chapter 8 9 10 11

In chapter eight, I found it interesting that “all our cells contain the same DNA; what differs is which bits of DNA are active” (140). I can recall learning that cells contain DNA but I always thought it just had only parts of the DNA that makes a person unique. Also, I was surprised that when fish use their nose to smell, the odor molecules exit from the top of its head and not through the gills. My favorite part was when Shubin talked about how animals with fewer genes have a stronger sense of smell like dogs for example. No wonder dogs can be used to find buried objects so easily. This must be the reason that humans use some pigs to find truffles that grow in the ground as well. I would have never thought that color vision was the reason why we have less smell genes than earlier.

From chapter nine, I can now understand why creatures with color vision are more sensitive to light than creatures that see in black and white. Whenever I was little, my parents told me too never stare at the sun because it was going to affect my vision later on. By learning about the two different cells in the eye, I can see why it can be harder to see in the dark after staring at the sun. One of my favorite sections of the chapter was when it talked about how color vision could have an affect on what the monkeys ate long ago. Thanks to color vision they were able to discover new plants and fruit to eat so they wouldn’t go hungry. I can’t imagine having only black and white vision and I could imagine that it would make food look less appetizing.

From chapter ten, I never knew that the ear had other functions besides hearing and balance. When Shubin explained that the inner ear is responsible for detecting acceleration, I was quite surprised. Since I never really thought about it, for the longest time, I thought our eyes were responsible for telling our brain if we were tilting, spinning, or accelerating. My favorite section was when he talked about space sickness due to what a person’s eyes record one thing and their inner ears are taking in something totally different.

Chapter eleven ended the book well because it wrapped up everything he explained in the previous chapters. I always knew there were laws in other science classes like physics, but I never knew that there was a law in biology that “every living thing on the planet had parents” (174). After reading this entire book, I have to say that my favorite part was learning about how the human family tree goes back to jellyfish. I finally know after the longest time how humans came to be and why they developed much later in the time line that reptiles and fish.

Overall, this novel was very interesting and informing. In one novel, it was able to answer many questions about how humans came to be and much more. Thanks to this, I am now ready to learn more about biology in more detail this up coming year.