the Carboniferous period - During the Carboniferous, the sharks took over the sea. On land, a new kind of egg was invented that could be laid and hatched on land, instead of in the water. The world was covered with swampy forest,

The Devonian period During the Devonian, there were many firsts: the first animal to give birth to live young, the first trees, the first insects, and the first vertebrates to walk on land. Here are a couple of articles about the Devonian -

The Silurian period - After the cold temperatures ice sheets and drop in sea level at the end of the Ordovician, the Silurian enjoyed a warmer and more stable climate. During this time, fish developed jaws,

The Ordovician period - After the die out at the end of the Cambrian, during the beginning of the Ordovician, there was an increase in the variety of animals and plants, with many new species entering the fossil record. Chordates became fish,

The Cambrian period - In the Cambrian period, roughly 540 million years to 485 million years ago, most of the types of animals that are with us today got their start, even if it’s difficult to recognize them.

catching up with early life - Most of the history of life on our world is about single cells. Life made up of millions-billions-trillions of cells, (just for one critter!) only arrived in the last 700,000,000 years.

Not an episode - With the eb and flow of events, I wasn’t able to do the research for the next real episode. So, here’s an artificial episode instead.

Let’s get back to life - Today, I share a bit of what’s happened with my digital organisms, my ongoing experiments with some software-based artificial life I wrote, and talk about where we’re going next. The general system is very close to where I wa...

Jets and jet engines - While doing the research for an episode on nuclear powered aircraft, I ran across a bunch of information on how jet engines work. I thought, gee, the history design and physics of jet engines would make a nifty episode.

From television to nuclear fusion - In 2005, a small team, headed by Robert Bussard, built a nuclear fusion reactor. The design was a descendent of a fusion reactor invented by the same man who invented the television.