Exam 1 essay questions with correct detailed answers graded a+.

What was so important about the T-rex discovery made by Mary Higby Schweitzer? - correct answer She found collagen protein in the T-rex from 70 million years ago. This shows/proves that fossils form over a long period of time What can we learn about earth history and evolution from the plant specimens from Fossil Bowl, Idaho? - correct answer They are not actually fossils, but charcoal remnants. We can tell the age of the fossils, and what plants lived there, and how similar they are to plants today. This tells us little evolution has occurred, and that the mountain range was much higher elevation. How do unconformities demonstrate that the fossil record was produced over millions of years of Earth history? - correct answer By proving the fossils were Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian rock. This means that sediments in the shallow ocean were compressed, turned to the side, and new rock formed. This would have taken 500 million years. Explain why this creationist argument is wrong: "You cannot use uranium-to-lead radiometric dating to tell how old a rock is because the rock might have had some lead in it when it wad first formed" - correct answer By measuring how much uranium has decomposed into lead, you can calculate how old the rocks are, and get the date for the crystals. What happened to make humans have only 23 pairs of chromosomes, while chimps have 24 pairs? What is the evidence that this occurred? - correct answer Two ape chromosomes fused together. We know this because the telomeres on the end of the chromosome are still there. How does the number of copies of the amylase gene in human chromosomes reflect the recent evolution of different groups of humans? - correct answer Copy variation. Some people have more copies, and those people eat more starch than those who have less copies. What is Wallace's Line and why is it important evidence of evolution? - correct answer It is the barrier between Australia and Asia that separates marsupials from placentals. It is important evidence because it shows that species would have to evolve and adapt to a new environment. Give a real example of symbiogenesis. Explain how it happened - correct answer Some bacteria have invaded eukaryotes and gave them the advantage of anaerobic respiration. This happened because two genomes fused together on a cellular level What does evolutionary science tell us about the origin of, resistance to, and treatment of AIDS? - correct answer It came from chimps, it is resistant to long-term non-progressors, and we have to use a cocktail drug rather than a single drug. Suppose you tried to save all the endangered species in the world by taking two of each kind onto an ark and then founding new populations from these pairs .Why would this approach not work? - correct answer No genetic variation between the population. This would not allow the species to evolve and could wipe out the species all together What is an endogenous retrovirus? - correct answer A virus that incorporates itself into your DNA, but has lost the ability to reproduce Distinguish epigenetics from genetics - correct answer Epigenetics is the inheritance of the activation status of a gene, and genetics is the inheritance of an allele. How can gel electrophoresis be used to investigate the diversity of alleles in a population? - correct answer You would get a separate gel for each individual, and if you have the alleles for that one gene, you can see which are heterozygous and for which gene(s) are heterozygous. If an old metabolic process evolves into a new one, the organisms might die while this is going on. How does gene duplication allow evolution to avoid this problem? - correct answer Because now you have 2 copies of the gene. One can stay the same, and the other can die off. Why was Sir Richard Owen upset at Darwin's theory of "transmutation"? - correct answer Because he said it was God's plan. God intended species to evolve as they did What are two imperfections of the eye and what importance does this have as evidence for evolution? - correct answer Blind spot, and retinal detachment. Our eyes evolved from numerous gradation and have become more complex over time Why did Darwin spend many years studying barnacles, orchids, and pigeons? - correct answer Gathering evidence to prove natural selection is the mechanism for evolution Why did Darwin hesitate to publish the Origin of Species, and what made him finally publish it? - correct answer He didn't want to upset his wife, he was gathering evidence, and because of Wallace's manuscript. He finally published it because of Wallace What is contingency and how does it apply to evolution? - correct answer Something that happened that caused all future events to be different than they would have been. It changes history and evolution. Evolution could have happened differently. What is consilience and why is it important in the evidence for evolution? - correct answer It is the coming together of multiple types of evidence. If evolution weren't true, there's no reason you would expect fossils and biogeography to line u