NPR’s Robert Krulwich had an interesting conversation with Kevin Kelly of Wired. Kelly claimed to the disbelieving host that no tool or technology in the history of the Earth has ever gone extinct on a global scale. Krulwich can’t believe the assertion but has yet to disprove it. An excerpt:

“He said, ‘I can’t find any [invention, tool, technology] that has disappeared completely from Earth.’

Nothing? I asked. Brass helmets? Detachable shirt collars? Chariot wheels?

Nothing, he said.

Can’t be, I told him. Tools do hang around, but some must go extinct.

If only because of the hubris — the absolute nature of the claim — I told him it would take me a half hour to find a tool, an invention that is no longer being made anywhere by anybody.

Go ahead, he said. Try.

If you listen to our Morning Edition debate, I tried carbon paper (still being made), steam powered car engine parts (still being made), Paleolithic hammers (still being made), 6 pages of agricultural tools from an 1895 Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue (every one of them still being made), and to my utter astonishment, I couldn’t find a provable example of an technology that has disappeared completely.”