Youtube | »PBS Eons« shows how infotainment works

Our favorite hero from Earth's history? We've always been big fans of these little squirrel-like creatures, from whom we and you, dear readers, are descended. They've made themselves comfortable for tens of millions of years in burrows, sleeping away their days, where only the show-off dinosaurs would trample on your head. Then, at night, they cautiously scuttle out of their hiding place while those who are now said to have "ruled" the Earth slept. Just because they were particularly big and bulky. When the asteroid crashed into Earth on a spring day 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs certainly looked pretty stupid, and a few years later, there was no trace of them left on Earth.

"Where cities now stand, there will be meadows!" Shares the poet Andreas Gryphius, also a grandson of the little furry creatures who, after the asteroid impact, demonstrated in every meadow and forest that smallness, stamina, and dietary openness are ultimately superior qualities, as well as, of course, the absolute superpower of our ancestors: the ability to bury themselves. Once submerged at the right moment, namely when the meteorite struck, when firestorms and mega-tsunamis crisscrossed the Earth, the squirrels made themselves a little comfortable underground and then diligently munched on the mushrooms that sprouted everywhere on the post-catastrophic Earth – voilà: the path to triumph is complete, to rhinoceros, naked mole rats, dolphins, dogs, cats, shrews, macaques, lemurs, kangaroos, dolphins, and nd editors.

President Trump wants to cut off PBS's funding. Let's laugh at him!

There's often great power in modesty, which is why smarter squirrel offspring follow the YouTube channel "PBS Eons": It's about earth history, paleontology, and evolution, and anyone who's seen even one episode knows exactly why they don't have a television anymore. The small format is clearly superior to all the expensively produced, hyped-up, over-instrumented, long-winded stories of TV infotainment that drags along in glorious inertia: If I want to learn something about earth history, do I need a perfectly animated, pseudo-realistically hissing, and perfectly lit dinosaur? Do I need TV background music that tries so hard to create "suspense" in the stupidest possible way, as if the topic itself were completely boring? Do I need two minutes of expensively produced "entertainment" before yet another snippet of information is dropped?

"PBS Eons" is sponsored by PBS, a US public broadcasting network, which President Trump is currently trying to shut down, seeing himself as an asteroid of all intellectual activity on Earth. Let's laugh at him! At "PBS Eons," they do everything right that goes wrong with ponderous, expensive television; the filming here is noticeably economical. The clips don't even attempt to be cinematic, with glittering scales, deadly dinosaur fights, and an orchestra. Instead, the great presenters tell the stories: witty, likeable people with insight, passionate about their subject matter, and with whom you immediately want to go for a beer—which never happens in front of the usual TV personalities.

Each episode lasts around ten minutes, and since there's no desire for opulence or a full-length evening, the show doesn't choose the stupidest, most pompous topic with which to reach the mass audience. Instead, a keen curiosity is palpable, recognizing exemplary significance even in niche topics and allowing the fun of it to be a category.

We thus consume education in appetizing, well-filled bites and learn about topics such as "How Humans lost their fur," "How Plate Tectonics Gave Us Seahorses," "When Mammals Only Went Out At Night," and "The Island of the Last Surviving Mammoths." Or we inform ourselves, especially important on editorial Mondays: "Why Does Caffeine Exist?"

All of this is told with verve and the utmost precision. You never feel like you're being taken for a bit of a silly joke; instead, it's as if a few eloquent friends are talking about their scientific hobbyhorse in an exciting and lively way. At times, the pace is a bit fast, and the intellectual zip and agility are worthy of the TikTok century. But who, as a true squirrel descendant, would want to go without them?