Part 4 (15’19’’-19’27’’) CREATIVE FORCE

1. What major player was overlooked in the history of evolutional biology?

2. Look at the shots from the video and compare two pre-historic creatures: sponges and niderians.

Use the list of expressions: flower-like being, unable to move on their own, filter food
particles from the water, animal with a mouth, muscles and nerves.

3. What was the next stage in evolution?

Now watch the video episode with a mute sound. Act as a presenter.

4. Why are extreme environments so interesting for researchers?

Part 5 (19’28’’-24’29’’) MIMI

What was Bernard Lascola examining in 2003?

How did MIMI shutter the view of what a virus could be? What did the virologists consider a virus
to be? What was anew controversial concept of viruses?
 How was this hypothesis criticized?
What were the counter arguments? What does it mean to many investigators?

According to Young and Douglass the life on Earth might have looked like this:

What might MIMI have invented?

What could it have controlled?

GRAMMAR AND FUNCTION

POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE – how to talk about hypothesis

Read the following lines from the episode. Is the speaker confident in his statements?

1. They suggest that long ago Mimi might have been able to replicate without a host.
2. Mimi din not steal the genes. On the contrary it may have invented them long before there was
complex life.
3. Young and Douglass imagine if going back in time early Earth might have looked something like
this.
4. It’s possible that in ancient Mimi like virus might have invented the instructions for life to
become more complex and then inserted them into primitive cells.
5. They also think that a Mimi like virus could have served as the first cellular nucleus, the
command and control center that enabled life to get more elaborate.

Highlight the verb forms that serve to express hypothesis.

Rearrange the except using modals of deduction:

And if that was a case, Mimi isn’t like other viruses. Maybe it wasn’t a machine.
Maybe it wasn’t a parasite. Maybe at one time it was alive.
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Part 6 (24’19’’-33’03) Birth of children.
1. hidden traces
2. a profound discovery
3. reproductive biologist
4. common annoyance
5. an unwelcomed quest
6. to litter the data
7. whim net of viruses
8. a nuisance
9. to filter out the viruses
10. to thrive in
11. to provide oxygen to the fetus (AE)/foetus (BE)
12. to be spurred on by the findings
13. clear signs of the invaders
14. inception
15. to generate very special cells each with two nuclei
16. seed the growth of the placenta
17. to fuel fetus development
18. to perform s series of surgeries
19. to keep the animal anesthetized
20. knock out the virus
PROFOUND DISCOVERY

Watch the episode and say what the retroviruses were to Tom Spenser

Un_el_ _m_d g_ _s_t _ _mm_ n a_ _oy_c_

St_ _f_r Retroviruses were _ _n_

_ui_ _nce l_ tt_ _i_g the d_t_

PHONE CALL

How did Tom Spenser come up with the idea of viruses importance?

What exactly did he research?

SPENSER’S HYPOTHESIS AND PLAN

1. Watch and fill in the gaps:

Spenser focused his attention on one of the most dramatic and mysterious events of the sheep’s
pregnancy. 16 days after ______________ the round embryo has transformed from elongated to
become more string like. Next the embryo begins _________ very special cells each with two nuclei
that ________ the embryo. These cells connect the embryo to the ________ and they seed the
growth of the placenta which fuels ______ development. Viruses have left fingerprints all aver this
process. And Spenser suspected this might not be a ____________. Perhaps viruses are critical
players in these transformations.

2. What were the main steps of the experiment?

EXPERIMENTS RESULTS

1. What did the researches fail to see during the second operation?
2. What remarkable feat of evolution does the placenta of mammals fuel?
SUMMARY

PART 6

Спенсер – биолог- репродуктолог, который исследует тайны рождения, изучая овец. Для него
вирусы всегда были неприятностью, незваными гостями в его лаборатории, т.к. они “засоряли”
данные, полученные в результате исследования беременных овец. Благоприятной средой
обитания этих вирусов, где они бурно размножаются, является плацента, функция которой –
питать и снабжать кислородом плод.

Однажды Спенсер получил данные исследований беременностей у женщин. В человеческой

плаценте были обнаружены такие же ретро вирусы, что и в овечьей. Перепроверяя свои
собственные данные, ученый везде находил четкие следы ретро вирусов. Он стал подозревать,
что возможно вирусы не были просто “хламом”.

Спенсер сосредоточил свое исследование на загадочном этапе беременности овцы. Спустя 16

дней после оплодотворения эмбрион из круглого превращался в более вытянутый, а затем
начинал вырабатывать особые покрывающие его клетки. Эти клетки соединяют эмбрион с
маткой и вызывают рост плаценты. Следы вирусов были обнаружены во время всего процесса, и
Спенсер предположил, что это не совпадение.

Эксперимент, подтверждающий участие вирусов в образовании плаценты, проводился на овце.

Во время операции ученые извлекли эмбрион из ее матки и сделали инъекцию безопасную для
овцы, но смертельную для вирусов. После чего вернули эмбрион в матку. Спустя несколько
недель была проведена вторая операция. Исследователи не обнаружили особых клеток
плаценты, которые необходимы для имплантации эмбриона в утробе.

Том Спенсер принадлежит к все возрастающему числу ученых, которые пересматривают

предубеждения прошлого. Они считают, что плацента многих млекопитающих, включая и
человека, связана с вторжением вирусов. Плацента млекопитающих, катализированная
вирусами, подобна энергоустановке. Около 70 % ее энергии питает рост одного из самых
замечательных достижений эволюции – большого мощного мозга.
Spenser is a reproductive biologist who investigates the mysteries of birth by studying sheep. To Tom
Spenser viruses are common annoyance, an unwelcomed quest in his lab. Viruses were littering the
data he was gathering from pregnant sheep

For years filtering out the viruses was standard operating procedure but that all changed with a phone
call. In one study retroviruses like those that Spenser found in sheep were discovered somewhere else.
The viruses were found in the wombs of pregnant women thriving in an organ called the placenta.

Spurred on by the findings Spenser reviewed the data he’s been collecting on sheep. Everywhere he
looked in the reproductive system, he saw clear signs of the invaders. Spenser began to suspect that
retroviruses have been playing an important role in pregnancy.

Spenser focused his attention on one of the most dramatic and mysterious events of the sheep’s
pregnancy. 16 days after inception the round embryo has transformed from elongated to become more
string like. Next the embryo begins generating very special cells each with two nuclei that coat the
embryo. These cells connect the embryo to the womb and they seed the growth of the placenta which
fuels fetal development. Viruses have left fingerprints all aver this process. And Spenser suspected this
might not be a coincidence. Perhaps viruses are critical players in these transformations.

In a novel experiment Spenser and his colleagues performed s series of surgeries. With the sheep vital
systems stable the operation is set to begin, using great care Spenser and his team quickly make their
way to sheep’s reproductive organs. Time is of the essence. The team doesn’t want to keep the animal
anesthetized any longer than necessary. The microscopic embryo resides protected within this fleshy
cocoon. The injection is harmless for the sheep but will knock out the virus. Now all that’s left to do is
to wait.

Spenser reassembles the team and runs the second round of surgery. When Spenser removes the
embryos he is amazed by what he finds.

They failed to see is the development of these special cells of the placenta are turned by nuclei itself that
has two nuclei. And those cells are needs so the embryo can implant into the hurrahs. And without
them the pregnancy were failed.

He now thinks that the placentas of many mammals including humans can be linked to viral invasion.
The placenta of mammals catalyzed by viruses is like a power plant. Around 70 % of its energy fuels the
growth of one of the most remarkable fits of evolution – large powerful brains.