Moving downward from the shoulder, the arms of Neil Shubin, fish paleontologist, are built like this: one bone, two bones, lots of bones, digits. The same is true for a bird's wing, a leopard's forward leg and the front fins of Tiktaalik, the ancient fish Shubin discovered in arctic Canada that was one of the first to walk on land.
Ever since Charles Darwin made his way to the Galapagos, we've heard a lot about that fateful moment when some previously water-bound creature pulled itself up from the slowly receding seas, took a breath and began the eons-long march to humanity.
What we didn't know was what that creature looked like and how, specifically, it relates to us.
PBS is bolstering its efforts to woo fans of natural history and science by adding an extra hour to its Wednesday night programming block.
Tonight (April 9), the U.S. pubcaster will premiere the three-part series Your Inner Fish, featuring paleobiologist and author Neil Shubin (pictured above). Produced by Tangled Bank Studios and Windfall Films, the miniseries is based on Shubin’s book of the same name and examines the ways human DNA is similar to shrew-like mammals that existed 165 million years ago.
Ever since Charles Darwin made his way to the Galapagos, we've heard a lot about that fateful moment when some previously water-bound creature pulled itself up from the slowly receding seas, took a breath and began the eons-long march to humanity. What we didn't know was what that creature looked like and how, specifically, it relates to us. Based on the bestselling book of the same name, "Your Inner Fish" is a six-hour, three-part documentary determined to do just that.
The club of scholars named Neil who are good writers and also telegenic is fairly small, with Neil deGrasse Tyson (see “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey”) sometimes seeming to be its only member. But let’s not overlook Neil Shubin, a paleontologist who makes an appealing guide to our evolutionary history on “Your Inner Fish,” a three-part exploration, based on his books, that begins on Wednesday on PBS.
Neil Shubin would like to introduce you to your family tree, the one with roots reaching back more than 3 billion years. In a three-part PBS series debuting Wednesday and based on Shubin's best-selling book, "Your Inner Fish," the paleontologist shares scientific research that connects humans to the early animals that made us what we are today.
Paleobiologist Neil Shubin digs up the fossils of extinct animals. Now television is bringing those fossils to life.
Neil H. Shubin's long resume - paleontologist, molecular biologist, dean and professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago - can now be added "television host." Dr. Shubin, 53, who helped discover the 375-million-year-old fish called Tiktaalik, hailed as a missing link between sea and land animals, will preside over "Your Inner Fish," a three-part series on evolution (based on his book of the same title) that makes its debut Wednesday on PBS.
When the paleobiologist Neil Shubin looks at his fellow humans, he sees ghosts of animals past. The wy we grip with our hands? We can thank our primate forefathers. Our ability to hear so many sounds? Distant ancestors the size of a shrew.
In his book of the same name, author and paleontologist Neil Shubin posits that the human body as we know it today is the result of 3.5 million years of evolution, and that many of our characteristics can be traced to some rather surprising origins. Now, in a three-part series for PBS, Shubin brings his theories to life.
