"Evo Devo"

Recently I watched a PBS documentary about evolutionary developmental biology (“evo devo”).  The video talked about new advances in life sciences.  Because of the scientific discovery of DNA, we can explain and prove many of Darwin’s hypotheses in ways he could not dream of.

It is quite amusing how few of the discoveries of how life works were made by people trying to find out completely unrelated things.  Often people researching subjects like genetic diseases stumble across information hidden in DNA that helps us understand not only the genetic diseases themselves but larger question--questions like why are we the way we are, and what defines human.

In one notable case, a doctor studying muscular dystrophy found a mutation in a human gene that should have caused a massive muscular disorder.  He compared the DNA to chimps and found that they did not have this mutation.  After doing more research, he found that the gene in chimps coded for this massive jaw muscle, something humans do not have.  Because the muscle is so strong, the plates in the skull fuse early.  This prohibits chimps’ brains from growing any larger than it is at the time of skull fusing.  Work like this allows scientists to begin to understand what makes humans different from their ancestors.