Chapter 7: Adventures in Bodybuilding

This chapter was one of the most interesting of the book. The beauty of his job, seeing the colors, and an animal actually developing must be mind-blowing. It is amazing how there are vast quantities of cells in our bodies, and various cells are specialized to do something unique. In order to work, all the cells and body parts have to labor in unison. The cells cooperate with each other gracefully and eloquently to keep things functioning correctly. The fact that over millions of years beings have evolved from single-celled organisms to something as complicated as a human is a lot to take in and think about. Shubin's discussion about the skeleton interested me as well. Our ability to do certain things is greatly attributed to the skeleton. According to Shubin, cartilage allows bones to move smoothly against a surface; with that being said, I cannot imagine the roughness and pain if we did not have cartilage. I now understand why arthritis hurts so much. Lastly, Wilson's experiment with sponges was very interesting. A sponge's ability to practically duplicate itself seems magical to me. This was probably my favorite chapter of the book