Poo tickets as a teaching aid

Speaking of poo tickets, npr, and things I love...

Paleontologist, Louise Leakey, used a helpful analogy for geologic time on a ted radio hour broadcast last week. 

The vast scale of geologic time has always been a barricade in my brain for the appreciation for the length of geologic history.

She suggested...

Unrolling (or just thinking about) a 400 sheet roll of 

.

Dinosaurs

(Hi there!)

would not enter the scene (of geologic time) until the 19th sheet from the end of the roll.

The asteroid that "wiped" (ha, ha, ha) them out didn't hit until the 5th sheet from the end of the roll.

So stegosaurus, T-rex, triceratops, diplodocus, coelophysis and all their families,  friends and enemies were around for 14 sheets of t.p.

Mammals start arriving after the dinosaurs were extinct.  But our species doesn't come into being until the last millimeter on the last (#400) sheet of quilted, bleached white, ultra soft toilet paper.

This tangible minute-amount of toilet-paper-time (200,000 years) presents the whole history of our species.

There are multiple websites that address this teaching aid, but I had never heard of it.

And geologic time is still mind boggling when I let my thinking wander to the big, ancient history of little me, but 

it does give me a clearer understanding of just how old  I am  the earth is.  

By the way, did you know that toilet paper used to come in colors?  Yes, you could match, or at least coordinate, your t.p. color to your powder room wall color. 

Things to think about when you're visiting the loo.

t.t.f.n. ~ Carol