Name_______________________________________Per_______Date___________
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey – Episode 2
SOME OF THE THINGS THAT MOLECULES DO
“We are—each of us—a little universe”
1. From wolves to dogs:
Who benefits from wolf domestication: wolves or humans?
How are desirable traits encouraged and undesirable traits discouraged?
What is the name for this kind of evolution?
Which breeds of dog came from this process?
How long did it take to turn wolves into dogs?
2. Almost every plant and animal we eat today was bred (genetically modified)
from
3. Once upon a time in Earth’s history, the polar icecap was much _____________.
4. There are as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are...
5. The reproduction of a DNA molecule involves
___splitting it apart ___rebuilding each split half into a full copy of the original
6. Most genetic mutations are
___advantageous
___harmless
___deadly
7. What did Charles Darwin mean by “The Origin of Species”?
___survival of the friendliest
___the population of bears evolves
___an individual bear evolves
___artificial selection creates diversity among species
8. DNA reveals that humans have common ancestors with
___trees
___butterflies
___gray wolves
___mushrooms
___sharks
___bacteria
___sparrows
9. Evolution’s Tree of Life is so diverse that biologists have catalogued
varieties of beetles, alone
10. The human eye is the product of
___intelligent design completed in a short time interval
___natural selection completed over a long time interval
11. The Theory of Evolution is
___merely an opinion
___a scientific fact
___a likely spin-off of the sit-com, The Big Bang Theory ___all of these
The Halls of Extinction: a monument to the broken branches on the tree of life
12. For every one of the millions of species alive today, perhaps
______________________________ have perished.
13. In the past ___________________years, there have been _____ mass extinctions.
14. Earth was once the planet of the trilobites. But they were killed off by massive
______________________________ activity which ________________________ the
Earth and stopped the ______________________________ from circulating. This
was known as the Permian Extinction, or The Great _________________________.
15. When life recovered from this event, who were the big winners?
16. What organism does Tyson acknowledge as being especially hearty and
durable?
___amoeba ___tardigrade ___flea ___cockroach ___rat ___gray wolf
17. What strange yet “nearby” world does Tyson describe as a candidate for
forms of life very different from our own?
18. Personal Voyage callback: We end with an animation from Carl Sagan’s
Cosmos showing the evolution of life from the single-celled organisms of
_____________________________________ years ago to… you, in _______ seconds.