Our hundreds of useless olfactory genes are left over from…

“... two little patches of tissue essentially control the development of the pattern of bones inside limbs. A strip of tissue at the extreme…

— Neil Shubin

“In areas close to the ZPA, where there is a high concentration of this molecule, cells would respond by making a pinky. In the…

— Neil Shubin

“All the genetic switches that make fingers, arm bones, and toes do their thing during the third to eighth week after conception.”

— Neil Shubin

“My building was constructed in 1896, and the utilities reflect an odd design that has been jerry-rigged further with each renovation. If you want…

— Neil Shubin

“So here is the trick to designing a new fossil expedition: find rocks that are of the right age, of the right type (sedimentary),…

— Neil Shubin

“The retina absorbs the light via sensitive light-gathering cells ... In humans these cells make up about 70 percent of all the sensory cells…

— Neil Shubin

“Some fish, for example the lungfish, have the one bone at the base. Other fish, for example Eusthenopteron, have the one bone–two bones arrangement.…

— Neil Shubin

“The key to tooth development is that an interaction between these two layers of tissue, an outer sheet of cells and an inner loose…

— Neil Shubin

“The molecules that allow microbes to catch their prey and hold on to them are likely candidates for the molecules that form the rivet…

— Neil Shubin

“In a perfectly designed world —one with no history— we would not have to suffer everything from hemorrhoids to cancer.”

— Neil Shubin

“Whole batteries of genes are turned on and off during fly development, and this pattern of gene activity serves to demarcate the different regions…

— Neil Shubin

“The first hard hydroxyapatite-containing body parts were teeth. Hard bones arose not to protect animals, but to eat them.”

— Neil Shubin

“Tiktaalik has a shoulder, elbow, and wrist composed of the same bones as an upper arm, forearm, and wrist in a human. When we…

— Neil Shubin

“Our body dries out with every passing year; newborns are about 75 percent water, not much different from an average potato.”

— Neil Shubin

Take the entire 4.5-billion-year history of the earth and scale it down to a single year, with January 1 being the origin of the…

— Neil Shubin