The Royal Institution
Evolutionary biologist Sean B Carroll reveals how a few simple rules govern all life on earth, from the cells in our bodies to populations of animals on the Serengeti.
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Watch the Q&A that followed this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Oh8_wj8q0
Sean’s book “The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters” is available to purchase now – https://geni.us/879NZB
From revealing how inheritance works and developing evolutionary biology to manipulating viruses and bacteria to create products humans need, 20th century biology has been a revolution.
In telling the stories of some of the greatest discoveries of 20th century biology, Sean B. Carroll reveals how a few simple rules govern all life on earth, from the cells in our bodies to populations of animals on the Serengeti. A talk to show you why modern biology holds the key to remedying our greatest medical and ecological challenges.
Sean B. Carroll is an internationally-recognized evolutionary biologist whose research has centered on the genes that control animal body patterns and play major roles in the evolution of animal diversity. He’s also an award-winning author, educator, and executive producer as well as the Allan Wilson Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin.
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11:45 they counted the animals. Awesome
Wow! Mozambique reaped what it sowed given recent eco-disaster there. Man really is the worst predator on earth so no wonder we have so much damage to wildlife – flora and fauna both.
Africa was developed by Africans for 100s of thousands of years…..Europeans exhausted the entire continent in less than 200 years….facts
It’s not good to fool with Mother Nature. Stain drugs interfere with the body’s production of cloresterol and cause other side effects in the process.
Hmmm… Humans have no predators, we have controlled most diseases, we won't limit our own reproduction it seems the final answer is starvation. Serengeti rules!
We are living in a donald trump world where we accept
mediocrity over quality, do not accept truth if it interferes with our wealth, pleasures
or entertainment. We consume and discard as if this was the norm. We accept the
commercial chemically laden garbage food because our government says it is
safe, when in fact it is causing serious degenerative diseases…………….Our world
is in climate crisis and yet no one is willing to make personal sacrifices to
lessen their foot print. We are according to many environmental scientists on
the road to total extinction in less than 100 years if we continue on our
present path. If we absolutely stopped all pollution today it would take at
least 20 years to reach its peak effects. This does not scare people at all,
why are people so complacent? ……………….What solutions can you offer? I will start
this by stating that the governments in the world put an immediate moratorium on
all fossil fuel recreational motors, boats, yachts, snow mobiles, atv’s, motor
bikes, air planes etc. There should be a time limit on gas powered landscaping tools,
these should be electric, limit the amount of grass that is cut, ban all
agricultural chemicals. All new roofs and pavement should be white or off white
to reflect the sunlight. There should be a limit on the amount of meat animals
on the earth. We over consume meat by at least 90%. Travel for pleasure should
be limited. Limit the fossil fuel industry to lessen the carbon pollution. Etc.
etc. Etc…………. Now you can understand why most people will not comply and you
can kiss this good earth good bye. ……..THUS IN HIS CONSIDERED VIEW, WHAT DOES
NOT SUIT CANNOT BE TRUE or how to win friends and influence people.
Someone please help me understand.
If buffalo and wildebeest are so big that they are regulated by food rather than predation, then how is it that elk — significantly larger than wildebeest — are regulated by predation rather than food.
Just trying to understand.
They took out the Portuguese species of humans (keystone) then the various other species of humans killed 1,000,000 of their human friends… very informative indeed.
Keystone Species.
Cascade Effect.
Peanut Butter.
Jelly.
All things in variable balance.
very informative
8:15 With all due respect to the American Professor, WE give diabetics insulin, YOU sell it to them.
It's an important distinction and I don't like to see it overlooked.
(By 'we' I mean every other developed country on Earth.)
God does better managing of the earth and people than any man made form of government. Especially when banks are making decisions about what they didn’t create.
Nnn. N
The number of kidney cells is regulated?
So Sean , vary inspiring talk to encourage an understanding of the relationships that keystone species have to the environment. I wonder what does the serengiti rules say about humanity. Does this natural rule imply that the human population should self regulate in the absence of predation and increased medical and scientific advances to prolong human life. It would also suggest that humans will eventually destroy our environment if populations increase beyond the available food and shelter available….
The "perfect" science story always ties back to how great vaccines are.
Could we apply similar concepts to understand why some human societies have so much more physical violence than others (on average)?
Maybe the increase in vegetation is at least in part due to higher CO2 now in the atmosphere as the years go by. While everyone is worried about increases in CO2 levels, all the plant life and forests benefits from it and can't do without a certain amount.
The wildlife wasn't vaccinated so, they probably built a natural immunity to the virus. Which could also be cellular to it's off spring. You would need to know the population growth of the wildlife years before the cows moved in to know if the virus was the cause. Lions aren't stupid. Of course they're going to take on the smaller animals. Predators usually go after the slower, weak, and/or unhealthy. Old farmers added good bugs that ate the bad bugs but not the plant. Man is just really good at screwing up the natural process by unnecessary injection. Quake an Aspens grow their own forests through their root system. All trees (like people) will attract their own diseases and aphids if they are over populated. A combination of different species of trees can prevent this. Just like the good bug bad bug with the rice. In the 80's Dec 12, 1981 · MUD LAKE, Idaho 400 IDAHO FARMERS CLUB JACKRABBITS TO DEATH TO RESCUE CROPS https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/12/12/Farmers-spread-out-in-a-two-mile-line-and-carrying/7767376981200/ The reason Idaho became over run with rabbits was because farmers had also shot the coyotes. This has been going on since the 1870's
They could tunnel under the Serengeti, deep enough the animals would never know it's there.
messing with nature… smh
He lost all credibility of having an honest scientific observation/study when he talked about all good Statins have done
Lol, who wants to bet that his research is funded by big Pharma?
Since when gress ,low or high, gets on fire? its full of water
Statins? cough, cough, BS.
In others words get your shots idiots .
and for my next trick , CLIMATE CHANGE , OK , kids only , ADULTS are too confused .
Also, more CO2, -> more trees.
In a forest say hunters harvest the wildlife. The animals will come back . You build a golf course course, They never come back. Hunters get the bad rap and the golfers feel good about the fact they don't kill animals. What group are the most destructive of the two?
And thank Gregory Carr for Gorangosa.
nanobot fans invision a world where AI-nanobots will be able regulate ecosystems
This is an awesomely educational video. Very good !
nothing to with this talk in general but one hears this keystone metaphor so often in so many contexts and it never makes any kind of sense.
he talks about "keystone" species that are more important for certain ecosystems than others. if you want to express that some parts of a system are more important than others, the keystone in a roman arch metaphor is pretty much the opposite of what you want to say. in a roman arch EVERY stone is a keystone and therefor of equal importance. you could equally say none of them are keystones. it doesn´t matter which one you remove. without the scaffolding the arch will collapse if ANY stone is removed.
the important thing about a roman arch is the scaffolding. you need have ALL stones eqally in place before removing the scaffold.
21:33 is it just me or everyone touched their face at the same time… creepy
excellent lecturer
rather than put wolves back into Yellowstone, how about putting hunters back in to shoot the elk
I wish this guy wasn't such an entertainer. Way too much boring drama.
If you look at life objectively, through the lenses of compassion and honesty, any sane rational being, absent an evil nature will inevitably conclude that life is cruel and evil. Earth life is tame comparatively the life elsewhere. Miserable, taunted, starving consciousnesses meandering the murky depths of time. Extinction and global eradication of life is welcome. To live is not a blessing or an adventure, it's to be a surrogate, a pawn for some sick evil creator that purposefully creates life only to toy with it. Evil existence.
The Serengeti is the way it is by design, something designed countless animals to have to tear each other to pieces to survive. No matter the psychology, that fact remains. Sick evil world, sick evil creator.
The camera should be directed to show the overheads pictures not Sean B Carrol. Just saying.
Sean has really let himself go
The audience may be kids, but they are still probably more knowledgeable than most adults.
Beautiful
Every ecosystem has a key species but the problem is that we humans have a duplicate key to break into the delicate ecosystem and destroy it
Tha Epoch Times commercial again!! What a bunch of BALONEY!! I Fake News for sure!!
Excellent video
I am thankful to you Sean
Re: Yellowstone… the aspen tree, like the poplar, is essentially a legume. It is a secondary growth species that fixes nitrogen in the soil, because of a symbiotic bacteria in the root system. So, over time, if aspen growth is curtailed, overall soil fertility drops, which has a long term effect on the rest of the ecosystem. We need to be worried about the use of herbicide to suppress aspen and poplar trees after clearcut logging. Turning these areas into new plantations of "commercially valuable" species could backfire on the whole ecosystem. Imagine what this does to the mountain caribou, for example.
neo-Darwinism runs on lucky accidents.
Some argue that spontaneous genetic mutations conferring adaptive advantage have yet to be observed. That is disputable, but even the most ardent neo-Darwinist concedes that beneficially adaptive mutations are very, very rare and the vast majority of such mutations do not help in any way.
So proof of evolution by natural selection of spontaneous mutations ought to be a profusion of wholly aberrant fossils. But those necessary, crazy fossils the theory demands are not there.
This is the last pattern to result from a mechanism where the only supervision comes after the accidents. Thus neo-Darwinism falls at the first hurdle..
It is falsified.
(Not that it matters all that much; it´s just a harmless creation myth!)