TTC - Rediscovering the Age of Dinosaurs

Imagine a world in which creatures roaming the land included giant, sharp-toothed predators, swathed in 8-inch, downy feathers; plant-eating behemoths longer than blue whales; and fantastic creatures with horns and spikes radiating from their heads. This is the world of the distant past, our world in the age of dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs fascinate people of all ages and backgrounds. These fabulous beasts—quasi-mythical in their remoteness from us, yet with physical remains that are startlingly real—are many people's first brush with science. After two centuries of systematic study, dinosaurs are icons of natural history, and live on in popular culture through movies and other appearances in media and art.
What do these incredible animals have to tell us? What can we learn from them, about our planet, and about ourselves?
Dinosaurs take us into a primeval world that is radically different from the biosphere we know. They allow us to "dig in" to geological time, the vast expanse of hundreds of millions of years that encompasses their epoch and recounts the deep history of life on Earth. They acquaint us with terrestrial life forms on an astonishingly massive scale, and studying their extinction reveals insights about our own place in the story of life on Earth.
In the 24 lectures of Rediscovering the Age of Dinosaurs, you will take a deep dive into the dinosaurs' world—and into some of the most extraordinary wonders of nature our planet has ever produced. Your guide is professor and field paleontologist Kristi Curry Rogers of Macalester College, a celebrated dinosaur researcher whose globe-spanning work has included discovering and naming two new dinosaur species.
Travel into Earth's Deep History
In recent decades, a revolution within paleontology known as the "Dinosaur Renaissance" has transformed the study of dinosaurs, upending longtime assumptions, revealing misconceptions about them, and shedding new light on many mysteries surrounding these enigmatic animals. These new scientific currents reveal remarkable facts about the creatures of the dinosaurs' age
Contrary to portrayals in Jurassic Park and other movies, the running speed of Tyrannosaurus rex would have been about the same as a healthy human runner.
Pterodactyls (giant flying reptiles) could have the wingspan of an F-16 jet and, astoundingly, may have stayed aloft for months at a time, without touching down to Earth.
The dinosaurs' extraordinary biological success and longevity was made possible by happenstance; ancient events of mass extinction, the survivors of which were poised to take advantage of empty ecological niches.
Recent discoveries reveal that many dinosaurs evolved colorful feathers, an adaptation that had nothing to do with flight, but was later used conveniently as some small dinosaurs took to the air.
Highly resonant nasal chambers and head "crests" on some species strongly suggest that dinosaurs vocalized, "singing" or trumpeting to their mates and rivals.
Studies of dinosaur growth and body temperature indicate that, in important ways, they were metabolically more similar to birds and mammals than to other reptiles.
Explore these and other revelations about prehistoric life and travel to rich fossil sites in Madagascar, the United States, Argentina, China, Mongolia, and beyond, for a spirited and detailed look at dinosaur paleontology in the field. Along the way, you will explore the incredible range and diversity of dinosaur species and make an in-depth examination of the cutting-edge methods that are enriching and deepening knowledge of these most extraordinary of creatures.
As an additional feature, this exciting course focuses on the age of dinosaurs, but not only on the dinosaurs themselves. You'll also encounter a rich spectrum of other amazing animals that coexisted with the dinosaurs, from the marine and flying reptiles that are often incorrectly called dinosaurs to the profusion of strange and extraordinary birds, mammals, and terrestrial reptiles that shared the dinosaurs' ecosystems. These enthralling lectures bring the dinosaurs and their fellow creatures out of the museum and reframes them as the living, breathing animals they were—animals that have more in common with us than we might ever have imagined.
Encounter Our Planet's Most Astonishing Creatures
In these richly illustrated lectures, you'll travel across 165 million years of Earth's history, uncovering the lives of the dinosaurs and their relatives, and the developing work of the scientists who study them, through topics, such as
A Spectacular Diversity of Species. Comprising 900 known dinosaur species, get to know the two major taxonomic groups of Saurischia, including the famous, fearsome predators, many of which were feathered, and the giant, long-necked plant eaters, and Ornithischia, containing numerous herbivores, with a huge range of unusual body types and striking physical features.
Wonders of Dinosaur Discovery. Delve deeply into the remarkable fossils that record and reveal the dinosaurs' world and contemplate the rare and complex process by which organic material is fossilized; investigate the environments and ecosystems where fossils are found, the types of geologic materials that contain them, and how scientists find and date dinosaur remains.
Remarkable Behavior and Lifestyles. Discover how these phenomenal creatures ate and digested food, through details of their teeth, jaws, and bones; learn how their growth rates resulted in the massive sizes of some dinosaurs; what science reveals about their mating and intraspecies behavior, how they nested and cared for their young, how they adapted to different climates; and the harsh toll that living took on their bodies and bones.
The Dinosaur Renaissance. Take stock of recent developments that have revolutionized dinosaur paleontology—including revelatory evidence that led to the reclassification of birds as dinosaurs; observe how the use of microscopy, CT scans, geochemical analysis, and isotope profiles reveal minute details of dinosaurs' sensory capacities, locomotion, diets, geographic range, thermoregulation, and more.
Outlandish Anatomical Features and Their Uses. Find out about the bizarre anatomy of many dinosaur species; from meter-long claws and feathered tails to pompadour-like head crests, clubbed tails, bony frills, dorsal sails, horns, spikes, and beaks; see what purposes these strange attributes served, sometimes encompassing multiple uses.
Amazing Creatures That Lived alongside the Dinosaurs. Take the measure of the range of picturesque animals that shared the dinosaurs' ecosystems, from the huge marine reptiles that terrorized the deep to the first airborne vertebrates; from giant winged reptiles to tiny, graceful flyers; as well as herbivorous crocodiles, carnivorous amphibians, and a colorful menagerie of ancient mammals.
Witness the Miracle of Evolution
Throughout the lectures, Professor Curry Rogers shows herself to be an inspired, captivating, and highly articulate guide, combining on-the-ground tales of great fossil finds with richly detailed lore about the dinosaurs, and reflections on the species she's spent her remarkable career studying.
As a compelling frame to the story, the lectures shed fascinating light on the larger trajectory of evolution, in its myriad and remarkable forms. Using knowledge and data from comparative anatomy, developmental biology, genome studies, and the fossil record, you'll trace the extraordinary story of the shared ancestry among Earth's fauna. Here, you'll learn that one group of scaly, cold-blooded reptiles led to mammals, and another to dinosaurs and birds. And you'll grasp why the huge, sail-backed reptile Dimetrodon, in the former group, is more closely related to us than it is to any dinosaur.
Finally, you'll explore the devastating extinction event that ended the age of dinosaurs and paved the way for the diversification of a plethora of new fauna and flora, leading to modern birds, reptiles, mammals, and humanity.
Through Professor Rogers' multi-layered commentary, enriched by stunning imagery of the creatures of the prehistoric past, Rediscovering the Age of Dinosaurs offers you a breathtaking view of the panorama of life on our planet.
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