Interesting, well told and useful as it sheds some additional light on how Shubin freely draws on his own experience in the field and this personalĪngle provides anecdote, interest and often introduces new sections.

Summaries and brief reiterations of the key points to help the reader keep Shubin never loses his fundamental focus on the Big Idea and there are handy There is enough descriptive detail and anecdote to maintain interest, but Recipe for extracting the 'white glop' of DNA might come useful one day). Need to read the book to see why it was made so memorable and a kitchen These mightīe occasionally annoying but mostly are actually very useful (I will neverįorget that sponges can re-assemble after being put through a sieve - you

Lively, simple, easy to visualise terms and enlivens his account with jokes,Īnecdotes and comparisons to modern life and even pop-culture. Shubin explains the physiological processes and anatomical structures in a Nevertheless, it's a very accessible book: the vocabulary is as jargon-freeĪs possible and specialist terms are introduced only when necessary, neverįor the sake of just presenting a label for something. With an explanation for those who might have forgotten even that. Inner Fish consists of young(ish) people with no knowledge of biologyīeyond basic school level, though I have spotted a few terms that could do The chapters dealing with embryonicĭevelopment and its genetic regulators as well as the nitty-gritty of theīoth style and content would suggest that the intended audience of Your Née fin : and the bones in this hand are uncannily identical to theīones in a flipper of a long extinct proto-amphibian whose fossils Shubinĭug out in the freezing Canadian Arctic. Hand that made a flint axe, and the hand that made a spaceship is a hand To fossil evidence, development of embryos and analysis of DNA toĬonvincingly present his picture of the unity of life on Earth and the With incredible breadth but not getting bogged down in detail, Shubin looks How a complete individual with lungs and heart, skull and feet, ears andĮyes is assembled from the initial clump of cells. Whole 'tree of life': the way our body is constructed and the way it works As the process leaves signatures of ancestral features in theĭescending organisms, we can learn about our own bodies from studying the Phenomenon known as descent with modifications, which is the mechanism ofĮvolution. This is a law of biology soįundamental that it's usually taken for granted, but it holds the key to the Recommended, especially for those with a little backgroundĮvery living thing on the planet had parents. Summary: An accessible, concise but brimming with detail and anecdote book showing how human bodies carry an inheritance that goes to the very beginning of life on Earth and demonstrating the fundamental unity of all living organisms.

Your inner fish series