Link to the Show / Show NotesDaniel Dennett - why are we here?
10,000 years ago, the human population plus livestock and pets would have weighted less than 1% of biomass by weight. Today it is 98%. In 10,000 years we have overwhelmed the planet. We have done this because facilitated by our understanding. Daniel Dennett discusses our success as a species, and the evolution of culture and language, which have allowed us to dominate and now threaten the planet.
Is there a point of having males?
Can a bird´s beautiful plumage be explained by natural selection? Darwin explains this in what is called his second theory, that of sexual selection. Unlike natural selection, the idea remained almost completely dormant for more than a century. Today, it forms one of the most active research fields in evolutionary biology, with constant reassessment.
Genome research - achievements and hopes
Chris Ponting´s group is working on three genomes, the orang utan, the zebra finch and the lizard. Their DNA is compared with that of other animals and humans. The decoding and mapping a genome is a complicated process and can takes years. Tracing the inheritance of DNA shows which genes have been lost. It shows where different species, including people have come from. The next step is to compare genomes of individuals within the one species.
David Attenborough - the platypus
The platypus was greeted with suspicion when it was brought to England from Australia. Had this mysterious animal been stitched together from the bits of other animals? Was it a reptile or a mammal?
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