Science News - February 26, 2011

How and when did life on Earth get to be the way it is today? To learn about the major turning points in the story of evolution, each of which brought forth new possibilities for life, is to embark on an unforgettable look into the past and to get a deeper understanding of life—both your own life and the lives of everything around you.

Major Transitions in Evolution

Taught by Professor Anthony Martin, Emory University;

Professor John Hawks, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Lecture Titles

1. Macroevolution and

15. The First Flowers and
Major Transitions
Pollinator Coevolution

Major Transitions in Evolution tells this science-detective story in 24 lavishly illustrated lectures by Professor Anthony Martin, a paleontologist and geologist, and Professor John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist. In their breathtaking course, you investigate the conditions that led to the first complex cells, flying insects, flowering plants, dinosaurs, mammals, modern humans, and more. And in the process of studying the past, you’ll gain a powerful understanding of your present world.

2. Paleontology and Geologic Time

16. Egg to Placenta—

3. Single-Celled Life—
Early Mammal Evolution
Prokaryotes to Eukaryotes

17. From Land to Sea—

4. Metazoans—The Earliest
The Evolution of Whales
Multicellular Animals

18. Moving on Up—

5. The Development of Skeletons
The First Primates

6. The Rise of Vertebrates

19. Apes—Swinging Down from

7. Colonization of the Land
the Trees

8. Origins of Insects and of

20. From 4 Legs to 2—
Powered Flight
The Hominin Radiation

This course is one of The Great Courses®, a noncredit, recorded college lecture series from The Teaching Company®. Award-winning professors of a wide array of subjects in the sciences and the liberal arts have made more than 300 college-level courses that are available now on our website.