Episode description

This episode is all about fossilized poop! First, we break down our song "Coprolites" track by track, then we talk with paleontologist Dr. Tony Fiorillo of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, Texas about how in the world something as soft as poop can become fossilized. He also gives us some insight into the history of "dung stones" and his own experience digging for dinosaurs in Alaska and looking for traces of anything they might leave behind (including fossilized fecal matter). 

Dr. Anthony Fiorillo is Chief Curator of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science as well as Vice President of Research and Collections. He holds a Ph.D in vertebrate paleontology and resides in Dallas, Texas, except for summers when he can be found living out of a tent in the farthest known reaches of Alaska, searching for dinosaur bones. 

The Amoeba People are a science rock band who also happen to be musical ambassadors from the planet Crouton, sent to Earth to study its natural history, to learn about its myriad life forms, and to parse the mysteries of the human species by learning its dance moves. Their songs and videos are played in science classrooms around the world from elementary school all the way to college science courses.

Their energetic lives shows have melted faces at the American Chemical Society's Annual Conference (get it? melted, chemistry, it's a pun), rattled bones at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles' "Dino Fest" for the last number of years, shared their musical ideas worth sharing at "TED Talks: Education Revolution," and have performed at numerous venues from science museums, book stores, community events, and science festivals to schools, clubs, and bars. They have collaborated with the Planetary Society and have twice shared the stage with Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye the Science Guy, as well as appearing on the Planetary Society's podcast on three different occasions. They are also the official house band of the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, CA, their "home base on Earth" where they frequently perform.