3/22/2012 - Understanding Evolution Through Genomes
Speaker: Randal Voss
Date: March 22, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Location: Davis Marksbury Building
Abstract:
The human genome project pushed science to develop novel DNA sequencing approaches that rapidly and inexpensively allow decoding of whole genomes. This effort is finely resolving details of genome structure, variation, and function at a rapid pace, and this massive amount of information is beginning to reveal new insights about the way genomes evolve. An important early message deriving from this work is that we need to look beyond natural selection, the predominant evolutionary process that we teach our students, to understand how genomes evolve. We need to better emphasize in our curricula the role of non-adaptive processes – mutation, genetic drift, and recombination – and how they also shape evolution.
Additional panelists include Ganpathy Murthy (Department of Physics and Astronomy), Carlos Verdecchia (Bryan Station High School), John Anthony (Department of Chemistry), Susan Barron (Department of Psychology), and Heidi Anderson (P.L. Dunbar High School).