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He is discovered some of the brilliant and one of his significant discoveries, will you help me out with this a fossil between fish and land animals. Beyond the research itself he is sharing through a variety of means of an active presence on facebook and twitter and he takes it further by sharing his discoveries, knowledge and passion and terrific books including the bestselling inner fish into the history of the human body from the 2008 and 2013 the universe within the deep history of the human body for 2013. At least one of those bring some Assembly Required from ancient fossils to dna is the occasion of tonights virtual return. Please join me in welcoming ne neil. Its a delight to be here to talk about some Assembly Required. I hope this finds you and your loved ones happy and well and thriving and i look forward to the next 30 to 40 minutes. Ive been a paleontologist and biologist working for over three decades. How did mammals arrived, how did the frogs develop their chums and so on. In my First Expedition i got to thinking this could be great. And they left a pile of papers showing how the genes evolve. I like okay, ive got to learn this molecular biology stuff. I either have to change or im going to go extinct. So what i did is i became a molecular biologist. So my laboratory from chicago where i am right now is both finding fossils, expeditions around the world as they were also molecular biology, looking at the beginning to use with this approach is to ask the question how do you create transitions happen. These are the Great Questions that capture the imaginations in the public for over a century. That is what some assembly is required is about. As i was finishing the book, i was reading a biography. Im going to share my screen. I was reading a biography of Lillian Hellman who had a hard living existence as you can see here a fabulous playwright she drink, smoke, have amazing tales, she was put in front of the house on the American Activities Committee in the 50s, she was blacklisted from hollywood, broadway as well and in thinking about her life years later during her autobiography she had a quote that captured the spirit of the book. Nothing of course begins when you think of this. When you look at the history of anatomical features, structures, even dna itself nothing begins when you think it does. If you think that longs evil they learned to walk on land, if you think that there is a rose he would be in very good company. You would also be wrong. That is the story in a nutshell. Its the changes that we associate with him so much is about repurposing. And i the story has new meanings we think about dna into thinking our studies. We think of the molecule. What we have is a molecule as is famously described. You have a 6foot strand of dna rolled up in it so on each cell and inside the nucleus of just how. Think about that for a second, we have 4 trillion in our own body. Each of them have a long strand of dna rolled up. If you were typical of the dna, lay it down from end to end from all 4 trillion or so, it would have run from here almost two pluto. And we live in the era of these genomes technologies it took several decades to get the sequence. We cannot get a copy of that sequence in an afternoon for less than a thousand dollars plus. We now have genomes for the creatures from humans to to fly us to thousands of specie speciy could be genomes in an afternoon. With all of the Genetic Information and computational tools to analyze it, we now see it as a highly active model in spite of the nucleus of each cell. But as each become activated in different ways it is marvelously complex and the origins are amazingly wondrous and i will start with one example and then we will back off and look at other aspects. One exampl example about the hin mysteries of our dna commute begins with science jason shepard, doctor shepherd is a professor of neurobiology at the university of utah and interested in those that control the formation and he uses mice as a model to study them because we have similar ones. Theres one called arc. They can solve that they dont r the solution that next day. There are cognitive differences as well for understanding the function particularly. So jason was studying arc and biochemists were studying biology and he was studying the protein that makes. Keep put it under a microscope and what he noticed the spirit was pointed to this as a super high magnification. He was looking at these saying they are identical to Something Else id seen before. You remember his training at biologist and he pulled off his textbook. They look very similar to those of arc but this isnt a memory she these are formed by hiv, the virus that causes aids. He decided im going to get a opinion. He invited them over and asked them to look at the slide and didnt tell them what was on the slide. That set off a Chain Reaction where they used the resources to see what is going on and they looked at the sequences and it turned out this memory gene had the signature of the kind of hiv and when they looked comparatively they came up with the hypothesis that it was originally a virus that invaded the genome, entered the genome and then it was repurposed instead of injecting and causing distress it was repurposed to function. What they do is interesting. In hiv, they actually protect the genetic material as it travels from cells is ho cell to its work. It protects the genetic materi material. Some of those are. If you look at the genome, 8 of the genome is derived from ancient viruses, 80 of the material is a derivative. Only 2 of it or our own, 2 so we have four times more genetic material so its really remarkable and serves many other functions as well so this goes to show its truly remarkable and surprising because of new technology allowing us to see evolution in whole new ways and some of the most important new ways we can look at the evolution of this is one of the greatest that we have seen within the last 30 years, so they come together and now that a single so will be derived as it divides over and over again. From two to four to eight to 16 and on and on its going to end up as a four chilean like you and i and everybody in the audience today differentiated. We call this process of going from single so, we called the bodybuilding. Those that interact to control the number and the differentiation and where they are and so forth is remarkable. And as we begin to understand the process and the different species, we can begin to understand the evolution in a healthy way because the change in the process of how you build explains evolution when i talked about this historically people have been interested in understanding the transition and evolution for well over a century and one of the apocryphal moments he had one of the greatest jobs at the time. This is a portion of what was drawn. He was lucky as well. The museum of Natural History had a great job at the time because people were coming back from different parts of the globe with creatures that they found and discovered and he got to study them for the first time to understand their basic biology. And he received a package from people working in mexico. They were working in mexico and found the salamanders about 4 inches long so they are fully functioning mature adults that they captured the imagination of the interest to collectors for a couple of reasons. Here is a creature that seems to be mature. They thought maybe he can understand the transition by understanding these creatures. The Indigenous Peoples of mexico found it was so much so they knew quite a bit about their biology. So when he let us go to the key came back and noticed that six months later these are the original diagrams they appear out of nowhere they dont have external gills, they are a different shape. Its like an entire different salamander. It like somebody put chimpanzees in the cage one year seeking to annex to find gorillas and chimpanzees. This got his attention in a big way and he said its a whole new kind that dont appear out of thin air so he decided to study how they go from egg to adult. If a tad external gills and lived in water like little tadpoles and they swim around and get bigger and bigger but then there comes a point when there are two possible states and he noticed the salamanders that are debated fully aquatic ones they get bigger and bigger with all of those aquatic features but theres another way they can develop as they can undergo metamorphosis. They lose the gills and change the shape so heres one Developmental Program that depending on the environment could have two different state. Two different kind of salamanders can come about from the same program. What is important here to realize is the simple shift of development to bring changes across the entire body. Think about that. There is a whole tradition of people studying the evolution in this way to see how small the changes in development can bring about big changes. Now we can relate this to ourselves. These creatures here are human beings, we believe they are and as human beings, we share a number of characteristics that its we have backbones ands schools. We have a spinal cord, arches and slips the form in the development of for a long time people have asked the question what are the closest invertebrate relative to vertebrates. The clams, worms, you name it. People have come to the conclusion of the world supported hypothesis that the closest invertebrate relatives are these. Compare those on the left to the right and you are not going to see a whole lot of similarities. A pat on the right is it pumps water through the site and and theres no apparent spinal cord and some get even weirder. What do you do . Youve got to study the development and how they go from egg to adult. They want to see these things come of this is the larvae. Patches from the egg into has a head and a tail and it has gills just like the rest. And it has another structure which is also part of our history. The closest if you look at the history of these things you will see they hatch, began as a tadpole and they had the nerve core and they swim around and eventually attached to rocks and as they attach, they lose everything they share with us, but tail, the gills until it becomes this. They are basically our ancestors basically were a tadpole that kept the stage and that is what they came so we are similar together. So if you make the stage and make that bigger. An enormous amount of changes from looking at the development. We have tools to look at this it is now we can manipulate the dna which im sure you may have read about you begin to see how the dna controls the development and what it does and how it can evolve. One of the Great Stories is from a creature called an anthropologist. A colleague here have studied them and began to study them for a lot of reason. They are tiny creatures can live on this and that you can see them here. The head is on the left end of the tail is on the right. See the front there they are sort of like lobster claws then behind them at face to the back. In that part of the body it is a backward facing leg. But then you have forward facing legs and thats a part of the body so that genetic address with you bx alone and then shown in that pattern forward facing and then a bba and then the rear end. So what if i use the genome and editing technique . Can i can troll what legs form on the part of the body . The answer is yes. He made an embryo that doesnt have legs just you bx in one area so basically he got rid of that hatch portion at the bottom now he has one region just you bx activity and then has a backward facing leg now controlling the genetic address just to get rid of a gene. You can do it almost out will every single one is just a remarkable experience. But the story gets deeper because it turns out flies have these also colorcoded im not labeling them and with these colorcoded areas in the genetic address a particular area or a mandible what happens. So it is active in the formation of her own body plan and in a lot of different organs but in one particular place as the genetic address for the vertebrae. The thoracic so what if we just do thes experiments . What happens can you change the genetic address and that the vertebrae that develops the different parts of the body . Look at this and now just zoom in at the rear end. Thats a we are honing in on. If you look at the normal development there is a genetic address for each kind. Look at the embryo in the middle. These are versions is the only has the one activity and then in a yellow and then 11 activity. So it turns out that genetic address determines which vertebra forms where so what if we do the same experiment that he only have the offset address what kind . And thats exactly what happened. The nearly and up with ten then boom now you have lumbar vertebrae and sacral vertebraes you can change the address of the different parts of the body. So where do they begin . They are repurpose genes like enter pods. So there is a commonality to the toolkit. Following that turning to my own research looking at the transition in the land moving in a mall. If you look at this there are all kinds of things that have to change for animals to motor on land the creature with a different shaped hand this has since thats the tip of the iceberg. To be at the same time as all of these other structures. If you made a list of all the features the list would be long. They all have to arrive at the same time. A very long history. And a great character with paleontology there were two passions. Most of his work in 1910 and 1920, a curator of reptilia reptilian, armored fish, ancient armored fish. But he also was a curator of medieval armor and help both institutions literally across the park from one another. And he used to walk around new york city in samurai armor and is quite the character. But he discovered one important thing lungs are there primitive condition and fish. It was remarkable. He is fascinated by the fish by the worlds cutest fish the australian monkfish. Look at that. It is gorgeous. They live a long time one in chicagoland 84 years. That lungfish have lungs and gills. They use the gills with the oxygen content is high but when it drops, the less they come to the surface in angola they are and force it into their mouth and push into their lungs. It turns out their lungs theres three different versions one in south america and australia and one in africa. This is the african one. Look at the lungs you can see them on top along structure it lies adjacent to the got look at the middle where the arrow goes to look at the bottom right. Looks like alveoli. Look at the biological structure its virtually identical to our own if you look at the genes of the development of air sacs they are similar so there is a deep tie. And the story is rich look at the evolutionary tree of life. The closest living relative and the other fish as well. If you look at the presence of lungs where are they . Lungs are primitive. Before intervals took their first step on land. You have a situation where lungs were functioning to help creatures live in at risk water environments where the oxygen content they already have lungs so think of this transition with the fish living in the aquatic ecosystem my team and i spent six years looking for a fish what we found after six years worth of work in the arctic and then the wedding you can see it but then to have a flat head on top and then the head is separated and can move independently and then with the senate has the bones even parts of a wrist. It is remarkable. What does this mean . That this living in Aquatic Ecosystems 375 million the on million years ago already had lungs and arms and wrists and next and ahead. That when the time came to walk on me and they were repurpose thing what already existed all the features associated with the land for those fish in the Aquatic Ecosystems. This could be every other transition in the history of life. First birds have all kinds of specializations wishbones, wings, feathers, high metabolism and the list goes on. Guess what you can find each of those features and a dinosaur. Wishbones and the list goes on they were fine but using them to capture food on land originally not server function our flight it was originally for portrait displays and things like that so just like other structures all in a major step of evolution to repurpose what word exist it begins earlier and in that context you find a rise to one thing so much is not those infrastructures per se but all the infrastructures. Thank you very much im happy to take