Chapter 7: Adventures in Bodybuilding

When I first read the chapter's title, I automatically thought this chapter would be about the muscles in our body, but instead I realized it was about how humans were put together. For the longest time, this question about how humans came to be arose in my thoughts until I finally read Shubin's message. From just the beginning of the reading, when it talked about how "We grow in the correct proportions" (118), it hit me about how complicated and detailed growing is. Just the smallest change in communication between cells could have a big effect on the body like mismatched arms or any other body parts. I was definitely surprised to read from the time first life appeared to the first modern humans, there was such a large time gap of billions of years. It wasn't because the creatures weren't ready, but because the earth didn't have enough oxygen around to keep them alive. The most interesting part for me was when Shubin talked about Martin Boraas did the experiment with the alga generations. It was amazing to learn how the alga clumped together to avoid being ingested by the single-celled predator and from that point on, continued to grow in clumps instead of singles. From this, it just makes me think about how different life could change billions of years from now...