Chapter 12 - Self Assembly
Ridley starts off the chapter talking about the analogies that we use like how our eyes are considered as a camera, and how our heart is like a pump. Two scientists working in Germany named Jani Nusslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus that tried to find as many mutant flies as possible. They would dose their flies with chemicals that would cause mutation and bred them. The mutated flies came out in separate groups with some only having wings, or only limbs. If you move a hedgehog-expressing piece of tissue int the anterior half of the wing, the fly would come out as if it has mirrored the front to the back. Hox and hedgehog genes aren't the only genes that can control development, in fact, there are many more genes that can do the same.
Citation:
Ridley, Matt. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Print.
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