Chapter 7

This chapter answered a lot of questions I had been wondering about. I find it amazing that the information to build our bodies is contained within each cell. Shubin comparing that to the design of a house made his point easier to understand. In addition, as Ejay and Ian both said, I had not known before that our body's blueprint is what it is today because of survival reasons, and that primitive earth's lack of oxygen is what prevented the existance of multi-celled organisms. Also, I thought it was interesting how cells communicate with each other and how organized and purposeful it all is. In addition, reading about the analogy of the "earth year" made me realize what a tiny amount of time we have on earth. I had always known this, but Shubin's explanation just hit me hard. It's also hard to believe that (in the analogy of the "earth year") the first animal with a head only arrived in October, and that we appear on December 31.