The Infinite Monkey Cage Technofossils - Sarah Gabbott, Mark Miodownik and Aurie Styla
Aug 6, 2025
Mark Miodownik, a Professor of Materials and Society, discusses how everyday items could become future fossils. Sarah Gabbott, a Paleontologist, shares intriguing insights on ancient fossils and the secrets they hold. Comedian Aurie Styla adds humor to the discussion about techno-fossils, speculating how archaeologists might misinterpret discarded technologies like smartphones. They explore the durability of plastics and how future generations might view our current life, questioning what legacies we’ll leave behind.
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Smartphones: Chemical Menagerie
- Smartphones contain over 50 elements from the periodic table, more than half of all known elements.
- Future archaeologists might interpret these as evidence of a society worshipping chemistry.
The Weird Opabinia Fossil
- The Burgess Shale fossil Opabinia has five eyes and an unusual feeding appendage, unlike any modern creature.
- It looks like something imagined, highlighting Earth’s bizarre ancient life forms.
Plastics Could Become Technofossils
- Man-made plastics can last millions of years when buried out of sunlight and oxygen.
- Natural biopolymers chemically resemble polyethylene and have survived tens of millions of years unchanged.
