When Shubin opened up with the opening of the human head I was automatically intrigued. The human brain and its functions grab my attention spontaneously. Shubin's description of what happened in the lab with "twenty-five human beings under sheets" surrounding him, sounded to me like as if he was in a horror movie. Shubin broke down the human skull for us readers by plates, blocks, and rods. The human brain sounds so complex and it was pretty difficult for me to keep up but I found it very interesting how Shubin explains how a deformity is a result of something going wrong with the facial nerve. This chapter I learned a lot of new facts, such as how four little swellings develop the throat. This novel is becoming more and more complex with every chapter since Shubin is bringing out terms and words such as: "Eustachian tube". Even with complex anatomy words, Shubin still is able to give us easy tricks to understand "the most complicated cranial nerves and large portions of the head". The pictures and descriptions, especially in this chapter, really help out a lot. The pictures of the developing fetuses are really weird though. It's interesting how the arches only show in the embryo. When Shubin begins comparing sharks to us humans, that is when I became really interested. I really thank the second arch for breaking up into a bar of cartilage and forming one of the three bones of our middle ear, so I am able to have the obsession of music I obtain today :). Shubin's break down of the arches really help out my understanding of our heads in comparison to sharks. When Shubin explains how now with the technology we have, scientists can manipulate the genetic addresses of our arches, I was blown away. I also never saw worms anything but slimy little critters crawling around in puddles of mud and dirt. However, Shubin makes theses critters seem very important to understanding ourselves.
~Caroline Eskander
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