11. Planet Money
Planet Money always manages to uncover topics that seem relatively boring or straightforward on the surface — and examines them under a microscope until they sound surprisingly mind-blowing.
So it’s no surprise that Planet Money co-founder Adam Davidson just started a new podcast called… Surprisingly Awesome. The tagline on his website is “Trying to make a confusing economy clear and, even, fascinating.” But that’s another Medium post for another day.
Davidson’s style continues today on his old podcast Planet Money, which explains the good, the bad and the esoteric of the economy. This week, Stacey Vanek Smith explains the economics of dinosaur bones in episode 660. Here’s what I learned.
You should start digging
If you find dinosaur bones on your property, you own them — and you might be able to sell them for millions of dollars. Or you might want to allow someone on your property who can dig up a dinosaur for you, and pay you for it. Can’t hurt to look, right?
There’s a dinosaur boom
As a result, for-profit commercial diggers are excavating the remote areas of South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. This has flooded the market with dinosaur bones. At one point, major T-Rex skeleton discoveries only happened once about every 10 years. Now it happens every six months.
It wasn’t always this way
Twenty years ago, only scientists and museums had access to dinosaur bones. The famous T-Rex Sue changed all that, after it was sold at an auction for $7.6 million following a federal dispute over who owned the bones. The release of Jurassic Park at the same time helped inflate prices, too.
Dinosaurs aren’t just for museums anymore
Because dinosaur bones can just go to the highest bidder now, that doesn’t mean only museums get access to them. It could be bought by any millionaire who thinks a T-Rex skeleton would complete their personal collection.
But this might still be good news
Some bones might end up in a private showroom, never to be seen by the public again. And some scientists have concerns that for-profit excavators aren’t carefully preserving everything for science. But the upside is that museum and curators now have access to more bones than ever before, thanks to the for-profit companies. There’s a short window when bones start sticking out of the ground and when they can be recovered before erosion destroys them. All the new dinosaur seekers are finding them. So like I said, start digging!
I want my own dino bones
How cool would that be?
You can listen to the full podcast here.
