TELEVISION

New History of Life

Series: Great Courses
4.7
(24)
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Episodes
9
Rating
TVPG
Year
2013
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

A New History of Life tells this all-embracing story of life on Earth - its origins, extinctions, and evolutions - in 36 lavishly illustrated lectures that assume no background in science. At half an hour per lecture, you cover the entire 4.54-billion-year history of Earth in 18 hours, averaging 70,000 years per second!

Related Subjects

Episodes

1 to 3 of 9

1. The Interconnected Earth

30m

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Begin the story of life on Earth with an overview of the unifying idea that will govern your exploration. Called Earth system science, this approach views Earth as an integrated network comprising the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. Sample the complex interactions between these realms.

2. The Vast Depths of Earth Time

30m

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How was the great antiquity of Earth discovered? Survey the observations that led to the concept of deep time and, in the process, developed the tools that can read the story in rocks. End with a striking analogy that puts human time into perspective.

3. Fossil Clocks

30m

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Delve into biostratigraphy, the study of fossil sequences in rock strata. The discovery that different layers of rock are characterized by distinctive fossils solved the problem of correlating sedimentary strata from different regions. This led to the geological time scale, initiating a revolution in Earth science.

4. Paleontologists as Detectives

30m

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Learn how paleontologists interpret fossils to reconstruct the traits and environments of extinct life forms. Examine some of the pitfalls of the field, including cultural biases that can lead to doubtful conclusions, such as that Tyrannosaurus rex was as terrible as depicted in the movies.

5. The Shifting Surface of Planet Earth

30m

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The history of science is marked by ideas that were before their time. One of the most important was Alfred Wegener's concept of continental drift, which was revived in the theory of plate tectonics. Explore the role that fossils played in this original grand unifying theory of geology.

6. Earliest Origins - Formation of the Planet

30m

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Turn back the clock to Earth's earliest epoch, focusing on these questions: How did the solar system form and why do we live on a layered, differentiated planet? What do these events and the formation of the moon have to do with the evolution and development of life on Earth?

Extended Details

  • Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

Stuart Sutherlandwriter
Stuart Sutherlandactor