Chapter 6: The Best-Laid (Body) Plans

Wow. This seems to be my most favorite chapter yet. This chapter was very fascinating and it was almost unreal about how all creatures are so related in one way or another. Where Shubin talks about how every embryo first starts off with these 3 germ layers and how the organs develop from it was unbelievable. How can all creatures develop in the same way and produce the same organs in the same layers? Next, the description of how we start as a tube-within-a-tube kind of confused me because I couldn't picture in my mind how humans can start off like that. I seem to be learning not only similarities between humans and other creatures, but simply about humans.

The Organizer. This amazed me because of how only a small amount of tissue can actually have ALL the information to form another organism. The illustration of a salamander newt forming into twins was something I never knew could happen just because Mangold took some tissue and put it on the developing egg. Also, ALL mammals, birds, amphibians, and fish have Organizers. Which means, that scientists can produce twins from all of these organism!

The homeobox at first confused me with the Hox genes, but after I saw the picture I knew what Shubin was talking about. I never knew humans had anything in common with the homeobox of a fly! Just how the flies can become mutated, I guess if the Hox genes are mutated, then humans become mutated as well. I can't wait to read more.