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Understanding Evolution

Understanding Evolution

Your one-stop source for information on evolution

Understanding Evolution

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    • An introduction to evolution: what is evolution and how does it work?
      • 1_historyoflife_menu_iconThe history of life: looking at the patterns – Change over time and shared ancestors
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Home → Hox genes
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Hox genes

“General purpose” control genes are important elements in building complicated organisms like flies. Some “control” genes are common to many organisms (they are homologous — inherited from our common ancestor). For example, Hox genes help lay out the basic body forms of many animals, including humans, flies, and worms. They set up the head-to-tail organization. You can think of them as directing instructions as an embryo develops: “Put the head here! Legs go over there!”

Hox genes lay out general body plans.
Mouse image courtesy of the National Institutes of Health; Fly head image courtesy of Wai Pang Chan, University of California, Berkeley.

They are general purpose in the sense that they are similar in many organisms; it doesn’t matter if it’s a mouse’s head or a fly’s head that is being built, the same gene directs the process. Small changes in such powerful regulatory genes, or changes in the genes turned on by them, could represent a major source of evolutionary change.

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Read more about how development factored into the history of evolutionary thought.

Learn more about evolution and development in context: Why the eye?, a case study.

Teach your students about development:

  • From butterflies to humans, a lecture for grades 9-12.

Find additional lessons, activities, videos, and articles that focus on development.

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