Chapter 5: Getting Ahead

Chapter five was not my favorite. I like how Shubin talks about how he stayed up late studying the twelve cranial nerves (talk about procrasinating). This chapter was based mainly on the essence of our own head. I was a little grossed out about him mentioning he had to "saw through the cheeks" to see the vessels and organs inside a head. That's not very pleasant. He moves on to talk about our brains being complex and full of wires and connections from one thing to another. We also learn why a slap on the face hurts so bad because it sends the pain to our brain. That sounds painful!

Towards the middle of this chapter, I was a little inattentive when Shubin talked about archs and the essence of an embryo. I just didn't find that interesting and had to reread, but once I started reading about birth defects in children, I had finally learned something I had always wondered. I use to think, how do you know a baby is born with a birth defect? Well, It mainly depends on the development of the brain and through that you can see the missing structures explaining where the problem is whether its in the first, second, third, or fourth arch.

My biggest fear of the chapter was finding out our correlation to sharks. I have an extreme fear of sharks and I was extremely shocked to find out we are "modified sharks". Creepy huh? I wasn't really satisfied with this chapter but hopefully the next one will be better!

-Mitasha Sujan