Palaeontologist, taxonomist, systematist and evolutionary biologist, Greg Edgecombe, Senior Research Scientist at the Australian Museum is passionate about life's BIG questions and uses some interesting resources to explore the answers: NASA-developed super-computers and centipedes.
Greg admits that to some his work might seem abstract and esoteric, but since we humans are curious creatures, we will persist in seeking answers to fundamental questions about the deep history of life on earth. In his own words: 'Systematists have be able to hold their heads up and say 'we're trying to figure out what's going on out there, how did billions of years of history produce what's going on outside our windows in the living world?'
To explore these complex questions, Greg analyses the structure and form of minute parts (like jaws, brains, eyes, little bristles on the antennae of arthropods and centipedes. Comparison of this information coupled with data from DNA sequencing reveals relationships between species and their histories. However, the work is not all sitting around an electron microscope. The specimens must first be collected (out in the bush), described and named if they're new and then studied or crushed up to obtain DNA sequences. To obtain enough of this information takes more than one researcher, sometimes from another part of the world, and complex algorithms to process the data ... and that's where the NASA super-computers come in.
What does this have to do with us? As Greg puts it: 'we're all just walking around with signposts of our history all over us and it's the job of the systematist to use any means necessary to work out that history'. The centipede's mandibles reveal as much history as the five-fingered hands of the primate, indicating that those groups are descendants of common ancestors.
Born in Canada, educated there and in the United States, Greg came to the Australian Museum eight years ago and acknowledges the opportunities the Museum has given him to pursue new avenues of research. 'The Museum has a culture of allowing people to explore new directions ... We [the scientists] do not abuse this privilege.' Greg's hard work shows, with no shortage of respected and much cited papers published in the last few years. It still might be difficult for the average punter to understand what his work is about, but while some scientists have their telescopes trained on the skies looking for life, Greg has his microscope on the creatures on the ground, trying to understand life on our very own earth.
Sarah Timmins
An Australian Museum Website
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