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May 08, 2011

How the face evolved

Your Inner Fish is a book by Neil Shubin, the leader of the team that in 2006 discovered Tiktaalik, the 375 million year old transitional fossil between fish and land animal. The book shows how the basic morphology (i.e., form and structure) of human bodies can be traced back to our fishy ancestors.

The BBC has nice report (with a short video) on how some of our features, especially the face, came about. In particular, it explains the presence of the philtrum, the little groove on our upper lip just below the nose that has no obvious function.

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Comments

very fascinating article. was unable to view the video on my computer i enjoyed their correlation between mens testes descending and it's affect on the stomach lining increasing likely hood of hernias.

Posted by wine cooler on May 9, 2011 03:46 PM

Fascinating video! My friend watched the programme last week and was chatting in work about it. Amazing to see the facial features developing and you can understand why cleft lips occur, my neice had one at birth.
Stunning footage of time lapse photography!

Posted by Caroline Sound on May 10, 2011 04:43 AM