New Horizons in Science

In honor of the 2009 bicentenary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, David M. Kingsley will share with us the latest findings from the nearly completed genome of the threespine stickleback, a fish that thrives in oceans and fresh water. Kingsley has found that alterations in a key developmental control gene can help explain how whales, snakes and some lizards lost their hind limbs. And he's studying a gene that affects the color of sticklebacks -- the same gene that helped humans develop lighter skin when they left Africa 50,000 years ago.