Chapter 3: Handy Genes

This chapter, for me, wasn't as interesting as chapter 1 and 2. Maybe its because I didn't like reading about genes and it didn't make sense for me, but in all I thought this chapter overall was bland. However, I did find one paragraph in this chapter extremely appealing, "They discovered that two little patches of tissue essentially control the development of the pattern of bones inside limbs. A strip of tissue at the extreme end of the limb bud is essential for all limb development. Remove it, and development stops....Remove it even later, and the arm is almost complete, except that the digits are short and deformed." (pg. 49) The one reason why I thought this was interesting was because you can do so little, but alter the genes in such a dramatic way that the outcome is different each time the genes are altered. There are so many stages/times the researchers can remove the tissue, and every time they remove it at a different time, the result is shocking. Even though I didn't really enjoy this chapter, I still had fun reading about things that never seemed to interest me until now.