Chapter Three: Handy Genes

Of all of three chapters I've read in Your Inner Fish, this chapter was by far the most interesting. To think that we can not only trace the human heritage through the fossils of deceased fish, but we can also trace our history through the DNA of present day animals. Shubin and his team really surprised me as I read because it showed me how completely connected all animals truly are and that no matter how different each creature might seem, inside there is always a similarity between each animal, and that similarity in this case is ZPA. It was completely intriguing how Shubin and his team were able to manipulate the ZPA inside the embryos of the skate, and how the effects were similar to those created within the human DNA. I never knew that these different kinds of similarities were possible, and it really opened my eyes to the connections of all different types of animals.