During my freshman year, I won a cadaver trip. While I was at the cadaver lab, I was shown a 6-week old embryo of a dog. I thought it was indistinguishable from a human embryo. From this chapter, I learned that every species share the same embryotic structure that later determine their organ system. When the chapter began to talk about newts, I remembered the video we saw in your class. It explained the experiment of splitting cells. Reading that part was kind of like deja vu for me and was quite exciting. How many times can a egg be split? How many salamanders can be created from one egg?
I could not understand Shubin's connection to the sea anenome. I am sorry but I cannot see the connection between complex human beings to backless sea anenome/jellyfish. Can someone explain?

PS. The part about blastocysts/ectopic pregnancy was disgusting and left me questioning its relevancy.