Ch. 6: The Best-Laid(body) Plans

The best laid body plans are DNA which is so neatly organized that even the gene that controls the body's development is called The Organizer. This chapter caught my attention because not only was this easily comprehended but also universal to almost every species alive today.
From embryo to newborn, many things occur which all correlate into one complex or simple body. I found it remarkable that the most fundamental material first starting human life can connect to other species much different from humans. Starting off, the embryo doesn't look much different but while in the uterus of our mothers, features start to appear through the development of the three germ layers. The 3 germ layers made the creatures alive today and thus creates two types of growth: "features shared by every species, and features that vary from species to species"(102). this is where we are distinguished from other animals.
so now that we know that the embryo has all the materials to build the body,but how does it know? This is explained very clearly by chronological order and through steps in which various scientists around the world took to figure out not only what gene controlled the on and off functions of others but also the genes that make the features different from one another called The Organizer, Hox genes, and Noggin.
The comparison from the mammal embryos to faceless species was inspiring and beyond what is expected because who would compare some thing that looks so different and expect to find the same basic blueprint? Certainly I wouldn't, but then again, "Don't judge a book by its cover." Shubin told us of the DNA and the symmetry that both the sea anemone and humans share in the orbal-aboral axis and the head-to-anus axis. Faceless and even invertebrates were compared to humans and what next? So much seemingly unrelated species were compared to Humans and have been found very similar to us proving that all of the species around us have been part of the same evolution ladder. Again intriguing maybe I am related to my oldest archenemies: Spiders...