# Howard Hughes Medical Institute lectures



## Daryl Ehret (Apr 4, 2006)

Howard Hughes Medical Institute has a series of lectures on various genetics and evolution topics, many of them canine related and very intresting.
*Requires RealPlayer to view them*

Lecture 1: Endless Forms Most Beautiful
by Sean B. Carroll, Ph.D.
* Play Lecture One in Full
* Introduction by HHMI President Dr. Thomas Cech
* Introductory interview with Dr. Sean Carroll
* The young Charles Darwin
* Darwin's early career choices
* Darwin offered job on exploration ship HMS Beagle
* Geology spurred Darwin's evolution thinking
* Darwin's model of coral reef formation
* Unusual plants and animals intrigued Darwin
* Video: Galapagos animals challenged Darwin's thinking
* Darwin begins to form his theory of life evolving
* Dangerous ideas and secret notebooks
* Pigeon breeding and the Galapagos finches
* "Life as a Tree" and natural selection
* Darwin "forced" to go public with his theory
* Darwin and Wallace publish the theory of natural selection
* Q&A: Did Wallace publish anything else?
* Q&A: How did Darwin's family react to his theory?
* Darwin's first big idea: Descent with modification
* Fossil evidence for common ancestry
* Burgess Shale fossils
* Dinosaur National Monument fossils
* Fossil Butte fossils
* La Brea Tar Pits fossils
* Key facts from the fossil record
* Darwin's second big idea: Natural selection
* Evolution's ingredients: Variation, selection, and time
* Evolution in action: The rock pocket mouse
* Animation: Pocket mouse predation
* Coat color determined by forms of a single gene
* The odds of a mutation producing a black-coated mouse
* Time and selection
* Selection provides force for a new variant to spread
* Animation: Simulation of pocket mouse evolution
* Evolution works faster than you might think
* Q&A: How does the mutation arise?
* Q&A: What about black mice on a light background?
* Q&A: Selective difference for hetero- vs. homozygotes?
* Q&A: Black mice on black background: coincidence?
* Closing remarks from HHMI President Dr. Thomas Cech
http://www.hhmi.org/lectures/webcast/ondemand/05webcast1/interface_broadband.html

Lecture 2: Selection in Action
by David M. Kingsley, Ph.D.
* Play Lecture Two in Full
* Introduction by HHMI Vice President Dr. Peter Bruns
* Introductory interview with Dr. David Kingsley
* Natural selection and artificial selection
* Artificial selection created corn (maize)
* Video: Corn and ancestral teosinte
* Ancient breeders selected seed and stalk traits
* Genetic archaeology: How corn was bred
* Mendelian inheritance pattern: A one-gene trait
* How many genes result in maize/teosinte differences?
* Only 4 to 5 genes changed to make corn from teosinte
* Single genes can radically change an organism
* Video: Dogs and selective breeding
* Breeding has generated many dog varieties
* The genetic basis of different dog skeletons
* A German shepherd - basset hound cross
* Genetic control of muzzle shape in dogs
* Summary of dog genetics
* Q&A: How much does modern genetics guide breeders?
* Q&A: Why different genes for upper/lower jaw formation?
* Q&A: How did corn breeders know what genes to change?
* Q&A: What problems arise from inbreeding dogs?
* Can natural selection create variation as breeders do?
* Video: The stickleback on Jeopardy!
* Ancestral sticklebacks spawned in freshwater streams
* Video: Environmental pressures led to stickleback evolution
* Adaptive radiation from ancestral form
* Adaptive changes in freshwater sticklebacks
* Crosses between stickleback forms reveal underlying genes
* Important varieties in wild stickleback populations
* Genetic basis for reduction in stickleback armor plating
* Genetic archaeology locates the plate-number gene
* Modifier genes also influence plate number
* Genetic engineering adds armor to a plateless stickleback
* Genetic control of stickleback hindfins
* Limb reduction has occurred in many vertebrates
* Animation: 3-D CT scan of stickleback skeleton
* Hindfin reduction controlled by major and modifier genes
* Artificial and natural selection give rise to variety
* Review of how quickly selection can act
* Q&A: Would domesticated dogs go extinct in the wild?
* Q&A: Are there inbreeding effects with F1 crosses?
* Q&A: Has artificial selection helped improve other crops?
* Q&A: What fish are used with the stickleback crosses?
* Q&A: Are dogs still closely related to wolves?
* Closing remarks from HHMI Vice President Dr. Peter Bruns
http://www.hhmi.org/lectures/webcast/ondemand/05webcast2/interface_broadband.html


Lecture 3: Fossils, Genes, and Embryos
by David M. Kingsley, Ph.D.
* Play Lecture Three in Full
* Introduction by HHMI President Dr. Thomas Cech
* Introductory interview with Dr. David Kingsley
* Laws of nature lead to natural selection
* Descent with modification explained conundrums
* Major questions resulting from Darwin's theories
* Is the earth too young for descent from a single ancestor?
* Modern physics shows that the earth is 4.6 billion years old
* Where are the transitional forms in the fossil record?
* Billion-year-old fossils of early lifeforms
* The reinvasion of water by land mammals
* Traits suggest manatees evolved from land mammals
* Transitional manatee ancestors
* The dolphin and its transitional forms
* Fossils of transitional forms in stickleback fish
* Video: Fossils show 25,000 years of stickleback evolution
* Transitional fossils are everywhere
* Q&A: What caused rapid replacement in the fossil record?
* Q&A: What were the first common ancestors?
* Q&A: Does evolution address how life started?
* Q&A: Can the evolution rate change over time?
* Can rare forms be swamped out?
* Mendelian genetics: Variants are not lost by blending
* Pocket mouse simulation and real stickleback data
* Are animals too different to share an ancestor?
* Organisms share molecular pathways and enzymes
* Organisms share DNA as the basis for heredity
* Different animals share developmental pathways
* Hox "toolkit" genes guide development in mice and flies
* Eye development in humans, flies, and mice uses Pax6 gene
* Overexpressing Pax6 in flies creates eyes in wrong places
* Pax6 is a toolkit gene that turns other genes on or off
* Animation: How regulatory switches work
* Forelimb vs. hindlimb development in vertebrates
* Master regulators are expressed in one limb or other
* Pitx1 is the master regulator for stickleback hindfin reduction
* Pitx1 plays multiple roles in development
* Variants have changes in switch regions, not in Pitx1
* Animation: Pitx1 switching in two types of sticklebacks
* Genetic basis of evolutionary change in species
* Darwin's predictions supported by multiple sciences
* Q&A: How do major changes in gene structure occur?
* Q&A: Are the extra eyes on the Pax6 flies functional?
* Q&A: Why are some religions and evolution in conflict?
* Q&A: How do you look for single-celled fossils?
* Q&A: Has the evolution of viruses been traced?
* Closing remarks from HHMI President Dr. Thomas Cech
http://www.hhmi.org/lectures/webcast/ondemand/05webcast3/interface_broadband.html

Lecture 4: From Butterflies to Humans
by Sean B. Carroll, Ph.D.
* Play Lecture Four in Full
* Introduction by HHMI Program Officer Dr. Dennis Liu
* Introductory interview with Dr. Sean Carroll
* Darwin's theory helped in understanding new discoveries
* Henry Walter Bates and his trip to the Amazon
* Bates returned with 8,000 new species
* Batesian mimicry in butterfly markings
* Bates's book, The Naturalist on the River Amazons
* Data from butterflies offers insight into our own evolution
* How did fruit flies and butterflies get their spots?
* Video: Fruit fly courtship behavior
* Sexual selection and courtship behavior
* Video: Courtship dance of a different species
* Spots evolved via new use of old toolkit gene
* Butterfly wing spots: An adaptation for survival
* Reuse of a toolkit gene creates the wing spots
* Animation: Toolkit gene expression at center of wing spots
* Much of diversity is due to new uses of existing genes
* Genes are reused in different ways via genetic switches
* Animation: Paintbrush gene switch in the fruit fly
* Evolution acts by gain and loss due to chance mutations
* Q&A: Are the switch regions turned off or deleted?
* Q&A: Spots the only difference between fruit fly species?
* T.H. Huxley in 1863 on human evolution
* First Neanderthal fossil supported Huxley's ideas
* 3-million-year-old bipedal hominid: Lucy
* Older evidence of bipedal hominids: Laetoli footprints
* Fossil record of **** sapiens
* The evolutionary tree of hominids
* Problems with finding hominid fossils
* **** sapiens are a very new species
* Hominid skull evolution
* Evolution of larger brain size in hominids
* Traits that distinguish humans from other apes
* What can we learn about human evolution?
* Comparing the chimp and human genomes
* Loss of jaw-muscle gene could allow a larger skull
* Modern genetics tries to pinpoint key evolutionary changes
* Resistance to the theory of evolution
* Darwin's "endless forms" are endangered
* The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms
* Q&A: Why did some hominids last longer than others?
* Q&A: Could some hominid species just be variants?
* Q&A: Gene or control region mutations more likely?
* Closing remarks by HHMI President Dr. Thomas Cech
http://www.hhmi.org/lectures/webcast/ondemand/05webcast4/interface_broadband.html


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Thanks for posting. I always enjoy this kind of thing, go fig. :wink:


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## Daryl Ehret (Apr 4, 2006)

You're welcome. These 4 lectures can be ordered for FREE on DVD, as well as other DVDs. There's alot of great material here for science geeks and laymen alike.








http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/ordermaterials.html

For you, I recommend the free print subscription toHMMI Bulletin
http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/nov2006/
back issues online in PDF format also


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