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Lesson Plans | Lesson of the Solar day: 'How Humans Lost Their Tails'

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/learning/lesson-plans/lesson-of-the-twenty-four hour period-how-humans-lost-their-tails.html

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Lesson of the 24-hour interval: 'How Humans Lost Their Tails'

In this lesson students will learn why monkeys have tails, while apes and humans don't — and imagine what life would exist similar if we had kept ours.

Credit... Ted Kinsman/Science Source

October. 22, 2021

Lesson Overview

Featured Article: " How Humans Lost Their Tails " by Carl Zimmer

Accept you lot always wondered why you lot don't take a tail?

Why practise most primates have tails while humans and apes don't? This was a mystery Charles Darwin first posed 150 years ago. And a new study suggests that a single genetic mutation some 25 meg years ago helps explain why. "This dramatic anatomical modify," writes science reporter Carl Zimmer, "had a profound affect on our evolution."

In this lesson, yous will acquire the answer to the question of where our tails went, explore the consequences for our ancestors, and imagine what your life would be like if humans had kept their tails.

Warm-Up

What if you had a tail?

Whether it was short, long, bushy or striped — how would your life exist dissimilar? Would you use information technology to swing through the trees like chimpanzees? Wrap it around yourself in the wintertime like the snow leopard? Or only swat flies with information technology like the zebra?

Take a few minutes to write down at least five cool things you would exercise if yous had a tail.

Then, share your list with a partner and discuss: What might be the advantages of having a tail? How might it get in the way? On the whole, do y'all think your life would be ameliorate? Would you lot want a tail — even if for but a day?

Questions for Writing and Discussion

Read the article , and so answer the following questions:

1. The article begins, "For half a billion years or so, our ancestors sprouted tails." Why does Mr. Zimmer offset the story so long ago? What does the development of life from hundreds of millions of years ago on Globe take to exercise with human beings and their missing tails?

2. How did Charles Darwin shock audiences some 150 years ago? What did he realize about the human being structure known as the coccyx?

three. How did a team of scientists in New York solve a key piece in the mystery of our missing tails get-go identified past Darwin? What function did mice play in providing an reply?

four. How did the loss of a tail millions of years ago accept a "profound impact on our development," according to Mr. Zimmer? What connection does it have to the man ability to walk?

5. How did a bad Uber ride inspire Bo Xia, a graduate student at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine, to search for an answer to our missing tails? How did he and his colleagues try to find an respond to his question? What did he detect about a gene called TBXT?

6. At present that the how has maybe been answered, the article ends with the next big question in the mystery — the why:

"It'southward very confusing why they lost their tail," said Gabrielle Russo, an evolutionary morphologist at Stony Brook Academy in New York who was non involved in the study. "That'due south the next outstanding question: What on earth would the advantage be?"

Utilize what yous know almost development and early on human history to speculate: Why do you recall it was evolutionarily advantageous for apes and humans to lose their tails? How might human evolution and gild have adult differently had we had tails? What questions do you still have about the human being tail or the lack of it?

Going Farther

Option 1: If you could have any animal feature what would information technology be?

What characteristics or traits of an animal would you choose — at least for a day?

A trunk, a tail, wings or stripes? How well-nigh the astute vision of an owl? Or the speed of a cheetah? Eight arms like an octopus? Gills to allow you to breathe underwater? Bat ears for echolocation in the dark? The ability to change color and camouflage like chameleons?

Explicate how your life would be different and what you would do with your new animal powers.

If yous are interested in joining a chat with other students, share your thoughts in our related Student Opinion prompt.

Selection ii: Acquire more most other aspects of human evolution.

Why are humans awed past dazzler? How did we evolve to be able to run? Could early on humans speak? What questions do yous take near the long and ofttimes odd path of human evolution? Read one of the recent Times articles on human evolution beneath:

• How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution

• Running Is a Total Torso Matter

• Neanderthals Listened to the World Much Like Us

• How Did We Become to Exist Human?

• Discovery of 'Dragon Man' Skull in China May Add together Species to Man Family Tree

• Sitting Is Bad for Our Wellness. Should We Squat More Instead?

• Evolution Gave Us Heart Disease. We're Non Stuck With It.

Then, write or discuss with a partner: What is your reaction to the article? What was the most provocative, surprising or memorable thing you lot learned? How does information technology add together to your understanding of evolution? What further questions does information technology raise for you?

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Want more than Lessons of the Twenty-four hours? Yous tin can find them all hither.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/learning/lesson-plans/lesson-of-the-day-how-humans-lost-their-tails.html

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