like
she knew going there and fallingin love with science there,
that that's something she wantedto do.
It was like her dream job fromthe time she was a kid and then
got to do it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
It sounds like you kind of had a very similar
experience yeah, and that'swhat's incredibly lucky, because
usually you know, you know howmany times you actually get to
sort of pursue.
You know, actually you knowmake a living from, you know
stuff that you were reallyinterested in when you were
little and and you know, yeah,so it's, it's fantastic, that
great.
I'm glad she did as well.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So yeah, so she spent she spent a lot of time in
museum world, so that wasanother reason I was excited to
come do this, because, like,getting another perspective on
it is really, really interestingto me.
Um, but let's talk a little bitmore, I guess, here up front
about the actual subject matter.
You studied paleobotany becausethis is so fascinating to me
and I know about this much aboutit, so I'm excited to learn a
(11:26):
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
yeah, so, yeah, so paleobotany is the uh study of,
uh prehistoric plants, okay, andum, basically it runs from the
origin all the way through.
I would would, I would probablysay, uh, by the end of the
(11:48):
Pleistocene fortune ring.
That basically counts the wholegamut of what.
What paleo botany is.
Um, I've always been in, I'vealways really liked uh stuff
that's near modern but stillsomewhat weird and unusual, and
so so I really liked it withdoing the to sort of stay in the
(12:09):
Cenozoic, the.
Cenozoic is from the end of, sobasically from the abrupt
extinction of, you know,non-avian dinosaurs all the way
up through today.
Okay, and so that?
So that's, that's what theCenozoic is, and for Paleobotany
that would mean basically fromthe Paleogene or from the
(12:31):
Paleocene all the way up throughthe Pleistocene.
Okay, so you know.
Basically, you know dinosaursdead to end of Ice Age, okay,
yeah.
So that's sort of where I findit really fascinating.
I think what is interestingalso that many people don't
(12:53):
realize with paleobotany whichis unusual compared to things
like vertebrate paleontology,which is studies of animals with
backbones, or invertebratezoology is because plants are
always growing, they havemeristemic growth, they always
are producing, you know, bodyparts.
(13:15):
They're basically producingbody parts and then they're
falling off.
What's interesting is like youcan't always tell if you have
all these parts.
If you find a leaf over hereand you find a flower petal over
here and you find a structure,a reproductive structure over
here, like a fruit or a seed orsomething like that, you cannot
(13:35):
necessarily say, oh, these allbelong to the same thing and I
can describe it as such.
And so that's where a lot ofinteresting, weird stuff happens
, particularly for things thatare further in the past.
Luckily, with the times I'msort of looking at, particularly
during the oligocene eventthrough myosin, it's not as hard
(14:00):
, but that's why often you havewhat are called organ taxon or
you know.
Basically, you know you haveseveral things that are named
different genera, but they mayactually all belong to the same
plant.
Okay, which is weird, and thatoften happens in things like in
the Permian and Triassic.
You know materials and stufflike that.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You know that's fascinating and I never would
have thought of that, you know,you find, you know, okay, I am
speaking from a place of notjust pop culture, like
paleontology, but but you know,that's a lot of the influence in
my brain.
But, like you have this picture, I think, where a lot of people
probably have this picture ofpaleontologists going out and
like I found a whole dinosaur,right, and I know that that's
(14:42):
not super common, right, but Ihad not.
Yeah, there's not generallyjust parts falling off a
dinosaur, right, they're notrunning around like shedding
legs and things, right, exactlyIf it's dead.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
If you find a scapula of a dinosaur, you basically
know Right, it died at thatpoint.
Yeah, it was dead.
So basically you could havesomething producing that's been
preserved and it's still livingfor longer than you didn't know
about, which is kind of aninteresting thing as well.
I think the other interestingaspect of paleobotany is that in
(15:21):
many cases the taxa like generahave a much longer span of
existence than things likemammals I think mammals, sure, I
don't know I can't get thenumber correctly and I will
definitely be wrong, but it'sreally like.
Genera are on the order oftypically around average, about
two to five million years.
The genus exists okay, beforeeither goes to extinct or, you
(15:45):
know, it's modified so far thatit's different.
Uh, you have things that youhave, you know.
Uh, flowering plants likenothafagus, the southern beaches
and the figalis, which areknown, I think, back to like 80
million years ago.
The genus itself no 80 a, agenus like homo, which is only
(16:07):
known for, you know, you knowwhat?
Two million years, right,compared to some, to a genus
that's known for that's known 80million years yeah, that's
really interesting and that'sreally fascinating and I think
it's hard for people to graspthese timescales.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Just conversations I have with people about, like you
know, evolutionary biology andevolutionary history, we think I
don't know.
I think there are so manymisconceptions about like what
time even looks like and at somepoint, like our brains are just
like a long time.
I don't know, and I think peoplestruggle with that, but that's
really an interesting thoughttoo, that you know before before
(16:46):
.
Uh, you know, the cataclysmsthat wiped out dinosaurs, like
some of these species, wereextant right, like we had some
of these plants that were maybenot in the form they are today,
but hanging around yeah, I mean,yeah, you definitely have
families that existed back then.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
You know, in in the lake rotations that exist today.
You, you know you have.
I think the other fascinatingthing is that and this is just
the body of the disciplineitself is all these sort of
interesting things that youdon't think about.
So Australia, today is.
You know, most people know it,for you know koalas, kangaroos,
(17:24):
youos, but if you were to talkabout what is the quintessential
plant that Australia is knownfor, it would be gum trees,
eucalyptus and phthalates.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So that gums they're in every habitat.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
They're from these tall sclopple forests.
You know, even very, very dryhabitats there's, you know,
there's many, many, many species.
It's like the quintessentialgenus Eucalyptus.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, you know, you think oh, it must have started
there, or the oldest one must befrom there.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
No, South America, really yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, there was a group that they were working.
They've been fascinatingmaterial in South America during
the that's basically from theEocene, but yeah, and they've
got beautiful things with fruitattachments and preserved leaves
.
Yeah, eucalyptus, you would notthink huh, would not think huh,
it may have had its origin inSouth America, right?
(18:30):
So it's a fascinating thingthat you sort of you have an
idea about what may be existingthere, but you can't be fully
for sure.
You know, we'll go into alittle bit later when I start
talking about, you know, africanforests and stuff like that,
but you can't be fully for sure.
We'll go into it a little bitlater when I start talking about
African forests and stuff likethat.
But the tropical rainforestthat you have in Southeast Asia
(18:55):
today, that are found in thearchipelago in Malaysia or
Melanesia, you would think themain quintessential tree that's
sort of known is the familyDictero Carpaceae, which is most
.
I don't know if many people knowabout it, but they're a very
important timber family.
(19:16):
They basically sort of causethe really great structures of
these forests.
They're these gigantic treesthat are.
You know, can be tens and tens,maybe hundreds of meters up in
the canopy.
What's interesting is theyoften lose their lower branches
so they have these nicecylindrical holes without much.
(19:39):
Quote unquote, I guess would beflaw for the timber industry.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So they're really cut down a lot.
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, so that's where some of those forests are sort
of being threatened, but alsobecause they often drop their
lower branches pretty quickly.
That's why you have probably inthe evolution, some of these
really amazing animals there.
That's why most forests havethings like flying, flying
snakes, which are not obviouslyflying with it, right, you know,
(20:11):
they're opening up their ribsand they're spreading out there
and they're moving.
They're basically slingingthemselves and gliding from
trees right trees, you know, youknow over, you know tens to a
hundred meters.
You know the same thing withthings like colugos and you know
flying squirrels and and draco,the, the, you know those flying
lizards, you know flyinglizards and stuff like flying,
(20:32):
yeah, and so that is what'sreally you know.
So plants are actually causingthem and they're the
quintessential family there.
They likely had their origin inaf and so basically, you know,
and it probably moved fromAfrica to the Indian
subcontinent.
The Indian subcontinent has thepericarpaceae and
diphtheroparps today as well,Not often found in sort of known
(20:56):
sort of things like saltforests and stuff like that, Not
necessarily like rainforests,or if there are some that are in
rainforests but they're notnecessarily the main majority,
but they're found in thesemonsoonal forests and stuff like
that in current India and thenthey sort of take off and become
these sort of rainforest treesin part of Asia.
So it's really unusual and thatyou know, we wouldn't know that
(21:16):
necessarily without paleobotany.
It's really cool and even today, you know, it's always
interesting.
You know the pool of the recentand the bias that that often
has.
You know, right, you knowpassword, even if it's modified,
it modifies slowly and so youknow.
But.
But I think what's interestingis when these discoveries are
(21:40):
made, like huh that's weird,yeah, and that's what's fun, I
think about this type ofresearch.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, and you discover, I don't know, this
incredible diversity of lifethat you know, in some ways
today is poorly understood to usand we don't, I don't know.
And then we get like ourconception of nature kind of
pigeonholed sometimes and likethis is what is is and this is
what's always been.
You know, we have this againincredible biodiversity over
(22:09):
time and species that come andgo and ebb and flow throughout
time.
And I think when people thinkabout what does like a
rainforest look like, what doesa prairie look like, it's like
okay, you mean, you know, and sowe have in the like
horticulture side of all this,we have this conversation, a lot
about native plants, like plant, a native plant plant, you know
(22:31):
, okay, how far back do you wantto go, like when we talk about
what's a native plant?
So, you know, in my mind I thinkabout what has close
co-evolutionary relationshipswith other species around, what
uh has had the sort of time toacclimate to a climate, to a set
of biodiversity, and then whatdoesn't like get out of control,
(22:52):
what's not invasive, thosekinds of things.
Is that something that y'alltalk about at all in sort of
these contexts?
Is like what is actuallysupposed to be there because I
asked?
Because you were talking about,like eucalyptus evolving and
sort of having its origins on acompletely different continent
than we think about and so like,where does that fit into this
conversation?
It's, it's hard because, again,it's, it's sort of what.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
What does it mean?
Um, I'll take an example ofsome of our work africa,
rainforest today and I'll saythat I really also my focus is
when I was working in Africa isI really wanted to work on
forest communities.
Okay, I think part of that isbecause growing up in Amarillo
(23:39):
and the trees are a rarity, Iwanted to see, you know, I
wanted to, you know, study those, you know, because I was always
excited about things like goingto Muir Woods or going to
seeing forests and stuff likethat.
They're fascinating.
I'm also a short guy.
That's a fun thing.
But if you look at African wetand moist tropical forests today
(24:03):
, and even in other habitats,the king and queen of all plant
families making the bodystructure is going to be the
legume family.
Okay, the peas, the beans, thatgroup, that's the.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Hmm, that's the and hands down.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Probably within those forests there is a subfamily of
clade called, and that one isalso basically the prominent one
that makes up the canopy trees.
That's the one that you havemost of the obviously African
forests are very diverse andthey've got a lot of other plant
species and families as well,but if you had to name one it
(24:47):
would be the Phabaceaelacuminosae.
Okay, yeah, the beans in thatgroup and within that group, the
deteriorates.
That subfamily had an amazingradiation and ecological
(25:10):
dominance of these forests andwe can find back in the work
that we're doing in Ethiopia.
We're finding that also backeven in the legacy and prior to
that, in fact I think even inthe EOC, dr Jacobs and their
team's work that they did atMahengi, which is a Amara lake
(25:31):
around sort of, and they evenfight leggings back then.
So you know, basically sort ofmaking up at least three or four
or more species known at thatone place.
It's pretty fascinating.
But what's weird is within thosefamilies, even if we know back
that far, and they stilldominate today and they
dominated back then some of theplayers are different.
(25:53):
So in Ethiopia we have a sitecalled Mush, which is from about
21.73 million years ago, soit's in the early maya soon.
Okay, this is a time periodwhen, early on, in sort of ape
and like older monkey, evolutionstuff like that as well.
(26:15):
Um, in ethiopia today, in thedeteriority, there's only a
single species and genus, uh,the tamarin.
Oh, yes, that exists there andagain, we don't even know
necessarily if that was anatural or a pseudoclanic plant,
but that's the only one thatexists there today.
Back in that time period thereis a whole number of genera that
(26:38):
don't exist in Ethiopia todaythat are there but do occur in
Africa now in forests.
So, there's a genus calledAnglerodendron, there's a genus
called Anglerodendron, there's agenus called Anthemotha,
there's a genus called Newtonia.
That are all found at mush wayback then.
Well, what's weird is, and thatforest is actually dominated by
a genus called Anglerodendron,which you know it has a handful
(27:06):
of it has I don't know thenumber I'm going to.
I know it has more than, uh,eight, less than 20 species,
okay, and so what's weird?
is that most of them are all nowfound in the guineo-congolian
base.
You know I found in.
You know the forest in thecongo basin they're found in
some of those forests in WestAfrica, and then things like
(27:28):
Cameroon and Gabon, except forone species that occurs in the
Usambaras part of the Easternarcs of Tanzania.
Huh, so that's weird, yeah, andso you're like, so was that?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
you know, so had you not found it at mush, you would
say oh well, maybe what happened?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
was it just this, this, what, what pan-african
forest, or something like?
that so basically this onelittle lone one that's in
tanzania.
You know, during the ice ageprobably you've got isolated.
Well, we don't necessarily knowthat now, because now if you
have england dundra that wasfound in ethiopia way back in 21
million years ago, right as thedominant it's basically the
dominant tree that occurs there.
You know what was going on withthat gene.
(28:08):
So does that mean that moreconservation work needs to be
done to protect right this genus, because it did have such a
much more importancepsychologically even back then?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
that's really interesting.
So it's hard to know, right,it's hard to know in some cases
because we're looking at itthrough the lens of history,
right, like through biologicalhistory of you know, what was
here, what wasn't.
So an example that pops into mymind and we're talking on a
much smaller time scale here Iwas out at the Lubbock Lake,
landmark, which I think is partof your unit.
(28:40):
Is that correct?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So for those that don't know,we have a.
There's a native spring outthere.
It was an old lake.
The headwaters of the yellowhouse straw that leads the
brazos heads to the gulf ofmexico, right, yeah, um, but
there's a paleontological siteas well, so there's, like,
mastodon or mammoth bones thereyeah, and basically it there it
stands, there's been, uh, itgoes back from to the ice age,
(29:05):
all the way up to historicaltimes.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So basically, and you basically had human occupation
there for thousands andthousands of years, that you
have evidence of Right it'sfantastic too.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, so I was out there one day and I think Scott
I believe out there, scott, itdoesn't matter was giving me a
tour and like just driving mearound and it's really cool.
And you know, there's thisconception of a specific plant,
the mesquite tree that I thinkpeople around here think showed
up with cattle drives you knowfive, six hundred years ago,
(29:38):
drives you know five, sixhundred years ago.
But he was saying, no, we'vehad digs out here where we find,
um, you know, charred rootremains or that are five, six,
ten thousand years old.
So when we talk about what's anative species and where does it
live in, I think the the timeelement of this is so
interesting when we think aboutclimate, when we think about how
things change over time yeah,it's really fascinating.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And again, I think there's just like everything,
you have to be careful, you haveto study answers.
So I mean, what's interestingis so, and again, I'm a big
proponent of native bees and Ireally love, and I used to study
, native bees as well.
But what's interesting is, youknow, and again, honeybees, the
ones, the species here that'snow you know, is not native,
(30:20):
right, but if you go back five,seven million years ago, there's
this fossil from Nevada of anapis.
Huh, so apis was in NorthAmerica just way back then.
Now it went extinct at somepoint, for we don't know the
reason, and so that's, I mean,it's fascinating in that regard.
(30:41):
So I guess what would be bestto note is that, like, obviously
everything's changing, right,and so what we sort of think is,
you know, it's always beenthere or it's not the case.
I mean, you could do the samething with, uh, lots of things
(31:03):
like the dominant sharks thatexist today right in the oceans
are, uh, the carcharina form.
These, which are the requiemsharks you know, things like
white tips and uh, bull sharksand and that those are sort of
less specious and they sort oflike are very ecologically
important.
You know, before them it wasthe lamina forms and like.
(31:25):
So lamina forms are there arenot as many today, although
there's sort of the charismaticones as well.
So those are things likethresher sharks, okay, and uh,
great whites, okay, makacos, andthey were dominant, you know,
during, like the Cretaceous andbefore.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
So it's interesting that you know again.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
so what?
Like the group that's dominantnow in many cases is often like
the up and coming.
You know the new, you know thenew Right.
Yeah, and some of thesereligious things were the
ecological dominance in the past, which is interesting.
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So I have a question and you know, feel free to tell
me if this is sort of out ofyour field of study, but this
leads to a question in my mindand I think it's maybe part of
all this.
So when we think about, youknow, observing things like
climate change, when we look atthe way that species are
progressing or regressing, likeif we're losing and I don't mean
evolutionarily, I mean likepopulation wise, right, like you
(32:26):
know, we're seeing species dieoff and insects and all kinds of
things what can studying likepaleobotany and old plant
systems tell us about, liketoday and maybe our future?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
so I I think, well, I'll first, uh, preface that I
you know some of this.
I'll probably be stepping outsome of this.
I do think what is importantfrom understanding deep time is
how and I was not a cop, butlike how unique and amazing
(32:59):
these lineages are.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And so, and what a travesty would be for like these
things to go away afterexisting for so long and it's
basically being able to peerinto deep time.
You know it's, it's, it's.
It would be a shame.
I would think also that in someof these lineages you know, yes
, some of these lineages, youknow, yes, some of these
(33:24):
lineages with climate change aregoing to be winners and some of
these are being losers.
It would be a big shame for us,as humans, to be the ones to
determine who are these winnersand who are these losers, doing
it haphazardly and, in manycases, not even understanding
the truth of what you lost orwhat this treasure was, and so
(33:45):
that's sort of a huge, I thinkwith it's hard today, with
things like habit of destructionand stuff like that, I don't
think we really know what ourfull magnitude is in terms of
what we're going to be doingyeah, Cause again the planets.
(34:07):
The planets fairly hardy and youcan take a lot of punches and
get up, but we're doing a wholelot of punching right now.
That's really and that's not anot a good.
So it's um, these, theseforests that hold so much
biodiversity, you know part, youknow part of the arguments are
well, you know they may bebeneficial to humans because
(34:30):
they may have species that havechemicals and stuff that help
with fight disease.
Or they have you know, or youdisease, or they have you know,
or you know there's somegenetics that can be helped in,
in, in, in, in these ways, whichI understand.
That.
But I think you also want topreserve the answer, maybe the
museum person.
Just because they exist,they're fascinating, they're,
(34:50):
you know, they're beautiful intheir own right.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So so there's that too.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, no, that's interesting, I think, and I
think that's a good answer thatyou know it gives us some
context, but also, yeah, what ashame it would be.
What a shame it would be.
And you know you brought up thenew museum part and I think
that's actually a good segue.
Let's take a quick break.
When we come back let's talkabout the Tech Museum and what
you all do here, some of thespecies you have represented
here and some of, I guess, theoutreach and educational efforts
(35:18):
you do.
Well, hello there, welcome tothe Midroll.
Thanks for sticking with methrough the first half of this
episode.
I again could talk aboutdinosaurs, paleontology and
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(35:59):
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That is a wonderful thing and,but again, mostly just thanks
(37:05):
for listening, Thanks for beinga part of all of this for the
past nearly six years, which isjust crazy.
We're going to have to dosomething big in November for
the six year anniversary of theshow.
More on that later, but for now, let's get back into this
conversation with Dr Aaron Panand let's talk a little bit
about palm trees and a lot a bitabout museums.
You mentioned over the breakthat you actually did some work
on palms as well and before weget into the museum stuff, I
(37:27):
think like that sounds reallyinteresting, so I'd love to hear
more about that.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So what's cool?
There's a site that we have inEthiopia from the late Oligocene
.
Basically it's about 27 millionyears ago in Ethiopia.
What's really cool aboutEthiopia and Africa back then?
Africa at that point is anisland continent.
(37:52):
It's actually calledAfro-Arabia because the Arabian
Peninsula is part of that.
That point is sort of a littlebit isolated.
It's rafting and about tocollide with Eurasia, mm-hmm.
And that is about to happen.
And what will happen at thatpoint is you have a big shift of
the fauna that was on thecontinent of Afro-Arabia will
(38:13):
meet the fauna that is inEurasia.
The continent of Afro-Arabiawill meet the fauna that is in
Eurasia.
When you think about today,when you think about Africa,
what?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
do you think about what kind of animals do?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
you think would happen here.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I mean zebras and giraffes and lions and those
kinds of things, Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Everything you just named is of Eurasian origin.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Really.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, gazelles, gazelles.
Yeah, you know antelopes, youknow hippos, all the big cats.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You know mer-cats, you know all of these things.
Yeah, giraffes, all of thoseare Eurasian in order.
Huh, so what you had back.
Then you have weird stuff thatbelongs to a group called
Apotheria, so things likehyraxes, elephant shrews, things
like golden moles andproboscideans, so elephants and
(39:07):
then you also have probablycoming from Eurasia as well,
although they came much earlierthan whenever these two
continent, these two big, largemasses, crash together, things
like primates, and so you haveand because they fly, bats are
also known from the Sure andactually they're known from
hanging.
But what does that mean interms of you have these big
(39:29):
faunal transitions?
What does that mean in terms ofthe changes in herbivores or
plant dispersal things and stufflike that?
And so it's really cool to sortof see what does a forest look
like in Africa right before thisbig transition.
And what's cool is this placeis called Chilga, which you said
(39:51):
.
It's these overbanked depositsof the Red River, so it's a.
It's probably forested aroundthere as well, but we're
basically sampling this forestthat's along this river and it
has those beans I mentionedearlier.
There's several species.
There's several genuine speciesof that.
There is the, a plant calledCola, which actually Coca-Cola
(40:12):
got a name from.
Oh, so Cola is, yeah, cola fromCola nuts.
Cola is an endemic genus thatis in the uh, related to
hibiscus and uh um and thechocolate family, and you know
chocolate.
That's interesting, okay and andso it, it's there, it's a
rainforest, it's a rainforestgenus mainly found in forests,
so it's it's there.
They don't occur in ethiopiatoday, which is also cool.
(40:34):
But what we really found, whichis really fascinating, is we
found lots and lots of palms,okay, which you're like okay,
okay, well, duh.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
It's a tropical.
It's such a new home.
What is a?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
quintessential thing you think of when you think of,
you know, tropics, if you'rethinking of vegetation, yeah,
like coconuts or coconut palms,palm trees and date palms.
Sitting on a beautiful beachwith palm trees swinging, you
know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And so, what's weird though, africa today is not
known for palms there are palmsthere?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
There's less than 70 species.
Okay, if you go to, whichsounds like a lot 70 species,
that's a lot right, yeah, butyou know we're talking about the
second largest continent in theworld Sure, so Singapore has
more species of palms than thewhole entire continent of.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Africa.
There are a thousand speciesthat occur in Southeast Asia and
you have over 500 speciesprobably in the New World
tropics.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
So, why?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Why is Africa weird?
And we actually come back tothis a lot.
Africa is sort of known as theodd man out, because it always
seems to be different than theseother regions, and so it's
fascinating that we found these.
We found lots of palms, wefound things called African
rattan, so basically theseclimbing palms that have spines
on them and they climb into thecanopy and things like that.
(42:03):
We have a genus called Hyphene,which is a fan palm.
It's really cool because theyoften bifurcate.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Oh, interesting Most palms.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
You think of just one single trunk right.
Yeah, but this one bifurcates,so they can often bifurcate and
then bifurcate again.
Weird, okay, so it's weird.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Okay, they're often weird.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
And then there is, uh , later on there's a
splerosperma, which is thisweird palm, that is a that is a
specialist in swampyenvironments, and so they sort
of grow, and you know, they growand they sort of form these
little columns and stuff likethat in swampy soils.
So we found, and they're alltogether, which is really weird
(42:47):
because you don't have thatreally much today in Africa, and
so do we know exactly why?
No, but there are some ideasthat maybe this transition,
because what happens in later,legacy to the Miocene, you
basically move from thepaleogene to the neogene and
(43:08):
right around that time you havethis collision of Eurasia with
Afro-Arabia, and so a lot ofthese palms did a lot of these
palms did the endemic fauna backthen were they the main plant
dispersers and stuff like that.
And then, when it's new andwhen the new kids arrive, you
know they saw these weird palmsyeah yeah, and they just, and
(43:31):
that dispersal may not have beenas well, and so like that.
Or was it climate change, or isit both?
It the nice, the interestingthing about biological systems,
as you know yeah, is that?
It's often one explanation.
There might be one primaryexplanation but it doesn't
necessarily mean that's the onlyexplanation, but it's really
weird that we find this forestthat has a lot of palms in it
(43:53):
way back then and what'sinteresting mush, the one that I
told you about earlier.
I think there's one palm there,solaris vermus, still exists,
but we don't see things likethese climbing rattan, you don't
see high feeding.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Some of these other stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
And that's only a in Geolodic time.
That's a short period.
Six million years of difference.
I was in 20 years between myfriends, so you know what's
going on.
So that's it's kind of weird,but at that point, 21 million
years ago, that land of bridgeswould form.
It's kind of weird, but at thatpoint, 21 million years ago,
that land of bridges would form,yeah, the Arabian Peninsula is
(44:29):
connected to Eurasia and thingsare going through.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting.
And you just think about thatmakes me think one of the
explanations or potentialexplanations you gave, of you
introduce a new species and theydon't know what to do with it.
They're like what's this big,weird fruit?
Like you know, what do I dowith this?
And you know, I guess we seethat in modern species too.
I think about cane toads a lot,where they're like we're going
(44:52):
to introduce these to eat thecane moth and you put them there
and they're like cane moths areterrible, I'm gonna eat
everything else.
And and so, like you know, thatis a human intervention in
species spread and speciesdiversity change.
But it's really interesting tothink about this being, in a lot
of ways, historically a naturalprocess to write two continents
that slam into each other andthat's going to, you know
(45:15):
stuff's going to happen, stuff'sgoing to happen, yeah, yeah,
and it's going to be, it's goingto be, it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
It'll be fascinating for one, right?
But again, there will bewinners, there will be losers,
and then there will beinteresting things where there's
sort of a mixture betweenthings.
So this world of biodiversityis amazing and basically the
biological process is happeningvery, very fast.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
It's really really incredible and I think actually
that is.
That is another good segue intothe museum world and the
preservation of species and theeducation about it.
So talk a little bit about thetech museum Like this is and if
for those of y'all out there Iknow we've got listeners all
over the world, but you know ifyou've never been here, this is
a beautiful museum, like Ireally enjoy this space.
So tell us a little bit aboutit.
(46:02):
What kind of stuff do you alldo here?
What kinds of collections, etcetera.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, so the Museum of Texas Tech University is a
large museum.
It's a little over 200,000square feet and not including
the Olympic Lake Landmark, whichis also part of it.
It includes the Natural ScienceResearch Laboratory.
It has six main collectionresearch divisions, that is,
anthropology, art, clothing andtextiles, history, natural
(46:29):
sciences and paleontology.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Okay, so those are the main areas.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
And within that, we have 9.5 million specimens and
pieces of artwork and collectionitems.
So that's large For Texasitself.
We are the largest naturalhistory museum in collection
size and, all due respect to ourwonderful friends at Panhandle
(46:55):
Plains Museum, I think weactually have the largest museum
footprint-wise as well, and sothat's really incredible.
We have an amazing staff.
That again because of that manyquestions, because you have
both the sciences and thehumanities- there's sort of
something for every, for everyvisitor there's there should be
something for everybody yeah,you know again, even if and I
(47:20):
don't know why it would be thecase, but even if dinos weren't
your thing.
You can see some of our amazingart collection and be taken away
.
If the Ice Age Gallery is notnecessarily a thing, you will be
fascinated by the amazing youknow textile collection we have
(47:42):
and you know things like that.
And the amazing thing too isthat again, our curators and the
collections team, they aredoing fascinating work in
research, they're doingfascinating work in their
programming.
You know, besides those sixcollecting divisions, we also
have an exhibits division, wehave an education division, and
(48:07):
so there's a planetarium soagain, it's really an amazing
museum.
It's free to the public, by theway, so I should also mention
that too, so that's alsosomething to say as well.
And again, while our focus isoften because it is a museum of
Texas Tech University, it's nota museum about Texas Tech
University, right, texas Tech,so I mean.
(48:30):
What it is, though, is there isa heavy emphasis, obviously,
because of where we'regeographically located.
Again, we often do have a highpresence of question items that
are focused on the greatersouthwest, so that includes, you
know, western North America,including Mexico, and even
extending into Central America,okay, the Natural Science
(48:51):
Research Laboratory, thoughactually is a global perspective
and, so that you know, includesbats from Nigeria.
That includes material fromIndonesia.
That includes radioactivespecimens Indonesia.
That includes radioactivespecimens from Chernobyl we have
the other piece of out of youis that we have items that are
(49:15):
from similar climates for othercollections as well.
So, besides just GreaterSouthwest sort of being our
focus and Lubbock area,semi-arid and arid environments,
have material from Central Asia, things like that, yeah, and so
, um, no, we are a resource forthe community.
(49:36):
We're a resource for researchers, you know, here and around the
world.
Uh, we are always one, you know, here and around the world, we
are always one.
You know.
People come in and see ouramazing things and then also,
you know, we have some reallygreat programming that's without
reaching engagement.
So we do a lot of things thatwe're excited about it.
(49:57):
Right now, if you walk throughthe museum, you will see an
exhibit on quilts from the 1700sto the early 1900s.
You will see a temporaryexhibit on two-stroke Yamaha
motorcycles from the 1960sthrough the 1980s.
(50:18):
See, that's so cool.
Yamaha cycles from the 1960sthrough the 1980s.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
See, that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
We have an exhibit right now celebrating the 20th
anniversary of the Sokka Juwiadollar Interesting.
And then I love its place in itbecause Glenna Goodacre, who
was the artist for the image ofSokka, the author's image of
Sokka Juwia and her son JohnBaptiste on the back of it.
(50:45):
So there's already a piece ofthat too, and we have our
permanent galleries, again withour amazing art, and then our
galleries on paleontology,because we actually go back from
right around when we're reallylucky in this area.
We actually are from a timeperiod where we actually do
collect stuff that's from theage of dinosaurs.
(51:05):
A lot of what we're doing,though, environmentally.
There's more wetlands andthere's not as much of the
dinosaur.
We have really cool membersthat are related to crocodilians
, to basically giant amphibians.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
That would have been the most terrifying
salamander-looking thing youwould have been like the most
terrifying salamander lookingthing you would have ever seen
in the world.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Um, you know, um, we have a post-sucas, which was a
uh large terrestrial predatorthat was, uh, that actually ate
little dinosaurs during time.
It's one of those ones thatthey actually show on.
I think that very that whenwalking with dinosaurs, that
were proven.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Yeah yeah yeah and so , uh, no, it's a really great
museum and so cool, so your yourbig exhibit that's right out
here um the the three dinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
There's what a pterosaur yeah, there's, yeah,
quetzalcoatlus quetzalcoatlus,okay, and there is, uh, uh,
triceratops, and then there's aTyrannosaurus.
Okay, so that one.
Again, that's much more a Texastype of thing, uh-huh, and that
material is known from Texas,although it's from far west
Texas and it's sort of the BigBend area.
(52:12):
The stuff that's more locallyknown is from the Triassic
period, okay, and that's thestart of the age of dinosaurs
and age of man and actuallystarted the mammals to.
Both sort of dinosaurs andmammals were sort of show up
around the same time, okay, yeahthat's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
So I have to ask there recently, and I don't know
if y'all are involved in thisat all, but they, you know
they're digging a highway southof town and they had to stop a
dig because they found bonesfrom, yeah, a sloth or a giant
brown sloth.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
And so they're yeah, so yeah, no, our anthropology
division is doing some amazingwork with Tegstot and so they're
working with them and actuallythat material's here, oh cool,
yeah, so it's pretty impressive.
As I said, I think you know, interms of natural history
collections I think I ran thenumbers, because you know I try
to run the numbers I think we'renumber 19 in the country for
(53:06):
the size of the collection.
Oh very cool For natural historyand so that is you know and
that's with.
You know the Smithsonian numberone Right Museum of Natural
History, number two, rightBishop.
You know these other museums.
So we are quite large and wealways welcome people to come
(53:27):
see what we do here and enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Very cool.
So what's on the?
You know this may be sort ofjust speculative, but like
what's on the horizon for themuseum, like what new things are
coming up.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, so a big thing we're doing is we are under the
Office of the Provost and we'reunder an area called Outreach
and Engagement.
It also includes the NationalRanching Heritage Center.
That includes Junction down incentral Texas.
That includes the Texas TechPress.
It includes the Osher LifelongLearning Center.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
But yeah, a big, heavy piece is we're growing our
programming and so that'll bebig, and so in terms of
community engagement and thosetype of programs, so that's a
big heavy emphasis that we'll bedoing.
We are again still pursuingresearch in these areas.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
And so we're excited about that.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
And then we have some really great exhibits coming up
.
Well, not that we have, wealready have some really great
exhibits coming up.
Not that we haven't we alreadyhave some really great exhibits
Right, right, right.
Everybody.
Please come see our exhibitsnow, including the new Yamaha
one.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
We never had a motorcycle one which is kind of
cool, but we have one on guitars.
In the fall, we will be havingthe exhibit Dressing the Abbey,
which will actually be bringingin uh, over 30, uh wardrobe
pieces from the Downton Avenue.
Oh, interesting, a series willactually will be here, and so
(54:50):
that, and actually those wereactually ones that were in the
series, so not yet, and so that,so we're talking about that
will be here in late Januarythrough April of 26.
And so, uh, there's always goodstuff.
Uh, we have art on, uh, and Idon't know when this will will
run.
Art on the honor will be, Ithink, uh, next week, and stuff
like that.
Oh, okay, yeah so um no,there's always something here at
(55:11):
the museum and so very cool.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Very cool.
Well, I appreciate it.
That half I mean like, and I'velearned a lot.
I'm always interested,interested and I get nerdy about
this stuff and like again, Iprobably have 100 more questions
and I'd love to have you backon sometime to maybe pick one of
the topics and do a little bitmore of a deep dive.
But a couple of things I alwaysask my guests, just in general.
(55:35):
You know you've had a diversecareer but you've kind of done a
lot of cool things.
If you had a piece of advicefor our listeners, do?
We have a lot of students thatlisten?
We have people in the sciences,across the sciences, like,
whether it's career wise or justlife wise, like what would you
want someone to take home withthem?
That's hard.
Yeah, I know, I know I didn'twarn you either.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I think I'm gonna say three things.
Oh sure Cause, uh, I think I'mgonna say three things, oh sure
Cause I, cause I can't, whichmay be saying something too.
So one, I think, is you need totry and find a little joy every
day, no matter what, even ifit's a hard day, something like
that.
You need to find some joy, youknow, and, and whether that is,
(56:20):
you know, getting a good snackor meal or something like that
during the day, if it is takinga little time at the end of the
day to you know, to read afavorite novel or book or
something like that, or, youknow, even, you know, call up a
friend, or something like that,I think that's important, okay,
because I think that's the thingwhere, you know, I think
everybody's so stressed now.
You've got to really dosomething like that to sort of
(56:40):
yeah, yeah, you've got to reallydo something like that, to sort
of yeah, yeah, to sort of helpthat.
I would say that.
And you know, I think we'reboth biased in this because
we're, you know, we both, likeyou know biology and stuff like
that.
I think you know going outsideand observing and just walking
in nature, and it doesn'tnecessarily have to be like, you
know, an unadulterated forestor a stream or something like
(57:03):
that.
It can just be, you know,walking outside and walking to a
park or something like that andjust observing stuff like that.
I think that's a key piece aswell, because it moves you to
observe things and you knowthings that you wouldn't expect
before.
Yeah, you know, there's theselittle micro activities that are
occurring all over the place,which is fascinating.
I think that's good for peopleto know.
And third I would say islifelong learning.
(57:26):
Key is lifelong learningBecause, again, it is just like
the muscles If you're not usingthem, it atrophies.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
If you're not using your brain, it atrophies.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
So learn something new.
Every you know.
You know often and persistently, and so, um, I'm hoping that,
no matter what I'm always goingto, you know, try and learn new
stuff and again, and then youknow learning is is easy when
it's like it's something youreally like or something like
that.
Yeah, you know learning otherstuff, you know when it's
(58:00):
something you really like orsomething like that.
Yeah, you know learning otherstuff.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
You know, because of the challenges and stuff like
that, you know what I mean.
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
Yeah, so I think that those are all sort of key
pieces.
Um, I don't know.
It works for me yeah.
You know, others will haveother, you know someone who are
probably more, who have betteradvice than that.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
No, I think that's great advice.
I really do, and you know I wehave better advice than that.
No, I think that's great advice, I really do, and you know I
think that those are things thatI find valuable as well, you
know.
And so, no, that's great.
Where can we find you?
And or the museum, Like ifpeople want to learn more about
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (58:34):
Oh, absolutely so we have.
So there's a website, obviouslyfor the museum that they can go
to.
You know there is we're on 4thstreet in Lubbock, texas, and on
the website it actually has ourcontact information so you can
get a hold of me by email orphone if necessary, things like
that.
And so yeah, and we're always,you know, we're always open for
(58:57):
you know, to help.
Again, the other thing too iswe've got a lot of experts on
staff.
So, again, things like ifpeople find plants or bugs, or
you know rocks or fossils, oryou know, or they have you know,
amazing, obviously they want tokind of find out about.
You know we're there to help.
If we can't provide it, we doknow.
(59:19):
If we can't necessarily providedirectly, we will.
We know that.
We know who you may be able tocontact.
Ok so that's always a thing too.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
But yeah, very cool, very cool.
Well, thanks for having me outAgain.
I was, I like any excuse tocome over here.
I don't get over here as muchas I should.
I need to bring my son out heresoon again.
It's been.
It's been a couple of years.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think we need to get him outof the house this summer, so
it'll be good to bring him uphere.
But thanks again for your time.
We'll have to have you back onsometime and talk a little bit
(59:49):
more about some of thepaleobotany stuff, but I really
appreciate it.
It was a lot of fun.
Thanks, man.
Can I just say at the end ofthis that I love the phrase and
the concept of deep time and thelong time scale of our planet
and of our world and of ournature and all the things we can
learn from deep time and learnfrom people like Aaron.
(01:00:11):
So, aaron, thanks so much forbeing on.
I cannot overstate how much Ienjoyed that conversation, how
much fun it was, and we're goingto have to have you back on
soon.
And thanks to you, the listener, for putting this in your ears
for 120 plus episodes and nearlysix years for some of you.
There are a lot of you thathave been with me from the very
beginning and I cannot tell youhow crazy that is to me and how
(01:00:33):
much it means to me.
I love you all dearly and I'mjust so grateful that you're
here.
So Planthropology is written,produced, directed whatever
other things go into a podcastby yours truly, vikram Baliga.
The intro music and outro musicis by the award-winning
composer, nick Scout.
Our mid-roll music is Yarrow bymy buddy, rui and his lo-fi dad
(01:00:57):
beats, which you shoulddefinitely go check both of them
out.
They're fantastic people.
I didn't mention this at thetop of the episode, but this is
actually the last episode forthe first half of this season.
I think I mentioned earlier inthe year that I'm starting to go
with a seasonal sort ofapproach to the show and I'm
just taking a planned summerbreak and this episode came out
a little bit later than I wanted, but I'm going to take most of
July off and probably at leasthalf of August.
(01:01:18):
So look for a new episodearound August 21st 2025.
If you're listening to this asit comes out, if you're
listening to this in the distantfuture, you can probably just
push next and listen to that,but I may release some bonus
content.
Follow on the socials for morestuff, but new episodes will be
out in August and I hope to seeyou then.
So thanks for everything.
(01:01:39):
Be kind to one another.
If you have not, to date, beenkind to one another, give that a
try.
My goodness, do we need thatright now?
Just just some basic humankindness.
So give that a shot.
Keep being kind, keep beingsafe and keep being very cool.
Plant people and I will talk toyou real soon.
Thank you.
What is up?
Plant people it's time oncemore for the Plantthropology
podcast, the show where we diveinto the lives and careers of
some very cool plant people tofigure out why they do what they
do and what keeps them comingback for more.
I'm Vikram Baliga, your hostand your humble guide in this
journey through the greensciences and, as always, my
friends.
I am so darn excited to be withyou today.
I got to go to a museum forthis episode.
(00:21):
Do you know how excited thatmakes me?
Do you know how much I lovemuseums?
So this episode is with Dr AaronPan, who's a friend and the
executive director of the Museumof Texas Tech University.
He's done a lot of things inthe museum world, from curator
to executive director at acouple of different places, but
by training.
Aaron is a paleobotanist, whichmeans that he studies really
(00:43):
old plants, but he also studiesevolutionary biology and
paleontology and all kinds ofsuper cool things.
This was a fascinatingconversation and, honestly, I
could have talked to Aaron foranother several hours and I
might make him come back in thefuture and we can listen to him
talk for several hours.
We talked about everything fromthe history of plants on
different continents and howthey move from continent to
(01:04):
continent.
We talked about evolutionarybiology and what we can learn
from the past about our future.
We talked about palm trees.
We talked about museumcollections and museum life and
how important museums are in oursociety and in our lives and in
our culture, and it was just somuch fun.
Aaron's a great guy, brilliantscientist and a wonderful
director at this museum, so Idon't want to belabor this too
(01:26):
much.
I want you to really like diveinto this episode.
So just, I'm excited you'rewith me and I'm excited I
finally got to sit down withAaron, and the more times I can
go to museums to do stuff, I'mgoing to do that.
So grab your tiny little brushor toothbrush or an electric
toothbrush and your pick and alittle scraper and a magnifying
glass and whatever else it takesto find old plants and
(01:48):
dinosaurs and settle in forepisode 121 of the
Plantthropology Podcast with DrAaron Pan.
Hey, it's actually futureediting Vikram and not past
(02:21):
talking to Aaron Vikram.
Yet Sorry about that.
I know the other guys betterListen.
I had forgotten that.
I had just gotten over a coldwhen I recorded with Aaron, so
there's some weird audio stuff.
We had some room mic issues aswell too, and it sounds pretty
good, everything's good.
I just I have to apologize thatthere's a couple of times in
this episode that you can hearme trying very hard to survive,
(02:46):
like and breathe, and I'm sorry.
Anyway, getting into the episodeRecording, okay.
Well, aaron, thanks so much forletting me invade your office
and set up all my stuff.
I realize, as I'm unloading thecar, that like there's no way
to do this in travel light.
Yeah, you've got a lot of stuffLike I always mean to like.
(03:06):
Oh, I'm just gonna take a fewthings and it's just sort of
evolved over time.
But I appreciate your time thismorning.
I'm excited to talk about, Imean, everything paleobotany,
the museum and everything else.
But, just starting off, whydon't you introduce yourself a
little bit?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Tell us where you went to school what you studied
and kind of how you got to whereyou are.
Okay, yeah, my name is uh aaronpan.
Uh, I am now the uh executivedirector of the museum at texas
tech university, um, andbasically I've been really
interested and I guess mytechnically, my research is
(03:39):
mainly focused in, uh,paleontology, paleobotany
specifically.
But I'd rather sort of callmyself a naturalist because I
don't know if I can't fullyfocus on one thing at one time
or not, but we do a lot of.
I actually sort of do researchon other things as well, or,
more likely, I have some verykind colleagues who let me
(04:01):
insert myself into asking weirdquestions and then pursuing it,
and they helped me along withthat too.
So that includes things likenative bees, velvet ants,
abalone, systematics, sort of itruns the gamut.
But my first research love ispaleobotany and it sort of
(04:22):
started, went actually K through12, amarillo, amarillo
Independent School District.
I went to, you know, elementaryschool, middle school, amarillo
High for high school and then Iwent off to University of
California, santa Barbara,because I thought at that point
that I was going to do marinebiology and I was going to
(04:45):
wanting to study whale evolution.
So that was my first and so ityou know it's not OK.
Well, I'll head for the coastto do that.
It doesn't hurt that.
You see, santa Barbara's campusis gorgeous.
It has a lagoon, it has a, ithas a beach, it has, you know,
and the dorms are right on the,on the marine terrace.
Yeah, it's absolutely stunning.
(05:05):
So not that Texas Tech isn'tbeautiful as well, but the ocean
views are a little to bewanting.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, we have like all beach and no ocean, like
endless sand, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
If we were here during the Cretaceous, we'd be
good Sure yeah, so that'd begood.
But I went there for undergrad.
Sure yeah, so that would begood, but I went there for
undergrad.
What's interesting is, if yougo in biology at UC Santa
Barbara to sort of weed outthose who quote, unquote can't
cut it.
You don't get to take a singlebiology course your first year
as a biology major.
You have to take chemistry, andif you can do that then okay.
(05:44):
Now it's software, you canstart doing it.
So what I did was um, and Ireally wanted to learn about
organisms still in that time.
So I actually became part ofthe college of creative studies
at uc santa barbara, which is aninteresting program where it's
for those who know that theywant to graduate school after
they graduate, and so what?
You actually get partnered witha counselor, mentor, professor
(06:09):
who basically sort of determineswhat your schedule of classes
will be.
So it means that you canleapfrog.
So it means that you may notnecessarily have to take a
preliminary course before youtake the course you want.
You can actually start takingupper division courses.
You can start taking graduatecourses your freshman year, and
so I got to do that.
So what was nice about that wasthat they let me take geology
(06:31):
and paleontology courses myfirst year, and so that's where
I really started to enjoylearning.
And the professor who was mymentor, dr Bruce Tiffany, who's
a very well-renownedpaleobotanist, you know,
basically, you know he made itso exciting that basically
(06:52):
that's, I sort of fell in lovewith, with paleobotany at that
point.
Ok, and so so after I graduatedfrom there, I really thought,
hey, I want to graduate school,I want to do work in paleobotany
, but I would really like towork in the tropics.
So I'd love to work in theNeotropics, whether it was
Southeast Asia and Malaysia orif it was in Sub-Saharan Africa.
(07:16):
I'd really like to do that.
And so I applied to schools andan amazing professor, dr Bonnie
Jacobs, at SMU, you know,offered me, you know, thought I
could be her graduate student atSMU and she worked in and she
was very well known for workingin sub-Saharan Africa.
(07:37):
She had been working in Kenya.
She lived in Kenya briefly.
She worked Tanzania.
She lived in Kenya briefly, sheworked Tanzania, and she was
very so she knew Africa was herplace to study.
So I was very excited to workwith her and so I moved there in
2002 and then went to graduateschool, got my PhD in 2007, was
(08:01):
there briefly for a postdoc andthen my first position was as
curator of science at the FortWorth Museum of Science and
History.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
That's pretty cool, that's a great museum.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah, it is.
What was nice about that one isthat it is a multidisciplinary
one as well.
It's got the science partobviously in the name, and it's
got the humanities part beingthe history part, so that was
really cool as well.
That's awesome, and then fromthere I also fell in love with
museums.
So that's sort of how itstarted, both how research and
(08:34):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, so, and then I saw you were also, I guess, the
director at the Don Harringtonfor a while as well, so you went
home, I guess, back to Amarillo.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I went home one because I, you know I really
enjoyed the Horace Museum ofScience and History, but I
wanted to try some and grow inadministration and things like
that.
And the Discovery Center was agreat opportunity, one that was
also one of the places thatactually got me excited about
science in the first place.
So that's kind of cool to so asa little kid, that sort of gets
(09:06):
to spark you and then you getto put your name on it and put a
little bit of impression onthere.
So, yeah, I was there for eightyears and then I had the
opportunity to apply here and Icouldn't pass that up because I
miss doing academia.
I missed the resources andstuff that are available for an
(09:29):
institution like this.
And Texas Tech University isamazing and this museum was
amazing that it had againmultidisciplinary.
So my scattered brain lovesthat it's not just one
discipline that we have a goodexpertise in, but there's
multiple ones.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You know.
It's interesting to hear you saythat we'll talk a little bit
more about the tech museum, uh,sort of in the back half of this
episode.
But so I grew up here in lubbockmy wife and I actually both did
, and we grew up going to thescience spectrum here in town.
And so my wife, in herundergrad, alana, did wildlife
science.
So she wildlife and fisheries,but she focused more on
(10:08):
collections and ecology, and sothen she was the education
director at the science spectrumfor quite a while.
She worked there for 12 years,did everything from, like, the
front desk to the animal room toa little bit of everything.
Spent the last I think five orsix years as the education
director and um or educationcoordinator I don't know how, I
(10:30):
don't know how they title them,but um works there part-time,
sort of as a consultant now.
But yeah, she's tells the samestory that like as a kid, like
she knew going there and fallingin love with science there,
that that's something she wantedto do.
It was like her dream job fromthe time she was a kid and then
got to do it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
It sounds like you kind of had a very similar
experience yeah, and that'swhat's incredibly lucky, because
usually you know, you know howmany times you actually get to
sort of pursue.
You know, actually you knowmake a living from, you know
stuff that you were reallyinterested in when you were
little and and you know, yeah,so it's, it's fantastic, that
great.
I'm glad she did as well.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So yeah, so she spent she spent a lot of time in
museum world, so that wasanother reason I was excited to
come do this, because, like,getting another perspective on
it is really, really interestingto me.
Um, but let's talk a little bitmore, I guess, here up front
about the actual subject matter.
You studied paleobotany becausethis is so fascinating to me
and I know about this much aboutit, so I'm excited to learn a
(11:26):
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
yeah, so, yeah, so paleobotany is the uh study of,
uh prehistoric plants, okay, andum, basically it runs from the
origin all the way through.
I would would, I would probablysay, uh, by the end of the
(11:48):
Pleistocene fortune ring.
That basically counts the wholegamut of what.
What paleo botany is.
Um, I've always been in, I'vealways really liked uh stuff
that's near modern but stillsomewhat weird and unusual, and
so so I really liked it withdoing the to sort of stay in the
(12:09):
Cenozoic, the.
Cenozoic is from the end of, sobasically from the abrupt
extinction of, you know,non-avian dinosaurs all the way
up through today.
Okay, and so that?
So that's, that's what theCenozoic is, and for Paleobotany
that would mean basically fromthe Paleogene or from the
(12:31):
Paleocene all the way up throughthe Pleistocene.
Okay, so you know.
Basically, you know dinosaursdead to end of Ice Age, okay,
yeah.
So that's sort of where I findit really fascinating.
I think what is interestingalso that many people don't
(12:53):
realize with paleobotany whichis unusual compared to things
like vertebrate paleontology,which is studies of animals with
backbones, or invertebratezoology is because plants are
always growing, they havemeristemic growth, they always
are producing, you know, bodyparts.
(13:15):
They're basically producingbody parts and then they're
falling off.
What's interesting is like youcan't always tell if you have
all these parts.
If you find a leaf over hereand you find a flower petal over
here and you find a structure,a reproductive structure over
here, like a fruit or a seed orsomething like that, you cannot
(13:35):
necessarily say, oh, these allbelong to the same thing and I
can describe it as such.
And so that's where a lot ofinteresting, weird stuff happens
, particularly for things thatare further in the past.
Luckily, with the times I'msort of looking at, particularly
during the oligocene eventthrough myosin, it's not as hard
(14:00):
, but that's why often you havewhat are called organ taxon or
you know.
Basically, you know you haveseveral things that are named
different genera, but they mayactually all belong to the same
plant.
Okay, which is weird, and thatoften happens in things like in
the Permian and Triassic.
You know materials and stufflike that.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You know that's fascinating and I never would
have thought of that, you know,you find, you know, okay, I am
speaking from a place of notjust pop culture, like
paleontology, but but you know,that's a lot of the influence in
my brain.
But, like you have this picture, I think, where a lot of people
probably have this picture ofpaleontologists going out and
like I found a whole dinosaur,right, and I know that that's
(14:42):
not super common, right, but Ihad not.
Yeah, there's not generallyjust parts falling off a
dinosaur, right, they're notrunning around like shedding
legs and things, right, exactlyIf it's dead.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
If you find a scapula of a dinosaur, you basically
know Right, it died at thatpoint.
Yeah, it was dead.
So basically you could havesomething producing that's been
preserved and it's still livingfor longer than you didn't know
about, which is kind of aninteresting thing as well.
I think the other interestingaspect of paleobotany is that in
(15:21):
many cases the taxa like generahave a much longer span of
existence than things likemammals I think mammals, sure, I
don't know I can't get thenumber correctly and I will
definitely be wrong, but it'sreally like.
Genera are on the order oftypically around average, about
two to five million years.
The genus exists okay, beforeeither goes to extinct or, you
(15:45):
know, it's modified so far thatit's different.
Uh, you have things that youhave, you know.
Uh, flowering plants likenothafagus, the southern beaches
and the figalis, which areknown, I think, back to like 80
million years ago.
The genus itself no 80 a, agenus like homo, which is only
(16:07):
known for, you know, you knowwhat?
Two million years, right,compared to some, to a genus
that's known for that's known 80million years yeah, that's
really interesting and that'sreally fascinating and I think
it's hard for people to graspthese timescales.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Just conversations I have with people about, like you
know, evolutionary biology andevolutionary history, we think I
don't know.
I think there are so manymisconceptions about like what
time even looks like and at somepoint, like our brains are just
like a long time.
I don't know, and I think peoplestruggle with that, but that's
really an interesting thoughttoo, that you know before before
(16:46):
.
Uh, you know, the cataclysmsthat wiped out dinosaurs, like
some of these species, wereextant right, like we had some
of these plants that were maybenot in the form they are today,
but hanging around yeah, I mean,yeah, you definitely have
families that existed back then.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
You know, in in the lake rotations that exist today.
You, you know you have.
I think the other fascinatingthing is that and this is just
the body of the disciplineitself is all these sort of
interesting things that youdon't think about.
So Australia, today is.
You know, most people know it,for you know koalas, kangaroos,
(17:24):
youos, but if you were to talkabout what is the quintessential
plant that Australia is knownfor, it would be gum trees,
eucalyptus and phthalates.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
So that gums they're in every habitat.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
They're from these tall sclopple forests.
You know, even very, very dryhabitats there's, you know,
there's many, many, many species.
It's like the quintessentialgenus Eucalyptus.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, you know, you think oh, it must have started
there, or the oldest one must befrom there.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
No, South America, really yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, there was a group that they were working.
They've been fascinatingmaterial in South America during
the that's basically from theEocene, but yeah, and they've
got beautiful things with fruitattachments and preserved leaves
.
Yeah, eucalyptus, you would notthink huh, would not think huh,
it may have had its origin inSouth America, right?
(18:30):
So it's a fascinating thingthat you sort of you have an
idea about what may be existingthere, but you can't be fully
for sure.
You know, we'll go into alittle bit later when I start
talking about, you know, africanforests and stuff like that,
but you can't be fully for sure.
We'll go into it a little bitlater when I start talking about
African forests and stuff likethat.
But the tropical rainforestthat you have in Southeast Asia
(18:55):
today, that are found in thearchipelago in Malaysia or
Melanesia, you would think themain quintessential tree that's
sort of known is the familyDictero Carpaceae, which is most
.
I don't know if many people knowabout it, but they're a very
important timber family.
(19:16):
They basically sort of causethe really great structures of
these forests.
They're these gigantic treesthat are.
You know, can be tens and tens,maybe hundreds of meters up in
the canopy.
What's interesting is theyoften lose their lower branches
so they have these nicecylindrical holes without much.
(19:39):
Quote unquote, I guess would beflaw for the timber industry.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
So they're really cut down a lot.
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, so that's where some of those forests are sort
of being threatened, but alsobecause they often drop their
lower branches pretty quickly.
That's why you have probably inthe evolution, some of these
really amazing animals there.
That's why most forests havethings like flying, flying
snakes, which are not obviouslyflying with it, right, you know,
(20:11):
they're opening up their ribsand they're spreading out there
and they're moving.
They're basically slingingthemselves and gliding from
trees right trees, you know, youknow over, you know tens to a
hundred meters.
You know the same thing withthings like colugos and you know
flying squirrels and and draco,the, the, you know those flying
lizards, you know flyinglizards and stuff like flying,
(20:32):
yeah, and so that is what'sreally you know.
So plants are actually causingthem and they're the
quintessential family there.
They likely had their origin inaf and so basically, you know,
and it probably moved fromAfrica to the Indian
subcontinent.
The Indian subcontinent has thepericarpaceae and
diphtheroparps today as well,Not often found in sort of known
(20:56):
sort of things like saltforests and stuff like that, Not
necessarily like rainforests,or if there are some that are in
rainforests but they're notnecessarily the main majority,
but they're found in thesemonsoonal forests and stuff like
that in current India and thenthey sort of take off and become
these sort of rainforest treesin part of Asia.
So it's really unusual and thatyou know, we wouldn't know that
(21:16):
necessarily without paleobotany.
It's really cool and even today, you know, it's always
interesting.
You know the pool of the recentand the bias that that often
has.
You know, right, you knowpassword, even if it's modified,
it modifies slowly and so youknow.
But.
But I think what's interestingis when these discoveries are
(21:40):
made, like huh that's weird,yeah, and that's what's fun, I
think about this type ofresearch.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, and you discover, I don't know, this
incredible diversity of lifethat you know, in some ways
today is poorly understood to usand we don't, I don't know.
And then we get like ourconception of nature kind of
pigeonholed sometimes and likethis is what is is and this is
what's always been.
You know, we have this againincredible biodiversity over
(22:09):
time and species that come andgo and ebb and flow throughout
time.
And I think when people thinkabout what does like a
rainforest look like, what doesa prairie look like, it's like
okay, you mean, you know, and sowe have in the like
horticulture side of all this,we have this conversation, a lot
about native plants, like plant, a native plant plant, you know
(22:31):
, okay, how far back do you wantto go, like when we talk about
what's a native plant?
So, you know, in my mind I thinkabout what has close
co-evolutionary relationshipswith other species around, what
uh has had the sort of time toacclimate to a climate, to a set
of biodiversity, and then whatdoesn't like get out of control,
(22:52):
what's not invasive, thosekinds of things.
Is that something that y'alltalk about at all in sort of
these contexts?
Is like what is actuallysupposed to be there because I
asked?
Because you were talking about,like eucalyptus evolving and
sort of having its origins on acompletely different continent
than we think about and so like,where does that fit into this
conversation?
It's, it's hard because, again,it's, it's sort of what.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
What does it mean?
Um, I'll take an example ofsome of our work africa,
rainforest today and I'll saythat I really also my focus is
when I was working in Africa isI really wanted to work on
forest communities.
Okay, I think part of that isbecause growing up in Amarillo
(23:39):
and the trees are a rarity, Iwanted to see, you know, I
wanted to, you know, study those, you know, because I was always
excited about things like goingto Muir Woods or going to
seeing forests and stuff likethat.
They're fascinating.
I'm also a short guy.
That's a fun thing.
But if you look at African wetand moist tropical forests today
(24:03):
, and even in other habitats,the king and queen of all plant
families making the bodystructure is going to be the
legume family.
Okay, the peas, the beans, thatgroup, that's the.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Hmm, that's the and hands down.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Probably within those forests there is a subfamily of
clade called, and that one isalso basically the prominent one
that makes up the canopy trees.
That's the one that you havemost of the obviously African
forests are very diverse andthey've got a lot of other plant
species and families as well,but if you had to name one it
(24:47):
would be the Phabaceaelacuminosae.
Okay, yeah, the beans in thatgroup and within that group, the
deteriorates.
That subfamily had an amazingradiation and ecological
(25:10):
dominance of these forests andwe can find back in the work
that we're doing in Ethiopia.
We're finding that also backeven in the legacy and prior to
that, in fact I think even inthe EOC, dr Jacobs and their
team's work that they did atMahengi, which is a Amara lake
(25:31):
around sort of, and they evenfight leggings back then.
So you know, basically sort ofmaking up at least three or four
or more species known at thatone place.
It's pretty fascinating.
But what's weird is within thosefamilies, even if we know back
that far, and they stilldominate today and they
dominated back then some of theplayers are different.
(25:53):
So in Ethiopia we have a sitecalled Mush, which is from about
21.73 million years ago, soit's in the early maya soon.
Okay, this is a time periodwhen, early on, in sort of ape
and like older monkey, evolutionstuff like that as well.
(26:15):
Um, in ethiopia today, in thedeteriority, there's only a
single species and genus, uh,the tamarin.
Oh, yes, that exists there andagain, we don't even know
necessarily if that was anatural or a pseudoclanic plant,
but that's the only one thatexists there today.
Back in that time period thereis a whole number of genera that
(26:38):
don't exist in Ethiopia todaythat are there but do occur in
Africa now in forests.
So, there's a genus calledAnglerodendron, there's a genus
called Anglerodendron, there's agenus called Anthemotha,
there's a genus called Newtonia.
That are all found at mush wayback then.
Well, what's weird is, and thatforest is actually dominated by
a genus called Anglerodendron,which you know it has a handful
(27:06):
of it has I don't know thenumber I'm going to.
I know it has more than, uh,eight, less than 20 species,
okay, and so what's weird?
is that most of them are all nowfound in the guineo-congolian
base.
You know I found in.
You know the forest in thecongo basin they're found in
some of those forests in WestAfrica, and then things like
(27:28):
Cameroon and Gabon, except forone species that occurs in the
Usambaras part of the Easternarcs of Tanzania.
Huh, so that's weird, yeah, andso you're like, so was that?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
you know, so had you not found it at mush, you would
say oh well, maybe what happened?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
was it just this, this, what, what pan-african
forest, or something like?
that so basically this onelittle lone one that's in
tanzania.
You know, during the ice ageprobably you've got isolated.
Well, we don't necessarily knowthat now, because now if you
have england dundra that wasfound in ethiopia way back in 21
million years ago, right as thedominant it's basically the
dominant tree that occurs there.
You know what was going on withthat gene.
(28:08):
So does that mean that moreconservation work needs to be
done to protect right this genus, because it did have such a
much more importancepsychologically even back then?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
that's really interesting.
So it's hard to know, right,it's hard to know in some cases
because we're looking at itthrough the lens of history,
right, like through biologicalhistory of you know, what was
here, what wasn't.
So an example that pops into mymind and we're talking on a
much smaller time scale here Iwas out at the Lubbock Lake,
landmark, which I think is partof your unit.
(28:40):
Is that correct?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So for those that don't know,we have a.
There's a native spring outthere.
It was an old lake.
The headwaters of the yellowhouse straw that leads the
brazos heads to the gulf ofmexico, right, yeah, um, but
there's a paleontological siteas well, so there's, like,
mastodon or mammoth bones thereyeah, and basically it there it
stands, there's been, uh, itgoes back from to the ice age,
(29:05):
all the way up to historicaltimes.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So basically, and you basically had human occupation
there for thousands andthousands of years, that you
have evidence of Right it'sfantastic too.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, so I was out there one day and I think Scott
I believe out there, scott, itdoesn't matter was giving me a
tour and like just driving mearound and it's really cool.
And you know, there's thisconception of a specific plant,
the mesquite tree that I thinkpeople around here think showed
up with cattle drives you knowfive, six hundred years ago,
(29:38):
drives you know five, sixhundred years ago.
But he was saying, no, we'vehad digs out here where we find,
um, you know, charred rootremains or that are five, six,
ten thousand years old.
So when we talk about what's anative species and where does it
live in, I think the the timeelement of this is so
interesting when we think aboutclimate, when we think about how
things change over time yeah,it's really fascinating.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And again, I think there's just like everything,
you have to be careful, you haveto study answers.
So I mean, what's interestingis so, and again, I'm a big
proponent of native bees and Ireally love, and I used to study
, native bees as well.
But what's interesting is, youknow, and again, honeybees, the
ones, the species here that'snow you know, is not native,
(30:20):
right, but if you go back five,seven million years ago, there's
this fossil from Nevada of anapis.
Huh, so apis was in NorthAmerica just way back then.
Now it went extinct at somepoint, for we don't know the
reason, and so that's, I mean,it's fascinating in that regard.
(30:41):
So I guess what would be bestto note is that, like, obviously
everything's changing, right,and so what we sort of think is,
you know, it's always beenthere or it's not the case.
I mean, you could do the samething with, uh, lots of things
(31:03):
like the dominant sharks thatexist today right in the oceans
are, uh, the carcharina form.
These, which are the requiemsharks you know, things like
white tips and uh, bull sharksand and that those are sort of
less specious and they sort oflike are very ecologically
important.
You know, before them it wasthe lamina forms and like.
(31:25):
So lamina forms are there arenot as many today, although
there's sort of the charismaticones as well.
So those are things likethresher sharks, okay, and uh,
great whites, okay, makacos, andthey were dominant, you know,
during, like the Cretaceous andbefore.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
So it's interesting that you know again.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
so what?
Like the group that's dominantnow in many cases is often like
the up and coming.
You know the new, you know thenew Right.
Yeah, and some of thesereligious things were the
ecological dominance in the past, which is interesting.
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So I have a question and you know, feel free to tell
me if this is sort of out ofyour field of study, but this
leads to a question in my mindand I think it's maybe part of
all this.
So when we think about, youknow, observing things like
climate change, when we look atthe way that species are
progressing or regressing, likeif we're losing and I don't mean
evolutionarily, I mean likepopulation wise, right, like you
(32:26):
know, we're seeing species dieoff and insects and all kinds of
things what can studying likepaleobotany and old plant
systems tell us about, liketoday and maybe our future?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
so I I think, well, I'll first, uh, preface that I
you know some of this.
I'll probably be stepping outsome of this.
I do think what is importantfrom understanding deep time is
how and I was not a cop, butlike how unique and amazing
(32:59):
these lineages are.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And so, and what a travesty would be for like these
things to go away afterexisting for so long and it's
basically being able to peerinto deep time.
You know it's, it's, it's.
It would be a shame.
I would think also that in someof these lineages you know, yes
, some of these lineages, youknow, yes, some of these
(33:24):
lineages with climate change aregoing to be winners and some of
these are being losers.
It would be a big shame for us,as humans, to be the ones to
determine who are these winnersand who are these losers, doing
it haphazardly and, in manycases, not even understanding
the truth of what you lost orwhat this treasure was, and so
(33:45):
that's sort of a huge, I thinkwith it's hard today, with
things like habit of destructionand stuff like that, I don't
think we really know what ourfull magnitude is in terms of
what we're going to be doingyeah, Cause again the planets.
(34:07):
The planets fairly hardy and youcan take a lot of punches and
get up, but we're doing a wholelot of punching right now.
That's really and that's not anot a good.
So it's um, these, theseforests that hold so much
biodiversity, you know part, youknow part of the arguments are
well, you know they may bebeneficial to humans because
(34:30):
they may have species that havechemicals and stuff that help
with fight disease.
Or they have you know, or youdisease, or they have you know,
or you know there's somegenetics that can be helped in,
in, in, in, in these ways, whichI understand.
That.
But I think you also want topreserve the answer, maybe the
museum person.
Just because they exist,they're fascinating, they're,
(34:50):
you know, they're beautiful intheir own right.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So so there's that too.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, no, that's interesting, I think, and I
think that's a good answer thatyou know it gives us some
context, but also, yeah, what ashame it would be.
What a shame it would be.
And you know you brought up thenew museum part and I think
that's actually a good segue.
Let's take a quick break.
When we come back let's talkabout the Tech Museum and what
you all do here, some of thespecies you have represented
here and some of, I guess, theoutreach and educational efforts
(35:18):
you do.
Well, hello there, welcome tothe Midroll.
Thanks for sticking with methrough the first half of this
episode.
I again could talk aboutdinosaurs, paleontology and
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(35:39):
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(35:59):
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(37:05):
for listening, Thanks for beinga part of all of this for the
past nearly six years, which isjust crazy.
We're going to have to dosomething big in November for
the six year anniversary of theshow.
More on that later, but for now, let's get back into this
conversation with Dr Aaron Panand let's talk a little bit
about palm trees and a lot a bitabout museums.
You mentioned over the breakthat you actually did some work
on palms as well and before weget into the museum stuff, I
(37:27):
think like that sounds reallyinteresting, so I'd love to hear
more about that.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So what's cool?
There's a site that we have inEthiopia from the late Oligocene
.
Basically it's about 27 millionyears ago in Ethiopia.
What's really cool aboutEthiopia and Africa back then?
Africa at that point is anisland continent.
(37:52):
It's actually calledAfro-Arabia because the Arabian
Peninsula is part of that.
That point is sort of a littlebit isolated.
It's rafting and about tocollide with Eurasia, mm-hmm.
And that is about to happen.
And what will happen at thatpoint is you have a big shift of
the fauna that was on thecontinent of Afro-Arabia will
(38:13):
meet the fauna that is inEurasia.
The continent of Afro-Arabiawill meet the fauna that is in
Eurasia.
When you think about today,when you think about Africa,
what?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
do you think about what kind of animals do?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
you think would happen here.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I mean zebras and giraffes and lions and those
kinds of things, Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Everything you just named is of Eurasian origin.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Really.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, gazelles, gazelles.
Yeah, you know antelopes, youknow hippos, all the big cats.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You know mer-cats, you know all of these things.
Yeah, giraffes, all of thoseare Eurasian in order.
Huh, so what you had back.
Then you have weird stuff thatbelongs to a group called
Apotheria, so things likehyraxes, elephant shrews, things
like golden moles andproboscideans, so elephants and
(39:07):
then you also have probablycoming from Eurasia as well,
although they came much earlierthan whenever these two
continent, these two big, largemasses, crash together, things
like primates, and so you haveand because they fly, bats are
also known from the Sure andactually they're known from
hanging.
But what does that mean interms of you have these big
(39:29):
faunal transitions?
What does that mean in terms ofthe changes in herbivores or
plant dispersal things and stufflike that?
And so it's really cool to sortof see what does a forest look
like in Africa right before thisbig transition.
And what's cool is this placeis called Chilga, which you said
(39:51):
.
It's these overbanked depositsof the Red River, so it's a.
It's probably forested aroundthere as well, but we're
basically sampling this forestthat's along this river and it
has those beans I mentionedearlier.
There's several species.
There's several genuine speciesof that.
There is the, a plant calledCola, which actually Coca-Cola
(40:12):
got a name from.
Oh, so Cola is, yeah, cola fromCola nuts.
Cola is an endemic genus thatis in the uh, related to
hibiscus and uh um and thechocolate family, and you know
chocolate.
That's interesting, okay and andso it, it's there, it's a
rainforest, it's a rainforestgenus mainly found in forests,
so it's it's there.
They don't occur in ethiopiatoday, which is also cool.
(40:34):
But what we really found, whichis really fascinating, is we
found lots and lots of palms,okay, which you're like okay,
okay, well, duh.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
It's a tropical.
It's such a new home.
What is a?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
quintessential thing you think of when you think of,
you know, tropics, if you'rethinking of vegetation, yeah,
like coconuts or coconut palms,palm trees and date palms.
Sitting on a beautiful beachwith palm trees swinging, you
know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And so, what's weird though, africa today is not
known for palms there are palmsthere?
Speaker 1 (41:06):
There's less than 70 species.
Okay, if you go to, whichsounds like a lot 70 species,
that's a lot right, yeah, butyou know we're talking about the
second largest continent in theworld Sure, so Singapore has
more species of palms than thewhole entire continent of.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Africa.
There are a thousand speciesthat occur in Southeast Asia and
you have over 500 speciesprobably in the New World
tropics.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
So, why?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Why is Africa weird?
And we actually come back tothis a lot.
Africa is sort of known as theodd man out, because it always
seems to be different than theseother regions, and so it's
fascinating that we found these.
We found lots of palms, wefound things called African
rattan, so basically theseclimbing palms that have spines
on them and they climb into thecanopy and things like that.
(42:03):
We have a genus called Hyphene,which is a fan palm.
It's really cool because theyoften bifurcate.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Oh, interesting Most palms.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
You think of just one single trunk right.
Yeah, but this one bifurcates,so they can often bifurcate and
then bifurcate again.
Weird, okay, so it's weird.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Okay, they're often weird.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
And then there is, uh , later on there's a
splerosperma, which is thisweird palm, that is a that is a
specialist in swampyenvironments, and so they sort
of grow, and you know, they growand they sort of form these
little columns and stuff likethat in swampy soils.
So we found, and they're alltogether, which is really weird
(42:47):
because you don't have thatreally much today in Africa, and
so do we know exactly why?
No, but there are some ideasthat maybe this transition,
because what happens in later,legacy to the Miocene, you
basically move from thepaleogene to the neogene and
(43:08):
right around that time you havethis collision of Eurasia with
Afro-Arabia, and so a lot ofthese palms did a lot of these
palms did the endemic fauna backthen were they the main plant
dispersers and stuff like that.
And then, when it's new andwhen the new kids arrive, you
know they saw these weird palmsyeah yeah, and they just, and
(43:31):
that dispersal may not have beenas well, and so like that.
Or was it climate change, or isit both?
It the nice, the interestingthing about biological systems,
as you know yeah, is that?
It's often one explanation.
There might be one primaryexplanation but it doesn't
necessarily mean that's the onlyexplanation, but it's really
weird that we find this forestthat has a lot of palms in it
(43:53):
way back then and what'sinteresting mush, the one that I
told you about earlier.
I think there's one palm there,solaris vermus, still exists,
but we don't see things likethese climbing rattan, you don't
see high feeding.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Some of these other stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
And that's only a in Geolodic time.
That's a short period.
Six million years of difference.
I was in 20 years between myfriends, so you know what's
going on.
So that's it's kind of weird,but at that point, 21 million
years ago, that land of bridgeswould form.
It's kind of weird, but at thatpoint, 21 million years ago,
that land of bridges would form,yeah, the Arabian Peninsula is
(44:29):
connected to Eurasia and thingsare going through.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting.
And you just think about thatmakes me think one of the
explanations or potentialexplanations you gave, of you
introduce a new species and theydon't know what to do with it.
They're like what's this big,weird fruit?
Like you know, what do I dowith this?
And you know, I guess we seethat in modern species too.
I think about cane toads a lot,where they're like we're going
(44:52):
to introduce these to eat thecane moth and you put them there
and they're like cane moths areterrible, I'm gonna eat
everything else.
And and so, like you know, thatis a human intervention in
species spread and speciesdiversity change.
But it's really interesting tothink about this being, in a lot
of ways, historically a naturalprocess to write two continents
that slam into each other andthat's going to, you know
(45:15):
stuff's going to happen, stuff'sgoing to happen, yeah, yeah,
and it's going to be, it's goingto be, it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
It'll be fascinating for one, right?
But again, there will bewinners, there will be losers,
and then there will beinteresting things where there's
sort of a mixture betweenthings.
So this world of biodiversityis amazing and basically the
biological process is happeningvery, very fast.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
It's really really incredible and I think actually
that is.
That is another good segue intothe museum world and the
preservation of species and theeducation about it.
So talk a little bit about thetech museum Like this is and if
for those of y'all out there Iknow we've got listeners all
over the world, but you know ifyou've never been here, this is
a beautiful museum, like Ireally enjoy this space.
So tell us a little bit aboutit.
(46:02):
What kind of stuff do you alldo here?
What kinds of collections, etcetera.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, so the Museum of Texas Tech University is a
large museum.
It's a little over 200,000square feet and not including
the Olympic Lake Landmark, whichis also part of it.
It includes the Natural ScienceResearch Laboratory.
It has six main collectionresearch divisions, that is,
anthropology, art, clothing andtextiles, history, natural
(46:29):
sciences and paleontology.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Okay, so those are the main areas.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
And within that, we have 9.5 million specimens and
pieces of artwork and collectionitems.
So that's large For Texasitself.
We are the largest naturalhistory museum in collection
size and, all due respect to ourwonderful friends at Panhandle
(46:55):
Plains Museum, I think weactually have the largest museum
footprint-wise as well, and sothat's really incredible.
We have an amazing staff.
That again because of that manyquestions, because you have
both the sciences and thehumanities- there's sort of
something for every, for everyvisitor there's there should be
something for everybody yeah,you know again, even if and I
(47:20):
don't know why it would be thecase, but even if dinos weren't
your thing.
You can see some of our amazingart collection and be taken away
.
If the Ice Age Gallery is notnecessarily a thing, you will be
fascinated by the amazing youknow textile collection we have
(47:42):
and you know things like that.
And the amazing thing too isthat again, our curators and the
collections team, they aredoing fascinating work in
research, they're doingfascinating work in their
programming.
You know, besides those sixcollecting divisions, we also
have an exhibits division, wehave an education division, and
(48:07):
so there's a planetarium soagain, it's really an amazing
museum.
It's free to the public, by theway, so I should also mention
that too, so that's alsosomething to say as well.
And again, while our focus isoften because it is a museum of
Texas Tech University, it's nota museum about Texas Tech
University, right, texas Tech,so I mean.
(48:30):
What it is, though, is there isa heavy emphasis, obviously,
because of where we'regeographically located.
Again, we often do have a highpresence of question items that
are focused on the greatersouthwest, so that includes, you
know, western North America,including Mexico, and even
extending into Central America,okay, the Natural Science
(48:51):
Research Laboratory, thoughactually is a global perspective
and, so that you know, includesbats from Nigeria.
That includes material fromIndonesia.
That includes radioactivespecimens Indonesia.
That includes radioactivespecimens from Chernobyl we have
the other piece of out of youis that we have items that are
(49:15):
from similar climates for othercollections as well.
So, besides just GreaterSouthwest sort of being our
focus and Lubbock area,semi-arid and arid environments,
have material from Central Asia, things like that, yeah, and so
, um, no, we are a resource forthe community.
(49:36):
We're a resource for researchers, you know, here and around the
world.
Uh, we are always one, you know, here and around the world, we
are always one.
You know.
People come in and see ouramazing things and then also,
you know, we have some reallygreat programming that's without
reaching engagement.
So we do a lot of things thatwe're excited about it.
(49:57):
Right now, if you walk throughthe museum, you will see an
exhibit on quilts from the 1700sto the early 1900s.
You will see a temporaryexhibit on two-stroke Yamaha
motorcycles from the 1960sthrough the 1980s.
(50:18):
See, that's so cool.
Yamaha cycles from the 1960sthrough the 1980s.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
See, that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
We have an exhibit right now celebrating the 20th
anniversary of the Sokka Juwiadollar Interesting.
And then I love its place in itbecause Glenna Goodacre, who
was the artist for the image ofSokka, the author's image of
Sokka Juwia and her son JohnBaptiste on the back of it.
(50:45):
So there's already a piece ofthat too, and we have our
permanent galleries, again withour amazing art, and then our
galleries on paleontology,because we actually go back from
right around when we're reallylucky in this area.
We actually are from a timeperiod where we actually do
collect stuff that's from theage of dinosaurs.
(51:05):
A lot of what we're doing,though, environmentally.
There's more wetlands andthere's not as much of the
dinosaur.
We have really cool membersthat are related to crocodilians
, to basically giant amphibians.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
That would have been the most terrifying
salamander-looking thing youwould have been like the most
terrifying salamander lookingthing you would have ever seen
in the world.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Um, you know, um, we have a post-sucas, which was a
uh large terrestrial predatorthat was, uh, that actually ate
little dinosaurs during time.
It's one of those ones thatthey actually show on.
I think that very that whenwalking with dinosaurs, that
were proven.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Yeah yeah yeah and so , uh, no, it's a really great
museum and so cool, so your yourbig exhibit that's right out
here um the the three dinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
There's what a pterosaur yeah, there's, yeah,
quetzalcoatlus quetzalcoatlus,okay, and there is, uh, uh,
triceratops, and then there's aTyrannosaurus.
Okay, so that one.
Again, that's much more a Texastype of thing, uh-huh, and that
material is known from Texas,although it's from far west
Texas and it's sort of the BigBend area.
(52:12):
The stuff that's more locallyknown is from the Triassic
period, okay, and that's thestart of the age of dinosaurs
and age of man and actuallystarted the mammals to.
Both sort of dinosaurs andmammals were sort of show up
around the same time, okay, yeahthat's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
So I have to ask there recently, and I don't know
if y'all are involved in thisat all, but they, you know
they're digging a highway southof town and they had to stop a
dig because they found bonesfrom, yeah, a sloth or a giant
brown sloth.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
And so they're yeah, so yeah, no, our anthropology
division is doing some amazingwork with Tegstot and so they're
working with them and actuallythat material's here, oh cool,
yeah, so it's pretty impressive.
As I said, I think you know, interms of natural history
collections I think I ran thenumbers, because you know I try
to run the numbers I think we'renumber 19 in the country for
(53:06):
the size of the collection.
Oh very cool For natural historyand so that is you know and
that's with.
You know the Smithsonian numberone Right Museum of Natural
History, number two, rightBishop.
You know these other museums.
So we are quite large and wealways welcome people to come
(53:27):
see what we do here and enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Very cool.
So what's on the?
You know this may be sort ofjust speculative, but like
what's on the horizon for themuseum, like what new things are
coming up.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, so a big thing we're doing is we are under the
Office of the Provost and we'reunder an area called Outreach
and Engagement.
It also includes the NationalRanching Heritage Center.
That includes Junction down incentral Texas.
That includes the Texas TechPress.
It includes the Osher LifelongLearning Center.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
But yeah, a big, heavy piece is we're growing our
programming and so that'll bebig, and so in terms of
community engagement and thosetype of programs, so that's a
big heavy emphasis that we'll bedoing.
We are again still pursuingresearch in these areas.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
And so we're excited about that.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
And then we have some really great exhibits coming up
.
Well, not that we have, wealready have some really great
exhibits coming up.
Not that we haven't we alreadyhave some really great exhibits
Right, right, right.
Everybody.
Please come see our exhibitsnow, including the new Yamaha
one.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
We never had a motorcycle one which is kind of
cool, but we have one on guitars.
In the fall, we will be havingthe exhibit Dressing the Abbey,
which will actually be bringingin uh, over 30, uh wardrobe
pieces from the Downton Avenue.
Oh, interesting, a series willactually will be here, and so
(54:50):
that, and actually those wereactually ones that were in the
series, so not yet, and so that,so we're talking about that
will be here in late Januarythrough April of 26.
And so, uh, there's always goodstuff.
Uh, we have art on, uh, and Idon't know when this will will
run.
Art on the honor will be, Ithink, uh, next week, and stuff
like that.
Oh, okay, yeah so um no,there's always something here at
(55:11):
the museum and so very cool.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Very cool.
Well, I appreciate it.
That half I mean like, and I'velearned a lot.
I'm always interested,interested and I get nerdy about
this stuff and like again, Iprobably have 100 more questions
and I'd love to have you backon sometime to maybe pick one of
the topics and do a little bitmore of a deep dive.
But a couple of things I alwaysask my guests, just in general.
(55:35):
You know you've had a diversecareer but you've kind of done a
lot of cool things.
If you had a piece of advicefor our listeners, do?
We have a lot of students thatlisten?
We have people in the sciences,across the sciences, like,
whether it's career wise or justlife wise, like what would you
want someone to take home withthem?
That's hard.
Yeah, I know, I know I didn'twarn you either.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I think I'm gonna say three things.
Oh sure Cause, uh, I think I'mgonna say three things, oh sure
Cause I, cause I can't, whichmay be saying something too.
So one, I think, is you need totry and find a little joy every
day, no matter what, even ifit's a hard day, something like
that.
You need to find some joy, youknow, and, and whether that is,
(56:20):
you know, getting a good snackor meal or something like that
during the day, if it is takinga little time at the end of the
day to you know, to read afavorite novel or book or
something like that, or, youknow, even, you know, call up a
friend, or something like that,I think that's important, okay,
because I think that's the thingwhere, you know, I think
everybody's so stressed now.
You've got to really dosomething like that to sort of
(56:40):
yeah, yeah, you've got to reallydo something like that, to sort
of yeah, yeah, to sort of helpthat.
I would say that.
And you know, I think we'reboth biased in this because
we're, you know, we both, likeyou know biology and stuff like
that.
I think you know going outsideand observing and just walking
in nature, and it doesn'tnecessarily have to be like, you
know, an unadulterated forestor a stream or something like
(57:03):
that.
It can just be, you know,walking outside and walking to a
park or something like that andjust observing stuff like that.
I think that's a key piece aswell, because it moves you to
observe things and you knowthings that you wouldn't expect
before.
Yeah, you know, there's theselittle micro activities that are
occurring all over the place,which is fascinating.
I think that's good for peopleto know.
And third I would say islifelong learning.
(57:26):
Key is lifelong learningBecause, again, it is just like
the muscles If you're not usingthem, it atrophies.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
If you're not using your brain, it atrophies.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
So learn something new.
Every you know.
You know often and persistently, and so, um, I'm hoping that,
no matter what I'm always goingto, you know, try and learn new
stuff and again, and then youknow learning is is easy when
it's like it's something youreally like or something like
that.
Yeah, you know learning otherstuff, you know when it's
(58:00):
something you really like orsomething like that.
Yeah, you know learning otherstuff.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
You know, because of the challenges and stuff like
that, you know what I mean.
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
Yeah, so I think that those are all sort of key
pieces.
Um, I don't know.
It works for me yeah.
You know, others will haveother, you know someone who are
probably more, who have betteradvice than that.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
No, I think that's great advice.
I really do, and you know I wehave better advice than that.
No, I think that's great advice, I really do, and you know I
think that those are things thatI find valuable as well, you
know.
And so, no, that's great.
Where can we find you?
And or the museum, Like ifpeople want to learn more about
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (58:34):
Oh, absolutely so we have.
So there's a website, obviouslyfor the museum that they can go
to.
You know there is we're on 4thstreet in Lubbock, texas, and on
the website it actually has ourcontact information so you can
get a hold of me by email orphone if necessary, things like
that.
And so yeah, and we're always,you know, we're always open for
(58:57):
you know, to help.
Again, the other thing too iswe've got a lot of experts on
staff.
So, again, things like ifpeople find plants or bugs, or
you know rocks or fossils, oryou know, or they have you know,
amazing, obviously they want tokind of find out about.
You know we're there to help.
If we can't provide it, we doknow.
(59:19):
If we can't necessarily providedirectly, we will.
We know that.
We know who you may be able tocontact.
Ok so that's always a thing too.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
But yeah, very cool, very cool.
Well, thanks for having me outAgain.
I was, I like any excuse tocome over here.
I don't get over here as muchas I should.
I need to bring my son out heresoon again.
It's been.
It's been a couple of years.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think we need to get him outof the house this summer, so
it'll be good to bring him uphere.
But thanks again for your time.
We'll have to have you back onsometime and talk a little bit
(59:49):
more about some of thepaleobotany stuff, but I really
appreciate it.
It was a lot of fun.
Thanks, man.
Can I just say at the end ofthis that I love the phrase and
the concept of deep time and thelong time scale of our planet
and of our world and of ournature and all the things we can
learn from deep time and learnfrom people like Aaron.
(01:00:11):
So, aaron, thanks so much forbeing on.
I cannot overstate how much Ienjoyed that conversation, how
much fun it was, and we're goingto have to have you back on
soon.
And thanks to you, the listener, for putting this in your ears
for 120 plus episodes and nearlysix years for some of you.
There are a lot of you thathave been with me from the very
beginning and I cannot tell youhow crazy that is to me and how
(01:00:33):
much it means to me.
I love you all dearly and I'mjust so grateful that you're
here.
So Planthropology is written,produced, directed whatever
other things go into a podcastby yours truly, vikram Baliga.
The intro music and outro musicis by the award-winning
composer, nick Scout.
Our mid-roll music is Yarrow bymy buddy, rui and his lo-fi dad
(01:00:57):
beats, which you shoulddefinitely go check both of them
out.
They're fantastic people.
I didn't mention this at thetop of the episode, but this is
actually the last episode forthe first half of this season.
I think I mentioned earlier inthe year that I'm starting to go
with a seasonal sort ofapproach to the show and I'm
just taking a planned summerbreak and this episode came out
a little bit later than I wanted, but I'm going to take most of
July off and probably at leasthalf of August.
(01:01:18):
So look for a new episodearound August 21st 2025.
If you're listening to this asit comes out, if you're
listening to this in the distantfuture, you can probably just
push next and listen to that,but I may release some bonus
content.
Follow on the socials for morestuff, but new episodes will be
out in August and I hope to seeyou then.
So thanks for everything.
(01:01:39):
Be kind to one another.
If you have not, to date, beenkind to one another, give that a
try.
My goodness, do we need thatright now?
Just just some basic humankindness.
So give that a shot.
Keep being kind, keep beingsafe and keep being very cool.
Plant people and I will talk toyou real soon.
Thank you.
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