Now they were seeing yet another trait in the domestication syndrome, not only curly tails, but floppy ears-- all as the result of selection on behavior and behavior alone. Belyaev used to take a slide of Mechta to talks, and when he would come back from these talks-- by this time, they were not only in the Soviet Union, but all around the world.
that that whole thing-- the floppy ears, the curly tails, the low stress hormone-- all that is referred to today as the domestication syndrome. And Belyaev thought about this, and he thought, you know, this is really weird because our ancestors domesticated species for all sorts of different reasons.
20 years older-- who had been an up and coming star in the field of genetics. But Belyaev decided this was too important, and he was going to do it. So he initiates a tiny, little pilot study.
Even in that short amount of time, they began to see animals that were inherently a little friendlier towards humans. Then Belyaev gets his big chance to start a full-blown experiment in 1958. What happens is he is offered a position as vice director at a new institute of biology in Siberia
They literally brought in tens of thousands of scientists and associated people to build this Academic Village. So Belyaev knows now that, as vice director of this new institute of biology there, that he is going to have the power and the money to start a full-blown silver fox domestication experiment.
The problem is, when she moves the one-week-old developing embryos from one uterus to another, she knows who is who. So Belyaev says, I love it.
It could take 20 years. She remembers Belyaev saying to her, it could take your whole life. But she was hooked.
Why would anyone want to waste their time trying to build a friendlier fox when there's so much money to be made for the government in fur? But Lyudmila said that Belyaev sent me, and Belyaev's name now carried enough weight that the director said, fine, test 500 foxes. It's not going to bother me.
Four months, they were still floppy. Lyudmila calls Belyaev out there, and Belyaev looks at Dream, turns around, and asks Lyudmila, what kind of wonder is this? Now they were seeing yet another trait in the domestication syndrome, not only curly tails, but floppy ears-- all as the result of selection on behavior and behavior alone.
and about 20 were actually murdered by Lysenko's thugs for doing the crime of modern Western genetics. This is the environment in which Belyaev is conceiving an experiment in genetics. Nobody knows better how dangerous this is because one of those 20 people who was murdered by Lysenko was Belyaev's older brother--
60 years-- the experiment starts with this fellow, Dmitri Belyaev. In the late 1930s, Belyaev was an undergraduate student at a place called the Ivanova Agricultural Academy outside of Moscow. And while he was there, he studied genetics, and because it was an agricultural academy,
in the domestication syndrome. Why? And Belyaev's hypothesis went like this-- the one thing that our ancestors always needed in whatever species they were trying to domesticate was an animal that would not try and bite their heads off.
When you talk to her today, it seems as if it happened just yesterday. The first thing that struck her was that Belyaev immediately treated her like an equal. So in 1958, Soviet science was very patriarchal.
But here was a vice director of an institute talking to a newly minted undergraduate and treating them like an equal. And that mattered. So Belyaev lays out the idea. We're going to test hundreds of foxes every year.
The problem is, when she moves the one-week-old developing embryos from one uterus to another, she knows who is who. This is the only known picture we have of Pushinka-- Belyaev petting her.
After that, he came back and landed a position as a research scientist at a place called the Central Research Laboratory for Fur Breeding Animals, also in Moscow. And it was there that Belyaev came up with the idea that would eventually become the silver fox domestication experiment. And it started like this-- he knew from his interaction with domesticated species
She thinks it's a brilliant experiment, and she also likes the idea of moving to this new scientific oasis in the middle of Siberia. But before she gets too excited, Belyaev stops her and says, look, you need to know a couple of things. First of all, even though Lysenko is not as powerful as he used to be, if he decided to make an example of us,
that you become responsible forever for what you have tamed. So Lyudmila gets there, and Belyaev has money and power. But he still hasn't been able to procure a very large area to build a fox farm right in Akademgorodok, where they could do the experiment.
The problem is, when she moves the one-week-old developing embryos from one uterus to another, she knows who is who. So at this point, Lyudmila goes to Belyaev with an audacious idea.
Chimps are terrible, terrible people. But actually, this is kind of belying the underlying story of violence like this, which is that we see evidence of violence in the skeletal record,
So I'm going to try and give you an overview of what they've been doing and why it's important. 60 years-- the experiment starts with this fellow, Dmitri Belyaev. In the late 1930s, Belyaev was an undergraduate student at a place called the Ivanova Agricultural Academy
Did they start showing lower stress hormone levels or other characteristics of domestication syndrome? This is a classic experiment in evolution and genetics, but Belyaev had a problem, and it was a big problem because, as he came up with this idea in the mid-1940s, it was a time when it was illegal to do modern genetics
This is the environment in which Belyaev is conceiving an experiment in genetics. Nobody knows better how dangerous this is because one of those 20 people who was murdered by Lysenko was Belyaev's older brother-- 20 years older-- who had been an up and coming star in the field of genetics.
and what they did was they cleared out a large chunk of Siberian forests near Novosibirsk, and they built two dozen world class institutes in associated science. So there was the institute that Belyaev was involved in as vice director in biology. There were institutes in chemistry, physics, early computer science, and so on, and so on.
he could still throw us into prison. Lyudmila knew that anyone who studied biology knew that, but it meant something that Belyaev stopped her and said, think about this. And the other thing he said was, I've run this little pilot experiment.
speak of one's intersex condition unless absolutely necessary. "But I wasn't buying that narrative, the notion that nature had an intention that my body was somehow disobeying or belying , that I was a failed but remediable woman.
or a couple of months-- every day. The other thing that was really important to Lyudmila was that, when she was working down at Lesnoi, Belyaev was too busy to come visit very often, maybe once or twice a year.
But now he's just 20 minutes away at the institute, and he can come and interact with the foxes anytime he wants. And just as important, if something major happens, she can immediately get Belyaev over to see what's going on. And one of those "something importants," one of those major things was this little guy right here-- Mechta, or Dream.
The problem is, when she moves the one-week-old developing embryos from one uterus to another, she knows who is who. OK, so the experiment's going on, and what's happening is happening even faster than Lyudmila and Belyaev dreamed it would.
brain-scanning, or the amount of data we're downloading about the brain, or the cost of sequencing a base pair of DNA or a genome, or the amount of genetic data we're sequencing-- I mean, these fundamental measures follow amazingly predictable trajectories, really belying the common wisdom that you cannot predict the future. And what's predictable is that they grow exponentially.