My Favorite Book

My favorite book is called “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin.

This book is about how humans are genetically related to fish. I chose this book because I was curious about how scientists discovered what happened long ago.

Something interesting from this book is how our arms and fingers are almost the exact pattern as bats, whales, and cats. This is because we all have a common ancestor. Scientists can change DNA in embryos to try to understand our evolutionary connection with fish, which was really interesting as well. For example, a scientist changed a gene in a chicken embryo, and the chicken developed with four wings! That gene became known as the Sonic Hedgehog gene, which traces all the way back to fish. The gene turned out to be an important part in human development. One creepy part of the book is that scientists sometimes dissect dead humans. They do this for information on how our body structure is related to other animals. For example, the scientists found that two of the bones in our ear were once a jawbone for a fish.

This book reminds me of another book: The Stuff of Life, which talked about human DNA. They both helped me understand more about how humans work. Both books told me about how some genes in us are inactivated, like most of the smell memory genes, that were once activated in our ancestors. The books also taught me two different perspectives of the subject, which allowed me to know more overall. In The Stuff of Life, it talks more about the inside of humans’ chromosomes and cells, and in Your Inner Fish, it talks more about humans’ structure.

Reading Your Inner Fish made me wonder about how scientists can change genes intentionally and make conclusions based off of the results. I also wonder about what humans would look like in a few million years. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested about our evolutionary past or curious about fossils because that is what the book mostly talks about. In conclusion, I like this book because it talks about how fish are our ancestors. There were many unexpected things in the book, which made it more fun to read.