We were very excited to see one of our National Tour guests this year, paleontologist Scott Sampson release his new book “Dinosaur Odyssey” earlier this month.

For the first time in a generation, a paleontologist has assembled a general reference book that tracks the rise and fall of the world's ever-hip reptile — the dinosaur.

As Scott explains, the past 25 years have been an exhilarating time of discovery for dinosaur paleontology.  Studying their remains not only shows their connection to life at that time but how they fit into the web of our modern life and the relationship to all organisms on planet Earth.

"The planet that we have today is the same planet they inhabited," Sampson said. "They were here way back then and went extinct — probably when a giant rock hit the current Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago — but we forget that they lived side by side with mammals and were here when flowering plants and many groups of insects evolved."

The big dinosaurs are gone, "but they left a huge fingerprint," he said.

"With all the study of the natural world, we still have yet to internalize the core message of Darwin from 150 years ago, that everything on Earth is part of a unified story we don't grasp but need to," Sampson said. "It's human nature to feel dominant and separate from the natural world. We have to make that connection if we're ever going to have anything approaching sustainability of the planet."

For more information go to Scott's website.