Even though Charles Darvin titled his famous book ‘The Origin of Species’, he considered the mechanism of new species’ origin a great mystery. Even now, one of the greatest mysteries of biology is how two groups of animals become genetically incompatible. It is possible to imagine that two groups of animals become separated in space and lose the ability to breed with each other for a long time, gradually adapt to different environmental factors until they lose physical ability to mate even living at the same territory. Development of new species without physical isolation is much more difficult to explain because of free exchange of genetic information between individuals. Even more difficult to comprehend is the fact that changing only one gene may be sufficient to create new biological species.

A gene called Prdm6 was found long time ago as a gene involved in recombination, the process of crossing chromosomes and exchanging DNA regions between paternal and maternal chromosomes in the gonads. The process takes place only during maturation of reproductive cells – spermatozoids and oocytes. The DNA shuffling is the reason why each organism is unique. So far, DNA recombination was not associated with the creation of new species. Scientists found that the protein Prdm6 has several so-called Zn-fingers that are encoded by short DNA repeats called satellite DNA. As satellite DNA is located in hot-spots of DNA recombination, it is frequently mutated and repaired. As the result, Prdm6 protein gets more or less repeats of its Zn-fingers. It appears that the chromosomes that have different variants of the gene cannot properly pair and exchange genetic information during gametogenesis. All animal species have homologous Prdm6 genes. Certain lines of laboratory mice that express different variants of Prdm6 protein cannot produce fertile offspring. Scientists found that different populations of humans also produce Prdm6 proteins with different number of Zn-fingers. It is conceivable that people with certain variants of Prdm6 proteins may not produce fertile children and may develop into a new human species. This process will require selective pressure, either natural or artificial, and many years to develop true new Homo species.

In 2000, private Clay Mathematics Institute has chosen seven most difficult unresolved mathematical problems and promised to pay one million dollars award to anyone who would solve either of seven “Problems of the Millennium”. The first of seven Prizes was awarded to Gregory Perelman who solved famous Poincare conjecture. A 44-year old Russian mathematician from St. Petersburg, Gregory Perelman managed to explain in a formal way the possibility of Big Bang and the mystery of origin of the Universe.

So, what is the Poincare’s conjecture problem?

It concerns one of the foundations of mathematics, called topology. Topology is often called “geometry on the rubber sheet”. It deals with the properties of geometric forms if the forms are stretched, twisted, bent, in other words, deformed without breaks, cuts or splices.

The topology is important in mathematical physics, because it allows understanding the properties in the space, such as our universe, and evaluating it without being able to look at it from the outside.

Usually, the Poincaré conjecture problem is presented as follows: How one can make a two-dimensional sphere? Take a flat two-dimensional disk made of rubber and stretch it around a sphere so that the rubber disk forms a ball and the circumference of the disc condenses in a single point on the surface of the sphere. The resulting object would look like a three-dimensional sphere, but in mathematical terms it is still two-dimensional disk that has no edge.

Similarly, try to pull the same disc on a donut. The edge of the disc will never shrink to a point, instead, it will form a circle.

The next step goes beyond the empirical experience and even imagination of a common person. Imagine a two-dimensional rubber sphere that we just described and try to collect its surface in a single point. As another Russian mathematician Vladimir Uspensky wrote in his popular book, “as opposed to two-dimensional spheres, three-dimensional sphere is inaccessible to our direct observation, and it is as hard to imagine as a cubic triangle.” Mathematicians can describe in a formal way the properties of such objects that have more then three dimensions.

So, according to the Poincaré conjecture, three-dimensional sphere is the only three-dimensional object which surface can be shrunk into a point.

Jules Henri Poincaré hypothesized this in 1904. Perelman now formally proved that the French topologist was right and turned his hypothesis into a theorem.

The solution helps to get better understanding of the current shape of our universe and its possible origin. Today, we can very reasonably say that the Universe is a three-dimensional sphere. But if, according to Perelman, the only “shape” that our universe can adopt is a point, then, perhaps, one can say that the universe could have unfolded into three-dimensional state from a single four-dimensional point – singularity! That is an indirect confirmation of the Big Bang theory, which says: the universe has occurred from a single point.

It turns out that Perelman and Poincare have shaken one of the last strong-holds of the creationists, supporters of the theory of divine origin of the universe.

Perelman refused to accept the million dollars prize saying that the value of the Universe is much higher then the value of the award.