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NAME ______PER______DATE ______

WHAT DARWIN NEVER KNEW – QUESTIONS

  1. What didn’t Darwin know in 1858?
  2. What organism has been found to be the “ancestor” of all 4-limbed animals?
  3. Describe Darwin’s educational training.
  4. What did Darwin notice at the Galapagos Islands? Do not list the species. What were the clues to the great diversity of life?
  5. How did tortoises differ on different Galapagos Islands?
  6. How did finches differ on different Galapagos Islands?
  7. What were the holes in Darwin’s theory?
  8. What did Michael Nachman (University of Arizona) find in his studies of the DNA of dark and light colored mice?
  9. How many genes do humans have?
  10. How many genes do chickens have?
  11. Which has more genes, humans or corn?
  12. What do body plan genes do?
  13. What do pattern formation genes do?
  14. Two types of flies had identical paintbrush genes, but only one had spots. Why?
  15. Why did Sean Carroll link a piece of DNA to a piece of jellyfish DNA?
  16. How did whales evolve? Describe some of their body parts that disappeared.
  17. What is a DNA switch?
  18. Why did different finches have different beaks?
  19. What was the ancestor of all 4-limbed creatures?
  20. What were the embryological clues that linked the evolution of different organisms to each other?
  21. What kind of fossil did Neil Shubin look for? Where?
  22. What does Tiktaalik have that is un-fishlike?
  23. Name other organisms with this same structure.
  24. How old was Tiktaalik?
  25. Paddlefish is a living fossil, meaning it has not changed that much in many millions of years. How was it related to Tiktaalik?
  26. Hox genes: where have they been found?
  27. What do Hox genes do?
  28. How did Tiktaalik survive its predators?
  29. What percentage difference is there between human and chimp DNA? ______.
  30. What did Jim Noonan (Yale University) do with the DNA that differed between mouse and human? Describe his experiment. Where was the DNA active?
  31. How much bigger is our brain than a chimp’s?
  32. What is muscular dystrophy? What happens to people who get injured who have this disease?
  33. What was the difference between the muscle-making genes in humans vs. apes? How did jaw muscles affect brain development in humans vs. other species?
  34. Microcephaly: what is it?
  35. What causes microcephaly?
  36. What is the difference in the genes that code for brain development between humans and chimps?
  37. List three primary features that make us human. Next to each one, describe how it might have evolved and why.