Neil Shubin on Tiktaalik, Ballistic Tongues and Evolution

Neil Shubin, a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago who studies how new features arise in lineages of animals, is famous for his discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, a transitional fossil that marked the movement of four-legged animals onto the land. In this conversation with host Steven Strogatz, he discusses how to deduce where to find fossils of long-extinct creatures, why salamanders have such unusual tongues, and what the history of technology can teach us about evolution. This episode was produced by Dana Bialek. Read more at Quantamagazine.org. Production and original music by Story Mechanics.