Chapter 6: The Best-Laid (Body) Plans

First off, I would like to apologize for a late chapter blog. After getting back from vacation the other day and having two baseball games the next day early in the morning, you wouldn't be able to imagine how tired I was. However, I hope you will still enjoy my post.

This book never ceases to amaze me. How on Earth could we go from looking like a toy we throw to each other in the park to a grown human with arms and legs and feet and eyes?? The complexity of this evolution we undergo as a embryo is simply mind-blowing. When I saw the diagram of the embryo being a small part of the yolk sac, I was amazed. When we begin to develop, we aren't even a majority of matter in the sac three weeks after conception! CRAZY. I also enjoyed Von Baer's approach to these distinctive theories and on "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."

The next idea Shubin covered was a bit disturbing to me. In fact, I just shuddered right now looking at the diagram of the doubled-headed embryo in Mangold's experiment. This guy was a real high-wired genius. It's quite a shame he was unable to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and died a unfortunate death in reward for his hard work on altering DNA genes in a newly developed embryo.

The next part I read very carefully. However, I'll throw one thing out there before I begin my analysis: I hate flies. They are the most annoying, worthless little creatures to ever fly the planet. I really wish Shubin would've picked something else instead, but I slowly accepted his comparison between humans and flies. As much as this disgusted me, I slowly began to understand how their genes could be quite similar to ours. This Hox gene that enables certain proportion sizes in our body, is incredible. I find it appalling that this gene and many other versions of it are found in almost every living species of animal.

Furthermore, the discovery of the Noggin and BMP-4 gene impressed me even more, although I thought the Noggin gene would have something to do with the head (you know, when someone says use your noggin?). However, the analysis and work put into this gene was impressive, especially when comparing the body structure of a sea anemone. To know something that lived under the sea and looked almost like a plant had something in common with our body structure was not an easy concept for me to swallow. In addition, the fact that you could inject a Noggin gene into a completely different organism and have the same affects as if you injected that organism with it's own Noggin gene corrected my thoughts on mutation. This idea alone was enough to stress the similarities between humans and all other living organisms.

I am actually enjoying this book so far and I look forward to the comparison between humans and single-celled microbes.

Devin Larscheid