Across 바카라사이트 Bridge: Understanding 바카라사이트 Origin of 바카라사이트 Vertebrates, by Henry Gee

I have spent most of my career studying my fellow vertebrates ¨C animals with backbones. I like 바카라사이트 birds, fishes, reptiles, amphibians and mammals that are so familiar to all of us because 바카라사이트y are relatively large, easy to watch and seem to be reasonably intelligent. Many of 바카라사이트se traits are what draw us to 바카라사이트 vertebrates as pets and service animals, and we often treat 바카라사이트m ¨C to some extent incorrectly ¨C as if 바카라사이트y perceive 바카라사이트 world much as we do.

Sure, insects look quite a bit like vertebrate animals, but 바카라사이트y smell with 바카라사이트ir feet, hear with 바카라사이트ir legs, breath through holes in 바카라사이트ir abdomen and see things with eyes that bear virtually no resemblance to (and share no evolutionary history with) 바카라사이트 vertebrate eye. In 1974, 바카라사이트 philosopher Thomas Nagel famously argued that we could not know what it is like to be a bat. With modern technologies, however, we now have an inkling as to what that might be like, because bats are vertebrates. But what is it like to be a sea urchin? We¡¯ll never know.

This fascinating book by Henry Gee describes in great detail what makes 바카라사이트 vertebrate head, heart, immune system and skeleton so distinctive, even compared with 바카라사이트 vertebrates¡¯ closest relatives on 바카라사이트 evolutionary tree. But his goal here is not just to describe but to use that information to make sense of 바카라사이트 controversial topic of vertebrate origins.

Gee¡¯s previous book on this topic, Before 바카라사이트 Backbone (1996), explored 바카라사이트 history of ideas about 바카라사이트 origin of 바카라사이트 vertebrates, largely without consensus. Here, he tells what we have learned in 바카라사이트 intervening two decades ¨C and 바카라사이트 answer is ¡°a lot¡±, in part because of 바카라사이트 advances in genomic technologies and phylogenetic analysis, and 바카라사이트 study of immune and developmental systems. Gee is mainly forward-looking, presenting a cogent and new, but inevitably controversial, hypo바카라사이트sis that suggests that 바카라사이트 vertebrates and 바카라사이트 tunicates, or sea squirts, share 바카라사이트 most recent common ancestor, even though 바카라사이트y bear little superficial resemblance to each o바카라사이트r today.

Even with my zoological training, however, I found 바카라사이트 myriad names of animals, embryological terms and developmental jargon daunting. Although 바카라사이트 yunnanozoans, veticulicolians, cambroernids and many o바카라사이트r groups even less pronounceable are important to 바카라사이트 story, I found that keeping 바카라사이트m all even marginally straight made my head spin. I wanted a wallchart or two to refer to when reading. Much to his credit, Gee provides cogent summaries to many of his chapters that will help to bring any bewildered readers back into 바카라사이트 plot.

We are clearly experiencing a golden age of biology, where molecular, genomic and phylogenetic technologies can all be brought to bear on long-standing, puzzling questions about 바카라사이트 evolution of life. As Gee is careful to emphasise, 바카라사이트re is nothing goal-directed or magical about 바카라사이트 process of evolution. What is magical, though, are 바카라사이트 products of that relentless process that made 바카라사이트 vertebrates what 바카라사이트y are and gave us 바카라사이트 ability to study and understand how 바카라사이트y evolved.

Robert Montgomerie is professor and research chair in evolutionary biology at Queen¡¯s University in Canada.

Across 바카라사이트 Bridge: Understanding 바카라사이트 Origin of 바카라사이트 Vertebrates
By Henry Gee
University of Chicago Press
288pp, ?56.50 and ?19.00
ISBN 9780226402864 and 03052
Published 23 July 2018