Paleontologists: Dino Detectives
This week we went to see dinosaurs at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The museum is set up with direct windows into working labs for people studying animals, nature and most incredibly dinosaur fossils.
Specifically, one exhibit displayed a Triceratops and a Tyrannosaurus who were fossilized together. The paleontologists working there were actively excavating their bones from the rocks. The museum presented this work of uncovering history as an active mystery and the scientists as detectives slowly uncovering clues that would lead to a better understanding of how these titans died.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
As a kid I was deeply fascinated by paleontology. It seemed like it would be so cool to travel to remote areas and find dinosaur bones and piece together mysteries of creatures who lived between 245 and 66 million years ago.
In the time between the 1990’s and now, we learned dinosaurs were closely related to birds and that even larger dinosaurs’ movements were not slow and lumbering. It is no longer controversial to believe that dinosaurs were both scaly and feathery. New techniques like CT scans and magnetic imaging have allowed us to study fossils inside and out and learn what they sounded like and what audio ranges they could hear.
Curiosity and new technology allows us to revise our past understanding and paint a more accurate picture of how these majestic creatures lived. I didn’t become a paleontologist, but this approach translated very closely to the patience and problem solving needed for software development.
Software Detectives
Software is written by dozens of people, sometimes across decades. This creates a long history of decisions and intents that sometimes don’t make sense at first glance. Sometimes the only way to understand how something works is to go back through the layers of code commits and put yourself into the shoes of other developers and the problems they were facing at the time.
Solving problems takes patience and nobody has more patience than a paleontologist removing layer by layer of rock to reveal the hidden fossils. They use tools ranging from chisels to tooth brushes depending on what type of rock they are shifting away. Developing software can sometimes require that same level of caution and precision. Each adjustment requires careful testing before moving onto the next layer.
We don’t always become paleontologists, firefighters or magicians when we grow up. However, we can translate the exciting pieces of those jobs into the things we ultimately find ourselves doing. Putting on different hats can inspire us to look at new problems in new ways and find new solutions to problems. Sometimes you just need to get back to those roots to find exciting paths forward.