Chapter 7: Adventures In Bodybuilding

Most of the first part of this chapter was review for me. There were numerous things in which I remember learning at sometime in my life, such as bones consist of hydroxyapatite, collagen, and other molecules, how cartilage forms between our joints in order to create a smooth movement, and that the cells and molecules in our body stick together by means of molecular rivets. One of the only structures I had not heard of before that popped up in the first section of this chapter was the proteoglycan. This first section was like taking a trip back to elementary school and junior high. Not going to lie, I felt a bit nostalgic going over these concepts once again.

I tend to find the smallest and simplest things in life the most interesting, and that is why I enjoyed the next section of this chapter: blobs. When I was little, I read countless books on bugs such as ants, spiders, bees, aphids, etc. I had a thing for small organisms. Going even smaller, blobs proved very interesting to me, scientists even gave cool names for them, such as placozoans. I mean, really, have you ever heard of an animal named something like that? Even the anatomy of the blobs themselves were intriguing, such as the hidden complexity and genes of choanoflagellates in the blobs' DNA. It was all enough to get me to continue reading.

The last part of this section was satisfying as well. I like how Shubin compared the history of life to the timing of inventions, because that is essentially correct. If an object is too advanced for its time, it won't come off as popular just yet. Similar to this, the creation of bodies did not come up until it fit its given time period. When Mr. Shubin got into the comparison between even smaller organisms and bodies was when I began to get wide-eyed. How could someone even juxtapose (for example) a blob of algae to a grown fox? Seems crazy to me, but Shubin was able to do it, and, by my surprise, we do have certain things in common. And although these 'things' (particularly tiny molecules) are found in both us and small-celled life forms, something in common is still something in common.

And this goes without having to mention the past comparisons Shubin has made with us and other organisms. I'm very impressed by this book, for it has allowed me to see even the smallest similarities between something so large and something so tiny.

One thing is for sure, Shubin has definitely caused me to hesitate maybe a millisecond longer before deciding to kill a cricket in the corner of my room.

Devin Larscheid