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URGENT call for questions: PALEOHISTOLOGY (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-15 21:53:37
Imported:
2026-06

Content

In less than 24 hours I'll be interviewing a paleontologist who studies how teeth and bones evolved in animals. An example of her research: documenting bone cancer in a 240-million-year old turtle, one of the oldest cases of cancer ever discovered. Got any questions on the history of bone growth, healing, adaptation, or disease?

Deadline: Saturday, August 16 at 5am PST

Comments

Mel Rowsell

Is it true that the tailbone in humans is what is left of a tail?? What’s is happening there?

RJ Doidge

Yes! If she only had one kind of tooth, what kind would be want?

Anna Thompson

Are modern human jaws shrinking? Why did I have to get my palate expanded as a kid so all my teeth would fit normally? This seems like something evolution would select against (too small mouths)

Deli Dames

Do people confuse them with paleontologists?

Matt Ceccato

How have bones evolved in the past few millennia?

CatsA

Why can’t humans grow infinite sets of teeth like sharks?

Zed Shirogane

I heard that birds and dinosaurs could breathe through their hollow bones, is this true? And if yes, HOW?!

Milo Lis

First time question asker here! What is the healthiest tooth you’ve seen in your studies?

e-rennebee

FTQA!! what are the weirdest or most unexpected things that we can conclude about animals using teeth

Naomi Jane

Why can't we get more teeth? 😔

Alanna Richman

Have you encountered any trends in certain lineages you find unexpected? Like a specific group of animals gaining, then losing, then gaining a specific bone or shell?

Zyz

Are teeth actually not considered part of the skeleton???

Staci Pinkowitz

COOL AS HELL FIRSTLY!! Secondly - I am aware of cases of healed breaks in bones in old ass human remains that support the ongoing human legacy of altruism and community. Do we ever see evidence of healed breaks in other animals? Cases of other animals supporting one another in groups such as this?

Quincey Robisheaux

Will a bone grow over embedded objects such as shrapnel?

Kathleen

Why did teeth even evolve in the mouth, why not the throat or stomach you know

Annabelle

How have our teeth changed since toothpaste and dental hygiene became a thing? How does dental hygiene make our teeth different from other animals? How come they don’t have to brush their teeth all the GD time?

Kayla Meyer

how do bones like not deteriorate like skin does

RestingLaurelFace

What's up with bone spurs? Also, how accurate is it to guess at a diet based on teeth shape (herbivore vs carnivore vs omnomnomivore) and what do human teeth tell us about our dietary needs?

taylor

How did humans keep their teeth clean throughout history/prehistory?

Lauri Fulford

Is it possible for adults to regrow teeth?

G.Sil

My fiance is wondering if there are any bone diseases that you see in the fossil record that do not have a modern day analog. Did ancient reptiles have bone diseases that we evolved adaptations to? Are the bone diseases we see in animals today the same as those in the fossil record?

Annabelle

Who was the first species to evolve teeth and what did their teeth look like

e-rennebee

FTQA! where did teeth first show up in the history of evolution? do we know where they adapted from?

Philipp Meder

Do they know of the subreddit /r/BoneHurtingJuice? Does something like a „bone hurting juice“ exist?

Pallison

I am missing both my lateral incisors. So is my mom, and both of my sisters. I’m also missing 3 out of 4 of my wisdom teeth. (Yay!) Are there examples of other species having dental genetic abnormalities? Why does this happen in humans?

Keerat Singh

A healed femur is often cited as evidence of human community in the fossil record. How has the healing of bone injuries evolved over time, and how has that process changed with society?

Rebekah Smith

I get why we have to lose a set of teeth as children, but WHY couldn’t we have evolved to get another set sometime in adulthood? I feel like we could really use another set with how many tooth issues humans develop.

Kimberly

Why are wisdom teeth. Just why

Dr. Niki

Please talk about ever-growing teeth. And tooth rings for aging! And tooth wear!

Abby Grieb

How did birds get hollow bones??? And how did carnivore verses herbivore teeth evolve?

Katie O

How well are scientists able to determine cause of death by examining the bones of deceased animals???? 🦴🪦

Dr. Niki

If you haven't talked about how teeth come from shark skin- please do! Teeth=skin=cool as hell

PlanetSci_Lorraine

First time question asker! Several questions. One, what’s up with wisdom teeth? Some people have them and others don’t. Are we evolving to not have them? Second question, why don’t humans regrow teeth like sharks do? Third, why is it that rodents teeth constantly grow, but ours don’t? Fourth, why are teeth so often used in horror media? (For example, the white vault, the Magnus archives, etc)

Ry_ofthetiger

This one is guaranteed to be asked a thousand times, but: why do we still grow wisdom teeth? Shouldn’t epigenetics kick in at some point? On that note: Are there human bones that *are* actively in a process of evolution, or do today’s Homo sapiens essentially look skeletally identical to those from 100,000 years ago?

Yuri

Why does weight/gravity make bones stronger? Wouldn’t it be better to have strong bones no matter what? What is the first bone ever discovered? Is horn bone? What do you wish everyone knew about bones but doesn’t? Does increasing cardiovascular health increase bone health, are bone just really strange results of our blood? Is tarter bone?

Keerat Singh

Why do so many children need braces? We can’t have had braces for very long as a society, what did people “back then” do?

Liz B

Do animals get osteoporosis too?

Christopher Dolan

First time question asker!! I am a veterinary oncologist and frequently see cases of osteosarcoma in dogs. I’m curious if she sees cancers that are similar to those we see now. What kind of translation knowledge can be applied to modern patients?

e-rennebee

FTQA!!! what’s up with that tooth in eye surgery, why are we doing that and why are teeth useful for that

Sean

Why are marsupials teeth so different from most creatures we know. Primarily speaking of the thylacoleo. Most predators evolved very similar teeth but the marsupial lion evolved to have meat shears. Why is that?

Austin Johnson

I know human wisdom teeth had a function in early humans but now we can’t fit them in our mouth and the majority of us have to get them removed. Is there any other species of animal that has experienced something like that? Where their teeth stopped fitting in their mouth?

Meagan Walker

Is it true that some people have “better” teeth than other just by birth?

Sarah Nyland

I know you study paleohistology so this may preclude the relevance of my question, but - why have we evolved to have really necessary facial nerves run so closely to our shifting teeth bones? I had to have a wisdom tooth extracted where the roots had grown around the nerve that runs through the jaw, and it seems like such an arrangement wouldn’t behoove the ancient humans who lived without dentistry!

Alyssa Berg

Why do most (all?) animals, mammal or not, have lots of individual teeth in a line instead of just one big tooth-thing in our mouths? Is there a benefit to having them be individual rather than one big ridge of tooth-bone-stuff? Also, why did humans and some other mammals, like horses, evolve to have all our teeth touching and close together? Seems like a recipe for cavities whereas, say, dogs or even fish have much less surface area that touches.

30.004861 cm of fun!

I recall there's evidence of an ancient human with a debilitating injury which would have left them effectively bedridden and unable to fend for themselves, yet they lived for a long time and we're clearly fed and taken care of. It's one of the oldest incidents of human compassion - more on that?

Keerat Singh

What animal has the coolest teeth?

w.t. ketch

One thing I always wondered throughout med school: what the hell is up with the hyoid?

Aaron Wood

I’ve heard that a possible major cause of sleep apnea is a change in the shape of jaws as we’ve switched to a diet of softer foods that require less chewing, especially in our toddler years. What evidence is there that supports this theory? (That chewing on harder-to-eat foods in childhood leads to wider jaw bones, and more room for the soft tissue like the tongue)

Megs

Would you get a beloved pets skeleton articulated?

Courtney Stogsdill

What’s the coolest adaptation you’ve witnessed in your research?

Dr. Niki

Which animals have the weirdest teeth? Is it sloths

PlanetSci_Lorraine

Fifth, why are some people born with extra teeth? For example, I had an entire set of canines in addition to my baby teeth and adult canines. Also, in your opinion, what animal has the most interesting/strange teeth? Also, did beaks or teeth evolve first?

Zyz

I've never thought about bones being something that can vary! Are the bones of modern animals pretty much all the same in composition/structure?? (Other than obviously birds with less dense skeletons)

Meagan Walker

Where do birds make their blood if they have hollow bones?

Aubrey Nelson

What are the changes caused by Modern day tooth care vs the rest of history? I feel like just the past 100-130 ish years have brought about such a massive change in oral care, but people made due in the past.

Deli Dames

Why aren't our teeth sharp? Why do we still have wisdom teeth? Do a lot of animals die of mouth diseases because of bacteria (since they don't brush teeth)?

Meagan Walker

Is a cuttle bone a “real” bone?

Rachael Lemont

Does brittle bone disease occur in animals?

Marissa Ho

First time question asker! To my general understanding, every creature needs to have the teeth that is optimized for the way they consume their food as well as their diet overall, but through observing the evolution of animals, have you seen any indication of an optimal tooth shape?

Jaclyn McLean

Are there bones that become vestigial that stick around or evolve that can be used in different species to track their evolution? (are there vestigial bones, like organs?)

spiderbeetlebee

Which animal has the strangest bones? Are there different techniques or things you need to learn to study different types of bones? Like bird bones?

Catherine BH

How did baby teeth evolve? Why do sharks get to continually replace their teeth, and are there any other animals that do that? What were early teeth like, relative to modern human teeth? I've heard about ideas that chewing hard food creates a larger jaw and this is part of why our wisdom teeth create problems, because our jaws aren't as big as they should be due to our softer modern diet- tell me more!

Tom Boodry

Why don’t more animals have the ability to keep adding new teeth during their lifetime, like a shark does? Is that taxing from a develop or resource perspective?

Meagan Walker

Do teeth last the longest out of all bony bits? They seem extra hardcore.

fullmetalknee

What technology have humans used to heal bones? When do we first see splints or casts? How old are prosthetics of any kind?

Meagan Walker

Why do some folks have the little bumps along the edge of front teeth?

Karly KW

It's weird that teeth are outside "bones", right? Is there any evidence of alternative evolutionary paths with keratin formations or something else that keeps all the bits of your skeleton on the inside?

Plant Predator

Have there been noticeable changes in human teeth since we moved away from being hunter gathers and started relying on agriculture?

Mollie

How do our bones physically become weaker or stronger? ie how do they interact and develope within the body?

Katie O

When did cells like osteoblast and osteoclast first emerge on the evolutionary time line?? (I’m a ER nurse and a massive science nerd. I ❤️ bones ! )

Amesia Doles

Is it true that bones heal stronger at a break point once it has healed back together?

Rachel

Echoing this! I recall visiting the LA Natural History Museum on a recent vacation (thanks Alie for the rec!) and they had a few other non-human specimens that also showed fairly intense bone injuries that healed suggesting other social animals also show this sign of community. How many other species have you seen healed injuries suggesting strong community connections in?

Ida Juva

Okay so please explain wisdom teeth? I'm having mine removed in a week (it grows in a 90° angle for some reason?), when did they evolve and do other species have them? (Long time, 1st time asking!)

Robert I Hart

Why do we have wisdom teeth? Are they, or were they utilitarian? Seems dentists like to pull them out to make room for the other teeth (is that the real reason?). And why call them wisdom teeth.

Michael Crosa

Do other species have baby teeth like humans do? When did that become a thing?

Nana From Canada

Do our teeth prove we have evolved to eat grains, grass and meat thereby putting us firmly in the scavenger category as we are opportunists?

Eric Burnette

How did a turtle’s ribs become its shell? That’s so weird. And seems like the long in-between stage would be very inconvenient

James Nance

Does each species that has bones also have documented cases of bone cancer? I.e., can bones exist without bone cancer?

Joseph Hall

Beyond cancer, what are some of the most gruesome or debilitating diseases you can diagnose in the fossil record? Can you see evidence of widespread infections, bone-eating parasites, or the prehistoric equivalent of severe, crippling arthritis?

Jenn

Is it true that we really only think milk is necessary for strong bones because of the milk industry ads? Are there other sources of nutrients that are more effective/efficient/concentrated? First time questioner ☺️

Becca Addison

First time question asker! How does the evolution of bone marrow compare to the evolution of bones as a whole? Eg did bones predate bone marrow or vice versa?

Luhlani

How do some animals constantly produce new teeth or have teeth that continuously grow while others only get one set of teeth? How common is it in animals to have continuous vs individual teeth sets?

AJ

FTQA! What was the first animal to have ossified bones? What made ossified bones evolutionarily advantageous compared to cartilaginous skeletons?

ValBeListening

Why are we born with more bones and how do they fuse together over time?

Jack Walker

Bone tattoos!! What’s that about??

Nat W

Are bones in large flightless birds like emus different to flighted birds? When did hollow bones happen? Why do snakes and legless lizards have such different ribcages?

Emily Staw-fur

Why do we have baby teeth? Also why so many small teeth instead of fewer large ones?

hegular

why do we only get two sets of teeth in our life, while other animals can get infinite teeth? (actually is that true or flimflam?) it seems more of an evolutionary advantage to have extra sets of teeth

Obilot

In 20,000 years, what do you think paleohistologists might learn about *us*? What do you think will be left of us, post-mortem, to study if climate change continues unabated (assuming there are still humans around who study the past?

PeculiarMxPie

Do you think humans will eventually be able to regrow their teeth like sharks do? Or are we stuck with our adult teeth forever?

Jack Walker

Like, Viking etching on teeth and other “tattoos” that were done on bones

Han the Bee

It seems that a common problem with human teeth is overcrowding, is this specific to humans? Is there evidence of this in other animals? Or is our number of teeth an evolutionary hangover from a time when we would have lost more teeth due to injury, dental issues, etc.

howdycrab

Brain dump - sorry if some seem too easily googleable! Do other animals have an equivalent to wisdom teeth (somewhat pointless bones that cause problems for many members of the species)? How do things like hormones affect bone density? Why are human lower backs/necks so iffy and unreliable despite centuries of walking upright? Do other species have common bone-related ailments? Who has the strongest bones? The weakest? How did critters like Dunkleosteus get cool bone-plate teeth vs teeth like ours that aren't directly connected to our skeletons/not as boney? Who has the most spooky scary skeleton?

Lars Watts

What's the largest animal known to have had an exoskeleton?

ValBeListening

How much does the expert focus on ligaments within their bone research? (I had a sprained ankle earlier this year and was amazed how the body keeps things glued together!)

J.R.

Which strange flying creature, other than birds, had unique bone adaptations for flight?

Chelcy

What bone has changed the most evolutionarily and what caused that change?

The Little Butternut

What's the science behind a bone's healing process and how does it differ from a tooth's healing process? Like why can the body heal broken bones but not broken teeth?

ValBeListening

Is drinking more milk actually good for your bones?

Charlotte Parkinson

Was anything accurate about Ross's profession in Friends?

Lars Watts

Which animal has/had the lightest bone density? The heaviest?

Dani the dino

What unexpected information can we gain from fossilized teeth, beyond diet??

nat

will humans ever evolve out of having a tailbone….

ValBeListening

What animal has the most bones and which has the least?

Denise Tugade

How do enamel repairing toothpastes and other over the counter products work? Are they just flim flam?

Stephanie Spencer

Could fossil studies ever contribute to advances in regenerative medicine or biomaterials?

Denise Tugade

Will our vestigial tail bones ever go away?

Mark Wilkes

My wife just finished her masters with a professor that studies dental calculus for clues about humans’ occupations. Has anyone studied the dental calculus of prehistoric/nonhuman creatures?

Luhlani

Why is it that bones that have been cooked are said to be unsafe for dogs to eat whereas uncooked bones are okay? What exactly is happening in the bone when cooked that can cause it to splinter or break more? Is it a loss of moisture or specific tissue/cell structures that cause them to be more brittle?

Rebecca Morrison

Is it film flam that 100% of indigenous Mexicans don’t have wisdom teeth?

Jennifer Lemon

Are there any diseases we see in the historical record that we either can't identify or are sure that no longer exist?

G Connolly

I feel like my question is just: arthritis question mark?? Bone spurs??? Can you tell I’m a crocheter with a family history?

EDM

When did cartilage turn to bone in the enormous timeline of things

Mariah Ramsey

How much does the ologist hate the veneer teeth trend?

Han the Bee

What are some of the most surprising things that bones can tell us about lived experience of their owners? Some day will my bones reveal that I was a vegetarian? A hiker? Sat a computer all day? Drank water with fluoride?

Sonjabird

How did rodent teeth evolve? What other animals have constantly growing teeth? Do all of their teeth grow at the same rate?

The Little Butternut

Why are some people referred to as having "bigger bones" vs "weaker/smaller bones"? Is that an evolutionary trait based on ancestry? My doctors have always told me that my bones are "larger" which makes them stronger and less prone to breaking. What's that about?

ValBeListening

Why do some people have missing adult teeth? And why are people's teeth structured differently? Like my front teeth are more rounded than my partner's which is more squared

Nina Eve Z.

WHAT? I absolutely did not know this field existed!!! How do we study this? Also, what is the most obscure thing a paleohistologist is/has researched?!

Dane Camacho

Baby Teeth! Is it prevalent among other species? If so, did that trait come from common ancestors or did it evolve separately in different species?

Lee O'Reilly

what is up with cartilage? why some things are bendy and some things are not? how do we get rid of vestigial bones? how come some ribs are ‘extra’?

Reese Perini

What animal (extinct or current) has the most unusual teeth in your opinion? Any teeth with crazy shapes?

Jacob Elsbree

I feel like in the crime show Bones, they would look at a tibia and be like “well, obviously, this was a 32-year-old-female who lives in Wisconsin.” How much of this is film flam?

Luhlani

What was the order of evolution of different human tooth shapes? Did humans always have this same ratio of different teeth shapes to accommodate an omnivorous diet or did either the carnivorous/herbivorous type of teeth take up the majority of the mouth in the past and other types slowly evolved?

Spicy Native

Koala teeth. Why? How? Why did they evolve this way? Were their ancestors like this too? I assume yes but WHY?? And HOW is that an evolutionary trait that survived? 🐨 Follow up; baleen. When did it evolve? What dinosaurs had baleen?/did any dinos have baleen? Can animals with baleen get cavities? 🐳 Also does baleen regenerate? Or are they like koalas and subject themselves to Father Time? Thank you!!

Anna Guzman

What is ossification vs calcification? Also, how will human bones evolve over time as our lives become more sedentary?

Feylin

So excited! - so what can we learn from the production of blood or even the weight bearing ability of bone from fossilized pieces? Or if we are looking at teeth - diet from wear and tear? Bite strength?

Han the Bee

Please explain why some animals evolved baculums and others did not

Batty

I know several animals have species-specific parasites and some of them show up in bone (I’m specifically thinking of the skunk skull I have with evidence of cranial worms). Can fossils tell us if a parasite was species specific/a generalist? Or do we need living worms to know that?

Anthony P

Have felines always had those tiny little teeth up front that cats have? What are those even for, surely they can’t do anything??

Cricket

What is the gnarliest skeleton or bone you’ve seen??

Potato Puffer

Do ancient bones show us different strategies for healing compared to modern animals? When you find evidence of bone disease in a fossil, how can you tell the animal survived with it for a while vs. dying from it quickly? Do fossils show whether ancient animals suffered from arthritis, osteoporosis, or other “modern” bone conditions? How do changes in diet over evolutionary time show up in the teeth and jawbones of animals? What’s the most surprising or bizarre bone condition you’ve ever identified in a fossil?

Ryan Marlow

Did sabertooth tiger teeth really have serrations?

Macey Schroeder

I was going to ask about Paris Paloma song "triassic cuddle" its based on a fossil?? Is triassic the wrong era for paleo?

Ryan Marlow

How did teeth come to be the only bones that stick out of our flesh?

Empress of Smallwood

Why do so many humans have issues with their wisdom teeth? I know other species produce additional teeth to replace the ones lost. Do any of those species have the same problems with teeth as we do?

Sarah Holloway

What (if any) isotopes do you use for understanding what health and environmental conditions were happening while they were alive?

Ryan Marlow

In omnivores, why are the different types of teeth in the positions that they are?

Scott Sheldon

Can a disease that we can see in Egyptian mummies like osteoporosis be found in the fossil record? Like when it emerged as a thing?

MagpieLaughs

I know all tissue in fossils is replaced by minerals, but what do you think is the theoretical best resolution we can get inside them? Individual cells? Organelles? Macromolecules (like a chromosome maybe)?

Honor

What is the tiniest bone? Teeth: do other animals have wisdom teeth issues and also do other animals clean their teeth and does it matter if they do or don't? 🪥

Ryan Marlow

Could you really bond other materials to bones to make them stronger, Wolverine style? Maybe not metal, but what about plastics or composites?

Lisa Gorman

Does the fossil record give us any indication of how cartilaginous skeletons transitioned to bone and when that occurred?

Amarin MacKenzie

Can bone grafts (for teeth implants in humans) be resorbed? And can they be replaced if they do get resorbed?

Lisa Gorman

What kinds of injuries are seen in fossil animals? And how often can you see evidence of other changes like infection or cancer in fossilized bone?

Scott Sheldon

Can you talk about fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva? I only know about it because of Grey’s Anatomy, but it’s not real bone that grows right?

Ijustdie

I’ve read that fossil evidence has contributed to our understanding of evolutionary change, including both gradual transitions (gradualism) and sudden, drastic shifts (punctuated equilibrium). How did scientists distinguish between these patterns? And which of these two is more interesting for your studies?

Han the Bee

How common is it for people to be “missing” bones or teeth that are considered standard anatomy? My mom and her sister never grew incisors. Are some of us walking around missing bones that most others have?

Lisa Gorman

What seems to be the driver for the shark model of teeth (keep making them forever) vs. our model of teeth (you get a practice set and then 1 adult set and that's it)? It seems like a lot of us (mammals in general) could benefit from the ability to grow some spares.

Marjorie Gallant

I have never understood how the design of human teeth was the best evolution could do. They fall out as you grow. For some people (me) they come back in so crooked you can't actually chew. They sometimes fall out again and don't regrow that time. It's just bad design...or am I missing something?

Leila Laco

Will modern dental implants, fillings and such be identifiable to future archaeologists from fossils?

Scott Sheldon

Hollow bones in birds…I understand it in terms of lightening weight for flight, but in mammal bones that space is filled with marrow, so where is the marrow for birds? Still in the bones?

Donoiw

When did teeth first form and who had them? ( that we are aware of, at least ). Many thanks, -Donoi ( D'Noah )

Brian Scott

I recently learned that the species with the most teeth are snails. This makes me think teeth must have evolved along divergent evolutionary pathways. Is this true, or is the tooth fairy all powerful?

Addison Alley

Oh I am so excited about this and maybe this is a niche question. Years ago as an undergrad I was given the job of helping to prepare our lab for DNA extraction from Egyptian mummy teeth, which in the early 2010s was a very difficult thing to do. Do you perform DNA extraction on any of your fossils and if so, how has the technology advanced? Sincerely, a recovering ancient tooth enthusiast.

Jaz

What came first, teeth or bones? (Do we theories?) Thank you, fascinating topic

Dave Brewer

I'd love to hear how our ear bones evolved and what they used to be.

Scott Sheldon

All the bones of dinosaurs we see in museums….they can all be complete skeletons can they?

Dave Brewer

Great question! I'd never considered that.

MagpieLaughs

Also, paleontology is typically taught or classified as a field of geology -- with modern research like yours, do you think paleontology will start to migrate into a field of Life Science?

Empress of Smallwood

How are tusks different from teeth? Also, are beaks related in any way?

Emma T

Did dinosaurs ever get cavities? Can you see cavities in fossilized teeth?

Anna Beatriz Moraes Pedroso

Could you comment on that idea that we reconstruct animals appearance wrong from their bone's ramainings? Like if we would draw a hippo it would look monstruous

Sleepy John

How did bones end up with marrow as blood cell factories? It just seems a weird place.

Second Act Science Teacher

First timer! I understand that elephants have a “conveyor belt” system for replacing teeth. How does this compare with mammoths and mastodons? These two ancient elephants have very dissimilar looking teeth. What are the other similarities and differences between these and other ancient elephants and modern elephants? I’ve seen that elephants in human care can suffer from dental diseases, is there evidence of dental disease in their ancient ancestors? Can studying ancient elephants help us care for modern elephant dental health?

Sleepy John

Fwiw, sharks have teeth, but their skeletons are cartilage, not bone.

Steven Kidd

What can dentition tell us about the nature of animals? For instance gorillas have very large canines but are vegetarians.

Heather Livingston

Can you ask about FOP (Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva). A friend’s teenage family member has this disease and I would like to understand it more - what causes tissue to turn to bone, and can understanding more about paleohistology guide research in finding treatments for this rare genetic disease?

Peter

I once heard an amazing thing about (I think) plesiosaurs: That they could tell a new predator came on the scene because of bubbles - evidence of ‘the bends’, where the animal was fleeing from something, and fast. Is there anything like this you’ve come across? That is, evidence in the bone record which has hinted at something previously unknown? What do you think might explain those unknowns?

Ettegoom

How did we end up with some animals having one set of teeth forever, others with teeth that keep growing forever (horses, rats etc), others with new teeth that just keep appearing like some nightmare tooth conveyor belt (sharks) and humans with 2 sets that make for particularly terrifying baby skulls. I mean, it makes sense from an adaptive point of view, but did these difference evolve once? Twice? Multiple times in different lineages? And what kinds of generic changes would be involved in producing such wild differences?

Ettegoom

Ohhhh! Cool question!

RotWeisseWaffel

Has any species ever lost its teeth again through evolution (devolution?)? I've heard humans are evolving smaller jaws with fewer teeth since a few millennia. Has a process like that ever resulted in a species losing all teeth? And: Are cavities as old as teeth or did they come to be later?

Margaret Downs

Are teeth actually, technically bones? I feel like I've heard conflicting things on this.

Sean Murphy

House cats are apparently like Wolverine from the X-Men movies, with infinite healing and regenerative powers. I have had more than one cat that popped it’s femur out of the socket - and the treatment was to cut the ball off the end of the bone, and the cat would just grow connective tissue between the end of the bone and the socket. How have they evolved this amazing ability, and why can’t I do it?

Peter

Do you know of any cool atavistic things in the bone/teeth record, like whales with the ‘floating femur’? What do they hint at if so? Thanks so much!

Bennett Vanderbosch

How did we discover dental and orthodontic procedures? What kind of trial and error was involved?

Brain 🧠 Shenanigans

What are the tiniest and the largest teeth that have ever been found? When did they live, and what was their diet?

Alexandra Rambo

What’s the deal with sharks being able to regrow teeth? Is this endless? And why do some animals like parrot beaks and beaver teeth keep growing? I’m sure there are other examples. How? And why don’t ours?

Richard

Did bones and marrow evolve together, or did one come first? What's the advantage to putting blood production inside of bones?

rowantree

How were bone breaks treated before any sort of modern medical care?

Gretchen SG

Why do some people only have 3 wisdom teeth, or none at all?

Meaghan Ratcliffe

how do bones grow while still maintaining their strength? and are growing pains a real thing?

erin farley

Why did dinosaurs (birds) evolve to lose their teeth? Why don't birds have teeth? As a resident of an area with swooping magpies during breeding season I'm cool with how things turned out but it seems like teeth are generally an asset? Are they too heavy when they are flying?

Matt Hirschl

Oh oh oh! What the heck did evolution do to sawfish?? I’m jelly of them having a buzzsaw on their face.

Scotty Dee

Do old animals get osteoporosis?

Samuel Schaar

Sooo many questions! Are there any known fossils of dinosaurs containing cancer cells? Are there any differences between the cancer cells found in the fossil record and cancer cells found today (like shape and structure of the cells)? Is there any evidence of what carcinogenic causes existed in the fossil record? What are the largest teeth of any creature extinct or living? What is the earliest recorded fossils of teeth, and what creature are they found in? Ahhhh! Sorry, got caught up in the excitement of soooo many curiosities! Can't wait to hear this episode! 🤯

Gabriel Tinnaro

How did bones get on the inside of us? I have this hazy notion that we started out with bony plating...

Kurt Swanson

Most people know that bird bones are mostly hollow, but are there any other animals with unusual bone structures?

Talia Dunyak

Why do teeth fall out? Why only once?

Euan Munro

What animal had the first skeleton (that we know about)?

BeckytheSassySeagrassScientist

Why are there so many fossilized sharks teeth? Why am I not walking beaches searching for like ancient cat teeth?

Chris Curious

Is it more common to find teeth that constantly grow like rodents' or teeth that stay with the animal through adulthood like ours?

Björn Fredberg

I have heard that we are born with more bones than when we are adults, because they fuse. How come they don't fuse earlier, for instance while still in utero? Are there any indications that more bones will fuse?

Danielle Conlon

I'm not going to explain this well because I was on heavy-duty pain meds when I had this convo, but I broke my collarbone into pieces last year and my surgeon told me that even if bones break and separate, they'll be able to sense the other broken piece and as they rebuild, the 2 separate pieces will eventually reconnect and grow back together. So first question, did I understand this correctly or was I just super high and in pain and completely misunderstood how this works? If that is how bone growth works, has it always always worked that way or was there an evolution in healing and bone growth that caused our bodies to do this?

Elinor Wahl

How are diseases recorded in bones? My godmother died in the crash of USAir Flight 427, and of the human remains that were gathered from the site (none of hers were among them), all were in fragments, the tissues dissolved almost immediately, and the identity of the victims had to be discerned entirely by cross-referencing bone shards with medical records of the passengers and crew

AussieColin

How widespread is the belief in the toothfairy or some equivalent? What's the earliest reference to it?

T Noz

I've wondered about the evolution of bird's beaks. The dinosaurs that modern birds evolved from had teeth; birds have beaks but no teeth. Did the bird beaks evolve from the dental structures or did they develop from other anatomical structures of proto-birds/late dinosaurs?

Nicky G

What is the difference between teeth and bones, how they fossilize, and what information we can gain from them after thousands or millions of years? 🦷🦴

joshua.yyz

There's lots of myths regarding bone density in humans. My mom, for instance, insists that it makes people much more durable better adapted to the rigors of space travel. Are there actual benefits?

Björn Fredberg

Modern humans seems to get taller for each generation. Anywhere on earth where the trend is going in the opposite direction?

Nicky G

As an medical radiography technologist, I am SO curious - how medical imaging like X-rays and CT scans are used in paleohistology and paleontology?

Wandering Wyatt

Are there any examples of the same animal changing diets (carnivore to omnivore for example) that show up in their teeth via the fossil record?

AussieColin

Did teeth evolve far enough back that their nature is basically the same in all species, or are there fundamental differences in different species? ie Not in shape but in basic structure & composition.

Rick Gillespie

Did predecessor species to humans have more teeth than we currently have? Are we evolving away our wisdom teeth?

KatieLady

My mom never had her wisdom teeth come in but my brother and I got ours (a true bummer). Any thoughts are to why evolutionarily this might happen?

Torrence Welshans

Can we really learn anything about regeneration from animals?

Sam Peretz

Why haven't humans shed some of our vestigial skeletal components, like wisdom teeth and the coccyx. The wisdom teeth must surely convey a mating disadvantage. I mean, really, who could possibly mate with impacted wisdom teeth?

Mini Minnie

My knees suck. So many people’s knees suck. WHY have the knees not evolved better?? Especially for women, with the wider hip and resulting angled gate. We’re cavewomen walking around complaining about sucky knees?

T Noz

Whose to say that there will be "future archaeologists"? H. sapiens are hell-bent on wiping themselves out. Maybe beings from another planet?

Bonnie M Rutherford

What other diseases besides cancer have you discovered in fossilized animals?

Bonnie M Rutherford

What things have you discovered in human fossils such as diseases like osteoporosis?

Mini Minnie

And bunions. Don’t leave out bunions.

Cole Heasley

How did we go from bones (calcium phosphate/hydroxyapatite) to teeth? Throwing fluoride in there seems like a wild choice (or was it...???)

Empress of Smallwood

A question from my 3 year old: How come raccoons don't have to brush their teeth? Do any animals appear to be less prone to bone decay/disease? Do any seem to have hygiene practices?

Janet R.

Do other species have baby teeth?

Sam Peretz

Why aren't bones harder to break? Maybe it's apocryphal, but I've heard of martial artists (kick boxers especially) hardening their fibias by creating repeated microfractures that then calcify. Or something like that. Wouldn't less brittle arm and leg bones be a big evolutionary advantage? There must, I suppose, be some disadvantage that counterbalances that?

Alyssa McElroy

Why can’t we regrow bones? And teeth? That’d be cool, right?

Pseudonym Jones IV

When you ask the second to last question, please, please, please ask, "What really bites about your job?"

The Other Maya

True or False: is "Outside Bones" as sung by Titus Andromedon on the Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt the best song about teeth ever written?

Empress of Smallwood

So baculums... Why did humans evolve without a penis bone when so many other species seem to have retained theirs?

Pseudonym Jones IV

I know there are different bloods (iron-, copper-, and manganese-based off the top of my head). Are there any similarly different classes of bones?

Pseudonym Jones IV

Other than hold us up, create blood, and host a good part of our immune system, what other tricks do bones have?

The Other Maya

Teeth as an indicator of social status: any interesting takes?

Annalise De Young

Opinions on Titus Andromedon's song "outside bones" from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? 😂

Mouse Paxton

Are whales, dolphins, etc going to have weird hand bones in their flippers forever or is there some more evolutionarily more beneficial shape they're changing to? How/when did bones evolve to be involved in hearing? Does it make animals with ear bones better at hearing than animals without? Is there some 'common bone' that all bony animals share? Are we united through a single bone or bone(s)? What is the funkiest looking animal tooth? Is whale baleen considered teeth? Do plants with names like knitbone and boneset actually help with mending or healing bones?

Marla J

Did large dinosaurs and exceptionally large Ice Age animals have some of the same issues that large dogs, like German Shepherds, have with hip dysplasia? Did the huge prehistoric animals have issues with stress fractures, or dislocated joints due to their weight, and gravity? Kind of like when a human toddler falls they just get up and giggle because they're already so close to the ground (I write this as a mom). When a full grown human takes the same running fall there is more likely to be some major damage.

Leila Laco

If they're doing archaeology on our remains, I'd say they count as archaeologists regardless of planetary origin :)

Leila Laco

If they're doing archaeology on our remains, I'd say they count as archaeologists regardless of planetary origin :)

The Other Maya

DNA in teeth? Mastodons among us? Is resurrection of extinct species something we're just going to have to get used to in the new era of Brolegarchs? Instead of white tigers at the Cocaine mansion, is it going to be Giant Sloths?

Milla Arklay

Do bones vary in colour across species and time? Secretly wishing for rainbow bones. How do bones stay so well preserved over millions of years? Do factors like soil content have a role? How can we determine the sex of deceased people or animals? Is because of bone structure/shape?

Rik

Been thinking along this subject ironically. Are there species who have evolved exceptional recovery to broken bones?

The Other Maya

I'm imagining that I have rows of teeth like a shark right now I I have truly very mixed feelings 😅

Kim Greiner

Do animals get cavities? Were they super common in ancient humans? Coming from a human who had constant cavities at the dentist and I SWEAR I brush twice :(

The Other Maya

Lol I love your mom ❤️ please tell her she's amazing

tabicatastrophe

Hi hello!! First time asking here. Is it true that our teeth started crowding and otherwise getting janky once humans began farming, milling, processing, and cooking our food, so we were working our jaws less to break hard shells and husks? Our jawbones basically atrophied while we were eating beautiful mushy gruel and didn’t leave enough room for all the teeth, is what I heard or read somewhere once!

Angela Borman

How did birds’ bones evolve to be hollow?

Mariah Walzer

So I was listening to a Radiolab episode the other day, and they had a story about a woman whose fingertip re-grew including the bone after being cut off with a knife! In their reporting, they mentioned that it was a genetic mutation that turned OFF the ability to regrow any body part. Both what's the history on that with bones in particular and is there research into trying to get human bodies to regrow whole limbs or the like?

Mariah Walzer

Archaeologist here! Hi! 1) I'm also very curious about the prevalence of cavities in animals. 2) Past humans DEFINITELY got cavities. It was very common. But I've heard that cavities rates increased greatly with the advent of maize agriculture. Is this also true with other forms of grain agriculture or is there something particularly bad for our teeth about corn?

Bee

Do we have any evidence that ancient peoples/cultures were aware of the bones of dinosaurs? And if so, what do we know about how they felt about them?

Rob H.

Archeologically speaking, what are some things we can't learn from bones? What questions do you most want answered as a scientist that you will probably never answer?

HC Cummings

How/why did certain animals (I’m thinking about sharks and some reptiles but can’t think of others) survive the great dying?

Jenna U

Just this week, I learned that babies are born without kneecaps. Was this always true? Is it also true in other primates? Do they even have kneecaps and, if not, why do we?

Mariah Walzer

Why are selenodont teeth like That? Specifically what's up with the different layers being visible?

Ara Victor

from my dad! "how do paleontogists understand how ancient creatures such as dinosaurs and early mammals looked like based of there skeletal structure? "

Mariah Walzer

What's the evolutionary reason for epiphyses being unfused in many (most?) juveniles?

Melissa Berger

1. What effects are environmental factors having on the bones of animals, including cancer? 2. How is DNA extracted from fossils, and how can it survive there? 3. Bone marrow: such a weird concept. How did that come to be, and do we know anything about ancient bone marrow? Can it be fossilized?

Rayna

Horseshoe crabs— how did they crack the code? Why do they look the same way they did 400 million years ago? How have they evaded extinction without changing at all??

Shelby Bossler

I’m a veterinarian and I swear cats are aliens when it comes to healing bones (and just in general). My question is why are some species better healers than others? Are there differences in osteoblast activity among species?

Shelby Bossler

This!!! I’m a veterinarian and I think cats are actually little aliens when it comes to healing. They don’t make sense lol

Katie Elmer

Why do some animals have teeth that grow back but humans only get two sets total? Some humans have stronger enamel than others, is this true among other species? Do other species get tooth decay? My guess is yes but curious to learn more!

protect_trans_lives

as humans have more medical treatments available (esp for the extra rich) does this mean more diseases/coniditons get more common?

Ara Victor

this might be a better question for a dentist but why did humans evolve to have teeth that suck so bad unless we brush them. how come the dinosaurs didnt have to do that.

Jason E. Farabaugh

Is there any evidence for a tailor's notch in teeth from species other than Homo sapiens, such as Neanderthals or Denisovans? That being said, what is the oldest evidence of a Taylor's notch in a human tooth? And was the tooth male or female?

Abbi Lawson

I'm fascinated by hollow bones! How do they work? How did they evolve? How do they help species adapt to their environment? And most importantly how cool is it that some dinosaurs had hollow bones??!!

Jason E. Farabaugh

Epiphysis: a part or process of a bone that ossifies separately and later becomes ankylosed to the main part of the bone especially : an end of a long bone from Merriam-Webster because I had no idea what this was.

Jason E. Farabaugh

Selenodont teeth are the type of molars and premolars commonly found in ruminant herbivores [like cows) They are characterized by low crowns, and crescent-shaped cusps. From Wikipedia.

Turner Pierce

I work in pathology, so my view of histology is very much fixed fresh tissue. How does the histology process change when working with paleo era specimens?

winn

why do we only get two sets of teeth??

wyswysia

What animal bone adaptation do you wish humans would evolve?

Andri Bekker

Can you make me believe in dinosaurs? Like how do we know for sure what dinosaurs could have looked like ? I’ve heard that modern renderings are likely inaccurate

winn

define tooth please

Turner Pierce

Also, do you still do normal pathology for the bones? Do you need to decalcify them and gross them? Are you just taking little slivers of tissue? Does ancient cancer fossilize? Does the age of the specimen affect how the cancer looks (ie, does it look the same as modern day cancers?)?

winn

what do you think is the next evolutionary change humans will experience related to bones and teeth?

Jason E. Farabaugh

OOKP - ask about Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis a/k/a the ol' "tooth in the eye" surgery. It's super batshit crazy bizarre.

Shelah Morita

How do shark teeth constantly replace themselves? Are they ontologically bone? Or modified scales or what?

haille ragusa

why bones? why make something so important so crunchy and inflexible? wouldn’t it be better to have flexy bones so they don’t break as easily? how often are broken bones seen in dino’s ??

Shelah Morita

Can you talk about teratomas that grow teeth?

Jason E. Farabaugh

Syphilis is a big one, right? That shows up in bones, I think.

Chayva Lehrman

How do you think science and academia can be made safer and more supportive for people for whom it hasn’t been?

Jason E. Farabaugh

Strangely, we can grow back bone. So I regenerated a hole in my lower jaw with platelet rich plasma. So I had a cracked tooth that was extracted. My oral surgeon took a blood sample & centrifuge out all the platelets. Then he pressed it into a little disc. He packed the socket with ground up bone dust from a cadaver (!!) Capped it with this PRP disk and sewed the hole shut with my gum. Osteocytes from neighboring tissue migrated into the cadaver bone dust, colonized it, and in 3-6 months my jaw was good as new. He then drilled into it to set my new tooth and fit me for a prosthetic crown.

Bob in Oregon

Wassup with our Tailbone? Can humans regrow tails??

sasstrocyte

I have heard stressful life events leave clues in the teeth. Early life stress that happens when adult teeth are developing manifest in ridges. Do we find these in animals or early hominids? Or does the relative stress of their daily life wash out so it doesn’t appear as a ridge?

sasstrocyte

Also, what are distinguishing characteristics of targets that can be used in paleohistology vs those that degrade and can’t be used? Thank you!

Nancy Kay Clark

Topic 1: Please talk about natal teeth. Why some babies are born with a full set of them (like Kate Mulgrew), and others (like me) are born with just one or two? How rare is it? Topic 2: Please talk about the evolution of hooves and how insane it is that horses (and other animals) are essentially walking on one toe! Topic 3: Is it true or made up that our pinky toes are evolving away and some of us with tucked-in pinky toes are further along on that evolutionary change? Or, did we just grow up in too tight shoes? Topic 4: Why do some people naturally have more pronounced canine teeth (sharper, longer) than others?

AB

Dinosaur air sacs in bones? What?

Aaron

I had surgery on my shoulder a decade ago, they put in a plate and 9 screws. Does the bone grow around the metal at all or how does it stay attached indefinitely without wear? Sometimes I can feel it, never with pain, but I always wonder how much more it may occur as I age. Thanks love the cast

Jason E. Farabaugh

I thought I recognized this. For everyone who doesn't know, US Air Flight 427 crashed on Thursday 8 September 1994 on approach to Pittsburgh. It was caught in a vortex of wake turbulence while at a very low altitude. The plane controls malfunctioned but the pilots were credited with avoiding a shopping center. From Wikipedia.

AB

What was prehistoric oral hygiene like? Chewin’ on sticks?

FernTheGuy

Why do our bones make our blood?

Lady_Marzipan

How did bones and joints evolve? Which came first? Is there evidence of osteoporosis in animals? What about osteoarthritis? Are teeth really unique to vertebrates??

PIQUANT PHOTO

Has there ever been found evidence of vampire teeth? The lore has survived through centuries but what about the bones????

Donald Hodges

On your work tracking the evolution of teeth, Jace you encountered the phenomenon that seems to be happening to Homo Sapiens, shrinking of the jaw resulting in extra teeth etc?

Jason E. Farabaugh

Crazy. Check this out: At least 111 syndromes are known to be associated with hypodontia (missing teeth), with another 80 associated with oligodontia (missing 6 or more teeth) http://bit.ly/4oBcP3c

Jason E. Farabaugh

I've read about this too! Check out Shanidar 1 a/k/a Nandy

Rich Orner

Why do some humans have more pronounced canine teeth? We’re all eating the same food, but some people are approaching vampirism.

KayQuimi

Is there a pattern between which types of animals constantly grow new teeth (like sharks), keep growing the same teeth (like beavers), or are stuck with the same teeth for all adulthood (like us)?

Cheyenne

Thoughts on flourish vs nha? Why do some people swear by one or the other, is it just how their teeth are compared to others that react in favor or not?

Blair C

Well first of all why did bones used to be so big and now aren’t so big? Are we still shrinking? And secondly, autoimmune illnesses like Celiac seems like a GI disease but severely effects bones and teeth. Can they trace that back in time? Does it happen, or something like it, in animals or ancient people?

Kathleen Sachs

How expensive is it for a college or university to own fossils and hominid bones? I once went to a talk where a community college professor had the skull of a gorilla and an early hominid. I was fascinated that I could be in the same room as that, and I could even hold it if I wished.

Monsignore Matt

What can discoveries like those recently published about the teeth found at Ledi-Geraru tell us about hominins flourishing, or not, as specialists versus generalists?

Kathleen Sachs

What about the turtle? Did the cancer begin in the bone? Or did the cancer metastasize to the bone?

Jeri Webb

How does physical therapy help after an injury? I fell off a horse when I was seven and broke both my wrists. My mother rejected the idea of physical therapy, and decades later my right wrist wakes me up every night with annoying pain. Could I have avoided that if I had done PT?

Keely Chavez

That's a f'n great question!

Lindsay Deal

Did dinosaurs that broke bones or teeth ever try to fix/amputate/remove or do any other kind of treatment to themselves?

Sam Acker

(pronounced acre) I just saw a Howtown video about imaging teeth to discern lead exposure levels through the tooth's (the human's) lifetime. Are there other things you can image for to understand potentially dangerous exposure levels? Thinking particulate matter from smog or other constituents of concern related to environmental concerns that are more and more pressing. Would the changing CO2 concentrations over the last couple centuries be resolvable in teeth/bones, i.e., would you see a difference in subsequent generations?Thank you!

cheesemonger

I heard once that we are evolving to have wisdom teeth more often, but my friend said she heard it was actually less. What’s the deal?

Elinor Wahl

Yes... I only learned the details of the crash many years after the fact, and only knew that my godmother's body was unrecoverable at the time :,( I read the part about the bone identification from a post somewhere, by the son of one of the forensic specialists who did the work on the victims. He learned from his mother that they recovered about 80% of the human remains from the site, and were able to identify about 90% of what they gathered. But the experience of identifying the remains apparently really shook her, and fragments of human bone are still found flung quite far from the crash site.

Cynthia Cinnabar

Why do humans only have two sets of teeth? I always feel cheated when I hear about creatures that have ever-growing teeth, or cycle through a lot of sets over their lives, so I would really like to know why our ancestors may have evolved to be this way.

Organic Free-Range Lily

1. We know that whales evolved to walk on land before going back into the ocean. Analogously, are there species that evolved teeth and then switched back? 2. Did teeth evolve independently, multiple times? Or was it a straight-up one-and-done upgrade? 3. There are vertebrates and invertebrates, but is there also a secret third option? A bit of half-and-half? :)

The Deal with Animals- Podcast

I don't know if you've already talked to and allergist about the research into cancer vaccines, but that's definitely something I would like to hear! There are some great scientists over at Fred hutch in Seattle working on it.

Gordon Haas

I assume the guest will discuss ancient arthritis, which I want to hear about. I lived in Hawaii, where I learned about the Hawaiian Poi Dog, which did not have a nuchal crest at the top rear of its skull. It did have tooth decay. As European dogs were brought in and began to interbreed, the nuchal crests became more prominent, and dental caries disappeared, as seen in old (not fossil) skulls. My friend, the late Jack Throp, Director of the Honolulu Zoo had a long-term breeding project, attempting to bring back the Hawaiian Poi Dog. Does the guest know about any of this?

Laura Wood

Why do bones get fossilized? When the rest of the creature is missing, how completely can we know what the animal was like? Is there anything about the fossilization process that makes it harder to investigate bones compared to fresh bones?

Keely Chavez

Same I had only one wisdom tooth, which grew in sideways towards it's neighbor, my mom also only had one.

Lunarcrumpet

Why did we lose our tail and will we lose the little bones at the end of our tailbone? Could we ever start growing a tail?

Keely Chavez

Please tell us about the sutures of the skull fusing after birth. They are separate so they can collapse a bit to help the baby out of the birth canal, got it, but babies present in different ways, (like when they're sunny side up like my first who broke my coccyx, thus forever earning the pain in my @$$ nickname). But some babies heads are too much and end up needing c-sections (or worse outcomes). Why aren't there smaller plates for the skull to improve live birth probability to survival.

Ariana Rose

FTQA - Is there an evolutionary advantage to having 2 sets of teeth, "baby" and "adult"? Vs either teeth that constantly replace or can repair? I get why rodents teeth just keep growing as they wear them down, but why do humans and some other mammals just get 2 sets??

Erin Powell

Please talk about the difference between big scary teeth that evolve for crunching through bones and big scary teeth that are there purely for fashion (sexual selection) ❤️

Amanda

I was also going to ask about regrowing bones--like I think infant humans can do it up until a certain age, like for the tip of a finger? Is that true? Are there other animals that do it?

Brenna Hull

How do they use teeth records in criminal investigations? Can the same forensics be applied to paleontology?

Jenna U

Just this week, I learned that babies are born without kneecaps. Was this always true? Is it also true in other primates? Do they even have kneecaps and, if not, why do we?

Doug Foster

1) Not really a question... There is a member of the Microscopical Society of Southern California who has taken amazing photomicrographs of soft tissue from Mesozoic fossils and older. I think he is driven mostly by curiosity and does the research on his own dime. He might be someone your guest would like to talk to. How might he get in touch? 2) Given that some lizards can regrow their tails, is there evidence for limb regeneration in organisms only known from the fossil record? 3) Does the discovery of cancer in a 240-million-year old turtle support Gary Larson's reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs? (The REAL reason...)

Waldrand

My daughter had 13 cavities at her first dental checkup. As a breastfeeding toddler with very little refined sugar in her diet, we still don’t understand how that happened. One dentist said it could have been from dental bacteria that was passed on from us. I had a lot of cavities as a kid, so that has made the most sense so far. The doctor put her on fluoride (we have well water) and she’s now a teenager and hasn’t had another cavity. Long story, but I am still trying to understand how this happened and in general how our teeth can be so maladapted to our modern diet, or even breast milk in her case. Any thoughts?

Bryodiversity

First-time question-asker here! How and when did bone first evolve? If I understand correctly, the first vertebrate skeletons were cartilaginous, and I know that there were jawless fishes with bony armor at least 470 million years ago (namely the delightful Sacabambaspis). 436 million years ago, some of the first jawed fishes (e.g., Xiushanosteus) had bony skulls and thoraxes but otherwise cartilaginous skeletons, while others (Shenacanthus) had entirely cartilaginous skeletons. And the oldest known bony fish (e.g., Guiyu) appear about 425 million years ago. It’s interesting to me that bone as a tissue existed long before bony skeletons, and I’m curious how and why it went from being mainly external armor to an internal support framework. Also, what are the fastest-growing bones and teeth of any animals (extinct or extant) that we know of?

Autumn Knol

What are the wildest teeth/bones in the animal kingdom? Is it elephants? Is it those fish whose teeth alot into their skulls?

Sienna

I second this question! I feel so ripped off by evolution that I can't grow new teeth.

Rozelyn Hesby

What is up with wisdom teeth? Did they have a purpose before modern dentistry?

SoManyQuestions

By looking at the oldest bone cancer and presumably in between, can you tell us how the prevalence is different in animals (including humans) now? Do we have any idea if there are linked environmental changes, or is it more about animal health and lifespans?

Sienna

Our oldest bat fossils are pretty late in bat evolution (Onychonycteris already looks like a bat aside from having claws on all their digits). So if you were looking for complete fossils of small flying mammals with tiny bones, where would you look? What are the challenges in finding bat fossils that could be solved with innovation vs just luck and persistence?

Shawn Hebrank

I know bearded vultures have a diet consisting mostly of just bones. Are they picky in which bones they eat, or do all bones have marrow in them?

SoManyQuestions

Can you tell apart cancer vs what doctors nicely tell you is a “benign” tumor once you’re looking at bones and not the soft tissue?

Dawn Smolczyk (pronounced small-check)

Some shark just get endless rows of them, and then some animals just keep growing the same ones -- crazy! Then we just have our two sets lol.

Sienna

Can you talk about the Bearded Vulture that eats bones? How do they accomplish that? And also how whale bones are used in chemosynthesis after a whale fall? Can you talk about what's happening there?

Jackie

What are the clues you use to tell bone pathology apart from other taphonomic damage?

Jackie

Are there any example of soft-tissue paleo-pathologies that we know about? Or have we only found bone pathologies?

Stephanie

Why do previously broken bones still ache when the weather changes?

Casa Reed-Dean

We have a lot of questions… 1. Why does it hurt when your bones are growing and is there anything you can do to stop it? 2. What is bone cancer? We think of cancers associated with tumors in fleshy places and organs…is bone cancer different? 3. Is bone cancer more common in certain areas or climates? 4. Why do some bones have marrow and others don’t? 5. Why do some cultures use crushed up bones in medical treatments? 6. When in evolutionary history did bones start to form?

Stephanie

Why can humans eat some bones (e.g. the little bones in canned salmon) but not others? Is there a benefit to eating bones specifically?

Jackie

Do we have any way of knowing if cancer prevalence has gone up of down in geologic time? Or do we just not have enough fossils to study that question

Jackie

Does 240-MYO cancer seem to have any differences from modern cancers?

Stephanie

Can we please talk about the insane things that happen to pregnant women and their teeth? I have seen horror stories on both extremes—women losing teeth or growing EXTRA teeth while pregnant. WTF? Why does this happen? Can people who might be thinking about having kids do anything to prevent weird tooth stuff??

Shannon McDermott

First time question asker... and I've got a few! How ancient are wisdom teeth? When were they actually functional teeth? What changes might we expect to see to our teeth and jaws given a more soft food diet? Related, should we really be giving young children tough things to chew on (like jerky) to help develop their jawbones to prevent bite problems that are more prevalent in populations that eat less meat/fibrous food?If so, when is it too late to "fix" bite problems this way? Every time I lean on my elbows or my knees, I get anxious that one day my ulna or patella will just slip or crack into pieces. If I don't have osteoporosis, I should be fine.... right? Also, if the guest doesn't debunk that the coccyx is vestigial, Alie should. Tendons attach to it!

Ash

What's the most profound thing/person/artefact or artefact that changed what we already knew that you have found?

Ja Jo: Art & Craft

Are all bones made out of the same thing but are different shapes

RegularGuy

Do we have knee problems because we "suddenly" are living much longer lives due to modern medicine? (About to undergo a "partial knee replacement"...)

Jackie

How do different fossilization styles affect what ancient pathologies might be preserved?

Jackie

How many times in your career have you been asked about broken walrus bacula?

Madi Royal

Why do I have so many teeth? I had seven wisdom teeth removed and my grandpa had two sets of adult teeth. What is that about?

Jackie

Other than cancer, what other pathologies do we have evidences of from ancient turtles?

Milla Arklay

What are the evolutionary differences in the development of teeth vs bones?

Jackie

Are pathologies more common in the most-boned animals (snakes)?

Jackie

Are there any kinds of pathologies that only show up in turtle shells, and not mother bones?

Jackie

Are there certain kinds of pathologies that are particularly common with certain groups of fossil animals?

CRH

What’s the deal with baby teeth do most critters that don’t have hypsodont/elodont have them?

Hailey Bate

do all animals with teeth come from one common ancestor? or are there several species that evolved teeth?

Hailey Bate

why don't humans have penis bones?

Hailey Bate

how often do you think about whales having vestigial legs bc I think about it all the time

Regina Muth

Would their research include how animals like humpback whales evolved to get their filter style "teeth"? It seems insane an animal that large's diet is only things that small

Gavy

Thoughts on the Tully Monster? Vertebrate? Invertebrate? Somewhere in between?

Gavy

I’ve heard that teeth maybe evolved from modified scales, is that true? Do we know what bones evolved from? And on that note, which evolved first, teeth or bones?

Gavy

Is palaeohistology most often done nowadays by grinding down really thin slices of fossilized bone? Or is there access to fancy scanning techniques that make it less invasive/destructive?

Jess EyeballSurgeon

Why are fossilized sharks teeth so prevalent in some areas on the east coast. What happened to the rest of their bodies?

ariel.vanzandt

What are some bones/bone deformities that humans have developed throughout the ages? I know about saddle bones, but I'm curious if there are other surprising ones.

ariel.vanzandt

Do different aspects of the environments like altitude, temperature, latitude impact bone growth and development?

ariel.vanzandt

Do working animals develop bone deformities?

Sunshine

Are the bones in our feet changing because so many of us sit more? Do the bones in our feet change when we where shoes that are too narrow, toes have to go somewhere, but it doesn't just happen when you are wearing the shoes, it lasts and sometimes even seems to show up years later.

ariel.vanzandt

When you find a bone while you're on a dig, what is the process that follows? What clues to you immediately start looking for? How long do you leave the bone in situ?

kim w.

Their bodies are made of cartilage instead of bone, and so usually decompose quickly once they have died!

Zoë Dunham

My friend, Dawson Fehr, wanted me to ask “Do you know anything about trichomoniasis, specifically in Sue the T-Rex’s jaw?”

Ted Vician

Any examples of convergent evolution in teeth or bones?

Alisha Harris

What are the biggest challenges in distinguishing biological signals in fossilized bone from changes caused by fossilization itself?

Alisha Harris

When examining fossil bone under the microscope, how can you tell which microscopic features are original biological structures and which are the result of diagenetic processes during fossilization?

Alisha Harris

What histological features allow you to distinguish true biological bone healing (such as callus formation or remodeling after a fracture) from post-mortem damage?

Allison Heisel

First time question asker here to say that DREAMS DO COME TRUE! I have been hoping for an ologist like this since I learned that teeth aren’t bones, they’re dermal appendages?! How did teeth evolve and IS IT TRUE THEY EVOLVED FROM SHARK SKIN SCALES THAT BECAME MORE SPECIALIZED AS THEY MIGRATED INTO SHARK MOUTHS?! What is film flam and what is real, PLEASE HELP. (P.S. I use they/them pronouns)

Allison Heisel

Also can you please explain how helicoprion tooth whorls work?? Their saw blade shape is absolutely bananas. I remember reading that the sharks must have continued to grow new teeth throughout their lives because fossils of varying sizes have been found but they all have the same central… cornerstone tooth, for lack of a better phrase? But I can’t wrap my head around where the new teeth would come from, and then do the older teeth just… get embedded into their gums eventually to make room for new teeth??

Evelyn Uyemura

Humans have baby teeth, adult teeth, and finally wisdom teeth, which mostly cause trouble. Do any other mammals have late-emerging teeth? Do all mammals have baby and then adult teeth?

Felipe Jimenez

I wonder how much work it takes to prepare a paleontological sample for histological analysis (fixation, staining, microtome cutting?). Do you have to take extra steps or precautions? How many samples do you lose on the pre-processing , I feel like they are probably very sensitive to the treatment.

Jon Provance

So sharks can't get cancer?! And they have an unlimited supply of teeth?! Double interrobang!

Ashley Dewing

Aside from carbon isotopes, how are ancient human teeth different from new human teeth?

Dayna Clarke

What do you think our bones will reveal about us to future paleohistologists?

Dayna Clarke

Can I please come work for you?

Dayna Clarke

Can bone tell us anything about migratory behaviors?

Andy Pepper

How has bone disease changed in reptiles over millions of years? Is she able to draw useful comparisons in living reptiles?

Dayna Clarke

If you only had one bone to work with, which would give you the most information about the specimen as a whole?

Jenna Congdon

Why do humans have wisdom teeth when most of us don't even have space for them? And why do some people (like myself) not even grow all four? I only had three.

Sunflower star

Do injuries to tendons and muscle show up in bone? Also I just learned there is a sheath around the bone like there is fascia around muscle? and I’m curious about that— is it retained in old fossils, does it tear or get injured also?People say that exercise improves bone density but doesn’t that mainly apply to the exercises performed like, a runner would have stronger leg bones but not arms? Can we use that to learn about how ancient animals or humans moved and interacted with their world?

Sunflower star

Also, turtles. Their shell is their spine— how does that even work, and why isn’t it an exoskeleton?

Mindy Corcoran Turley

It seems that over time tusks or large teeth that stick out of the mouth (like saber-toothed tigers) became far less common in animals. What changed that caused this evolution?

Mindy Corcoran Turley

I recently read that they were able to learn a few new things about the Tsavo Lions (2 man-eaters that preyed on railroad workers in Kenya in 1898) by finding material like hair jammed into a broken spot in one of their teeth. Have you found anything foreign hidden or stuck within a tooth that was interesting/surprising/confusing/enlightening/etc?

Arami Farias

Question from my partner Eli: Genetic differences shape how our body works, but the idea about bones is often still based on the rigid structures of skeletons we're most used to. Are there mammals or generally animals in history that completely subvert our "mainstream" expectations of bone structures?

Arami Farias

What are the most important events in the history of bone evolution?

Arami Farias

Favorite bone amongst all of the bones?

Atlas They-Them

What's the deal with "wisdom teeth" and are we evolving to have them OR not have them?? Do they confer any biological risk or advantage? When and why did they start being "taken out" by dental assassins? Do any other species have new and/or vestigial teeth? Asking as someone born without any! :)

Peter

I understand you can tell things about where a person lived from the mineral deposits in their teeth (I imagine this like rings in a tree). If this is true, are there any cool things you’ve come across from looking at mineral deposits in teeth, like changes to their environment or signs they have travelled a long way?

Atlas They-Them

WHAT IN ACTUAL TARNATION — I just googled this and cannot stop thinking about how they could possibly have evolved and operated... upvoting this!!!

Atlas They-Them

Two sets of adult teeth?? When did the first fall out and how long did the second set take to grow in?

Theladyisageek

Have we always lacked room in our jaw for wisdom teeth? Were they evolved as spares to shove their way in to fill in gaps from losing other teeth?

Theladyisageek

Have there been practices for ornamenting teeth throughout history? Like embedding jewels or sharpening them? Or is that a more recent luxury?

Theladyisageek

Are there any other animals that have ways of removing teeth that are bothering them? Or do they just put up with it until they're lucky enough to have it fall out while chomping on something?

Atlas They-Them

When and how did primates evolve from having badass claws to flimsy fingernails/toenails? (And is there anything we can do to reverse this? 😈💅)

who_let_the_lucy_goose_loose

I am missing my back four adult molars (they weren't removed I just didn't grow them), because of this I have 2 early wisdom teeth and don't need to get any teeth removed that I otherwise would. Since so many humans get their wisdom teeth or back molars removed, will humans eventually evolve to not have these teeth? I know that having to get wisdom teeth removed doesn't really lower your chances of surviving to pass alleles on, but is there any way humankind would stop producing unnecessary teeth?

Olga Kolesnikova

That's such a cool topic omg! My question is, when did bones actually evolve? Would exoskeletons fall into the bone category or did bones only happen when backbones happened? Or did teeth come before bones???

Olivia Coppin

How do we know how ancient humans dealt with and lived with major bone deformities?

Joe Koonce (LilBits)

Are there any ancient species with extremely dense bones? Do early humans have more or less dense bones than humans now?

Jessie Rose Bayliss

Love this podcast and What a cool topic! What the is up with wisdom Teeth and why do they continue to grow even when there’s no room for them! 🦷 I must have teethed for 10 years at least 😂 (first question I think!) 💭 🦋 🐝 💀 🤎

jamestown

First time questioner. Are there any conditions in humans where people continue to grow teeth either in length or in multiple sets? I'm aware that such instances occur an rodents and sharks, in what other animals does that phenomenon occur?

Ennifer Jelly Tot

Really looking forward to this topic! I recently found out that my body has been enthusiastically making extra bone on my spinal facet joints. Why do bodies carry on making bone after we are fully grown, and how does it decide where to put it?

Mini Minnie

What about Conrad Poohs and his Dancing Teeth?

Olivia Coppin

Is dentin more or less susceptible to diagenesis than bone compared to enamel?

Dylan V

Why do we have to take out all the wisdom teeth? 3/4 of mine were coming in straight, and I felt like I could have kept those and had some good new teeth. Also wild that 18 to 22 year olds were considered wise. 😆

ilikeplantsmorethanpeople

how did ancient humans form strong bones without calcium supplements? Like when was the first time someone decided we needed to supplement this because I assume we didn't go around drinking milk from mammoths...

ilikeplantsmorethanpeople

why do we lose teeth as a baby? Is there an evolutionary advantage to having our teeth change? Do other animals lose baby teeth ?

BoneNerd106

What can the very long history of cancer in the bones of animals (and humans) tell us about cancer today?

Jonathan Stansell

Bruxism (grinding or clenching teeth at night) - how is that a thing? Do animals do it too? Whhhyyyyyy?

Staci Pinkowitz

Fuck I think I missed the cutoff buuuuuut has anyone asked about rodent or lagomorph teeth yet bc damn how does that work and how did it evolve

Emma

If we didnt eat such crazy amounts of sugar, how long would our teeth last without modern cleaning methods? A lifetime? Or have we always had ways of keeping our teeth clean and cared for?

Amanda Lask

Were there the same rates of cancer in bone growth in the past?

Tori Groene-Zeigler

Rodent teeth continually grow. Are there other examples of this kind of ongoing functional bone growth or another evolutionary outlier in other species? Any especially interesting ones?

Tori Groene-Zeigler

In what ways can scientists study the history of pathogenic disease in bones or fossil records? What things can and can’t be observed?

Jason E. Farabaugh

Apologies, Ologies: I was a complete pouches last night mansplaining on people's questions as I just went down a rabbit hole. I am really not (usually) that much of a jerk. I will try harder to restrain my compulsion to comment next time. I'm listening to the recent Ologies OCD episode right now even as we speak. Cheers. J

mmmocean

how come it's so hard for teeth to re-emerge in birds?! None of our living dinosaurs have teeth - just beaks! 😭

Stephanie Coombes

From Connor (12): have fossils from other animals been found inside buried bones, could a small small animal burrow into a dead bone? Thomas (10): could an Archelon heal a shark bite on its shell?

Classic.Tina

What’s the deal with bone bruises? And why do they hurt so much and seem to take forever to heal?

Jamie Alexander

Maybe too late but, when will we be able regrow teeth? Maybe with stem cells?

Jamie Alexander

My 73 y/o Mom has Polycythemia Vera, is there any new research/ treatment hope for her? And what are chances I will end up with the same Jak2 mutation in my older age?

Dave Langlinais

SHIT. I MISSED THE DEADLINE. Alie, is there ANY way to squeeze my question in?? I'd love to know if we've found any evidence of polyambulatory skeletal structures during the Cambrian, or any other epoch, that had more than four main limbs, or more than 5 tarsal/carpal digits? Like, the insect kingdom developed six, and arachnae developed eight, but they are all exoskeletal. Why do all endoskeletal creatures ONLY have four (or did they have more, and the others just died out)??

Olivier Calas

What exactly is missing in your view for a people’s revolution to start in this country given the state of our democracy or rather, what’s left of it? I can think of 50 different reasons to ignite one but can’t think of a single one to explain the general lethargy and deafening apathy since the start of the current administration.

Megan Younce

Damn I missed the deadline! I hope the question of something along the lines of "why are my mom's teeth super strong, but mine are made of chalk?" is answered ;) Can't wait to listen to this one!!