The Genes We Lost Along the Way

↓ More info below ↓
Our DNA holds thousands of dead genes and we’ve only just begun to unravel their stories. But one thing is already clear: we’re not just defined by the genes that we’ve gained over the course of our evolution, but also by the genes that we’ve lost along the way.

Thanks to these illustrators for their wonderful hominin illustrations featured throughout this episode!

Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible:

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[cancerino]

Gene dies in the Palocene: "I'm not required"
Sailors in the 15th century with scurvy: "I'm sorry what?"

[theoveranalist]

Lemurs watching us give up the ability to synthesize vitamin C and then catch the common cold: "Pathetic."

[saltymcsaltface]

Best narrator on the show. Her tone, speed and pitch is perfect which makes it easy to follow the information she is presenting .

[SayItAintTso]

I was gonna type “if we can resurrect uricase, can we use it as a medication to treat gout?” but then I googled and saw we’re already doing that! Yay science!

[CPrs]

“Maybe the real evolution was the genes we lost along the way”

[Aiden-V.]

This coulda been a several hours long video essay listing and discussing every single one and i woulda watched the whole darn thing. Great stuff

[rajasimanta]

Pirates were probably really confused seeing 'Gulop.exe missing' error all the time

[takashimasuda]

I think this is literally the coolest thing I learned
This basically means that we have untapped potential in our genes
It’s like having a superpower but it’s sealed away

[simonezampa]

i'm an archivist and i realized now that our genome is actually the archive of our evolution

[joshuasalem]

Can we all seriously take a moment to appreciate how fortunate we are to have things like PBS?

We are so lucky to have a public broadcaster with a vast domain. It is universally accepted by our institutions to be something we need, and does stuff like have amazing people teach us new things and make learning easier than ever

[bunstructors]

As a software engineer it's very painful to realize that I have a code coverage of less than 10%

[paullukens]

Outstanding presenter. Enthusiastic and obviously highly knowledgeable as well. You have the perfect voice for this! Loved it. (retired Biology teacher)

[chriskelvin]

I would like to thank mankind's top four most generous patrons: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and last but not least, Steve!

[pjeverly]

This episode is why I love this channel. It makes you think about things in a new way and ultimately become more curious. Keep up the great work.

[Leto]

I can imagine a science fiction story in where those and more dead genes can be reactivated to 'experience reality as how our ancestors did.'

[vesawuoristo]

I can see the Vitamin C gene being activated articially in the future, would be very useful for space travel .

[pocketrocket]

I just found this channel recently.
And this is one of the first videos I watched.
Woah I'm overwhelmed by the clarity and precision of your content.
Thanks so much for doing this!
I'll probably watch all your videos in the near future.

[KimberlyGreen]

Remembering former Eontologist "Steve", who has become an Eons pseudo-gene. May you one day be resurrected and come back to us.

[Denny_Boi]

RIP Gulop. You would've made the age of exploration a bit more manageable.

[adw]

I'am a non-native fluent English speaker, and I like her accent and voice, as well. She is an amazing host!