Are you. Listening to radio. Law from. John and please welcome to the stage your host receiving. The end. Was. A and I am so Robert Nigh toured the country with our live stage show this is back in October and November of 2013 we went to city after city after city something like 21 cities here we're both like sick kick their asses but it was so much fun and the show is called apocalyptical is about ending. Us which is not the most obvious topic to choose to buy people just to use different stories that really brilliantly but these are this is a series of ending stories that we did and we did it was amazing musicians and video artists who projecting beautiful images on these massive screens above our heads but also we had puppets Norma's beautiful articulate. And you can see all this we've released a really nicely shot live video version of this show which is available on our website Radiolab dot org slash live you can watch the whole thing you know some of the best moments of the show were purely visual so encourage you to check it out but what follows is the radio version of that show part of it which we recorded live at the Paramount Theater in Seattle November 23rd teen the show actually began with a radical rethinking of one of the most important. Stories that as ever happen planet Earth which is the story about the end of the dinosaurs kinds of dinosaur puppetry beautiful stuff at the beginning which we're going to skip over but again you can check it out at Radiolab dot org slash live we're going to jump to the part where we hear from scientists who have been forensically probing this moment and have a totally new way of thinking about it Ok We're going to start you off with a guy well the guy who started it off for us it's a guy named Jay Jay professor University and he studied impact craters among other things not only can create an impact craters with his mind but he and his colleagues have been investigating this moment almost as if it were a crime scene that happened not 60000000 years ago but yesterday and the story they've put together it's more than just interesting it's frankly. Terrifying. And weirdly specific as it happens Take for example the seemingly simple question of when when did it happen you know me like the year would be to a little too specific Noah I don't know if you remember Jay got even more specific than that this was a casual question that I threw out listen to his answer and by the way do we know anything about seasons was this one particular Actually it was between well this is a bit of a stretch but it was some time between June and July. You can see that and so specifically how would you know that the reasoning is we can for example this is the this is the 1st surprise kind of a controversial idea but basically goes like this she says scientists have found some pollen in rocks which date from that time to different kinds of pollen and based on an analysis of those 2 kinds of pollen we know that the impact took place between the flowering of the Lotus and the flooring of the water. Ok so that's a Lotus you see flowering on the left it's a water lily flowering on the right fossils found at the impact site that had pollen from both of these flowers in the same rock would suggest that the impact did. In fact take place somewhere between June and July is 1 of those things in geometry we get a glimpse of a moment far far back and on. Let's go deeper into that moment. a tiny little dog of light in the sky. Or as planets the moon moved with respect to the stars this would have had a constant bearing and no one seaman could tell you that if you see something constant bearing that's on a collision course with you and that thing of course is our asteroid 0 weighing in on the earth I want to say that we do know quite a bit about this asteroid from the size of the Creator and from the amount of certain minerals found at the impact site we know that the asteroid was roughly 6 miles wide and then again roughly 6 miles long which makes it approximately the size of Manhattan Island or our Mt Everest it's roughly the size of Mount Everest that is dug run. Quite a bit about this asteroid and by the way it has a name it's the. Baptist. That's. A master it's another subject we do know that the Earth's Moon has probably produced a collision with something the size of Mars. So. It's cool doesn't really relate to our story. The whole leave the. Dinosaurs are here on. The earth 20. 20. And scientists couldn't be sure what would happen mathematically I mean when a Mount Everest size 20000 miles an hour winds near the epicenter is really just the. Scientists that are going to construct this story let's just take it piece by piece and 1st figure out what would happen when this big ball hurtling through space slams into our atmosphere which is made of gas of course so just to approximate let's fire a bullet through some gas. And watch what happens here with basically showed a super slow motion video of a gun firing a bullet underwater you can see it on our website radio. And freeze it right there at the edge Ok basically what you see is this bullet steaming through the water and by the way we use water as an approximation for gas and gas you would have the same effect I'm about to describe creating a wake behind it in the wake gets wider and wider as it trails away from the bullet and if you imagine this shape in 3 dimensions really what you're looking at is a kind of a cone like a funnel shape inside the the walls of the funnel inside that cone is nothing nothing nothing because in water so you're saying there's it's like a hole in the. Vacuum in there because the. Water pushes the water out of the way and the water doesn't have time to come back together. Their. Massive hole in the water. Now. Is 6 miles wide and the hole that it's making is right above your head. And this is going to be. To see. You would be looking at. Still just imagine what that would be. A moment. But according to Jay you better not blink because before you could open your eyes again. The escrowed would have hit the surface and if you're in a position to see that then you're going to be engulfed by. That is just about to occur by the way the audience was just laughing at a diagnosed a los Muertos graphic that just came on the screens so we know it was a big explosion fine it was violent fine but I think we should be a little bit subtle about this because obviously if an asteroid is the size of Manhattan and it lands on your head you're not going to feel very good about that but if Manhattan is is hitting the planet Earth that's a little bit like a pebble hitting an enormous beach ball Yeah and I get imagine that little pebble sized belt of the squid speaking the pebble would create some damage in the spot where it landed but let's suppose that you are. A leaf eating mother of 3 hadrosaur living in New Zealand right and you're just but at the moment that the asteroid comes in you're on that your other side of the planet would you have any idea that this was happening as the next question that we took to Jay how much damage with this thing actually do well we we can do experiments. To school and use. That. I think. That is the sound of the man and very happy with his explosion. You can see every piece of this was happening so based on experiments like this people IP can figure out precisely what happened when the asteroid hit the earth so according to Doug the amount of energy that would have been unleashed when I think rushing in on to earth is roughly this hit the earth with an explosion of Time 100000000 megatons . Their lives they say our guitarist guitar around had a metal moment don't look at her wrong or she'll do that to you. Ok so here's this . Down for us. 2 tons of t.n.t. We're talking. 2 tons of t.n.t. Will essentially do this. On Which is a lot. However it means it's a bit really depends on what you mean by a lot because I was doing a little googling and I was surprised to learn that 110000000 megatons is not nearly enough to destroy the planet to destroy the entire planet you would need ready for this 110 quadrillion mega tons of t.n.t. Which is 100000000 times 110000000. So going back to your had resources to ation mother of 3 in New Zealand if the thing came in to her maybe she would feel the ground shake a little bit but after a minute whatever and she'd go back to eating leaves she probably wouldn't notice. We were taught in homeroom by Mrs Leroux or whoever. Hears the classic exp. Nation there was an impact of course and it kicked up an enormous amount of dust to remember this the dust in kind of covers the planet that blankets the Earth makes the earth very cold makes the earth very nasty all the big plants get sick the dinosaurs get hungry the dinosaurs get sick and then gradually they get dead. From different things 10000 years 30000 years for till you get like a like 900000 years later you got a shivering the last the store sitting there in the cold. And that's the that's the story we were told in school is a long slow wintery Yeah you know why we tell these good people that tired old story from this is what is McGruder Magruder Ok. Let us offer up a completely different television night. That will go with that let's actually flip the understanding completely I think we should based on new science so all right we're going to do Keith pull up that ballistics video that we showed earlier of the red sand and you sort of pull that up and blow it up to the 3 screens and then yeah rewind it back if you. Think you. Know. Ok so this is a 6000 frames a 2nd video that you're seeing here is from Pete's lab at this point on the screen all you're seeing is a bit of red sand now what you see in the 1st few frames as you see the laser hitting right there red sand flying in the air super slow mo in the next frame forward right there you see some fire little ball of fire erupt near the impact site right where the laser hits the sand there's this little clump of flame and we freeze on that spot now scientists can now measure the temperatures in that spot right there. Right there and just to state the obvious we know from those measurements that that spot right there would have gotten very very very very their aid. Hot. Temperature of. The. Temperature. 20 miles into the. Gas. This is a basic physics experiment we're going to show you on the screen you see. Video actually. Dropping a metal ball to some sand is just a. Watch this right here. And. Disappears into the sand a little spear of sand shooting back in the opposite direction sort of a bounce back effect. Something I knew. I see as you see this fine plume of sand shooting back in the opposite direction. Now. That that is an asteroid and that's. To keep. The ball drops. So it's just. Stank you. Get the same effect. It's simple just something. We just heard. Described. It would be gas. It's going to start to cool down a bit and when it cools. Quickly. If you look at one of the glass. This is what it looks like right there on the screen you see what looks kind of like a snowball. One of these bits of glass. I find that. Fine because that's like a little back to studio right. Now imagine trillions of these things. Going to happen next. Is going to. Come back to. Harm us because. Eventually it will appear. And you know it's really hard. To imagine what the hadrosaur would have seen but the thing to keep in mind is that these things as they're coming in these it's a glass 90 some odd percent are burning up in the atmosphere so very few of them are hitting the ground so from her point of view probably would have looked like a crane just meteor shower any one has ever seen. With one. Significant bomber. Which is this when these little bits of glass come in each one the burns up is the positing a little bit of heat into the sky and collectively there's such a massive rain of these things coming in well the heat would build up the sky would turn red. It would be getting hotter and hotter. So essentially. Everything else on earth would have been incinerated. Not so much the impact and all that went up into the sky. Created that heat that's what did the men. And he would argue it didn't just to some of them or even many of them and he would say it did all of them all at once there is 0 evidence that. Through the crazy part of the series it think that the whole process from the impact of the glass. Of the species on the planet it would have taken a few hours. He thinks maybe 2 hours. I mean that's less time than. A business lunch. You try to get in east north west anywhere. Into New Orleans I. Mean if you think about it. In this theater tonight. The 1000000. This is. One of. Underwriting support comes from. In downtown. To North Main Street open every day they specialize in bicycle maintenance. And fresh baked goods. From the Gunnison are a nonprofit organization whose mission is to cultivate and promote the arts in our community art classes theater and music events and gallery exhibits. Dot org. It's morning. Your community radio station right here in the Gunnison valley you can check. Thanks so much for tuning in. Hey I'm Jad I am Robert this is Radio Lab and today very we're bringing you the die no pack a lip sportsman of our stage show apocalyptical it was recorded live at Seattle's Paramount Theater in November back in 2013 and if you want to watch the show you can because we have video of the entire performance at Radiolab dot org slash live now encourage you to watch it at some point because you can see the amazing puppets you can see all the visual effects we had on the screens behind our heads and you know we're mostly on the radio so when we get a chance to go visual we go big yes. Before the break we had just stumbled into this theory that the dinosaurs after owning the earth for 200000000 years that every last one of them was killed off in less than 2 hours yes. That's what evidence suggests that's right READY. Well you can consider the evidence but also you could consider common sense and in. A world filled with terrestrial dinosaurs they were on every continent there even in Antarctica. And to say that they all disappeared in 2 hours and all that would that suggest that there's none of them out of harm's way none of them in a cave somewhere none of them in the grotto none of them in a protected forest that any time in the all night and that is just too much. I just don't buy the truth is that the science is never going to be so exact as to say all of them disappeared or if it happened on a single day or on an afternoon now no tool that we have is that precise what Jay is saying is that it happened fast very fast nothing made it through what I find interesting is that ultimately you don't need the ballistics or anything we've shown you so far to know that something major. Sudden happened because you can see evidence of it literally edged into the earth. Here is the. First. You can see really well out in Colorado actually we sent one of our producers Molly Webster out there to meet a paleontologist Kirk Johnson they hiked over a couple hills and found this one specific spot. Around the corner and. They started to dig. Like. A foot of where we're. Going to see the earth has layers like a tree has rain and every 3 feet down you go you're going back in time about 10000 years and when you go all the way down all the way back to 66090000 years you will find this one little skinny strip of rock. That's a given. That. This one skinny gray line this this. Is now in a very real way that line that you're seeing that represents the day the asteroid hit the day just above that line that's a little bit after the day just a little bit before today the line is called the k.t. Boundary and what's cool is you can actually touch you can touch evidence of that moment and in fact Kirk what he did that day was he took his finger and handed it to Molly and all her holy. But it's not what you're holding is it dark stone the carbon rich stowed in the stone you'll find all kinds of things and you'll find very rare minerals like. Radium that probably came in on the asteroid and got smashed into that line those little glass balls I was talking about those little hell balls Well if you get out a microscope and you look at that rock you will see them in there. We put up a funny cartoon of the little help they're all in the help line help exceeding that line it's about an inch is like in there it's sort of the story of that day absolutely and here's the crazy thing if this is the line right here this would strip here Robert trace the picture of the k.-t. Boundary with his finger and then you dig just below the line you were going to find over and over again dinosaurs everywhere we're not going to be a lot of course is just putting some toy dinosaurs under the line and making the move by giving them a certain amount of energy which I shouldn't but they're fossils and you will find dinosaur fossils from Europe and Idaho and Montana this one says it was leaving China but if you just go above the law and you don't find any dogs or so below the line scientists have looked everywhere above. And they haven't. Everywhere they have looked anyway they found nothing nothing nothing is a different world less amazing things in a different world. And it's pretty rare this is one world nothing normal. The book is This is the part of the show coming up where we. When we travel with a bunch of from comedians Pat Nas we're all Simon Amstell affair Eisenberg Kurt Brown all are actually Kurt open this particular show you can see his full set at Radiolab dot org slash live super funny but on this night we had 2 comedians and so right at the spot in the middle of the show out walks a guy one of the most talented mammals he looks like actually is like someone with his finger intellect trick socket huge amounts of hair that are standing like out you know like he's got a halo his name. Was 7. the ethos . Oh it's been a pleasure. And also you know and also. That's a totally different show but Radio Lab. It's been also man I mean I discovered some really great friends the 1st time I did something for Radio Lab and I continue to find great friendships and a love and passion for sound and science and knowledge and aren't And so I think that I'm lucky to be part of it. Thanks Radio Lab where ever you are. Ok so this is a song. And the song I was. The song is a it's a it's a good one. Ok. Some. You We'll be right back with video. This is David from the Radio Lab disappointed in part by the Alfred p. Sloan Foundation a Public Understanding of Science and Technology in the modern world more information about w w w 2. I'm Dave Clayton and I'm the host of Classical Gas classical music on Sunday morning 8 10 am we play classical music as it is supposed to be played in its entirety and we do it with all of the great classical composers and some you may never heard of so tune in Sunday at 8 am for our classical gas. Support for k.b. You teeth comes from the dogwood offering artisan cocktails small bites and desserts the dog what is located at 3 o 9 3rd Street and historic miners' cabin just off out Avenue the dog would c.b. Dot com 3496338 and from the Center for Mental Health providing comprehensive mental health and substance use disorder services in the Gunnison Valley for 53 years and Gunnison at 710 north Taylor Street and at center m h dot org. This Sunday afternoon at 3 it's the return of outside in host Roger Conn delves into public policy discussions with an array of special guests this week we'll hear from Charlie Sykes' a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard magazine and an m s n b c contributor Sikes has been critical of President Trump and elements of the Republican Party we'll talk with Roger Cohen about the state of the country and the future of the party. Here outside in Sunday afternoons at 3 on k.b. U.t. I am Jabba Ron I rubber coats This is Radio Lab we're continuing with our live performance of apocalyptical from the Paramount Theater in Seattle Washington and we just heard of a new theory about the end of the dinosaurs a very sudden fast dramatic end with a certain musical at the very very end now for the next question is sort of the obvious next question. Which is what made it through and how well we did ask scientists that question and here is what they told us. If on that day you were a creature in the ocean and you happened to be within 300 feet of the water surface if you imagine this room filled with ocean water we're talking about you guys up in the balcony. There people not surprise you to learn you don't do very well mostly there's an acid rain pouring in so a lot of you will die but down with the higher being seas if you're below 300 feet and this always happens to people with different with the better anyway you do find me and on land it turns out plain ordinary dirt is a very good insulator and if you've got 1200 degrees on the surface then about $34.00 inches down you would be comfortable there for several hours unknown home just a couple inches you only need a few inches so that means you can be a little worm and if you scribble down you're Ok you could be a beautiful scribbling down your own cure you could be a dinosaur tending to an underground nest and if the mystery isn't far enough below the ground and lot of them weren't then that means that hatch will have babies that had left babies and hatched the book called their babies years later birds and if you're in an earlier version of a crocodile you bury yourself deep enough into the mud you also get through as do the plants roots a lot gets through actually. And that actually brings us to what I find to be one of the coolest parts of the story this is the part that involves all of us in this room. Who turns out on that day as the fire was raging above on the surface somewhere in a little hole in the ground happened to be a furry little animal that has the distinction of being a great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great. Grandma everybody in this room it is true there was a creature down there. There is a creature I thought we should stop there. We are getting away with want to push it . Out of the center which is usually. There is a creature down there. And a little hole and when the dinosaurs got cleared away this creature could step out of her hole she could step out she had more food more places to roam she could populate the planet assuring in the age of mammals and now here we all are in Seattle thank God Don't flatter yourself it's not a straight. We. But here's the problem we've never known anything about this animal that gave rise to all of us we've never known what she looked like we've never known you know how she spent her days we never known anything we've had no fossils of her recently. Actually literally as we were reporting the story right in the middle of our reporting a team of scientists led by a woman named Maureen O'Leary. She took fossils that we do have fossils of this creature's descendants and then using fancy algorithms was able to cross reference the traits to work her way back for the 1st time to a composite picture of what we think our great great grandma looks like so now c.l.a. Radiolab exclusive. We present to you our Great. Make. Here She is. However here is the issue here is the issue we ran into when we asked Maureen and the scientists who did this work now we've got an image of this creature that's amazing. What do we call her. What is her name. This was Maureen's response its official name is the hypothetical. Now I. Suddenly feeling bad for the food well it's not something that we thought of as we were sort of busily working on the paper but in a funny thing happened our producer Molly was talking to her and she was saying she's such an awful name Maureen system Ali. Well you could name it and Molly says to. This. Are you serious. So. Serious. I mean opportunity. To name the. Submissions response. To. The following letters appear one after another s c h r e w d i n g e r. Trudinger. Trudinger. I can't even tell you what a crisis this was for the staff. Was such a bad day. And the whole experience made us wonder. Should we have. Do we deserve to be here. Get. 10. Are you ready. To. Perform live at the Paramount Theater in Seattle Washington by Robert John Allen Rod Kurt Braunohler. Glenn Coachy. Keith scratch our production team was Melissa Tom Jeffords. Dave Sanderson Keith scratch and Ellen Horne scenic in video designed by Josh Higginson and Adam Schweitzer for workforce Thanks special thanks to Outback concerts new Nucifora. Fresh air. Jim Byrne field and Kendra Wow. That was a minefield the proper name you got through it. Thank you I want to think the n.p.r. Music team for and so graciously agreed to videotape this performance for us thanks to those guys with the cameras he's. Supported in part by the National Science Foundation and by the peace Sloan Foundation Public Understanding of Science and Technology in the world more information about. Radio produced by. Distributed by n.p.r. . Radio Lab is hosted by Jad. Our staff includes. Pat Walters Tim Howard. Molly Webster. Dylan Keith Lynn Levy. With help from. Damian. And of course Scott Brown. Pro bono credit. Brown thank. You. This is also k b a t community radio for the Gunnison Valley 90.3 k b u t Crested Butte 88.7 k g n i Gunnison and worldwide at k b u t dot org And it is exactly just about 10 o'clock time for the finer things but 1st I'm going to give you a little bit of weather that we have coming up today the weather report for Crested Butte so far anyway is 66 degrees of the temperature I should say and in Gunnison it is already over 70 degrees it's just 70 degrees right now the forecast scattered showers and thunderstorms knee mainly after 5 pm today mostly sunny high near $77.00 calm winds becoming northwest around 5 miles per hour in the afternoon the chance of precipitation is 30 percent a 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms mostly before 10 o'clock it will be mostly cloudy with a low about $46.00 overnight and which is not very cold at all for around here south winds that will become about 5 miles per hour after midnight tomorrow there's also a chance of precipitation at 60 percent borrow and of course when we say precipitation we're talking about rain or you know sometimes it has some out I've been in parades on the 4th of July when it snowed but for the most part we're talking about rain I'm sure and especially with these temperatures Sunday night a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before midnight Monday there's a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms mostly afternoon. Monday night 20 percent. Is a 30 percent this goes on until probably Wednesday and it does get warmer each day so by Thursday we're going to have mostly sunny days with a high near 80 Friday will be mostly sunny and that's as far as I've gotten but we're going to tell you that that's what the weather is coming up and again this is k.b. T. Community radio for the Goddess and that he.