Chapter 29 Embryology

Not so long ago, in 1978, the latest medical anecdote to hit the front pages of every newspaper was the birth of a British baby nine months after being conceived on a plate.An earlier surprise, and one that still disturbs us all today, is that a single sperm and a single egg can in any case fuse to grow into a single human being, and, however implanted, this fused cell is anchored to the on the wall of the uterus.A small clump of descendant cells would then grow and differentiate into an eight-pound baby; this had been going on before our eyes for so long that we had become accustomed to it; — This time it was really just a small technical correction to the general process, really, that is, moving the beginning of the process from the fallopian tube to a plastic container, and perhaps, the baby's His father kept him out of the game, made him useless, and couldn't give him the vanity that he deserved.

Of course, there has been some chatter about expanding the technology beyond the act of conception itself.And, some predictions have been made that the entire process of embryonic development, the entire nine-month process, will eventually take place in carefully crafted plastic bottles.And when that happens, there's another surprise, more headlines, and everybody's going to say, ah, what a new power of science.And there is yet another debate about whether science should stop immediately.These debates will keep Senate subcommittees busy, and that will draw more headlines.At the same time, the sheer miraculous nature of that process, whether it took place in utero or in some kind of terrarium, was likely to be as overlooked as it is today.

Because, if you are willing to be amazed; then, the real amazement is the process itself.You start with a single cell from a pairing of a sperm and an egg, which divides into two, then four, then eight, and so on, and at a certain stage, a single cell emerges, and after that, the whole The human brain will be the descendant of this cell.The mere existence of that cell should be one of the most amazing things on earth.One is supposed to be walking around all day, all the time during the waking hours, amazed at one thing and another without a break, saying nothing but that one cell.That thing is really unbelievable, but it appeared, popping up precisely and beautifully in the crowded cells of every embryo of billions of people around the world, appearing in its place, as if it was the world Nothing could be easier.

If you want to be amazed, this is the source.A single cell flips a switch to become a whole gigantic apparatus of trillions of cells for thinking and imagining and wonder.All the information you need for any activity, to learn to read and write, to play the piano, to address a Senate subcommittee, to walk through a busy street, or to perform the admirable human act of putting one hand up a tree: All the information needed for all these activities is housed in this first cell, all the grammar, all the syntax, all the arithmetic, all the music. It is not yet known how the switching on occurred.At the beginning of embryonic development, when there is nothing more than a cluster of cells, all this information and much more is lurking in every cell in the cluster.When the stem cells of the brain appear, it may be the case that the properties of having a mind are just turned on.But it's also quite possible that everything else, all other potential properties, shut down, so that this most specialized cell of all cells no longer has the option of its predecessor to be a thyroid or a liver or whatever instead of being a brain.

No one has the slightest idea how this works.Nothing else in life is so incomprehensible.If someone can successfully explain it in my lifetime, I will arrange a writing plane in the air, or arrange a group of them, put them high in the sky, fly with smoke, and write big exclamation marks one after another, filling the sky, Until all my money is spent.