
Dissecting a Dinosaur Brain (sort of)
Season 3 Episode 30 | 5m 27sVideo has Closed Captions
How can we figure out the intelligence of something that's been extinct for millions of ye
How can we figure out the intelligence of something that's been extinct for millions of years? Well, one way is by looking at the structure of its brain. I chat about what we know about dinosaur brains with my friend Dustin Growick, dinosaur whisperer. I also dissect a T. rex brain, which really means I cut up a clay model with a knife. It was fun.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback

Dissecting a Dinosaur Brain (sort of)
Season 3 Episode 30 | 5m 27sVideo has Closed Captions
How can we figure out the intelligence of something that's been extinct for millions of years? Well, one way is by looking at the structure of its brain. I chat about what we know about dinosaur brains with my friend Dustin Growick, dinosaur whisperer. I also dissect a T. rex brain, which really means I cut up a clay model with a knife. It was fun.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipquestion for you if I found your brain in as a fossil in 70 million new time correct how would I be able to tell anything about you this is my friend Dustin a dinosaur whisper a dinosaur book author and a host of the dinosaur show well first you wouldn't find my brain you might find my skull and then you could take an endo pass which would be what what is an endo cost for those playing for those at home in endo cast you take some sort of rubber-like substance and you put it inside the empty space inside the skull gather your brain cavity or your brain actually was but now I'm more often that we're using CT scanners to take an actual digital endo cast a gentle index right so from a brain cast from a new cast we can tell generally the size and shape of the brain usually we can't see exact structures but we can tell the general size in the shape so what does the taper explain look like so t-rex brain is about generally the same length and size of a human brain in some are way less bulb it's more like long and skinny almost like a balloon that you choose to make a balloon animal we actually physically sculpted a t-rex brain out of clay so it's like exactly look like if you look like if you're I cannot so what do we know how the t-rex about the hey Bo abilities based on filling the dolls animals okay so you fill up sculpt the bowl you make an endo cat and based on this one in particular you can see it's kind of ginormous or factories over where he tells us that t-rex uses sense of smell a lot it was very important them much less so than even vision even though we know in Jurassic Park they say division is based on movement that's not true you know we can smell one trillion smells probably more than one trillion what about a t-rex can we estimate how many smells to write food smells I don't know we can estimate the number of smells a punitive smell I think we can estimate the level of like the quality of a sense of smell how much better it is compared to ours or compared to is on based on the size of the olfactory bulb we definitely know that census is incredibly important for them probably visually for hunting or for scavenger maybe we generally look at animals alive today yeah and we think we can think about their intelligence level based on generally the overall size of the brain compared to their body size this one we called a encephalization quotient YouTube for short and so for an animal that has hidden side you expect you to have a certain size brain and if it was right along whether the next patient was to be a one in America humans have an enormous brain for a by side so our EQ is way above seven and dolphins around four and a half chips a little bit lower and so for t-rex its EQ or encephalization quotient with a little over one so one point five ish okay so it's brain is only slightly larger than we would imagine for an animal's size I've heard that some Johnson brains of the size of a bowl give any truth absolutely so giant dinosaur display had a source brontosaurus yeah slightly larger than walnut and that animals way bigger than achieve a wild evening those big fellas they don't really have to hunt today do you know I mean I know those feels like scavenger credible tomato characters but with disposable kind of easy it'll 99 please ya know exactly you need because I find a like coming across food very much really well I think another good point is that done products move around a lot of animals have smooth gravy even my personal so humans have all of these like bumps and and she told us since also get groove on to group rhythmic but what it does it just increases the surface area that your cerebral cortex so if you took this like all of these folded bits of your brain you could spread it out consider a lot more neuronal connections there's just like more happening in here I think what a lot of this comes back to is how you kind of infer brain function from brain structure all right this is somewhat therapeutic like the places of bread right do you think that the t-rex brain is the original bird right um no there are other good jack t-rex is somewhere between a bird brain and what we think of as traditional reptile brain means we have a large olfactory bulb definitely relying on sense of smell a lot but as far as processing making decisions much smaller there is the brain correlative that than moon right since modern birds or even other dinosaurs like velociraptors probably much smarter minute erection with a more bird-like brain unless reptilian brain materials than you have it so does Ben also has a youtube channel called the dinosaur show which is really cool I quite love dinosaurs oh I enjoy your videos we tried a lot I am on the dinosaur show with Dustin are where we just really talk about me not much to be done it'll be a therapy session yeah yeah so if you would like to say that highly recommend it I'll put a link to at 8:52 times and then you get to find out what your favor done get to find out what my favorite time thank you thank you thank you
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