Your inner fish AP Biology Assignment:

Chapter 1:   Finding Your Inner Fish

1. Explain why the author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils.  Be sure to include the types of rocks and their location during their paleontology work in 2004.

2. Describe the fossil Tiktaalik.  Why does this fossil confirm a major prediction of paleontology?

3. Explain why Neil Shubin thinks Tiktaalik says something about our own bodies? (in other words - why the “Inner Fish” title for the book?) -

Dispute:  Most living organisms fossilize after death, so fossils in exemplary condition are easily found all over the world. 

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Chapter 2:  Getting a Grip

1. Describe the "pattern" to the skeleton of the human arm that was discovered by Sir Richard Owen in the mid-1800s.

2. How did Charles Darwin's theory explain the similarities observed by Owen?  

3. What did further examination of Tiktaalik's fins reveal about the creature and its' lifestyle?

Dispute:  Humans and fish are nothing alike: we have hands with fingers, they have fins.  

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Chapter 3:  Handy Genes

1. Many experiments were conducted during the 1950s and 1960s with chick embryos and they showed that two patches of tissue essentially controlled the development of the pattern of bones inside limbs. Describe at least one of these experiments and explain the significance of the findings.

2. Describe the hedgehog gene using several animal examples.  Be sure to explain its function and its region of activity in the body.

Dispute:  Each cell in a human body contains a unique set of DNA.  This allows some cells to build muscle or skin and some cells to become arms versus fingers. 

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Chapter 4:  Teeth Everywhere

1. Teeth make great fossils - why are they "as hard are rocks?"  What are conodonts?

2. Shubin writes that "we would never have scales, feathers, and breasts if we didn't have teeth in the first place" (p. 79). Explain what he means by this statement.

Dispute: Teeth evolved through time, after bones, as they became a beneficial adaptation for protection against predation.  

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Chapter 5:  Getting Ahead

1. What are Hox genes and why are they so important?

2. Amphioxus is a small invertebrate yet is an important specimen for study - why?  Include in your explanation characteristics that you share with this creature.

Dispute: Humans and sharks both have four gill arches as embryos, but the germ layers and arches develop into unrelated structures in each organism. 

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Chapter 6: The Best Laid (Body) Plans

1. What is meant by "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny?"

2. What type of gene is Noggin and what is its function in bodies?

3. Sea anemones have radial symmetry while humans have bilateral symmetry but they still have "similar" body plans.  Explain.

Dispute:  Scientists work in isolation: it is counter-productive to repeat another scientist’s experiments or to consider research that is not directly related to the organism you are studying. 

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Chapter 7:  Adventures in Bodybuilding

1. What is the most common protein found in the human body?  Name it and describe it.

2. How do cells (generally) communicate with one another?

3. What are some of the reasons that "bodies" might have developed in the first place? Include any environmental conditions that might have favored their evolution.

Dispute:All tissues in the human body are made of similar cells that connect to each other in similar fashion. 

Graphic: Chapter 8:  Making Scents

1. Briefly explain how we perceive a smell.

2. Jawless fish have very few odor genes while mammals have a much larger number. Why does this make sense and how is it possible?

Dispute: There are few genes dedicated to olfactory sense and they are similar in all organisms capable of detecting smell. 

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Chapter 9:  Vision

1.Humans and Old World monkeys have similar vision - explain the similarity and reasons for it.

2. What do the eyeless and Pax6 genes do? Where can they be found?

Dispute: All organisms with vision have similar eyes and similar vision genes. 

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Chapter 10:  Ears

1. List the three parts of the ear. What part of the ear is unique to mammals?

2. An early anatomist proposed the hypothesis that parts of the ears of mammals are the same thing as parts of the jaws of reptiles. Explain any fossil evidence that supports this idea.

3. What is the function of the Pax 2 gene?

Dispute:  In humans, eyes and ears function independently of one another; sensation in one does not affect sensation in the other. 

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Chapter 11: The Meaning of It All

1. What is Shubin's biological "law of everything" and why is it so important?

2. What is the author trying to show with his "Bozo" example?

Dispute: Maladies of the human body are not related to our evolutionary past. 

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