Saturday, July 31, 2010

Is this health class or biology; maybe a little of both?

Shubin recaps the development of the human body to other's such as reptiles, fish, and mammals. He states there are three layers in all of these species that each construct the same, specific part of the body. The ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm each construct the necessities of life including the backbone, the brain, the nervous system, and digestive tract. The history of body development continues to the twentieth century when Hans Spemann discoveredDNA, well at least the idea of it. Later, Hilde Mangold experimented how to create twins but sadly, Spemann took the credit for it upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Medicine. I find it sad that all of Mangold's work was not accredited to the right person until many years later. All their discoveries concluded to one thing, the "three-layered Frisbee" gives species the common general design for every body. In this chapter, Shubin first tells that it is foolish to compare ourselves with a jellyfish, yet towards the end he compares humans to sea anemones, relatives to the jellyfish. Does that mean if we share the same "three-layered Frisbee" we are technically related? Fishy, isn't it? No, just jellyfishy. After all these comparisons to other animals, I feel like a true cannibal; just like Chrisantha.

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