Ch. 6 - The Best-Laid (Body) Plans

Although Chapter 6 was a little complicated, it was more enjoyable after I started to understand the content. Once again, the importance of embryos come up again in this chapter as well. Animals are all different after they've all developed but if you compare them in the embryo stage, there are fundamental similarities that can be found. I thought the description of the development of the human embryo was very interesting when it was used to explain the comparisons. Features like the tube-within-a-tube arrangement explained in the process is shared by most animals during the embryo stage.

The experiments that early scientists conducted to obtain more information about embryos was amazing. However sometimes the outcomes such as the mutations that resulted in the living creatures was a bit eerie and sad. For me, the climax of this passage was when it got to the part about flies and hox genes. I remember learning learning about hox genes in biology as well as using fruit flies in many problems and experiments. It brought some familiarity and helped me to understand furthermore. The hox genes is what makes us similar to exotic creatures like sea anemones. I thought the last sentence of the chapter was a great transition and page turner to the next chapter that links to the overall idea.