BLoggins02

A question in another form got me interested in this topic. What are the biological processes behind structural formation, placement, and interfacing in fetal development? To put it in laymen's terms: what "tells" cells to build an eye, a lung, a brain? How does this work?

Can someone point me to some beginning literature on the subject? It's always been interesting to me.

Thanks

tgamble

DNA.

Next question!

CodeMason

God tells it how to. Of course the dogmatically Materialistic commie scientific community refuses to accept this, and instead makes up ridiculous "just-so" stories about how it happens.

BLoggins02

OK, altogether now, you see that little icon that looks like a rolodex card with a question mark on it? Click it... I'll wait...

Some people need to be thwacked over the head with a clue-by-four. I am NOT a creationist! I was asking for a source to begin a study of the process, not creating a strawman argument.

Maybe I'll try Google next time, at least it doesn't jump to conclusions.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

BLoggins02

tgamble:

Theyeti's post from the Ape thread:

I was looking for more detail on this process. I am not a biology major, so I really have no idea where to begin. Cellular Biology? Embryology? Genomics? Proteomics? Where?

Just thought a little clarification was needed.

[ January 18, 2002: Message edited by: BLoggins02 ]</p>

tronvillain

I would suggest starting with <a href="http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/flyemb1.html" target="_blank">fly development</a>.

BLoggins02

thanks tronvillain!

Kevin

This a subject that requires an entire book. Fortunately, there is a very good book on developmental biology/genetics called <a href="http://www.oup-usa.org/isbn/0192862081.html" target="_blank">The Art of Genes</a>, by Enrico Coen, published by Oxford University Press. If you really want to get an in depth education on this subject, I really recommend that book. It's written for the layman, so you shouldn't have much difficulty understanding it.

[ January 18, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin ]</p>

lpetrich

Here's a short answer:

Chemical signaling.

These signals tell various groups of genes to turn on and off, thus controlling what a cell becomes.

Chemical signals diffuse across an organism, meaning that some cells may get more of some signal than others, with the result that they will develop differently. There is a complicated cascade of chemical signaling which is poorly understood; however, in some cases, such signaling is very evident.

One interesting result comes about if a chemical signal participates in certain reaction-diffusion reactions; such reactions may produce patterns like spots and stripes.

In fact, the different stripe widths of different species of zebra may be accounted by the striping pattern becoming laid down at different times in embryonic development.

Early: stripes wide, hindquarters stripes especially wide

Late: stripes narrow

Quetzal

Wow! See what happens when there aren't enough resources in the wild? Lack of fundies seems to be causing all kinds of icky behaviors, like cannibalism, intra-species aggression, territorial fights, etc. The down side of evolution...