Ch. 7

The connection between a house and a body makes it clear to me that what makes a body special is the way the cells spontaneously come together to form a body. I never knew cells had a special "glue" that sticks them together. In addition, I never knew that we had special "pads" between our joints that makes exercising easier for our bodies. I feel sorry for people with arthritis because almost everything they do with their afflicted joint recoils with pain. I was shocked to learn that the cave man is actually not so old as I thought they were. The first signs of life are many many times older than the first human and that dumbfounded me. What captured my mind in reading this chapter was when Shubin discussed the way cells "talk" to each other. I only thought nerves were the only cells that communicate through their signals, but then I found out almost all cells talk to each other. I wish I could talk to my cells to command them to do as I please. The last piece of information Shubin provides for us is oxygen may be linked to the building of the body. I can see this connection because all animals need oxygen to survive. I wonder what would happen to the creation of bodies if people keep destroying plant-life in the future, thus depriving us of oxygen.

Ch. 7: Bodybuilding For Blobs!

Although it didn't really make any relations to fish this chapter, the comparison of single-celled microbes and the organisms of today caught my interest. The fact that one wrong cell can kill a person is pretty scary, but it is also incredible to know that our cells are capable of setting up our entire body the right way. I like how Shubin separated his discussion about bodies into three parts: When? How? Why? It made it a whole lot easier to follow what he was trying to explain. The comparison of earth's history to a single-year calendar helped a lot with getting a clear idea of how long organisms have gone on living without bodies. Shubin also talked about the purpose and structure of cartilage. Until now I only know it was the material on your earlobes and nose that could be pierced if you wanted. The placozoan seems like a strange creature, and I think I remember seeing one in a Youtube video. I'm not sure it was the same thing, but it did remind me of a blob, and it was a living breathing animal. I got a little confused with the choanoflagellates. Since Shubin brought up the large gap between the time of the first living organisms and the first with bodies on earth's "calendar", I wondered why in the world it took so long for bodies to develop. Shubin easily answered my "why" question at the end of the chapter: oxygen. That made me feel a little stupid. Of course there wasn't enough oxygen for multi-celled organisms back then :p Well all in all I really enjoyed this chaper.

~Bryanna Streeter :)

Ch. 7- Bodybuilding for dummies!

The first thing I noticed when I read this chapter was that there wasn't much talk about "my inner fish". I wondered after all this time of talking about fish now Shubin is finally going to start making some sense to the normal human. I enjoy how he relates the different parts of the body to other well known things such as bridges, sponges, and others of the sort. What really caught my attention was the tiny section about cartilage and the constant pounding of running. XD Most of this chapter was anatomical facts and geological development that I already knew so it was easy to understand with a little taste of freshmen biology class.

Shubin really put in to perspective the timeline of the earth's development when he compared it to the calendar year. It was shocking that life has only begun around June and the development of people occurred on the last day. I think he did a good job wrapping up the chapter by relating it back to geological development during the oxygen-plenty times and the blossoming of life. As for the theory of evolution, the timeline and body structure development are strong evidence that fit like a pearl into its oyster.

Chapter 7

Shubin started off this chapter by catching my interest at the very first page. It talked about him looking through a microscope and observing how an embryo went through its developing stages. He used the colors of dyes to elucidate the progression of the embryo. Eventually, the embryo matured and developed bones which is produced by the cells clumping together. What also caught my eye was the figure on page 121. As students, we have been taught again and again that humans' arrival were delayed. However, after Shubin's analogies and the time chart, I had an epiphany. Humans can be considered as mere toddlers compared to the other life forms that arrived earlier. Also, Shubin explains why microbes soon created bodies for themselves; it was an act of self-defense. The microbes started to feed on each other and defensive mechanisms were becoming more reliant. These microbes that started the transformation to bodies led to humans today. The irony is, the microbes that created out very bodies to defend themselves have made humans on the top of the food chain. Microbes fought for life, while humans enjoy leisure and food from the market.

Touch My Body

This was by far the most interesting chapter Shubin has produced. This book divulged into the creation of the complex structure that is the body; however, it put this complicated process in simpler terms. Shubin also makes a lot of elucidative references to presently existing primitive organisms. These examples are extremely helpful in understanding this material. I actually enjoyed reading this chapter.

'At first, they crawled around on the surface of the dish. Then, something surprising happened: the cells came together" (131). Ill admit that the nerd in me came out at this very instant. This quote left me agape. The idea that this organism came together to form a more complex being is fascinating. In addition, the idea that our bodies came about due to predation is extremey captivating, and the experiment that showed the cells fuse into a bigger mass to avoid engulfment was extremely helpful in understanding all of this material.

Finally, making the big connection between sponges and man was the cherry on top of a very rich informative cake. The idea that sponges are just a much more simple version of man was humbling. They have rivets just like man, and they have collagen and cartillage. I really enjoyed learning about rivets, and how our bodies communicate to make sure that they connect with the right cells to form the right organ.

Hopefully, Shubin hasn't exhausted his interesting topics, this might be a hard chapter to beat.

Chapter 7

Chapter seven described the perfect way that the body is formed and assembled. Every single body part has its assigned place and use. Our body is perfectly built and our proportions evenly made. If even one chromosome forms incorrectly our bodies would become less capable of working. Shubin presents this amazing feat in our creation. It took so many "months" to make us. Our bodies and minds are just that extraordinary. It is because of these facts that I believe it is so unlikely that we could come from animals. We are similar to many creatures in so many ways but it does not maen they are part of our genology. Though we are not related to these various animals its amazing how similar we are in structure and embreyos. It was very interesting to read about the uterus and how pregnancy works. All the pictures explained so much that even the most detailed explainations couldn't have. The only negative thing about viewing the pictures is that I now realize how ugly we humans look at 4 weeks old (103). I dislike this repeatative comparison of us to flies I think it is rather degrading. Despite this books ups and downs it is over all good and interesting.

Chapter 7 ^.^

As always, Shubin manages to lure me into the chapter by starting off with an interesting topic or story about his life. This time it was the story about “literally watching an animal being built” (116). That’s SOO cool!!! It makes me want to go into paleontology! But I most likely won’t… but I would like to be able to experience seeing an animal being built. I wonder if seeing the formation of an animal is actually like seeing the creation of a building. What also intrigues me is the fact that if something goes wrong with just ONE cell then it can result many problems including death. D: The way he described that ONE cell as rebellious or bully cell kind of made me laugh yet feel worried about me possibly having a bully cell. When Shubin used January 1^st as the start of time and December 31^st as today I was impressed, then that changed to astonished when he said the first animal with a head appeared in October. I learned another important fact about oxygen: increased oxygen levels = increased appearance of bodies. I have to admit that learning about collagen, cartilage proteoglycan was confusing. Then he compared it to a giant piece of jell-o and tug-of-war and I understood 50x better; yet another reason to be thankful to Shubin.

-Julia

p.s. I will be going on vacation to Rome, Italy and my blog for next week will be delayed for a couple of days