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What past climate change reveals about the currently warming world

Rachel Short, Ph.D., collecting data on fossil ankles in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Rachel Short, Ph.D., collecting data on fossil ankles in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.

SDSU assistant professor Rachel Short, Ph.D., spent weeks digging through drawers in museums across the nation for mammalian ankle fossils. Those bones reveal vital clues about the environment those animals lived in and enables researchers to map past climates and species ranges.

She's using the data she's collected to bring a paleontological lens to current, urgent conservation issues.

Lori Walsh is the host and senior producer of In the Moment.
Ellen Koester is a producer of In the Moment, SDPB's daily news and culture broadcast.