“THE JURASSIC PERIOD marks the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs proper...” — Steve Brusatte Quote

“THE JURASSIC PERIOD marks the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs proper. Yes, the first true dinosaurs entered the scene at least 30 million years before the Jurassic began. But as we’ve seen, these earlier Triassic dinosaurs had not even a remote claim to being dominant. Then Pangea began to split, and the dinosaurs emerged from the ashes and found themselves with a new, much emptier world, which they proceeded to conquer. Over the first few tens of millions of years of the Jurassic, dinosaurs diversified into a dizzying array of new species. Entirely new subgroups originated, some of which would persist for another 130-plus million years. They got larger and spread around the globe, colonizing humid areas, deserts, and everything in between. By the middle part of the Jurassic, the major types of dinosaurs could be found all over the world. That quintessential image, so often repeated in museum exhibits and kids’ books, was real life: dinosaurs thundering across the land, at the top of the food chain, ferocious meat-eaters comingling with long-necked giants and armored and plated plant-eaters, the little mammals and lizards and frogs and other non-dinosaurs cowering in fear.”

“After some of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth history desecrated ecosystems, dinosaurs became more diverse, more abundant, and larger. Completely new dinosaur species were evolving and spreading into new environments, while other groups of animals went extinct. As the world was going to hell, dinosaurs were thriving, somehow taking advantage of the chaos around them.”

“Natural selection doesn't plan for the future, it only works in the present, to adapt organisms to their immediate circumstances.”

“Freaks become norms, and norms become extinct. Monster by monster, evolution advanced”

“In very different ways, the possibility that the universe is teeming with life, and the opposite possibility that we are totally alone, are equally exciting. Either way, the urge to know more about the universe seems to me irresistible, and I cannot imagine that anybody of truly poetic sensibility could disagree.”

“If you ignore science, you cannot call yourself a New Age philosopher, because science is available to you as a tool to understand this world.”

“A soul is not lost when someone leaves, but when their sanity dies.”

“eorum omnium actiones in se invicem”

“I loved everything. I loved sciences and I loved humanities. But ultimately, I felt that in the humanities, you know, you're writing about things that already exist. But in the sciences, you're discovering things that no one has known before. Ultimately I chose psychology because it seemed to combine science with things that I liked to think about.”