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Your Inner Fish

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Your Inner Fish Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Your Inner Fish INTRODUCTION RELATED LITERARY WORKS Your Inner Fish seeks to both interest and educate the general BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF NEIL SHUBIN public about scientific issues that might otherwise never receive attention, much like books such as Bill Bryson’s Neil Shubin earned his Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary A Brief or by biology from Harvard in 1987. In 2006, Shubin and his team History of Everything The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot. Two of the most well-known popular science found the fossil Tiktaalik roseae, an important intermediary form authors were Steven Hawking and Carl Sagan. between fish and land animals. This discovery catapulted Your Inner Fish Shubin into the public eye, as he was named ABC News’ specifically deals with the topic of ve olution and comparative “person of the week,” gave several interviews about the fossil, anatomy, drawing from Charles Darwin’s classic The Origin of to the works of Richard Dawkins. and wrote Your Inner Fish to help educate the public about Species scientific topics. Since then, Shubin helped produce a television show under the same name to bring contemporary science KEY FACTS topics into the classroom. Shubin was elected into the National • Full Title: Your Inner Fish Academy of Sciences in 2011, and he now works as a professor at the University of Chicago, focusing his research on limb • When Written: 2006-2008 development. Shubin has published numerous articles in • When Published: January 15, 2008 scientific journals regarding his research on fossils like Tiktaalik, • Literary Period: Contemporary non-fiction, opP science the embryonic development of salamanders, and gene • Genre: Popular Science, Non-fiction expression in fish fins. He published his second popular science • Setting: Arctic Circle, Philadelphia, Chicago book in 2013, titled The Universe Within, that traces elements’ paths from stars to fossils. EXTRA CREDIT HISTORICAL CONTEXT Small-screen treatment. Your Inner Fish has also been made into a TV series on the PBS network, delving deeper into the The theory of evolution is often credited to Charles Darwin, evolutionary ancestry of humans through the lens of the based on his research about animals in the Galapagos in 1858. Tiktaalik fossil and genetic experiments. Though Darwin’s version of evolution (closer to what is now known as natural selection) is now widely accepted, the specific Paleontology from home. The University of Chicago maintains mechanics of how a species would evolve or adapt enough to a website about the fossil Tiktaalik roseae that helps people see be deemed a distinctly new species are still in question. The the anatomical structures of this fossil. Visitors to the website debate over evolution has been a controversial subject in can fully explore both the fish and amphibian features of this America, with new opposition to the idea in the 20th and 21st ancient creature. The website can be found at centuries. With evolution, science seems to come into conflict tiktaalik.uchicago.edu. with the religious belief in creationism or “Intelligent Design”—the idea that God created each animal fully formed, rather than there being a long process of mutation and PLOT SUMMARY adaptation to the environment. The National Academy of Sciences voted to accept evolution as scientifically sound and Neil Shubin, the author and narrator, opens the book with a begin teaching it in schools in 1998. For decades, scientists story about his experience teaching a human anatomy course focused on finding the ythicalm “missing link” that proves that at the University of Chicago, even though his degree and species evolved from shared ancestral forms. Contemporary research has been primarily in paleontology. The summer after scientists look less towards individual links and more towards he taught this course, he discovered a fossil fish from 375 shared evolutionary pathways, by going back to the fossil million years ago that reframes the transition between fish and record and the genetic information of modern-day animals. In land animals. Fossils are the only way to see the past of every 2006, Shubin and his team of paleontologists found the fossil animal alive today and understand the development of the Tiktaalik roseae, which offered a possible intermediary form human body. between fish and land animals because of its small primitive In the summer, Shubin goes to rocky cliffs of the Arctic Circle to legs and flexible neck. The scientific world xplodede over look for fossils. The ancient fish he finds—when they are from whether this was “proof” of evolution. the right period during the transition between water and land ©2020 LitCharts LLC v.007 www.LitCharts.com Page 1 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com creatures—give valuable insights into the early stages of human paleontologists because the hard material teeth are made of is skull, neck, and limb development. The fossil record generally especially likely to become fossils. The type of teeth an animal follows a progression from the oldest fossils in the deepest has also tells scientists much about that animal’s lifestyle rock layers to the most recent fossils in the higher layers. Based because teeth determine what kind of food an animal can eat. on the layers where fish and amphibians have been found, Mammalian teeth are far more complex than reptilian teeth. Shubin should look for rocks that are 375 million years old if he Shubin explains that he first became interested in fossil finding wants to find fossils of animals that bridge the divide between by finding early mammalian teeth. It took a lot of work for water creatures and land creatures. Shubin to learn to identify possible fossil sites in the field, but Shubin starts looking in his hometown of Philadelphia, with the help of his advisor Jenkins, and expert fossil hunters Pennsylvania with one of his paleontology students, Ted Bill Amaral and Chuck Schaff, Shubin was finally able to find tiny Daeschler. They find a small shoulder bone of a hynerpeton, an mammalian teeth in the Arizona desert. Bill and Chuck later early amphibian from the Devonian Period whose fossils have accompany Shubin on an expedition to Nova Scotia and find a also been found in Alaska and the Yukon. Shubin and Daeschler reptilian jawbone that has mammalian style teeth, showing the began looking to mount an Arctic expedition to a region of the developmental path from reptiles to mammals. Canadian Arctic that has similar rocks to Pennsylvania. A field Shubin then introduces the complex human head, full of nerves expedition to the Arctic presents many logistical challenges, but that seem to follow insane paths. Four nerves in particular have Shubin, Daeschler, and Farish A. Jenkins lead a team through a circuitous route through the body that stems from the these tough conditions. In 2004, Steve Gatesy, a member of development of human ancestors. As an embryo, the human Shubin’s team, finds a fossil fish of a species that has vne er been head is a collection of four blobs, called arches. The different seen before. Over the next two years, Shubin and his team body systems, such as the inner ear and the throat, formed out examine the fossil and find that it straddles the barrier between of these four arches correspond to where those tricky nerves water animals and land animals. Shubin and the team decide to go. Shark embryos have these same arches and their nerves name the specimen Tiktaalik roseae. follow the same pattern, with the exception of the ear. Looking Chapter Two focuses on hands, one of the most complex for the origins of the human head in worms that have a anatomical structures in the entire animal kingdom, and a primitive backbone, the same arches form cartilage rods that hallmark of the human species. In the 1800s, the anatomist help the worm filter water through its body. Richard Owens found that all land animal limbs have the same From the head, Shubin moves to explaining the entire human basic bone structure as the human arm, even if the limb looks body plan. Many animals have the same basic body plan with a radically different on the surface. Most fish have a very front-back, left-right, and top-bottom axis. Shubin saw these different structure in their fins, but certain fish vha e a very similarities in his thesis work on embryonic limbs. The three simple limb structure that matches land animals. Fossil germ layers that turn into all the anatomical structures of preparators Fred Mullison and Bob Masek discovered that humans are also responsible for the same body systems in all Tiktaalik is one of these fish. Eventually, fish descended from other complex animals. The first germ layer, ectoderm, creates Tiktaalik probably moved out of the water altogether and structures on the outside of the body, like skin. Mesoderm became the first amphibians. create middle structures like the skeleton. Endoderm creates Shubin then moves to discussing genes and embryonic structures on the inside of the body such as the organs. development of hands. Randy Dahn researches shark and skate Scientists over the years did incredible work to find out how embryos, looking for the genes that control protein production each layer knows what to become, eventually discovering the to form a fin to better understand the genetic information that Organizer gene in DNA that controls an animal’s body plan. directs fin and limb development in all animals. Limbs grow Called Hox genes, these genes are found in every animal with a during the third to eighth week after conception, with a small body. The more Hox genes an animal has, the more complex its bud of tissue called the zone of polarizing activity (ZPA) at the body plan will be.
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