Podcast 30 - That's Not Genocide; Human Hunting and Megafaunal Extinction

In this episode, the gang is all back in the same zip code and celebrate by having a long discussion on the origin and extinction of the large mammals from the Cenozoic known as the Megafauna. Somehow this gets.... weird. Meanwhile, James defends the Star Wars Empire, Curt argues why turtles should be ninjas instead of mere heroes, and Amanda confuses Michael Bay with Roland Emmerich. Also, congrats to Dr. Amanda Falk for defending her thesis. 

References:

Anthony D. Barnosky et al. Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene Extinctions on the Continents Science 306, 70 (2004);

Tao Deng et al. Out of Tibet: Pliocene Woolly Rhino Suggests High-Plateau Origin of Ice Age Megaherbivores Science 333, 1285 (2011);

 Prescott, Graham W., et al. "Quantitative global analysis of the role of climate and people in explaining late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.12 (2012): 4527-4531.

Lorenzen, Eline D., et al. "Species-specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans." Nature 479.7373 (2011): 359-364.